Police in Alberta have lodged child sex tourism charges against a Fort McMurray man, 33 year old Jashua Robert Tremblay. This is the very first time that this type of charges have been lodged under the umbrella of child sex tourism activities. Tremblay is now facing 2 charges of sexual interference, 1 charge of indecent exposure, and 1 count of luring. Tremblay was recently arrested in Fort McMurray on the charges and taken into custody. According to police the man is alleged to have sexually interfered with a 13 year old minor located in Ireland. According to a press release from ALERT “ALERT alleges that Tremblay twice travelled to Ireland to have sex with a girl he met on the internet. he alleged offenses date back to late 2013 when the victim was 13 years old.”

The child sex tourism charges against the Fort McMurray man are allowed under section 7 of the Canadian Criminal Code. Under this section anyone who is involved in committing certain crimes of a sexual nature against children can be charged in Canadian courts even if the acts were committed outside of Canada. The acts are charged as if the offenses were committed in Canada. The clause under section 7 that allows this was added to the criminal code in 1997. According to the ALERT force this is the first time that charges were laid for child sex crimes committed on an international level. Sgt. Paul Czerwonka explained “We do deal with international partners a lot in these cases, because the Internet takes us all over the place, right?. But as far as physically going to a different country to commit an offence, that is kinda something we don’t see every day. So as far as I know, a sex tourism charge is not something we charge very very often. As a matter of fact, I spoke to a crown prosecutor and in the last ten years, he says probably two or three times max he can remember this being laid.”