Bill C-273 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code in order to clarify that cyberbullying is an offence.

Justice and Human Rights

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion to concur in the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding the recommendation not to proceed further with Bill C-273.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed that we are debating this recommendation not to proceed with Bill C-273, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying).

This legislation was supported very strongly by the Canadian Teachers' Federation and by the Canadian Association of Police Boards, both of whom appeared as witnesses at committee. Thousands of Canadians are using the same social media now to ask people to speak to their MPs and ask them to vote against the proposal not to proceed further with the bill.

The bill was supported at second reading by the New Democratic Party. In fact, the government made a speech at first reading in which it suggested that this was a good bill and that what was wrong with it was that it did not expand to other areas of the Criminal Code. The government suggested some other areas of the Criminal Code, such as uttering threats, false identity and so on. I accepted that those could come as amendments. I expected them to come to committee as amendments.

This legislation went to second reading because the NDP supported it and also because nine members of the Conservative Party voted to send it to committee. It is a tradition in the House that when one votes to send something to committee it is because that person agrees with the principle of the bill, the person agrees with what the bill would do. The person may not agree with all of the methods by which the bill would do it, and that is why it goes to committee for amendments to change it to make it stronger. One does not say, “We do not like it”, after having promised to send it to committee and having had opportunities to bring amendments and then bringing none. My own colleague on the justice committee asked for amendments, begged for amendments, was prepared to suggest amendments, but none of this happened.

The bill is inherently about cyberbullying, the means of using the Internet, electronic media and social media in order to bully or, as I said in my bill, to criminally harass in order to spread defamatory libel or false messaging. Currently the Criminal Code defines very clearly the means of communication by which one cannot do this. To suggest that this is redundant is a fallacy. It is not redundant. The modes of communication that cannot be used are clearly listed, such as newspapers, radio, television, letters, telephone. All of these give the police the ability, when looking to lay charges, to demand the names of the people who used one of these modes of communication. They can search, get private numbers, tap phones and do all of those kinds of things.

The police boards are supporting this legislation because currently, as the hon. member for the NDP said, a crown prosecutor will lay charges. A crown prosecutor cannot lay charges when the person doing the criminal activities is not known. Currently the police do not have the tools and this is why they support the bill. They do not have the tools to be able to make an Internet service provider say who the person doing the false messaging or the criminal harassment is.

I refer to the tragic case of Amanda Todd, the young woman who committed suicide. It was criminal harassment on the Internet against this woman but the police could not bring charges because they could not find out who the person was. If the person had used the media, a telephone, wrote letters, went on television or the radio and said things, the police would have those tools. They do not have the tools for the Internet. The suggestion that it is inherent in the Criminal Code and that some judges have suggested that it applies to new media is not a good enough answer. We cannot only depend on interpretation of the law, the law has to clearly state.

My bill suggests that the law should move into the digital age and clearly name digital media and computers and other things that are used to spread criminal activity such as harassment, false messaging and as the government said uttering threats, identity fraud and so on. It should therefore be clearly stated.

What is the problem when other modes of communication are clearly stated in the bill? Yet everyone believes that we cannot state the newest mode of communication, which has not been put into the Criminal Code. No one is trying to change the Criminal Code. One is clarifying it by adding a new mode of communication. It is as simple as that.

I am quite prepared to add other areas, but unless it is clearly stated in the Criminal Code, it is left constantly to interpretation. That is my point. It is said that many witnesses disagreed with the bill, and I would like to say I have read the proceedings of the committee extremely thoroughly. Many of the witnesses, the police boards, were there; they supported the bill and said that they actually needed those tools to find the person who was promulgating these criminal activities.

We also have the Canadian Teachers' Federation that said it is not good enough to prevent. Prevention alone does not work. There has to be some kind of punitive action in some way to deal with older young people over 16 who clearly know what they are doing.

Again, nothing I am suggesting in this bill would take away the right of a judge to make a decision based on the individual facts of the case, on the age of the person or on all of those things that cause judges to make decisions and decide on sentencing. There is nothing that would prevent a judge from suggesting that looking at this issue and providing a sentence that is restorative justice cannot be done. No one is suggesting that.

There was also a discussion. I noted that most members of the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party asked people who were witnesses a very clear question, which they knew was misinformation. That was “Will this bill stop cyberbullying?”

I said, within my bill, in every speech I made in this House and at the committee, that this is only one small thing that would give the police the tools they need so that identification could be made and charges brought.

We are not just talking about children. Continually, when witnesses talked about trying to criminalize children, the committee heard me clearly say that cyberbullying is not only amongst children and amongst school children. It occurs in the workplace. It occurs in the communities. We have seen examples of this constantly. I named two, because I only had 10 minutes. I could not give an exhaustive list of examples.

Here we have all of these things that have been misrepresented. The committee had an opportunity to suggest that this is not just about children. It is also about adults. It is merely a clarification of the Criminal Code. Restorative justice and all of those things can still occur.

