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LIBERAL MP URGES PRIME MINISTER TO INVOKE NOTWITHSTANDING CLAUSE ON CHILD PORN RULING

OTTAWA, March 27, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Liberal MP Dan McTeague has written Prime Minister Jean Chretien asking that the notwithstanding clause of the Charter be invoked to override recent court rulings concerning child pornography. McTeague wrote Chretien yesterday hours after BC Supreme Court Justice Duncan Shaw found that the homosexual pedophile writings of pornographer John Robin Sharpe which even involved torture have "artistic" merit and thus are not punishable by law.

"Since January 1, 2002, some 750,000 pictures and movies involving real children, some as young as six months, have been seized by the Toronto police," the letter noted. "However, the court has stepped in and broadened the standard for determining what constitutes child pornography. In doing so, the job of police to combat child pornography and for the Crown to obtain convictions, has now been made much harder."

In a powerful conclusion to his letter McTeague writes:

"Child pornography is not a matter of public morality. It involves sexual assault and sexual exploitation - pure and simple. As a government, we cannot sit idly by and watch the predation and victimization of children - both domestically and internationally. Moreover, our government cannot abet child pornographers by abiding with the judicial creation of legal loopholes that mask illegal activities directed solely towards children by individuals whose interests do not lie anywhere near art or personal artistic expression - written or visual.

"Mr. Prime Minister, in a country where convicted child pornographers can face fines, conditional sentences and house arrests for destroying a child's life, I am asking you to take a stand. I am asking you for a second time to instruct your justice minister to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter to override the Sharpe decisions in the Supreme Court and in British Columbia in order to reflect the abhorrence of Canadians to child pornography and those who create, collect and disseminate such filth. The safety and security of Canadian children, as well as those children who live outside our borders, is at stake."

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