Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/276

264 To conclude in a very few words, I would like to say a word or two with regard to our present experience. Our present experience is, it must be confessed, that printers and publishers still defy the Jaws because comics are still on our stands, whether publishers in the sense of those who actually print them in Canada, or in the sense of those who put them jute circulation after they are imported from your country.

That is the view I know of our Government, that the law is there; what is necessary now is vigorous and complete enforcement.

I did suggest in a recent debate, and it is still my view, that there should be a differentiation in the penalty so that a stiffer penalty would be provided for those who, as I see it, carry the greater respon- sibility for putting this offensive material ito circulation, what you might call gently at the printer and publisher level; that there should be a stiffer minimum penalty, one that he will really feel, one which will not be, and what so often they are, merely license fees to continue in business.

Mr. . However, if the majority of these crimes and horror comics are coming in from the United States, that sort of stiffening of penalty would not be effective, would it?

Mr. Funzrox. I think it could be made effective because I am eon- vinced an adequate definition could be worked oui to cover the case of the initial distributor.

Mr. . The initial distributor would be included?

Mr. Futrox. Yes. I don’t suggest for a moment you can absolve from responsibility the individual news vendor or the retail distribu- tor. Ido think they carry a very much lesser degree of responsibility for this thing than the others.

T think, therefore, there should be a lesser penalty for them, that the penalty should be in the discretion of the court and in our juris- diction it runs an average of anywhere from $5 to $50 for the indi- vidual vendor, but I feel there should be heavy penalties for those higher wp in the seale.

And that until, in fact, my view in conclusion really is that until you take effective action to deal with those who first put these things into circulation you are not going to deal with the problem.

As L have said, I do not for a moment suggest that. the individual vendor and retail distributor can be absolved trom responsibility. He is a very minor factor in the chain of responsibility.

I would like to see and have in fact suggested that our own code be amended to make that. differentiation, but that suggestion was not. accepted by the House of Commons and by the Government.

So that remains at the moment my own opinion and that of certain of my colleagues in the House,

There are a couple of cases [ would like to mention, just lo finish. There is one case in Canada where a publisher has been prosecuted, the Queen against. the Peer Publisher, Ltd., of Toronto, and William Zimmerman, who is the man who is the principal of that firm, resulted in conviction and fine of a $1,000 and costs against the company and suspended sentence for Zimmerman. No notice of appeal has yet been served.

That was a conviction again by way of summary procedure by magistrate which may account for the relatively low fine.