I am suggesting that this is not simply bullying. The thing about cyberbullying is that there is an anonymity associated with it. People can give a false name, on Twitter or whatever, and can say whatever they want. When people reach outside of calling people names, like “Oh, you're fat” or “Oh, you're ugly”, which is psychologically damaging, when people reach into areas where there is criminal harassment, uttering of threats, libel and false messaging, these are criminal acts.

When individuals over 16 or individuals who are adults do this, they do it because they know they cannot be found. My point in this bill is to say that we should give the police the tools to go to an ISP, just as they can tap phones, ask the newspaper to give the name of the person who wrote the letter, ask the telephone company where that telephone call from. They want to be able to do this with the ISPs. The police do not have that ability right now.

The misinformation spread around this bill is actually astounding. I do not understand. If there is a decision not to support the bill, then say so. The government should not go through listening to witnesses, allowing this kind of promulgation of misinformation to occur, not answering the questions properly and then asking everyone at the end of their testimony if they think the bill would stop cyberbullying. Of course it would not.

The bill would only give the police the tools they asked for, simply to bring a charge and, second, to identify the person who is hiding behind the anonymous mask of the Internet.

It is also very clear. I said in every speech I made here and at committee that there needs to be a national cyberbullying strategy, which must include all of the things we do in public health. This is a public health issue. Bullyers and the bullied tend to suffer mental health consequences of bullying whether people bully or are bullied.

Therefore, public health will talk about prevention. It will talk about public education. It will talk about dealing with the mental health issues of whatever is going on among the bullies and the bullied. However, it will also talk about law enforcement. We see that in addiction.

However, there are many stages and many facets to a national strategy, not simply prevention. We know it does not work alone. It is bringing all the facets together. When people suggested it, I said that I think this is what we eventually need to do.

Currently, what the bill seeks to do is to respond to the police—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-273 in the name of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank her for introducing the bill and giving us a chance to talk a little more about the scourge of cyberbullying.

All forms of bullying are unacceptable, including for instance, the bullying that we are often subjected to, as mentioned by the member who spoke before me. We realize that violence is not only physical, but it can also be verbal.

I would like to put this debate in context, because the committee on which I sit adopted a report. As justice critic, I have gone through Bill C-273 very carefully. In fact, I always try to do so, for every bill that is introduced in the House and that comes before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Whether a bill introduced by my colleagues that will affect the justice system, a private member's bill from the government side, a government bill, a bill from the Senate, or one introduced by the Liberals, I examine them all the same way. When someone wants to change one or more sections of the Criminal Code, I consider whether the change is necessary, whether it really does what it is supposed to do, and so on. Anyone who is a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights with me knows this. That is how I express myself. That is how I examine each and every issue.

I cannot give preferential treatment under the pretext that the proposed bill comes from my party, the Liberals, the Green Party or the Bloc Québécois. It is important to remain unbiased.

To begin with, clearly, no one in this House would ever say they are in favour of cyberbullying—absolutely not. However, since the devil is always in the details, we had to look carefully at what was in this bill.

I give the member for Vancouver Centre full marks for her interest in this issue and her dedication to the cause. Her passion was obvious when she appeared before the committee.

The problem is that from a legal standpoint, in terms of the Criminal Code, it was redundant. Originally, Bill C-273 targeted certain sections. In order to provide a bit of context, the member sent out a letter. In it, she suggested that some sections of the Criminal Code be clarified by including “communications by means of computer” in section 264, which addresses criminal harassment; “false messages” in subsections 372(1), 372(2) and 372(3); and “defamatory libel” in section 298.

In the current Criminal Code, the section addresses all forms of communication by telephone, radio, newspaper and so on. The Criminal Code already contains a very general provision. Adding cyberbullying as such or as an offence by means of computer—defining how it happens—is like talking about murder. It does not matter if I commit murder with a gun or a knife; it is still murder. That is the problem we faced with this bill, which changed nothing. In fact, it simply added the word “computer” in its strictest sense.

I listened closely to the speech before mine. It is clear that when we talk about cyberbullying, we are all aware of the tragic cases of Marjorie Raymond, Amanda Todd, Jamie Hubley, Mitchell Wilson and Jenna Bowers-Bryanton.

However, we cannot let people believe that the situation would be different or that people who should have been charged were not because the Criminal Code is what it is today. That is not the case.

The member had no case to submit to the committee to prove that without this amendment, there would be no way to prosecute someone.

On the contrary, witnesses who have no connection to this file, such as police officers or others, explained that the provisions are there. Sometimes charges are not laid because people do not necessarily want to take matters further. That is one of the points I wanted to address.

Some people in committee suggested that other cases could have been added.

Why simply focus on issues involving criminal harassment, false messages and defamatory libel, when we could have added—as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice said—cases of bullying included in section 423 of the Criminal Code and cases of identity theft included in section 403? There was a list of Criminal Code provisions.

The risk remains the same, even with the Conservatives. By making piecemeal changes to the Criminal Code, we might create situations in which decision-makers, crown attorneys and defence attorneys, will use the discrepancies that exist in the Criminal Code when they are before the courts.

