Liberals rule out using notwithstanding clause to restore mandatory child porn sentences
OTTAWA — Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser has ruled out using the notwithstanding clause to reverse a recent Supreme Court ruling throwing out mandatory minimum sentences for crimes involving child pornography.
“We don’t intend to override the Constitution to fix the problem. There (are) other solutions that are apparent to us, and we’re doing the policy exercise to find the right path right now to protect our kids,” Fraser told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday.
These were Fraser’s first public comments on Friday’s contentious 5-4 Supreme Court of Canada decision striking down the one-year mandatory jail sentence for the possession and access of child sexual abuse images.
The court’s majority has been widely panned for, among other things, basing the decision on a hypothetical scenario of an 18-year-old accessing a nude “sext” from a 17-year-old acquaintance, rather than the far more serious facts on the docket before them.
The two Quebec men at the centre of the case, one in his late 20s and the other in his 30s, had both previously pleaded guilty to possessing hundreds of child sexual abuse images, depicting preschool and elementary-school-aged children being coerced into various sex acts.
The two men were sentenced in March 2020 by the same judge, who deemed a one-year prison term to be disproportionate to both cases, reducing the respective sentences to 180 days and nine months. An additional 11 months were added to the second man’s sentence for distributing child pornography.
The Crown appealed the reduced sentences, with the case eventually reaching the Supreme Court.
Manitoba’s NDP Premier Wab Kinew became the latest provincial leader to condemn the decision on Monday, saying that those convicted of possessing child porn should face lengthy jail time: “ Not only should you go to prison for a long time, they should bury you under the prison,” he said.
Kinew didn’t expressly call on the federal government to use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the decision, as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Ontario Premier Doug Ford both did last week , but he did say he thought he was on “the same page as they are.”
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also endorsed using the notwithstanding clause to restore mandatory minimum child porn sentences.
Fraser told reporters that, while he won’t be using the notwithstanding clause, he does plan to put forward legislation in the coming weeks to “deal with (the) sexual exploitation of kids in an online environment.”
“The path forward will involve certain policy choices. I don’t think we need to override the Constitution to fix these problems, but we are going to fix the gap,” said Fraser.
Fraser didn’t respond to a Conservative question about his ruling out of the notwithstanding clause in Tuesday’s afternoon’s question period, with Liberal Secretary of State for Combatting Crime Ruby Sahota answering instead.
Sahota highlighted in her answer a list of measures being put forward by the Liberals to crack down on child exploitation, including so-called “lawful access” powers allowing police to demand subscriber information from internet service providers and other online companies.
The mandatory one-year minimum sentence for possession of child pornography was introduced through An Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of children and other vulnerable persons) and the Canada Evidence Act , which came into force on Jan. 2, 2006.
National Post
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