Free expression arrested ! Canadian Government to pass Bill C-12, says arts must serve ‘public good’

• artists from all dis­ci­plines who cre­ate works with themes involv­ing per­sons under 18 and sex­u­al­ity risk hav­ing their expres­sions criminalized
• artists whose work con­tains such themes would be deemed to be guilty until they can prove them­selves inno­cent of the charge (reverse onus)
• the con­cept of “pub­lic good” would replace “artis­tic merit”; this is a very sub­jec­tive con­cept that accord­ing to the Supreme Court of Canada, has not been clearly defined
• under the new law, artists would have to prove objec­tively in court that:   (1) they pro­duced their work for the pur­pose of “pub­lic good and (2) their work does not exceed the lim­its of what con­sti­tutes “pub­lic good”
• an expan­sive inter­pre­ta­tion of “sex­ual pur­pose” and voyeurism will infringe on new and exist­ing artis­tic works (includ­ing lit­er­a­ture, visual and media art, film, and theatre)

We believe Bill C-12 as pre­sented is poorly cr af ted.   We seek a re-framing of the leg­is­la­tion to bet­ter pro­tect chil­dren and to allow artists the free­dom to create.

We believe the reten­tion of the defence of artis­tic merit in the Crim­i­nal Code will bet­ter serve the peo­ple of Canada , both youth and their elders.

We believe elim­i­na­tion of the artis­tic merit defence will not have any effect on the Government’s pur­pose of erad­i­cat­ing sex­ual abuse of minors, nor will it pre­vent child pornog­ra­phy.   It will only serve to cre­ate con­fu­sion and pun­ish artists whose work, cre­ated in good faith, could be deemed in con­tra­ven­tion of the new legislation.

We believe the term “pub­lic good” used in the leg­is­la­tion has not been ade­quately defined and feel the “pub­lic good” defence is an unac­cept­able sub­sti­tute for the defence of artis­tic merit.

We believe the removal of the artis­tic merit defence will result in fre­quent chal­lenges under the Cana­dian Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms at the Supreme Court of Canada.   Canada ‘s artists do not want to be test cases for poorly dr af ted leg­is­la­tion and should not have to incur the finan­cial and emo­tional costs of being arrested and pros­e­cuted in our country’s legal system.

We strongly urge the Gov­ern­ment of Canada not to pass the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion as dr af ted and ask that the Bill be sent to the Supreme Court of Canada for ref­er­ence, as has hap­pened pre­vi­ously with con­tro­ver­sial legislation.

We do not stand alone, as the CCA and TWUC’s objec­tions are echoed by numer­ous orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing: Cana­dian Muse­ums’ Asso­ci­a­tion, Cana­dian Artists’ Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, l’Union des Écrivaines et Écrivains du Québec, Cana­dian Civil Lib­er­ties Asso­ci­a­tion , B.C. Civil Lib­er­ties Asso­ci­a­tion, l’Union des Artistes, PEN Canada, Cana­dian Libraries Asso­ci­a­tion, Lit­er­ary Trans­la­tors’ Asso­ca­ia­tion of Canada, la cor­po­ra­tion des bib­lio­thé­caires pro­fes­sion­nels du Québec, l’Association des auteur-es de l’Ontario Français, la Ligue des droits et lib­ertés, le Regroupe­ment des artistes en arts visuels, la Société civile des auteurs mul­ti­mé­dias, la Société des auteurs de radio, télévi­sion et cinéma, le Con­seil des livres et des péri­odiques, and la Société des auteurs et com­pos­i­teurs dramatiques.