In an increasingly divisive world, it’s rare to encounter a problem where the solution seems so obvious that no one could disagree with it, or where a proposed change makes sense to everyone.
The legislation recently put forward by Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen might be one of those rare instances.
As detailed in our Page 1 story, Bill C-463 - The Putting Victims First Act - proposes three amendments to the Criminal Code, the first being to slightly alter the mechanism by which youth victims of sexual crimes can have publication bans lifted.
Publication bans in court cases are generally imposed for the sake of the victim, but in the case of Rehtaeh Parsons, her family wanted to speak out the troubling circumstances that led to that poor girl’s death. But due to the publication ban, they literally couldn’t.
Viersen’s legislation proposes to make that process a little easier, which only makes sense.
The bill also proposes to make the process of getting bail a little more difficult for human traffickers; again, this is something that no one could disagree with.
“But we don’t have human trafficking in Canada.” Correction: what we don’t have is a human trafficking industry that operates in the light of day, as might be the case in other countries. But it’s there, though mostly in urban centres and operating in secrecy. It involves both sexual slavery and labour exploitation. We are becoming more aware of its scope all the time.
The last change involves orders prohibiting sexual offenders from having contact with minors and increasing the age limits of those who are protected to ages 16 and 17. Again, this is a seemingly common sense idea.
There may be some legal objection raised to Viersen’s bill that we can’t foresee as of yet; we are not lawyers, after all.
But from a layman’s perspective, this seems like an easily supportable piece of legislation. We were glad to bring a little bit of media attention to it.
Private member’s bills have a way of dying in the House of Commons or in committee; one slightly infamous example was the bill put forward by Rona Ambrose that called for mandatory sexual assault sensitivity training of judges. After languishing in the Senate for two years, it now appears to be dead.
But here’s to hoping that this legislation finds support from all sides of the aisle and doesn’t meet a similar fate.
