Bill C-13 (Historical)

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide, most notably, for
(a) a new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images as well as complementary amendments to authorize the removal of such images from the Internet and the recovery of expenses incurred to obtain the removal of such images, the forfeiture of property used in the commission of the offence, a recognizance order to be issued to prevent the distribution of such images and the restriction of the use of a computer or the Internet by a convicted offender;
(b) the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence;
(c) new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things;
(d) a warrant that will extend the current investigative power for data associated with telephones to transmission data relating to all means of telecommunications;
(e) warrants that will enable the tracking of transactions, individuals and things and that are subject to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake; and
(f) a streamlined process of obtaining warrants and orders related to an authorization to intercept private communications by ensuring that those warrants and orders can be issued by a judge who issues the authorization and by specifying that all documents relating to a request for a related warrant or order are automatically subject to the same rules respecting confidentiality as the request for authorization.
The enactment amends the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that the spouse is a competent and compellable witness for the prosecution with respect to the new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
It also amends the Competition Act to make applicable, for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of that Act, the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data. It also modernizes the provisions of the Act relating to electronic evidence and provides for more effective enforcement in a technologically advanced environment.
Lastly, it amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

[Daniel Therrien]

You are asking me whether the commissioner should appear regarding Bill C-13 now?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Therrien, do you think the privacy commissioner should appear before a committee with regard to Bill C-13?

[Dr. Parry Aftab, Executive Director, StopCyberbullying, WiredSafety]

Thank you.

Good morning, and thank you very much for inviting me to speak here as a witness today. I wasn't given the option to do it by video conference, but I wouldn't have taken it anyway because I enjoy Ottawa and Canada. I'll tell you a little bit that's not in my prepared notes, but I first fell in love with a Canadian, and I married a Maritimer, so it didn't take long for me to also fall in love with Canada.

I'm an Internet privacy and security lawyer. I run WiredSafety, and we are the oldest and largest Internet safety organization in the world. We are one of five members of Facebook's international Safety Advisory Board. We are the only ones who are uncompensated, to my knowledge.

I also run StopCyberbullying. It's the first non-profit program devoted to cyberbullying also in the world. It's been around for eight years now formally, and much longer informally. We hold summits and bring in young people to help on these issues. Leah Parsons, Glen Canning, and Carol Todd sit on our advisory board at the StopCyberbullying Canada level, as does Sharon Rosenfeldt and Barbara Coloroso. She's been invited, even though she's not a Canadian. Only Canadians can sit on the StopCyberbullying Canada board.

I also have a youth board, and the youth are from all of the provinces in the country, and they provide very knowledgeable input as we look to find ways to improve the safety of other young people. They speak, they do research, and they work with other professionals.

We partner, and we're all unpaid volunteers at WiredSafety, and that includes me. We've been doing this for a very long time. I'm excited to see that Canada is the first country in the world to deal with sextortion, revenge porn, and unauthorized sexting issues.

You also were the first country, through a Supreme Court decision, to recognize that minors may be sharing intimate images consensually with each other. With the couple, if a boy takes it and shares it with a girl voluntarily, or the girl shares it with a boy, or whatever their sexual preferences are, they will not be prosecuted under your strong child pornography laws. It deals with once it starts disseminating.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is a wonderful bill when you're talking about cyberbullying and you're talking about abuse of young people, I think it has some problems. I was the keynote speaker in Nova Scotia when they held their cyberbullying summit, and we held a large summit in Prince Edward Island. When I misspoke before the media, promising that Prince Edward Island was going to do a bigger summit than the one that had been done in Nova Scotia, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Barbara Coloroso, Sharon Rosenfeldt, Leah and Glen, all came to little P.E.I. to meet with hundreds of young people and other experts in the room to come up with an action plan for Prince Edward Island. We've done something similar with the first nation community in New Brunswick, and our action plan on cyberbullying will be issued shortly. We're working with the premier there, as well as the premier in P.E.I. We were assisting on the action plan in Nova Scotia from the very beginning. We're working with Alberta, we've worked in Yellowknife. We are all across Canada, as my adopted nation, where I think you can solve the problems of cyberbullying better than we can anywhere else in the world. I do this all over the world.

We had one suicide in Italy because of revenge porn issues and cyberbullying. We're seeing them around the world, but nowhere are we seeing more suicides per capita connected to cyber issues than in Nova Scotia. Little Nova Scotia has had three suicides connected with digital abuse. Rehtaeh was the last, but not the first. And Jenna...Pam Murchison has been dealing with this issue for a long time. We have to focus on it here. This is an island, and this a country known for kindness.

