Last month, Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada Rob Nicholson, accompanied by Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness CEO Ellen Campbell and other stakeholders, announced the coming into force of the protection of children from sexual predators’ component of the Safe Streets and Communities Act (Bill C-10).
“The sexual exploitation of children is a heinous crime that causes irreparable harm to the youngest and the most vulnerable members of our society,” said Nicholson. “Our government is sending a clear message to the dangerous sexual predators that prey on our children: from now on you will serve jail time.”
Campbell, who spoke on behalf of victims, commented on the great need for and timely enforcement of this particular component. She noted the increasing number of crimes against children and congratulated Nicholson on the government’s tough approach to protect children.
This component of the Safe Streets and Communities Act will:
• Establish mandatory prison sentences for seven existing Criminal Code offences, such as luring a child, sexual assault and aggravated assault. As a result, conditional sentences (i.e. house arrest) will no longer be available for any of these offences.
• Increase mandatory prison sentences for nine sexual offences involving child victims, such as possessing, making, accessing or distributing child pornography and sexual exploitation.
• Increase maximum penalties for four child sexual offences, including increasing from five to 10 years the indictable offence of a parent or guardian procuring their child for illegal sexual activity when the child is less than 16 years old.
• Create two new offences with mandatory prison sentences that seek to prevent the sexual exploitation of children by making it illegal for anyone to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against a child (this process is often referred to as “grooming”), or the use of telecommunications, including the Internet, to communicate with another person to agree or make arrangements to commit a sexual offence against a child.
• Require judges to consider prohibiting suspected or convicted sexual predators from having any unsupervised contact with a child under the age of 16 or any unsupervised use of the Internet or other digital network.
The Safe Streets and Communities Act received Royal Assent on March 13, 2012.
An online version of the legislation can be found at www.parl.gc.ca.
