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  • Law, Pornography, and Citizenship in Canada Since 1987

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    Dr Steven McDermott
    229 views14 pages
    This paper will trace the recent legal treatment of pornography in Canada through a series of important cases and the development of key legislation. We will start with the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in R v. Butler, a case which began in 1987 and finally reached its conclusion in 1992 by likening some pornographic material to hate crimes and suggesting a direct causal link between pornography and the suppression of women’s rights and freedoms in Canadian society. One year later, the visual artist Eli Langer was arrested for depicting children in sexual acts in his work on display at the Mercer Gallery in Toronto. The charges were based on additions to the criminal code outlawing any depictions of persons less than eighteen years old engaged in sexual acts. Also in 1993, the Ontario Supreme Court ruled against Glad Day Bookshop, a leading gay and lesbian bookseller in Canada, finding them guilty of circulating obscene material over an S&M lesbian magazine called Bad Attitudes. These three watershed moments highlight a key transition point in the way that Canada has approached the question of pornography in the wake of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom ten years previously. In each instance, the legitimacy of pornography as private, commercial, or political communication was weighed against its asserted potential to cause harm to targeted groups of citizens, most frequently women and/or children. Since the time of these cases, expanded online and digital technologies along with growing international markets have transformed the production and consumption of pornography and while Canada’s media regulators have had a hands-off policy related to the Internet, Canada’s police forces have been credited with taking a global leadership role particularly in pursuing the consumers and distributors of child pornography on the Internet. In charting the developments of Canada’s legal relationship to pornography, the authors will ask the following questions: How does Canada’s legal treatment of pornography reflect an understanding of citizens as consumers, political actors, and exploited or defamed groups? What sorts of public discussions took place during successive court trials and parliamentary debates relating to obscenity and censorship of sexually explicit materials, that contributed to these social definitions? What international legal frameworks affected Canadian actions on pornography and their related social definitions?

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    Law, pornography, and citizenship in Canada since 1987

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    This paper will trace the recent legal treatment of pornography in Canada through a series of important cases and the development of key legislation. We will start with the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in R v. Butler, a case which began in 1987 and finally reached its conclusion in 1992 by likening some pornographic material to hate crimes and suggesting a direct causal link between pornography and the suppression of women’s rights and freedoms in Canadian society. One year later, the visual artist Eli Langer was arrested for depicting children in sexual acts in his work on display at the Mercer Gallery in Toronto. The charges were based on additions to the criminal code outlawing any depictions of persons less than eighteen years old engaged in sexual acts. Also in 1993, the Ontario Supreme Court ruled against Glad Day Bookshop, a leading gay and lesbian bookseller in Canada, finding them guilty of circulating obscene material over an S&M lesbian magazine called Bad Attitudes. These three watershed moments highlight a key transition point in the way that Canada has approached the question of pornography in the wake of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom ten years previously. In each instance, the legitimacy of pornography as private, commercial, or political communication was weighed against its asserted potential to cause harm to targeted groups of citizens, most frequently women and/or children. Since the time of these cases, expanded online and digital technologies along with growing international markets have transformed the production and consumption of pornography and while Canada’s media regulators have had a hands-off policy related to the Internet, Canada’s police forces have been credited with taking a global leadership role particularly in pursuing the consumers and distributors of child pornography on the Internet. In charting the developments of Canada’s legal relationship to pornography, the authors will ask the following questions: How does Canada’s legal treatment of pornography reflect an understanding of citizens as consumers, political actors, and exploited or defamed groups? What sorts of public discussions took place during successive court trials and parliamentary debates relating to obscenity and censorship of sexually explicit materials, that contributed to these social definitions? What international legal frameworks affected Canadian actions on pornography and their related social definitions?