There are old jokes on television when they talk about being kind and people who are courteous in this country, about how you care about each other more than you do in other places. Having two houses in the Maritimes, I agree. I think you do care about each other. I think this is a country of community. We can come up with solutions, a number of people on this panel with me today, and others who you've had testify. We've spoken at UN conferences, we've been on task forces together. You have the talent, you have the expertise, and you have a government that cares about our children, and that's crucial.

The one concern that I have is the voluntary disclosure. It's not that I don't trust the Canadian government with our information. I don't want Rogers, and Telus, and Bell, and all of the other telcos in this country to make a decision about my personal information and who they're going to give it to and whether or not it's authorized.

Giving that immunity to them frustrates me. I carry six cell phone numbers with Rogers. If Rogers won't promise that they're not going to turn over information voluntarily, without a court order, without a subpoena, without a warrant, I'm going to change cell phone companies. If Telus won't promise it, then I won't go to Telus, and if Bell won't promise it, whether it's Bell Canada or Bell Aliant.... Someone who is in the business of providing cell phone and wireless services is going to have to tell me as a customer that they are going to respect the privacy contract, the privacy policy that we've all agreed to. Otherwise I have lost contractual rights with a commercial company that's providing services to me, because of that little immunity clause.

Do I want somebody in a call centre or somebody who's close to someone else, who doesn't understand the standards we need, to have immunity from answering to me? No.

I understand in all likelihood that Bill C-13 will probably pass pretty much the way it is. If it does, I'm going to ask Canadians to vote with their cell phones. I'm going to ask Canadians to turn around and hold their telecom companies responsible for protecting the privacy of their users, and if they don't, then we'll find other ways of communicating with each other. But I think if somebody is going to take a lot of money from me every month for my cell phone, then they're going to have to stick with the promises they made to me.

Canada can have all of the lawful information about us—Canadians or anyone who is in Canada—that they want. I trust the government. I do not trust some low-level customer-service person at a telco to make a decision about my personal information.

I live with death threats. I received the RCMP Child Recovery Award for bringing Amber Alert to Canada on Facebook for the first time in the world. I couldn't go back to Washington for six months—nobody would talk to me—because we did it here.

I live with attacks online from cyberbullies plus. Do I want my personal information exposed in ways I can't control? No. Neither should our children have to do that. When Carol Todd said that she doesn't want anyone to give up their privacy rights in exchange for safety rights—or to do that in Amanda's name—I think that says it all.

I think if we just alter that one provision that gives immunity to the telcos, then I could support this bill. It's not perfect, but it's the best thing on cyberbullying, sexting, and revenge porn that we have seen in the world today. I say that non-stop everywhere I talk and when I reach out to Canadians for help.

You have the head of global policy from Facebook coming here Thursday. You don't have somebody from Facebook Canada; you have the head of global policy from Facebook. That's how seriously they're taking this. I know the clerk has been wonderful in trying to reach out to them, but I should tell you, knowing this from the inside, that they're taking this very seriously as well. They've been looking at it from the beginning.

You have the Internet Alliance. The Internet Alliance is everybody, not just Google or Twitter. Everybody else is in there. You can ask these questions, but don't tell me I have to trust telcos to decide what information they can give away and what they can't, not in the name of protecting our children. We can do it without that, with the help of everyone here.

So I offer my help and assistance while I try to get through all of the papers in all of the places I've lived since I was 18 in order to become a permanent resident of Canada. It takes a while when you're 63. I'm trying to remember. My mother doesn't remember them either. But until then, I am a permanent resident in my heart. I love this country, and I love what you can do, and I don't want anyone sacrificing the rights of Canadians to the benefit of a telco.

Thank you.

[Stephen Anderson, Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca]

Thanks for having me, and thank you for this opportunity to speak before the committee regarding Bill C-13.

I'm Steve Anderson, the executive director of OpenMedia.ca. We're a community-based organization working to safeguard the open Internet.

As you may know, OpenMedia.ca works with many other groups to lead the Stop Online Spying campaign, which successfully convinced the government to shelve the lawful access legislation, Bill C-30. Nearly 150,000 Canadians took part in that campaign.

Last year we started the Protect Our Privacy coalition, which is the largest pro-privacy coalition in Canadian history, with over 50 organizations from across Canada.

