Preface

• Author: Lisa Joyal/Jennifer Gibson/Lisa Henderson/David Berg/Kasandra Cronin
• Pages: 21-24

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Preface

Children are among the most vulnerable members of our community. This vulnerabil-

ity is the product of both their physical and mental immaturity, as well as the innate

power imbalance that exists between adults and children.1

Given the “social, psychological, economic and intellectual position” of children

within the community, they are also the frequent victims of abuse.2 Offences against

children include (but are not limited to) crimes of neglect, abandonment, physical

abuse, sexual abuse, Internet child exploitation, abduction, and homicide.

Even though there is no single definition of “children” contained within the Crim-

inal Code,3 children, as a class of persons, have enjoyed enhanced protection under

the criminal law in recent years. References to “children” have continued to broaden

within the Criminal Code, thereby conferring on children both greater benefit and

fuller protection under the criminal law.4

In this regard, certain offences against children date back to the earliest version

of Canada’s Criminal Code (e.g., the offences of “failing to provide the necessaries

of life” and “concealing the dead body of child”). In addition, several of the Crim-

inal Code’s “general” offence provisions may be used more “specifically” in order

to prosecute crimes of child abuse (e.g., offences involving “assault,” “criminal

negligence,” or “homicide”). However, over the past few decades, Parliament has

also enacted a number of child-specific offences. Crimes related to sexual interference,

invitation to sexual touching, sexual exploitation, child pornography, and child luring,

among others, have all been enacted in recent years to expand the boundary of the

criminal law and the protection available to children as members of the community.

1 See, for instance, R v Magoon, 2018 SCC 14 at para 66; R v L (DO), [1993] 4 SCR 419, [1993]

SCJ No 72 (QL) at paras 27-31.

2 R v L (DO), supra note 1 at para 31, quoting N Bala, “Double Victims: Child Sexual Abuse and

the Canadian Criminal Justice System,” in WS Tarnopolsky, J Whitman & M Ouellete, eds,

Discrimination in the Law and the Administration of Justice (Montreal: Themis, 1993) at 233.

3 RSC 1985, c C-46.

4 This text does not address the rights and protections afforded to children as “young persons”

under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, SC 2002, c 1. See Brock Jones, Emma Rhodes & Mary

Birdsell, Prosecuting and Defending Youth Criminal Justice Cases, 2nd ed(Toronto: Emond,

2019) in the Emond Criminal Law Series.

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