Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said he is troubled by websites and Internet forums posting pictures and footage from a video believed to be linked to a Montreal murder and dismemberment case.
"I find that quite repugnant. I don't think that's necessary," Toews told CTV Question Period host Craig Oliver on Sunday. "It doesn't forward the interest of free speech at all."
When asked whether he believed it was possible for police to prosecute people who post gruesome crimes taking place on the Internet, Toews spoke of the government's efforts to update laws that oversee web content.
"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," said Toews.
"As you know 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 said, referring to the lawful access legislation or Bill C-30.
Earlier this year, the government introduced the controversial online surveillance legislation in the House of Commons.
Toews told Oliver that while there are sections of the criminal code that police can use to charge people who host obscene material on their websites, there are difficulties in making the charges stick.
"I think it's difficult making those charges stick when the law doesn't really correspond well to the modern technology," he said.
The online video that allegedly depicts Luka Rocco Magnotta murdering victim Jun Lin, recently sparked renewed debate over the country's obscenity laws.
Edmonton-based website BestGore.com -- a site specializing in grisly content -- hosted the video for some time before police identified Magnotta as the suspect.
Reports emerged last week that the owner of BestGore.com, Mark Marek, may face charges for publishing obscene content.
Marek told CP that he initially thought the video was a bad joke. He removed the video from his website on May 31.
Marek also told reporters late last week that police have not yet contacted him.
Marek publicly defended his website, saying it is a "reality news site" and that keeping the video up allowed users to identify the suspected murder before police did.