We received amendments in committee, and the Liberals tried somehow to make up for these deficiencies by adding clauses. Nonetheless, when we have just one hour to do our work and amendments are proposed to seven different criminal offences, it starts to feel like improvisation. We knew that all these criminal provisions would not stop charges from being laid.

In one of her rulings, Justice L'Heureux-Dubé clearly said that the people who drafted the Criminal Code did a fine job of it. Perhaps we should stop butchering it, as the Conservatives so freely do. The people who drafted it realized that society would evolve and that at some point we might have different technologies. To prevent these sections from becoming ineffective, little catch-all phrases were added to allow computer-related offences to be added.

I do not want the people watching us to think that cutting the analysis of Bill C-273 short is a setback in dealing with cyberbullying. That is absolutely not the case. This will never prevent a crown prosecutor from laying charges, if the facts are there to back the charges.

I think my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord did a very good job of proving the other point that was extremely important in committee, and that is the fact that the vast majority of witnesses heard during the two sitting days were not at all of the view that criminalizing this behaviour was the way to go.

Yes, bullying hurts. Anyone who has ever been bullied in any way, even by colleagues in the House who are not of the same opinion, knows that we owe each other respect.

Some words used may be harsh. Sometimes we see certain behaviour on the Internet or on Facebook. Yesterday I read that some young people got involved in a fight on Facebook. That shows how far it can go and how much it can hurt. However, we must not think that not proceeding represents a step backward.

I think other approaches will be used. All the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights who took part in the study of the bill agreed that there would definitely be action to recommend.

I will simply tell my colleague who introduced the bill that even her critic, who serves on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and who made a considerable effort to have the bill amended, understood. I do not want to offer her any tips, but if she ever went back to the idea of considering aggravating factors at sentencing, where the case really concerns cyberbullying or any form of bullying, looking at sentences more specifically is part of the arsenal. That might be more appropriate. Even her colleague came to the conclusion that much more work would have been needed on the amendments and that it would virtually have been necessary to rewrite the bill in order to do what she was trying to do.

I will say no more about it, except that this is a question of logic for us and that we in this House will not change our logic regarding criminal law, regarding criminal justice, regardless of the party concerned.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleagues may know, the chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights reported back to the House of Commons recommending that Bill C-273, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying), not proceed further. Specifically, pursuant to Standing Order 97.1, the committee recommended to the House of Commons that it not proceed further with Bill C-273 on the basis that it is redundant, inconsistent with existing Criminal Code provisions and otherwise problematic.

I think we can all agree that the issues of cyberbullying and bullying affect many young Canadians. We are all too familiar with recent tragic cases. However, I think we can all agree that the issue requires a multi-pronged range of responses by all levels of government, schools and other institutions, and indeed by all Canadians. None of us should tolerate bullying. From this perspective, Bill C-273 has helped to draw attention to the issue, and for this I would like to recognize the member for Vancouver Centre for her efforts.

The committee had the opportunity to hear from a number of witnesses who are well versed in the bullying and cyberbullying problem. The vast majority of witnesses cautioned against the approach proposed by Bill C-273. They indicated, among other things, that an increased criminal law approach for the issue would not be effective, would predominantly target Canada's youth population, and might put a chill on the use of other appropriate Criminal Code offences in relation to bullying in some more serious cases. In short, Bill C-273 was not widely supported by the experts in the field. Perhaps to put it a little more strongly, Bill C-273 was rejected as an appropriate response by the majority of expert witnesses.

In addition to these policy objections, the government has also found Bill C-273 to be problematic from a purely technical perspective. The Criminal Code already prohibits cyberbullying through a number of existing provisions, such as criminal harassment, uttering threats and defamatory libel, to name a few.

Bill C-273 proposes amendments to some of these relevant sections, namely section 264, criminal harassment, and section 298, defamation, to clarify that they can be committed over the Internet or a computer system. However, these amendments raise many issues.

The proposed amendments are problematic and redundant because the criminal law generally does not distinguish between the means or mode used to commit a crime. For example, the offence of criminal harassment, which does not refer to the use of Internet, has already been judicially interpreted to apply to conduct created through the use of the Internet.

Bill C-273's approach to the cyber dimension of bullying is also problematic because it is incomplete. Specifically, the proposed approach is incomplete because it proposes to amend only two of several offences that could be charged in the context of cyberbullying. There are many other offences, such as offences of intimidation in section 423, uttering threats in section 264.1 and personation in section 403, that could apply to criminal cyberbullying behaviour but that were not included in Bill C-273.

There is a well-established rule of statutory interpretation that says to expressly include something in one section means that its exclusion in another must be intended. In other words, if we were to make explicit that the offences of defamation and criminal harassment can be committed through the use of Internet or a computer system and not make the same clarification in other relevant offences, then this could very well lead courts to interpret the exclusion of this specification in these other offences as being intentional, i.e., that these other offences cannot be committed through the use of Internet or a computer system. This would not be the intention of Parliament.

Taking the repercussions of this proposed amendment one step further, it could also have a similar effect on non-bullying-related offences such as fraud. This could have the effect of rendering the Criminal Code offences that do not specify that they can be committed via computers and Internet ineffective in the cyber context. This amendment would have far-reaching and unintended negative consequences.