You know you've hit on a common Canadian value when you have groups ranging from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Council of Canadians, to small businesses, to labour unions, all joining forces on this issue of privacy. As it stands, we have a privacy deficit in Canada, and I'm afraid that Bill C-13 will only deepen that deficit.

I believe this privacy deficit is the result of a democratic deficit. If the government, including members of this committee, were listening to the concerns of Canadians, there is no way you would be paving the way for a range of authorities to have increased warrantless access to our sensitive private information.

To help bring the concerns of Canadians to this committee, I have crowd-sourced this presentation for you today. I asked Canadians online what they thought I should say, and I have done my best to incorporate their input into my presentation. I'll reference them from time to time.

I'll confine my presentation to the lawful access portion, as that is where Canadians have expressed the most concern and I think where I personally also have the most concern.

The Canadians I spoke to had three main concerns: first, immunity for activities that victimize innocent Canadians; second, accountability and oversight; and third, data security.

On immunity, which I'll talk about first, Bill C-13 in its current form provides communications companies that hand over sensitive information about innocent Canadians with absolute immunity from criminal and civil liability.

Recent revelations show that the government agencies made 1.2 million requests for customer data from telecom companies in only one year and that companies apparently complied with those voluntary requests most of the time. After learning of this, Canadians have been looking for more safeguards rather than weakening privacy safeguards.

At the moment, an unlimited swath of information can be accessed by a simple phone call to an Internet service provider. Government agencies don't even need to provide a written request, and we are told that some agencies even refuse to put their requests in writing to avoid a paper trail. This extrajudicial practice works, because there is a loophole that allows authorities to obtain voluntary warrantless access to law-abiding Canadians' sensitive information.

The disclosure immunity provided in Bill C-13 will make the privacy loophole even bigger by removing one of the few incentives for telecom companies to safeguard our data from warrantless disclosures.

Canadian citizen, Gord Tomlin, had this to say on the matter via Facebook:

If 'authorities' need information, they can get a warrant. It's not onerous, it's one of the checks and balances that is supposed to protect our system from abuse.

Danielle had this to say on the OpenMedia.ca website:

If accessing an individual's private information is not arbitrary but is justifiable, then a warrant can be obtained. Otherwise, it is expected that the law [will] protect us from privacy violations...

There were many more like that.

Providing telecom companies who engage in extrajudicial disclosure of Canadians' sensitive information is encouraging moral hazard. It's encouraging reckless and irresponsible behaviour.

I'll now move on to accountability and oversight.

Canadians find it troubling that Bill C-13 makes little effort to keep government agencies transparent and accountable. Most shockingly, there is no requirement that officials notify those innocent Canadians who have had their data stored in government databases. The lack of knowledge and consent by those victimized through surveillance and warrantless disclosure is frustrating to many Canadians.

As one Canadian put it:

I would like to see a requirement that persons whose data has been accessed, be informed of this fact and that there be a major penalty...if there is a failure to comply with this requirement.

The proposed lowering of the “reason to suspect” threshold for transition data warrants is also of concern to Canadians. We're talking about the collection of data—and let's be clear about this—that can reveal political and religious affiliations, medical conditions, the types of activities we engage in online and offline, and whom we socialize with. This is incredibly invasive stuff.

On the topic of accountability, several people also highlighted the costs associated with these data transfers and that they would have to pay for them, and that it would limit our digital economy.

On data security concerns, many Canadians are concerned with how secure data will be once authorities expand their collection through the measures in Bill C-13.

Given recent breaches at federal offices—the CRA and student loans, for example—many Canadians question if we can trust government authorities to properly protect their data from cybercriminals and identity thieves.

One person online said: The federal government, and indeed the vague category of 'public officials,' has a poor track record of protecting private information already. It's common occurrence in the Canadian news environment to hear about some government agency or officials losing the confidential information of Canadians such as last March's revelation the government had lost the student loan information of nearly 600,000 Canadians. Broadening the powers of officials to access this information only increases the danger that confidential information will end up in the wrong hands.

Bill C-13 also problematically expands the bureaucrats and agencies that can access our private information, including CSEC and CSIS, which are currently facing their own crisis of accountability, given the recent Snowden disclosures. I fail to see how that is connected to cyberbullying at all.

Bill C-13 does not, in its current form, provide effective measures to increase transparency, accountability, or reporting on warrantless access to private data.

In sum, I recommend that this committee remove the telecom immunity and weakening warrant standards, while adding new reporting and accountability measures to this bill.

I also want to join the growing numbers calling for you to split the bill up so that we can move on the cyberbullying portion, which I think there is growing consensus around, minus some reforms, and have a proper debate on lawful access.

