Winnipeg, Manitoba
10 October 2014
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today participated in a roundtable meeting with members of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (CCCP), a non–profit charitable organization dedicated to reducing child victimization, and others that provide programs and services to the Canadian public to help protect children and stop online exploitation. He was joined by Shelly Glover, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and Member of Parliament for Saint Boniface, Joy Smith, Member of Parliament for Kildonan–St. Paul, and Joyce Bateman, Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre.
The roundtable focused on national solutions to address cyberbullying and the online sexual exploitation of children. The Prime Minister moderated the session, discussing the scope of these problems, the barriers to solving them, global responses and effective practices in other countries, and the effectiveness of measures taken to date in Canada in cooperation with provincial, territorial and civil society partners.
Measures being initiated in Canada include:
- Making it an offence to distribute intimate images without the consent of the person depicted;
- Requiring those convicted of child pornography offences and contact child sexual offences to serve their sentences consecutively;
- Ensuring that spousal testimony is available in child pornography cases;
- Enabling information–sharing on certain registered sex offenders between officials responsible for the National Sex Offender Registry and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA);
- Establishing a publicly accessible database of high–risk child sex offenders who have been the subject of a public notification in a provincial/territorial jurisdiction to assist in ensuring the safety of our communities; and,
- Informing Canadian youth and their parents about the dangers and consequences of cyberbullying and child sexual exploitation through a national anti–cyberbullying awareness campaign.
In addition, the Government of Canada’s National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet increases law enforcement’s capacity to investigate and track down online predators, enhances public education and awareness, and supports further research on child sexual exploitation.
The Prime Minister also applauded the CCCP’s public awareness activities which are playing a major role in addressing online child sexual exploitation and helping to make our children safe.
