BARRHEAD-WESTLOCK- Peace River - Westlock MP Conservative Party of Canada MP Arnold Viersen hopes the second time will be the charm for passing his private member's bill, Bill C-270, Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act (SISE), in the House of Commons.
Viersen introduced the bill in May 2022.
It is his second attempt to pass the legislation. In May 2021, Viersen introduced an identical version of SISI (Bill C-302), but it died on the order paper due to the federal election.
The bill, if passed, would require those who are making or distributing pornographic material for a commercial purpose to verify the age and consent of each person depicted and keep a record. It would also prevent the distribution of pornographic material when consent has been withdrawn.
"It is already illegal to upload and use non-consensual and underage images, but in both cases, police would have to prove those. When it is a very young child, that is relatively easy to prove, but for older children and teens, it is sometimes harder to prove," Viersen said. "This legislation would reverse the onus from the police having to prove it to the companies having to show their records."
He equated it to legislation requiring pawn shops to keep records of transactions.
Those in violation of the act would face an escalating series of financial penalties and the potential of jail time mirroring mandatory child pornography reporting laws of up to two years in prison and/or a $500,000 fine for an indictable offence.
Indictable offences are the most serious offences under the Criminal Code and come with more severe punishments.
Viersen expects SISE to go to the House of Commons for a second reading and debate on March 13 or 22.
"It is a bit of a moving target," Viersen said, adding there is the potential for MPs to trade positions.
If Bill C-270 passes second reading, it will go to committee for further scrutiny. After committee, if it continues to move forward, the bill goes to the report stage that allows MPs to propose motions to amend the bill's text.
Then, after all that, the bill will return to the House of Commons for third reading and, if adopted, will move to the Senate for consideration, which follows a similar process to the House of Commons. If successful there, only then will it receive Royal Assent and become law.
However, Viersen is under no illusions; he knows the odds of the bill making it through all the stages are slim.
In an interview with the Barrhead Leader in May 2022, Viersen said he had hoped he would not need to introduce the SISE again. He hoped the government would include the measures as part of its proposed blueprint for cracking down on harmful material posted on online platforms it first laid proposed ahead of the 2021 election.
The Liberals finally tabled Bill C-63, an Act to enact the Online Harms Act, in the House of Commons on Feb. 26.
Bill C-63 aims to force social media, user-uploaded adult content and live-streaming services to reduce exposure to online content deemed harmful, to strengthen the reporting of child pornography to better address hate propaganda and provide recourse to victims of hate online.
The bill, if enacted, would amend the Criminal Code to create a new standalone hate crime offence that would allow penalties up to life imprisonment to deter hateful conduct, as well as raise the maximum punishments for hate propaganda offences from five years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide.
It would also create a new agency, the Digital Safety Commission, to enforce the act and a separate Digital Safety Ombudsperson.
