MYRICK SUPPORTS CHILD PORNOGRAPHY?

No I don't. Neither do the NDP or Paul Martin. And the press release that's causing the stink doesn't seem to indicate that any of them actually do.

How Tough is Paul Martin on Child Pornography?

Ottawa--Today, Paul Martin says he wants to get tough on child pornography. Yet, his voting record raises important questions. The Liberal Party has consistently opposed every effort to close the loopholes that allow child pornography:

Paul Martin voted against a motion prohibiting creation or use of child pornography (House of Commons, April 23, 2002)

Paul Martin voted against a motion calling for legislation to protect children from sexual predators (House of Commons, April 23, 2002)

Paul Martin voted against making the age of sexual consent higher than 14 (House of Commons, April 23, 2002)

Paul Martin voted against establishing a national sex offender registry (House of Commons, Feb. 5, 2002)

Personally, I think pedophiles should be subject to some sort of medieval justice.
However, I also think that Canada's obscenity laws already go too far - restricting academic materials as well as relatively soft-core materials from entering the border.

Back at grad school, one of Lisa's colleagues (or perhaps someone more distant) was doing a paper on pederasty in Ancient Greece. One of the books, a purely academic work, was banned from entering the country under Canada's obscenity laws.

Andrew Coyne, who also opposes child porn, notes:

On the other hand, if you believe, as I do, that this is a tenuous argument -- a knife can be used to coerce a child into sex, but we don't ban knives -- then literary merit would seem even less relevant as a consideration. Yet so long as this distinction remains in law, we are going to be treated to many more such bizarre ventures into juridico-literary criticism. And given that the bar seems to have been set fairly low in Sharpe's case -- in fairness, I haven't read the piece, nor any of what I gather is an extensive oeuvre -- then the ban on distribution may in time come to seem more or less moot.

In which case, why wait? Why leave it to the courts? Why put ourselves through the same degrading spectacle, over and over again? It is time instead to redraft the law, to make it clear that works of the imagination, however disgusting or depraved, are not to be subject to criminal sanction -- whether for production, possession or distribution.

Ban any material that was created through a criminal process, chemically castrate the villains who committed any such crime, whatever. But Canada's speech laws and content laws - including Cancon regulations - already go too far.

A modest proposal, if the government can waste several billion on a handgun registry to insure that guns do not fall into the hands of criminals, perhaps it could set up a book registry to monitor people who want to 'research' immoral behavior. I would probably oppose such a move, on principle, but it would be better than restricting material outright.

Somewhat off topic, I recently had to call a source in Thailand who was named Kiddyporn - a rather common name that is more often pronounced as Kittiporn. I kept a straight face but unfortunately some of my office mates didn't, so I called back when they weren't laughing.

I would have burst out laughing too. "Can I speak to Mr Kiddy Porn please" is just not something you want to be heard saying around the office,