441-01681 (Justice)

The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including when they are online. For that reason, the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, reflecting feedback from the Government’s 2021 public consultation. In 2022, further engagement included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which included a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services must do their part to make the Internet a safer place for Canadians.

Furthermore, the Criminal Code of Canada includes a robust framework that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, meaning that prosecutions may occur in Canada for offences allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.

An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. As the designated organization under this Act, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) also receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a non-governmental organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which forwards child sexual exploitation leads to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler that detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally.When these service providers are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to make these reports to C3P.

Bill C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material), which was introduced on April 28, 2022, would create two new Criminal Code offences that would prohibit making, distributing or advertising pornographic material for commercial purposes without ensuring that the individuals depicted in that material are 18 years or older and consented to being depicted in that material. This Bill will be debated in accordance with the rules of Parliament governing private member’s business. The Government of Canada will follow the debate on this bill in Parliament.