As one person put it, “Any expansion of government powers needs to be linked to a compelling societal need.”

The lawful access section is not connected to cyberbullying. I don't think that connection has been made for Canadians in nearly enough detail.

I also think it's worth repeating what Carol Todd, the mother of cyberbullying victim Amanda Todd, told this committee. She said:

I don't want to see our children victimized again by losing privacy rights. I am troubled by some of these provisions condoning the sharing of the privacy information of Canadians without proper legal process.

I think both those on the front lines of law enforcement and Canadians want authorities to have the tools tailored to bringing a variety of criminals to justice. What this bill does at the moment is unnecessarily combine some of those tools with unpopular mechanisms that encourage mass disclosure of sensitive information.

I implore the committee to consider that just one database, the RCMP's Canadian Police Information Centre, has sensitive data on more than 420,000 Canadians. These people have no criminal record of any kind. Many have their information stored due to simply having suffered a mental health issue.

I'd also consider that a Canadian named Diane is one of more than 200 Canadians who recently came forward to say that their personal or professional lives have been ruined despite never having broken the law. Why? Because information about them has been wrongfully disclosed to third parties—in Diane's case, her employer.

Now consider the fact that in recent years federal government agencies alone have seen over 3,000 breaches of highly sensitive private information of Canadians. Consider also that this has affected an estimated 750,000 people.

In Diane's case, she was the victim of a false accusation, which was withdrawn years ago, yet it continues to affect her career. Diane's response after being victimized by this privacy intrusion and having her professional life unfairly curtailed was, unsurprisingly, disbelief, shock, and anger.

Now imagine that Diane was your family member or someone you know. You don't need to put them at risk like this. You can choose to split up the bill and make the necessary reforms whilst dealing with cyberbullying.

Why should Canadian victims be re-victimized by violations to their privacy? Why should those with mental health issues need to live in fear? They don't.

Canadians, including some of the government's biggest supporters, whom I'm working with closely on this matter, are wondering why the government is deepening our privacy deficit when other countries are beginning to rein in surveillance. They're wondering why you're mismanaging our data security.

In closing, as Jesse Kline wrote in the National Post last week, “When the Canadian public, parents of victims of cyberbullying, privacy commissioners and former cabinet ministers all voice serious concerns about a bill, it is a sure sign that something is wrong, and the government should listen.”

Thank you.

[Daniel Therrien]

I just talked about impartiality. I did not deal with Bill C-13 as a Department of Justice lawyer. So there would be no conflict of interest in that regard.

I don't see any other conflicts of interest that would prevent me from taking action. If a conflict of interest were to arise, I would withdraw from the file. I note that the law provides for the appointment of an assistant or ad hoc commissioner. That could be an adequate mechanism.

After seriously considering the issue—and examining my conscience—I currently do not see any conflicts of interest that would force me to withdraw from a file.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you for that.

Under Bill C-13 the provision for warrantless access will now be extended to peace officers, public officers, mayors, reeves, tax officers, and small-town reeves who all can rely on their spidey sense to get warrantless information on Canadians.

Do you believe that will create major problems or do you believe that is warranted?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you very much for that. This is helpful.

Now in regard to Bill C-13, Conservative MPs have suggested that the only threshold needed for obtaining private information on Canadian citizens from telecoms is a cop's so-called spidey sense. In terms of your expertise in law, do you believe that's an adequate threshold for warrantless information?

[Daniel Therrien]

No, I do not. I was going to follow by saying IP addresses are much more than telephone information because they do include information of interests in websites, for instance, or location. So when I asked the general questions before, transposing this to Bill C-13, I would say there has been no demonstration yet that I have heard that such a level of personal information in an IP address is required, particularly through volunteer disclosure without warrants.

[Marvin Bernstein, Chief Policy Advisor, UNICEF Canada]

Thank you.

UNICEF appreciates the opportunity to present to this committee, so thank you very much.

We see Bill C-13 as one step in the right direction. We certainly commend the work of the Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials Cybercrime Working Group, which delivered its report. Among its important findings, the working group concluded that existing Criminal Code offences generally cover the most serious bullying behaviour and a new specific Criminal Code offence of bullying or cyberbullying isn't required. However, the working group also concluded that there is a gap in the Criminal Code's treatment of the non-consensual distribution of intimate images or “sexting”, which can lead to excessive responses, such as the laying of child pornography charges against young people. It therefore recommends that a new criminal offence addressing the non-consensual distribution of intimate images be created, and this bill provides for it.