Bill C-273 is also problematic because it proposes to use terminology that is inconsistent with existing Criminal Code terminology. For example, clause 1 proposes to amend section 264, criminal harassment, to add:

(2.1) For greater certainty, paragraphs (2)(b) and (d) apply in respect of conduct that is communicated by means of a computer or a group of interconnected or related computers, including the Internet, or any similar means of communication.

However, the Criminal Code, in section 172.1, luring a child, already refers to new technologies as “by means of communication”, a term that is broadly defined by section 35 of the Interpretation Act. One of the advantages of this approach is that the phrase will not be overtaken by the evolution of technology and new modes of telecommunications, as would Bill C-273's proposed amendments.

Section 35 of the Interpretation Act defines telecommunications as “the emission, transmission or reception of signs, signals, writings, images, sounds, or intelligence of any nature by any wire, cable, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic or by any similar technical system.”

I agree that cyberbullying warrants responses by all levels of government, but the needed response is not necessarily criminal law reform. Consider, for example, the December 2012 report of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights, “Cyberbullying Hurts: Respect For Rights in the Digital Age”. The committee heard over 40 witnesses, from almost as many organizations, and made six recommendations, none of which called for criminal law reform in these areas.

I would also note, for example, Nova Scotia's 2011 report, “Respectful and Responsible Relationships: There's No App for That”, also did not recommend criminal law reform in this area.

For these reasons, I would urge the House to accept the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to not further proceed with Bill C-273.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-273, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying).

The committee has studied the bill and has recommended to the House not to proceed further with the bill.

Committees of the House

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion to concur in the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights concerning the extension of time to consider Bill C-273.

Justice and Human Rights

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to requesting an extension of 30 sitting days to consider Bill C-273, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying).

Bullying

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I explained the last time I commented on this bill, I am saddened by the extent to which people, especially young people, are affected by bullying.

For example, we all remember Marjorie Raymond, a young, 15-year-old girl from Gaspésie who committed suicide last year, after years of bullying at school. We also remember Jamie Hubley, another 15-year-old from Ottawa, who took his own life last year after being humiliated and insulted by classmates because of his homosexuality.

We all want to put an end to bullying. However, the approach by the Conservative Party and the NDP will do nothing to address the issue. Even if the challenge is enormous, we already see many potential solutions, both in the provinces and abroad, and the fact that we only put off everything until later without committing to any action could leave us without a solution to fight against this serious problem affecting our society.

The federal government has a role to play in combatting bullying, and here it should be noted that the previous Liberal government was active in this regard. When I was first elected to the House in 2002, the then Minister of Justice, Martin Cauchon, initiated an anti-bullying ad campaign and boasted that through the national crime prevention strategy, the government of the day was involved in over a hundred projects across the country designed to deal with the question of bullying.

One example was the then minister for multiculturalism, Jean Augustine, who spoke in the House of the program called reaching across differences, which provided information and training to elementary school children in British Columbia to increase their awareness of the impact of discrimination and bullying.

Here we must remember that bullying needs to be addressed from multiple angles, as a question of justice, of safety and health, of multiculturalism, of education, of the status of women and so on. One cannot adopt a myopic approach that treats the matter as solely something for the criminal law to be addressed after the fact. Prevention is the key.

Regrettably, how to prevent bullying is not an easy question. Many groups have studied the question and report back that it involves families, teachers, schools, communities and fostering a culture that goes beyond zero tolerance, to use a phrase from the Fondation Jasmin Roy, to 100% intervention. Many of the efforts in this regard involve items of provincial jurisdiction, such as education or realms the law does not touch easily, such as what our children see on television or even what they observe in their own homes.

That said, there exists a plethora of groups and initiatives in communities across the country that the government should continue to support. Moreover, Ottawa must collaborate with the provinces to ensure that each level of government is supported by the other to ensure maximum efficiency and that redundant efforts are not made. In short, we need a comprehensive and collaborative national bullying strategy. This is something on which we can all agree.

Unfortunately, today, we are not debating a strategy or a bill. Instead, we are debating a motion to create a special committee that will study the issue for 12 months and then write a report.

This is the main issue: if we adopt this motion, we will study the problem for 12 months, and we will create a report that will require nothing from anyone and might not lead to any bill and any additional funding to community organizations. We will only have a nice report with black ink on white pages that the government will be able to ignore as soon as it comes off the press. How will this contribute to improving life for our young people? That's what we call putting off things.

While I emphasize the need for a national bullying strategy, I am concerned about a process that gives the Conservatives a blank cheque to say what they feel is appropriate and will only result in a report to be issued in a year from now, which could easily be ignored.

Moreover, the motion itself does not define the scope of bullying to be studied by the committee, such that committee meetings on this could look at union busting, political intimidation and other types of intimidation that may not involve young people at all.

As I mentioned, various governments have looked at this question previously in response to a spate of teen suicides resulting from bullying. Numerous American states have changed their laws to address the epidemic of bullying, in particular, cyberbullying.

