One of the most difficult things for the law to handle properly as it is so hard to define, esp child pornography laws.
Current Canadian law is so poorly written that the majority of the population is now in violation of it: any book dealing with underage sex is technically illegal, including plays by Shakespeare such as Romeo and Juliet, novels by Margaret Atwood, short stories by Toronto author Daniel Bezmozgis (Natasha), Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita), etc, etc. This is ridiculous and I doubt enforced, but the very fact that people who read/own these books or watch these plays/movies are technically criminals is really stupid. High schools put on Romeo & Juliet in drama class all the time - are the drams teachers pornographers? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I have the complete works of Shakespeare in my office bookcase - does that make me a criminal now?
A more debatable item is fine art photo books by photographers such as David Hamilton. In France apparantly it is legal to take artistic fine art nudes of teenage models provided one obtains parental consent. Every so often there is a news story that books by David Hamilton are illegal to own, followed by a retraction days later saying "not really". There have been court cases and much confusion, and certainly under the current Canadian law such books would seem illegal, but one can buy them at Chapter/Indigo and Amazon.ca. They are not sexual images per se, but more high art nudism. Totally illegal for a photographer to make these books in Canada, but legal in France, so does one ban the import and sale of them in Canada, or say "well, that isn't what we meant the law to ban so we'll ignore those books, and ignore ownership of Shakespeare's plays, and let the high school put on Romeo and Juliet...because logcally those should be OK as what we want to ban is REAL pornography that we all agree is bad. It is bad - we all agree. The law though takes the approach that we are all criminals at the whim of the police, DA, Crown now for reading Shakespeare. Surely there is a better way to protect minors from being exploited in REAL child pornography than poorly written laws like Canada now has.
