Essay Archive:

As writer Russell Smith pointed out in a recent Globe and Mail column, the Canadian government is close to passing a new law that poses a serious risk for free speech and the freedom of artistic expression in Canada. Bill C-12 (previously known as Bill C-20) proposes amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada that would eliminate the "artistic merit" defence in child pornography trials, and force creators of material representing minors involved in sexual activity to demonstrate the "public good" of their works.

The full text of Bill c-12 can be found online here. The relevant passage is quoted here: "In the aftermath of the Supreme Court of Canada's broad interpretation of the "artistic merit" defence in child pornography proceedings, Bill C-12 eliminates existing exemptions for material with "artistic merit or an educational, scientific or medical purpose," leaving the single statutory defence of "public good."  Amendments also broaden the scope of the offence by eliminating the need to show that written materials advocate or counsel illegal sexual activity with children.  To satisfy the definition of child pornography, it will be sufficient to establish that the "dominant characteristic" of any written material is the description, "for a sexual purpose," of sexual activity involving a person under 18 that would be an offence under the Criminal Code."

As Smith has already pointed out, the proposed changes are troubling because they force judges into the difficult position of determining what is "sexual purpose," and focus on hopelessly subjective interpretations of fictional or nonfictional texts rather than examining demonstrable harm done to real children or teenagers. While the proposed law changes have the admirable goal of protecting children, the use of a vague and ultimately indefinable category like "sexual purpose" as a determining factor in criminal proceedings poses great risks to free speech. As Gerald Hannon points out in an editorial in Toronto's eye weekly, everyone is going to have a different opinion on what constitutes "sexual purpose," and one person's porn can be another person's "public good." It's the old "I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it" argument, one which privileges conservative positions on the representation of sexuality and thus stifles experimentation and explorations of alternative positions, which are vital to culture and society both.

Indeed, the troubling wording of Bill C-12 opens up challenges to all sorts of books that would never have been at risk before but could be singled out simply because someone decides their content is "sexual." While skeptics may argue this is overreaction, we need only point to the case of Canada Customs vs. Vancouver's Little Sister's, or Gerald Hannon's court trials for immorality and indecency, or the attempts of the Winnipeg police to ban Nancy Friday's book Women on Top. Because of the nature of Bill C-12 and its insistence upon demonstration of the public good, books are now guilty until proven innocent. For more details on the history of Canadian censorship, check out http://www.efc.ca/pages/chronicle/.

The following is a list of literary works that could conceivably be challenged and banned in Canada if Bill C-12 passes into law. The list is a starting point, based on our personal bookshelves at Bookninja's world headquarters, and is by no means comprehensive. Please email us at editors@bookninja.com to suggest further titles for addition (provide the book title, author, and a brief description of how the material may be at risk under Bill C-12).

Books at Risk if Bill C-12 Passes into Law:

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (no explanation needed)
• The Englishman's Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe (a group of men rape a girl)
• The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro (an older man abuses a girl)
• Waterland by Graham Swift (sex between minors)
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (the famous masturbation scene)
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (a girl is raped and murdered by an adult)
• After Battersea Park by Jonathan Bennett (boys sexually assault each other)
• The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (incest and sexual assault in a magic ritual)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore (an invisible man rapes teenage virgins)
• The Tetherballs of Bougainville by Mark Leyner (an imprisoned minor has an affair with the adult warden)
• Dark Rides by Derek McCormack (a minor has sex with a lot of other folks)
• The Beautiful Dead End by Clint Hutzulak (a girl is raped by a minor and an adult)
• Fall on Your Knees by Anne Marie McDonald (practically the entire book is an extended rape scene of poor Francis, not to mention same-sex contact between minors)
• Way Up by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (in one story two young sisters discover a sexual awakening linked to their father’s obsession with a horse)
• The Carnivorous Lamb by Agustin Gomez-Arcos (an incestuous deflowering of an underage boy by his older brother – in a cave of butterflies, no less)
• The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan (girls in a boarding school undergo a sexual awakening)
• A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham (for various reasons, this entire book is a likely target for conservatives, but it starts off with young Bobby being "corrupted" by his older brother's sexual and drug-related exploits)
• The Pornographer's Poem by Michael Turner (under-age characters slowly drift into an alterno-porn art scene)
• "The Hungarian Adventurer" by Anais Nin (a man has sexual relations with minors) (Thanks, Maxime)
• I Spit on Your Graves by Boris Vian (two main characters have sex with minors at a brothel) (Thanks, Maxime)
• Romeo and Juliet (kids will be kids)
• Brave New World by Aldus Huxley (children perform sexual exercises) (Thanks, Chris)
• "Love Bites" column by sex columnist Sasha (sexual advice given to teens)
  

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Bill C-12 Full Text
Russell Smith's Globe and Mail article on C-12
Eye Weekly's editorial on C-12

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