In that regard, my colleague, the member for Vancouver Centre, proposed legislation that passed in the House at second reading to ensure that cyberbullying would be caught by Canada's Criminal Code. I look forward to Bill C-273 coming back from the justice committee and being adopted by the House.

Such concrete actions are what the House should be studying and adopting rather than engaging in the exercise of study yet again. We have plenty of examples to turn to from around the world. In the U.K., for example, the education and inspections act gives headteachers the power to regulate the conduct of pupils when they are not on school premises and are not under the lawful control or charge of a member of school staff. This can relate to any bullying incidents occurring anywhere off school premises, such as on school or public transport, outside local shops or in a town centre, for example.

The U.S. state of Maryland has one of the most aggressive anti-bullying laws in the country, with students encouraged to fill out anonymous forms when incidents occur, protections for students who blow the whistle and reports of incidents published by schools are accessible to parents so they can monitor the school climate.

Simply put, there is no shortage of ideas out there for how to combat bullying and we all agree that this is a grave problem that must addressed urgently. In that regard, I do not fault the sponsor of this motion for wanting to help. We all want to help and do what we can. My biggest concern is that he proposes the committee trust the Conservative majority to come up with a solution.

As I noted at the outset, bullying is an epidemic in our country that all too often has tragic consequences. I applaud the parents, teachers and community groups seeking to make a stand and improve the lives of youth affected by bullying. I hope Parliament will also play its part for we must all work together to make the bullying of young people a thing of the past.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is such a timely motion in many ways because of the tragedy we saw with Amanda Todd, which everyone across this country knows about and is now a worldwide issue. I commend the member for bringing forward this motion.

While the Liberals will be voting in favour of it because it is a worthwhile motion, we think it does not go far enough. There is sufficient information out there with regard to bullying and all its forms. Studies have been done around the world and by the World Health Organization. We know that bullying has not only a physical toll but also a mental toll. We know that many people who are bullied get headaches, suffer from nervousness and anxiety, and can even get dizzy spells.

However, we also know that it can create depression in susceptible people and that it can create, in some instances, the ultimate tragic response of suicide. However, it is not only about suicide. There are people for whom bullying triggers a response of anger. We have seen people take a gun and go into a school and try to take out all the people who had bullied them or caused them such pain.

At the end of the day, bullying is not new. Bullying has been with us from the beginning of time. All of us understand it. All of us know about it. However, bullying used to be limited to school. It was some kid pushing, shoving or locking another student in a washroom and all of those kinds of things. It was mean girls who would call people names and treat them badly. Eventually, in the old days, the victims used to be able to grow up and leave school. They used to be able to go home to parents who could protect them and have a group of friends outside of school who could be there for them.

Bullying has changed. With the rise of electronic media, we know that bullying follows us everywhere. I remember speaking to a young woman before I brought in my private member's bill, Bill C-273, which seeks to put the issue of electronic and cyberbullying into the Criminal Code with other forms of criminal harassment, libel and spreading of false messages, et cetera. This young woman told me that she could not get away from the bullying. She said, “I go home and it is there. I turn on my email and it is there. I turn on my computer and it is there. I go away to spend holidays with my parents and family and it is there. It is everywhere”.

The new social media allow cyberbullying to reach around the world so that someone in Germany today knows what someone is saying about a person. The messages also reach through a person's lifetime and are there forever. It does not matter where we go or how old we are, somebody can Google something about us that happened when we were in grade 11 or when we were 12 or 13 years old. In fact, cyberbullying can prevent someone from getting a job. We know that happens. A boss looks a person up on Google and, lo and behold, there is something about him or her that is not even true. It is false messaging.

We know it can carry on even after death. It will always be there.

Cyberbullying has given a new aspect to bullying, not that any bullying is right. As my hon. colleague in the Conservative Party said, it is not a rite of passage. It is not something we can tut-tut and say that we know about that from when we were in school. It can have dire consequences, and it used to. Today, because of mass communications, we know of the many people who are hurt physically and mentally by bullying because it is out there for us to find. It is in the media. We can see it and hear it. It reaches beyond us. In the old days, even as long ago as when some of us were kids or before that, who knows how many people went quietly and committed suicide or hid away and became reclusive or had mental health problems as a result of bullying?

The motion is good in that it talks about a prevention strategy. However, it concerns me that there are no real concrete measures in this bill. It would ask us to study it and we have studied this many times before. Many of us can tell stories that are heartbreaking. We have heard some of them in the House today, so I will not repeat them.

However, there was a young woman named Donna who attended eighth grade at a parochial school in Montreal. She and her mother travelled to Toronto to visit her grandmother who was dying from cancer. When she returned to school, a cyberbully circulated a rumour alleging that she had gotten SARS. Her friends did not want to hang out with her. They all walked away from her. She was left desolate and alone. She did not know what to do. They would not even talk to her on the telephone. That happened in Welland, Ontario, where she lived.

