A motion from Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen to study the public health effects of widely-available and easily-accessible “violent and degrading sexually explicit material” was debated in the House of Commons on Nov. 14 and will be voted upon in December.
In an interview Nov. 17 , Viersen said that going into the debate on Motion M-47, he didn’t know where many MPs stood on the matter, particularly the Liberals.
Motion M-47 specifically calls for the Standing Committee on Health to examine the health effects of this material and to report its findings to the House of Commons no later than July of 2017.
Most MPs voiced their support of the motion, with the only criticism being that the Committee on the Status of Women was already doing a study on violence against women and girls.
“I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome of the debate,” said Viersen.
Motion M-47 was first introduced by Viersen on March 8 and has since garnered the support of more than 40 organizations, representing a broad coalition of child advocacy agencies, women’s support centres and victims’ rights organizations.
These include the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre, Little Warriors, the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton and even the Deputy Minister for Alberta Status of Women.
Viersen acknowledged that this issue wasn’t something he intended to work on when first elected. However, he was prompted to do so in part because of letters he received on the Jian Ghomeshi case from constituents.
Some people were upset about the verdict in the case, wherein Ghomeshi was found not guilty on five charges of harassment and sexual assault.
However, many were simply flabbergasted “that he would just admit that these were the things that he had done,” Viersen said.
“How did he think that this was just a normal part of life?”
The suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons, a Nova Scotia girl subjected to sexual humiliation and online bullying, also factored into the motion.
At the start of Monday’s debate, Viersen did emphasize that he did not use the word “pornography” in his motion because the term suggests something like nude pictures appearing in Playboy.
“The market has shifted to much more explicit material, and the vast majority of it features violence and degradation,” he said.
Viersen noted that adult sites get more visitors per month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, with the free site Pornhub alone receiving 21.2 billion visits in 2015.
Unfortunately, the average of first exposure to sexually explicit material among boys is now the age of 12, and this material has become a primary source of information about sex and a “significant factor influencing sexual behaviours for children and adolescents,” he said.
Parliament has also not studied the impact of sexually explicit material since 1985, before the Internet was invented.
Viersen said his motion will be debated for one more hour on Dec. 7 and voted on sometime between Dec. 15-17.
“All of the parties support this motion and I hope the committee puts forward meaningful recommendations. One of the biggest things was just to have it acknowledged that this stuff is in fact having an impact on our society,” he said.
“We see cases such as Rehtaeh Parsons and wonder how or why this sort of thing happens. This study into online sexual violence may be the window into this type of behaviour that is needed.”
• With files from Rick De Vries