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    229 views14 pages

    Law, Pornography, and Citizenship in Canada Since 1987

    Uploaded by

    Dr Steven McDermott
    This paper will trace the recent legal treatment of pornography in Canada through a series of important cases and the development of key legislation. We will start with the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in R v. Butler, a case which began in 1987 and finally reached its conclusion in 1992 by likening some pornographic material to hate crimes and suggesting a direct causal link between pornography and the suppression of women’s rights and freedoms in Canadian society. One year later, the visual artist Eli Langer was arrested for depicting children in sexual acts in his work on display at the Mercer Gallery in Toronto. The charges were based on additions to the criminal code outlawing any depictions of persons less than eighteen years old engaged in sexual acts. Also in 1993, the Ontario Supreme Court ruled against Glad Day Bookshop, a leading gay and lesbian bookseller in Canada, finding them guilty of circulating obscene material over an S&M lesbian magazine called Bad Attitudes. These three watershed moments highlight a key transition point in the way that Canada has approached the question of pornography in the wake of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom ten years previously. In each instance, the legitimacy of pornography as private, commercial, or political communication was weighed against its asserted potential to cause harm to targeted groups of citizens, most frequently women and/or children. Since the time of these cases, expanded online and digital technologies along with growing international markets have transformed the production and consumption of pornography and while Canada’s media regulators have had a hands-off policy related to the Internet, Canada’s police forces have been credited with taking a global leadership role particularly in pursuing the consumers and distributors of child pornography on the Internet. In charting the developments of Canada’s legal relationship to pornography, the authors will ask the following questions: How does Canada’s legal treatment of pornography reflect an understanding of citizens as consumers, political actors, and exploited or defamed groups? What sorts of public discussions took place during successive court trials and parliamentary debates relating to obscenity and censorship of sexually explicit materials, that contributed to these social definitions? What international legal frameworks affected Canadian actions on pornography and their related social definitions?

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    of 14

    Pornography in Canada

    • Tolerance versus Taste


    • Defining Vulnerable Groups
    • Test Cases
    • International Role
    • Digital Sex Traffic
    • Concluding Thoughts
    Tolerance versus Taste
    • Early definitions of obscenity concerned
    with moral corruption of impressionable
    groups
    • R. v. Hicklin, 1868
    • Modern definitions concerned with “undue
    exploitation” of vulnerable groups
    • 163(8) of Criminal Code, 1959
    Tolerance versus Taste

    • Is obscenity a criminal violation or a civil


    violation?
    • Federal Criminal Code 163(8) defines
    obscenity
    • Provinces are charged with its oversight
    Tolerance versus Taste
    • Testing the Charter of Rights and Freedom
    • 1 Step: Does the government action
    st

    limit one’s guaranteed rights


    • 2nd Step: If there is a government action
    that limits this right, is this action a
    reasonable limitation that can be
    demonstrably justified in a free and
    democratic society?
    Vulnerable Groups

    • Women
    • Children
    • Gay / Lesbian Community
    Vulnerable Groups
    • Children
    • Badgley Committee on Sexual Offenses
    against Children and Youth (1981)
    • Fraser Committee on Pornography and
    Prostitution (1983)
    • Bill C-128, amendments to Criminal
    Code and Customs Tariff (1993)
    Vulnerable Groups

    • Women
    • R. v. Butler, 1992
    • Clearly determines that the existence of
    pornography is harmful to women and
    children
    Vulnerable Groups
    • Gay / Lesbian Community become targets
    • Glad Day Bookstore, Toronto (1993)
    • Charged with distributing obscene
    material for Bad Attitudes
    • Little Sisters v. Canada
    • Canada Customs seizes material, Little
    Sisters sue
    Vulnerable Groups

    • R. v. Mercer Union (1993)


    • First Criminal Charge under Bill C-128
    • Local Toronto artist Eli Langer
    • “artistic merit” subsequently replaced
    with “legitimate purpose” (C-2, 2004)
    International Role

    • International Protocol on Civil and Political


    Rights
    • UN Optional Protocol to the Convention
    on the Rights of the Child
    International Role

    • Vulnerable group reduced to children


    • Protection for sex trade workers?
    • Expedited visas for exotic dancers
    • Protection for sexually oppressed?
    • Refugee status
    Digital Sex Traffic

    • Regulating Internet domestically and


    globally
    • CRTC determines that it won’t / can’t
    regulate Internet (1999)
    • Self-regulation of child pornography
    among major ISP
    Concluding Thoughts

    • Pornography a Cultural Industry


    • Most successful global and digital cultural
    industry
    • Least understood, scrutinized
    Concluding Thoughts
    • Consuming Pornography
    • harm, private property, rights and
    freedom
    • Producing Pornography
    • diasporic labour force, transference of
    community standards, “off-shore
    exploitation”?

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