Luka Rocco Magnotta alleged killing video shows need for new Internet surveillance laws: Vic Toews (2024)

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says a video of a gruesome killing allegedly at the hands of Luka Rocco Magnotta which made its way online shows the need for the modernizing of Canadian criminal code in order to make obscenity charges stick.

Last week, Montreal police said they expected to lay charges against the Edmonton-based website, Best Gore, which hosted the ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick’ video. However, those charges have yet to materialize.

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“I have no idea what these charges are going to be or how it’s going to take place for now,” a spokeswoman for the Montreal police told the National Post.

Speaking on CTV’s Question Period Sunday, Toews called the posting of the video, which allegedly shows the killing and dismembering of Jun Lin, 33, “repugnant.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said. “It doesn’t forward the interest of free speech at all.”

Best Gore’s operator Mark Marek has defended his right to host the video saying that he is doing a public service by showing people the unsanitized truth.

“Best Gore exists to expose the evil doers for who they really are, though I’m not surprised they are offended with me showing their true faces to the world and want the site shut down or me charged with whatever they can come up with,” he said in an email to Postmedia last week.

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Toews said while there are laws in the books to lay charges, they are out of date.

“It’s difficult making those charges stick when the law doesn’t really correspond to the modern technology,” he said.

Toews said Bill C-30, the Conservative government’s controversial Internet surveillance legislation, would make such prosecutions easier.

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“It’s a difficult prosecution given the state of the law today. Of course, the police have been talking to me over the last six years about modernizing the law with respect to access,” he said.

“We put forward legislation that attempted to balance the public interest with privacy interests and that bill is in fact going to the committee prior to second reading.”

Toews did not go into specifics on how Bill C-30 would make prosecutions easier.

Police were made aware of the ‘1 Lunatic’ video shortly after it went online, but did not to investigate it until it was linked to the body parts sent in the mail to the Conservative and Liberal parties in Ottawa.

Many had written off Bill C-30 as dead after the massive online backlash against it, which included the public posting of Toews’ nasty divorce proceedings.

Bill C-30 would create additional requirements for Internet service providers (ISPs) and expanded police powers. ISPs would be required to install surveillance equipment on their networks and keep records of what their customers are doing online and police would be allowed to obtain some of this information without any judicial oversight.

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