While the report covers a number of important issues very effectively, we do have some caveats. The report doesn’t address the degree of flexibility required when cyberbullies are children or young people. The report seems to be based upon the contemplation that children and young people will always be the victims, and it doesn't consider the unintended implications of removing specific intent and adding an alternative recklessness standard to the constituent elements of the offence.

We are pleased that this bill is before the committee and is receiving further study at this time.

We also would encourage this committee to consider, as I'm sure you will, the important recommendations set out in the Senate committee report “Cyberbullying Hurts: Respect for Rights in the Digital Age”. In that report, there was a strong call for a national, well-coordinated anti-bullying strategy with the provinces and territories. One of the manifestations of not having that coordinated strategy is that we see the provinces and territories branching out and introducing anti-bullying legislation of their own. There are some common elements from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but there are some significant differences and approaches. Some of those perhaps aren't always in keeping with best practices and evidence-based research, so there is a role for the federal government to coordinate more effectively.

We also propose the development of prosecutorial guidelines that would see young people prosecuted only as an option of last resort.

Finally, we recommend in our brief a series of further amendments to the Criminal Code that would provide for the addition of bullying intent as a requirement of the offence; the deletion of a reckless standard from the offence provision; and the amendment to the open-ended length of Internet prohibitions upon conviction. Right now, the way the provision reads it seems to even give effect to a lifetime ban, which would have very serious implications. We are also recommending an exemption for young people from a child pornography conviction for sexting caught by this new offence and for lawful consensual sexting for selfies.

We would support the provisions in Bill C-13 and commend all of the strong work that has gone into developing the bill, limited to cyberbullying and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, if its provisions were supplemented by the additional Criminal Code amendments we are proposing. These, together with a well-coordinated, multi-pronged federal-provincial-territorial strategy to combat cyberbullying founded on the pillars of prevention, education, child empowerment, and capacity-building, including the appropriate use of legal sanctions, would balance the best interests of all children and young people, whether their experiences are those of actual or potential victims, cyberbullies, or bystanders.

It's important to recognize from our view that children and young people are not just victims but can also be cyberbullies and bystanders, and even when they are victims they can sometimes move into the roles of cyberbullies and bystanders on other occasions. This requires a careful balancing of their rights and best interests when considering the impacts upon all groups of children in these various roles as they migrate from one role to the other. If we are not careful, the bill may end up inadvertently hurting and punishing some of the very children and young people it's seeking to protect.

We appreciate that for the most egregious acts perpetrated by young persons, the relevant provisions of the proposed legislation are more appropriate as a response than the use of child pornography charges. The fact that the proposed legislation would apply to people of all ages rather than unfairly targeting young people as perpetrators is also welcome.

In tandem with any new legislative response to the broader social problem of bullying, UNICEF Canada urges a stronger focus on education and prevention so that young people, be they potential or actual bullies, victims, or bystanders, understand the social, health, and legal consequences of their digital actions for others and for themselves. Children have the ability and resiliency to protect themselves and others and to alter their own behaviour once they are effectively informed about the risks. We should be empowering children at an early age to become good digital citizens and make informed and responsible choices when they use online media.

In the case of children we urge the development of prosecutorial guidelines for any new legislation so that only the most serious cases result in criminal charges against young people. Such guidelines should also encourage the laying of charges for the non-consensual distribution of intimate images under the new Criminal Code offence once proclaimed in force rather than under the more punitive child pornography provisions of the code where young people are charged.

In addition, we recommend the careful analysis and evaluation of both the intended and unintended impacts of this proposed new legislation on children and young people.

In UNICEF's recent report card on child well-being, Canada ranked 21st out of 29 industrialized nations in the incidence of bullying. Canada must examine what other countries with lower rates, such as Italy, Sweden, and Spain, are doing right so we can prevent more pain, more loss, and senseless death.

We know there are a number of different pieces. This is certainly one component. In a recent Canadian Bar Association webinar speaking to the Nova Scotia legislation approach to cyberbullying, it was explained that protection orders can be obtained through an application to a JP or a prevention order can be obtained after a complaint is made to a director of public safety.

It was conveyed to us that in about 250 orders, virtually all of these orders have been applied for or obtained by schools or by parents. This is not a vehicle by and large that young people are actually accessing so there must be some concern about perhaps being subject to further victimization, or perhaps having their parents fined by virtue of the Nova Scotia legislation.