I think we all know the story of the freshman in Osaka, Japan, who, when his gym period was over, got dressed in what he believed was the privacy of the gym. Indeed, he was an overweight boy and some bully set up a camera and took a picture of him. Within seconds, by the time he had changed and walked out of the room, his picture was around the world for everyone to see. He had become a laughingstock, not only of the school but of the community.

We know that cyberbullying, or any kind of bullying, does not really end. We like to pretend this is something that only happens in schools, but in fact we know that people can be shunned in the workplace. We know that people can be shunned in their communities, where their neighbours will not speak to them. We know that many people who are gay, young and old, are terrified of people finding out, whether in their workplaces or in their communities. We see the impact of bullying. It is physical. It is mental. As in the case of this young lady, Amanda Todd, this weekend, it can be tragic.

It would be a nice idea if instead of studying it, when we have already done that, we look at the kind of comprehensive national strategy that we always look at when we deal with something that can result in serious harm. Public awareness and education are parts of what we have to look at. We also have to look at prevention and prevention programs, which could take place in the school, home and community. We have to look at the programs we could have for young, and older, people who have been bullied and how we could help to protect them and create some harm reduction. Eventually, we have to look at the consequences. Some of those consequences may or may not be in the Criminal Code and should be in the Criminal Code.

The Criminal Code currently deals with issues such as name-calling, false messaging and criminal harassment, which is what we saw happening to this young woman. Her bullying was criminal harassment.

We know that if it happens on the radio or if it happens on TV or if it happens in the newspaper, there has to be disclosure. In fact, the Criminal Code even deals with it when it happens by telephone. If telephone messages are being spread, the telephone company has to, under the law, disclose where the phone calls came from. However, we do not have a single way to find out who is doing the bullying from cyberspace. There is an anonymity in cyberbullying that allows it to flourish. No one knows who these people are. They can feel free to say whatever they wish.

The sad thing is that when this young woman put her story out, people were saying, “Go ahead and kill yourself”.

I do not know what society we live in but it is not just enough to talk about a prevention strategy. Some provinces have legislation. Some provinces have programs. We need to work together, using federal and provincial jurisdictions, and look at schools, communities and the workplace. We need to recognize this for what it is: an extremely important, dangerous and tragic habit. I do not know what else to call it.

However, I do want to thank the member for bringing the motion forward. We will be voting to support it.

I do believe that we need to take this issue seriously. If someone had beaten this girl and left her in an alley or drowned her, as we know happened in the past to Reena Virk in Victoria, then everyone would be liable. However, because she committed suicide, people do not believe anyone is liable.

I think it is time we put an end to this.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the motion that is before the House. I commend my hon. colleague, the member from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, for caring about this issue and bringing it forward today for discussion.

The issue of bullying should always be a non-partisan issue. It is too easy for us as politicians to take certain topics and use them as ways to attack each other. However, I can sense very strongly from my hon. colleague that is not his intent with this motion. It is to truly find ways to resolve and find solutions to the very real and very heartbreaking issue of bullying. For that, I recognize, acknowledge and commend him.

I will talk frankly for a moment about what bullying is, what it is not and the devastating effects and consequences it has, first and foremost, for the victims but also for their families, friends, school teachers and classmates.

Bullying is harassment. It is assault. It is threats as well as intimidation. It is violent and harmful. Bullying is always wrong and should never be tolerated. It is not merely childish behaviour. It is not boys being boys. It is not mean girls. It is not a rite of passage. Terms like these are attempts to lessen the severity and numb us to the impacts of bullying. Put simply, bullying should never be tolerated by any adult, teacher or parent, especially when it comes to our children.

Whether in classrooms, on the playground, during sporting or extracurricular activities, in our community centres or in our homes through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, our children should always be protected from bullying and they should always know that there is someone who they can turn to for help.

Sadly, this past week we have seen yet another example of a young person who has taken her life believing that she had no way out of the torment of being bullied. All of us, whether as parents, educators or concerned citizens, share in the sadness and grief that Amanda Todd's family must be going through. We all ask ourselves how something like this could have happened and how we can stop it from ever happening again. All of us need to ask ourselves as adults and individuals if we are doing all that we can to stop bullying at its roots and to show by example that we truly believe that it needs to end.

It is also important to talk about what the government can do and where it can lead and show support. Therefore, I want to take a moment to talk about what our government is doing to help stop bullying.

Our belief is that this problem is best dealt with at the most local level, by the people who are in the core and closest to it, those who are in our schools, communities, health, education and law-enforcement professionals.

Communities and schools at the local level are in the best position to identify the risk factors in their local community. As well, they are in the best position to identify what their vulnerable children and teens have to deal with and what the solutions are, again at the local level. That is where our support is focused and where we believe funding can do the most good.

I will provide the House with some concrete examples of what our government is doing.

First, we are taking action to address bullying through the Public Health Agency of Canada, which, in conjunction with Health Canada, invests in a number of initiatives to help promote awareness and advanced action to address bullying. The Healthy Canadian website provides information on bullying and tips for bullying prevention and intervention. The WITS program, which stands for walk away, ignore, talk it out and seek help, teaches children in kindergarten to grade six to make safe and positive choices when faced with bullying, cyberbullying, peer victimization and conflict.

