Senator Wells: That’s an excellent question. In the old days, if you wanted to import child pornography, which we all agree is heinous, you had it in a folder or binder or album or a magazine, something like that. But now you’re right, the vast — and I can’t say vast enough — majority is stored not on the pages of a book; it’s stored online, in the cloud, in attachments to things only accessible through the internet.

There is a way to stop people coming across our border with images that we’re talking about stored on their digital devices. That is to search everyone and give CBSA the right to have full access to all of the devices. We know that’s not reasonable. That’s like saying we know we can stop car accidents on the highway by having a five-kilometre-an-hour speed limit. It’s not practical. The liberties that we have, that right to privacy, which is fundamental to our society and is fundamental in Canada, is a strong one.

The need to stop this material coming across the border is also strong, but you are right. It is a finger in the dike because you can put your finger in the dike and the water still flows over the top of it. That is what is happening. I’m really just thinking about Canadians coming in, not others. Obviously, that is not as strong a concern as I have for the rights of Canadians to privacy. I think striking at that balance is important but not the lowest bar possible that has been called “reasonable general concern.”

You make an excellent point. We are looking at the nickels and dimes when there are dollars flowing in.

Senator Simons: Thank you very much. It’s so difficult to talk about issues of child pornography because it is such a grotesque and exploitative crime. Online child sexual abuse is a scourge in Canada. There is no one in this chamber who is in favour of it.

What I am concerned about is a question of balance and volume. Every day in this country, thousands of pieces of child pornography are bought and sold and traded online. The amount of it available online is practically infinite.

Yet over the last five years, from May 5, 2017, to May 5, 2022, Canada Border Services Agency seized 392 examples of child pornography at the border that came in on digital media, some on cellular phones and computers but others on hard drives, USB sticks, CDs and DVDs, that kind of thing. That’s 392 seizures in five years, not all of which are on phones and computers. Probably the minority are on phones and computers. I’m not sure.

It seems to me that we are potentially breaching the civil liberties of every international traveller for the sake of stopping a very small hole in the dike, while over here millions of pieces of child pornography are coming over the internet. I want you to tell me whether you think the abridgement of our civil liberties is sufficiently balanced given the minute amount of child pornography that is actually being detected in this way.