On Kiddie Porn: Sexual Representation, Free Speech and the Robin Sharpe Case

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

On Kiddie Porn is a lucid and reasoned examination of the creation of
Canada’s 1993 child pornography law and a thorough analysis of the
court decisions arising from the constitutional challenges of alleged
pornographer Robin Sharpe. The authors, both professors at Capilano
College, bring considerable expertise and authority to bear on their
review. Persky has written about other Supreme Court issues and
decisions, while Dixon served as senior policy adviser to the Deputy
Minister of Justice during the inception of the pornography law project
and was also president of the British Columbia Civil Liberties
Association.

The authors regard “sexual assaults on children as serious crimes for
which there ought to be appropriate law enforcement and judicial
penalties.” Their definition of “sexual assault” includes
producing, selling, distributing, and even possessing any sexual
representation of children. At the same time, they argue that the law
should not violate constitutional protections for fundamental freedoms,
a view that “tends to reflect the position of civil liberties
associations across Canada.” They provide an account of Robin
Sharpe’s arrest and trial, detailing the charges of pornography
against him, the opinions of police and politicians with respect to the
case, and the social and cultural contexts for the new child pornography
law. Their description of the making of the law in the early 1990s is an
“untold til now” insider’s view, based on Department of Justice
documentation, internal reports, and coauthor Dixon’s firsthand
observations.

Persky and Dixon also review various controversial decisions by British
Columbia’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, which judged
constitutional rights had been violated in the application of the law.
They conclude their study with a review of the Supreme Court of
Canada’s hearing of R. v. Sharpe, and its resulting controversies.
Written in plain language and featuring an abundance of relevant
quotations and anecdotes, their book is an important contribution to the
ongoing debate over an issue of critical importance to all Canadians.