As well, the RCMP is very active in outreach and information dissemination on bullying related issues. For example, the force operates a website built by youth for youth called DEAL.org, which is a web-based program that offers resources to youth, parents and educators on issues such as bullying and cyberbullying.

Another way that our government is working to address bullying is through the national crime prevention strategy. Through the strategy, Public Safety Canada provides funding to organizations, including schools, to implement crime prevention projects and initiatives targeted to helping children, youth and young adults at risk.

I want to highlight that the prevention of bullying and violence in schools was recently included as a priority under the strategy in the current call for project proposals. It is concrete action such as this that demonstrates that our government is determined to work with our partners to continue developing new and innovative ways to address bullying.

We are moving forward through the concerted efforts of these organizations federally, as well as with our provincial and territorial partners. We are consulting with the provinces and territories as they develop and implement new initiatives in schools and classroom settings. We are unified in our efforts to stop bullying.

The motion before us suggests that we should establish a special parliamentary committee to examine various aspects of bullying and develop a national prevention strategy. Members will know that the other place adopted a motion last November authorizing the Senate Committee on Human Rights to examine and report on the issue of cyberbullying in Canada with specific regard to Canada's obligations under Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The committee plans to present its findings this fall and will also produce targeted publications for distribution to children, parents and teachers.

As well, the House is currently considering private member's Bill C-273, which seeks to address the issue of cyberbullying by amending three of several existing Criminal Code offences that can apply to bullying.

Yesterday,Ottawa city councillor, Allan Hubley, who sadly knows first-hand the impact of bullying, had this to say:

There is a time for action now instead of another study or anything like that.

I agree that it is time for action.

This Parliament currently has not one but two committees looking into the issue of bullying. What we would like to see is more information on how the committee that would be created by today's motion would interact with the work that is already under way.

All Canadians can be assured that we as a government and all hon. members are taking concrete action to prevent and reduce bullying. Bullying is not a part of growing up. It is not a rite of passage and it should not be treated as such.

We look forward to examining the recommendations from the two parliamentary committees already studying this issue. We also look forward to being further informed on the proposed committee and how it would interact with the recommendations and the conclusions of the committees under way.

Justice

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, bullying is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. In our view, Bill C-273 raises criminal law policy concerns which may end up creating more problems than solutions.

The courts have already interpreted criminal harassment in a provision of the Criminal Code to apply to behaviour committed via the Internet. The Senate is currently looking at the issue of cyberbullying, and we look forward to receiving its report. We should let the Senate continue its important work.

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the deferred recorded division of the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-273.

The House resumed from June 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-273, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the bill and to congratulate the member for Vancouver Centre for bringing it forward. This issue is important to her, and I share her concerns.

Bill C-273, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying), has been brought forward to really slightly redefine criminal harassment, defamatory libel and legislation pertaining to false messages. It is a good bill and one that we should support.

This issue is especially pertinent in my riding of Burnaby—Douglas. Last year we had quite a local controversy. It was about bullying in general, but also cyberbullying. We had a number of charges of cyberbullying within our local school system toward LGBT community members in our riding. That launched a purple letter campaign by local constituent Kaitlin Burnett, which really took off. It was an effort to get all members of the community to act against bullying.

To show that this kind of bullying is real, during the municipal election we had a small political party slate form that was against this purple letter campaign and against changing any laws that would reduce bullying toward the LGBT community. Heated debates were held all the way through the municipal election campaign about this issue . I strongly support the purple letter campaign and this bill to strengthen measures against cyberbullying, because it is very real.

Most Canadians also believe in this. I have here some polling from Angus Reid showing that a vast majority of Canadians agree that bullying now extends beyond face-to-face or even written bullying to the Internet as well. This is a very real issue. It is real for Canadians and it is real for my constituents.

I hope members on the other side of the House will join with us and support this important private member's bill.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with the growing popularity of social media comes the growing problem of cyberbullying. Those who have been bullied on the Internet can attest to the anger, shame and powerlessness they feel when personal information or a photo taken without their knowledge is posted online.

In 2002, Ghyslain Raza, a young boy from Trois-Rivières, saw a video of himself posted on YouTube without his consent. That video was viewed by millions of people around the world. The young boy, who was 14 at the time, suffered a deep depression and had to be hospitalized.

Bullying, defamation and harassment should not be tolerated because they can cause serious harm and irreparable damage. Using email or social media to commit these acts does not make them acceptable either.

What is the definition of cyberbullying? Education expert Bill Belsey describes it like this:

Cyberbullying is the use of information and communication technologies, such as email, cellphone, pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal websites and defamatory online personal polling websites, to support deliberate, repeated and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.

Cyberbullying therefore includes all of the elements involved in the usual forms of bullying, but transposes them to an online and highly public environment.

On social networking sites like Piczo, Facebook and MySpace, bullies often focus on chat rooms because they are very popular. Messages, photographs and videos can have a devastating impact on victims because they are seen by thousands or even millions of people and because the bullying can go viral.

