October 24, 2003
PRESS RELEASE:

As part of its deliberations, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights invited the Canadian Justice Review Board (CJRB) to appear at its October 23rd hearing. Lynne Cohen made a presentation on behalf of the CJRB. She focused on the ramifications of section 486 of draft bill C-20 and the impact it will have on the long-standing provisions of section 650 in the Criminal Code that, up to now, have provided rights to a fair trial.

Other testimony of note included submissions from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and The Canadian Federation of Naturalist . The CBC argued that section 162 of the proposed bill will expose journalist to prosecution for, in effect, reporting the news. Since s.162 makes 'motives' irrelevant and 'mere observation' is an offense, the CBC argued that if C-20 is enacted in its present form, then journalist cannot report matters that are in the public interest.

The Federation of Naturalists argued that bill C-20 fails in many of its sections to consider 'artistic merit' and mis-characterizes many of what the Federation considers to be normal human behaviours.

The Centre for Children and Families argued that most children are victimized by close relatives or friends, thereby warranting some of the provision of bill C-20