QUEBEC CITY, Oct. 2, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — As quickly as the issue of pornography in Quebec prisons emerged it was put to rest with the declaration of Public Safety Minister Lise Theriault: “We are not in a hotel, we are in a prison and this will be banned from the detention centres.”
The issue was raised in the provincial National Assembly’s Question Period this week by opposition MNA Andre Spenard. Was it true, he asked, that prisoners at the Amos detention centre in Abitibi- Tamiscamingue had watched pornographic movies via their cable TV feed?
They had, Theriault admitted, who added that they had been prevented from doing so by prison officials since September 1. Now that the issue was public, she said she had decided to extend the ban to all 18 provincial prisons.
Spenard had told the provincial legislature this providing pornography was unacceptable for all prisoners but especially for sex offenders.
Theriault had to agree. “I am horrified to learn that this is a practice that exists and, hence, there will be parental controls,” a reference to software parents can use to block their children from accessing certain specified sites or types of sites with their electronic devices. “We are not in a hotel, we are in a detention center and this [subject matter] will be banned from the detention centers.”
Federal institutions do not technically ban pornography as such. In response to a query from LifeSiteNews, the Correction Services of Canada provided “Commissioner’s Directive 764” which details what must and what may be banned. Always forbidden is “sexually oriented material involving violence, coercion, compulsion, force, bodily harm or threats or fear of bodily harm, or other similar acts.”
The same directive allows prison officials the discretion to block material that “would undermine a person's sense of personal dignity by demeaning, causing humiliation or embarrassment to a person, on the basis of sex, race, national or ethnic origin, colour or religion.”
Other provinces have less nuanced restrictions. British Columbia, for example, states simply that “Pornography is not permitted in provincial correctional centres, and BC Corrections has a policy in place that prohibits access to content that is primarily concerned with sex and /or violence…Allowing access to pornographic materials would be completely counter to BC Corrections’ goals of furthering public safety and the rehabilitation of offenders.”