According to a Statistics Canada survey, approximately 7% of adult Internet users are bullied over the Internet. The risk is higher for some people, including young adults, where the rate is 17%. It is also likely that young people who are already experiencing integration problems or being harassed at school are more likely to be cyberbullying targets. People perceived as different are also targeted: homosexuals, people with a physical or mental disability and immigrants, for example.

In 2009, University of Toronto professors Faye Mishna and Robert MacFadden carried out a study of more than 2,000 students in the greater Toronto area. The results were alarming. Over 21% of students—one in five—said that they had been victims of cyberbullying.

The Montreal police force also conducted a survey of young people, which indicated that 27% of young people aged 9 to 17 say they have been victims of bullying or harassment on the Internet.

Kids Help Phone also conducted a survey of young people in 2007. The responses are heartbreaking. The young people said that the bullying often involves students who already know each other. For example, one young person confided:

I was playing Habbo Hotel [an online game] and the person (since I'm black) made fun of my race. They called me bad words and names.…

Most of the time the people bullying me online were the same people that were bullying me in real life, but used technology to escalate it and make the pictures/rumours spread faster and farther.

So it is important not to underestimate the psychological impact that cyberbullying can have on young people.

Another girl confided:

About six months ago my friend or my so-called friend had a hate page on her website and I was on it there were many names that just weren't necessary to say. I felt like she betrayed me I felt angry I couldn't help it, then people started making fun of me at school and I had no self-confidence so I started to hurt myself and everyone found out then I was just so scared of what they were going to do to me that I almost committed suicide.

As a teacher, I saw students faced with cyberbullying problems a number of times, and I can attest that the effects are devastating and that young people feel completely lost and destitute.

The bill introduced by the member for Vancouver South aims to amend three sections of the Criminal Code in order to include cyberbullying. In fact, it is proposing amendments to sections 264, 298 and 372 of the Criminal Code. They deal with criminal harassment, defamatory libel and false messages, respectively.

Amendments to section 264 of the Criminal Code would mean that repeated communication using a computer or similar device, or a threatening attitude causing a person to be concerned for his safety, would be considered harassment. The amendment to the other two sections serves the same purpose: to broaden the scope of the code to include the use of a computer in the commission of a crime.

The spirit of this bill is worthy. It aims to eliminate any grey areas or ambiguity in the law to ensure that cyberbullying, when a crime is involved, is penalized.

We obviously agree with the spirit of the bill. We do, however, have misgivings about the implementation of this legislation when it comes to young people. We are afraid that the bill will lead to the criminalization of behaviour among young people that could be modified through education and awareness building, in other words, through more prevention.

The many studies conducted by Professor Belsey, the founder of bullying.org, led him to the conclusion that bullying is a behaviour that can be influenced and therefore changed. He observed that the best way of addressing such behaviour is through education and awareness building. When consulted about Bill C–273, Professor Belsey said the following: “Bullying is a behaviour and is therefore very fluid. Should a child be threatened with expulsion every time he behaves in this way? If that were the approach, there would be no children left at school. Since bullying is an acquired behaviour, it also means that with a little bit of help and support, these behaviours can be changed.”

When it comes to education and awareness building, Canada could draw inspiration from a Finnish program called KiVa, considered one of the best in the world. The objective is to influence “witnesses” of acts of bullying and encourage them to intervene. Instead of expelling the culprits, a dialogue takes place between the bully, his victim and other student witnesses. The program has really helped to rekindle young people’s interest in school and to make students more motivated and successful. After just one year, victimization and harassment had dropped markedly, and KiVa won the European award for crime prevention.

Here, too, prevention programs are beginning to appear. The RCMP and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation have joined forces to design presentations that target students from grades 4 to 12. They are teaching youth how to recognize, respond to and prevent this behaviour.

In Quebec, several police services have joined forces to create “Vous NET pas seul”, a program to prevent cyberbullying. The program's objectives include inviting young people and their parents to be vigilant when surfing the Internet. There are two components—one for teenagers, which aims to inform them of the dangers of careless surfing, and one for parents, which demystifies the Internet and gives advice on safety and monitoring.

Sites like WebAware explain the various forms of cyberbullying and its legal consequences and provide young people and parents with tips on how to protect themselves.

The Sûreté du Québec is working with several school boards to increase awareness about the problem among youth. In my riding of Beauharnois—Salaberry, Isabelle Pépin, a school psychologist, is intervening in this area at Edgar-Hébert secondary school. In order to be successful when it comes to this issue, she believes that everyone needs to get involved: governments, parents, teachers, students and the general public—basically society as a whole. We must say no to all forms of bullying and cyberbullying in particular.

Perhaps the computer gives us a degree of anonymity that prevents the development of a feeling of empathy towards the victims because there are no direct links between the bully, the victims and the witnesses, but we must remember that real people are hiding behind the aliases.

I hope that this bill will help to make people aware of the dangers of cyberbullying, but my colleagues and I believe that amendments should be considered when the bill is studied in committee. Young people should not be put in prison. They and their parents should be made aware of the problem. By giving ourselves proper tools, we can change behaviour and prevent cyberbullying.