So we need to find responses. This is one mechanism, but this is really after the fact. When we talk about deterrents, and we explain to young people there might be certain consequences, it's important that, in terms of public spots, in terms of profiling some of the implications, the emphasis should really be on prevention and education. We should be talking about responsible behaviour and engaging in constructive and positive interaction with their peers, rather than the punitive side and perhaps attempting to inject the fear or the spectre of criminal sanctions.

Thank you.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm not trying to put you hard on the spot here, but there have been numerous editorials raising the question of conflict of interest with your position. So for you to say you can't answer questions on the biggest single piece of legislation that's defining privacy rights in this Parliament, that you have no opinion or that you're going to defer your opinion, I find concerning.

On the issue of Bill C-13 being split into parts, do you feel you're in a conflict of offering an opinion when it has been the opinion of the privacy commissioners across the country that the bill should be separated? If you say you want to ask “tough questions” and improve control mechanisms, will you just tell us whether you think it would be better to have that part of the bill separated?

[Gwyneth Anderson, Co-Founder, York Region, Bully Free Community Alliance]

We need a culture shift. It's a huge undertaking, but that should not discourage the effort; for it is not a child's privilege to feel safe and welcomed at home, in school, and in their community, but their right, a very basic right.

When children start taking their own lives and mental health issues are at a national high, the adults in this room need to pay attention and we need to take action.

For all of its positive attributes, technology is being used to inflict harm and to socially victimize. Our youth have no safe place to go. It is easy to say to a teenager, “Just turn it off”, “Don’t look at it”, or “Don't read it”, but their reality is very much tied to what they see and hear on the Internet and social media.

The number of likes they get on Instagram or the retweets on Twitter are a large part of how they socialize today and where they draw their sense of belonging.

We cannot trivialize the reality that our children live and deal with on a daily basis. The Bully Free Community Alliance views bullying as a large puzzle. Countless people hold the pieces to this puzzle: students, parents, teachers, administrators, school boards, community members, agencies, municipalities, provinces, and our federal government. All of the puzzle pieces need to come together to find and implement a solution.

We acknowledge the efforts of our federal government. We view Bill C-13 as one piece of this complex puzzle. We agree that the Criminal Code needs to be updated and changed for police to respond effectively and quickly to cyberbullying. Is Bill C-13 the answer to the critical challenges posed by cyberbullying? We don’t think so; not on its own. But Bill C-13 is a positive first step forward.

We are aware of the controversy surrounding the privacy aspect of this bill. Protecting the privacy of Canadians is very important, but when our children press an app or sign on to social media, do they really have privacy?

All of us have an expectation of privacy when we share online; however, when someone ignores that expectation or takes advantage of someone, that right to remain anonymous is lost and our justice system should be allowed to protect us and keep us safe.

The right to remain anonymous cannot take precedence over the basic right to feel safe and protected. Bully Free Community Alliance believes there needs to be a national strategy that follows Bill C-13. It would not be fair to Canadians to say that this is all we are doing to address cyberbullying.

We can't stop here. Bill C-13 must be bolstered by a national strategy. Technology will continue to evolve at a rapid pace and so will new ways to abuse it. We must respond with a sense of urgency to put an end to social victimization. This has become a matter of saving lives. We must initiate steps to cultivate a growing culture of respect and kindness for each other.

This may sound like an unrealistic and impossible undertaking, but let us reflect for a moment. We changed a culture on how we view smoking because it was killing people. We changed a culture on drinking and driving, and how we viewed that because it was killing people. We changed a culture on how we view the environment because people were getting sick and they were dying. We can certainly change a culture on how we treat each other. Canadians deserve nothing less.

Bill C-13, together with a national strategy, is a groundbreaking step. Canada should lead the way and we should set the example.

We will conclude with a quote from Anne Frank:

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Thank you.

[Basiliki Schinas-Vlasis, Co-Founder, York Region, Bully Free Community Alliance]

Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Ask.fm, Twitter, Vine, Omegle, Yik Yak, Tinder, Voxer, and Kik are just some of the apps and sites that our youth visit, post on, and download from. They are also the 24-hour accessible apps and sites that subject our children to teasing, taunting, torment, and threats, from which the only escape for some has been death.

Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name is Bessie Vlasis. My colleague Gwyneth Anderson and I are co-founders of the Bully Free Community Alliance, a grassroots not-for-profit organization located in York Region, Ontario.

Thank you for inviting us here today. We are honoured to have a voice and to be part of the conversation about Bill C-13.

The Bully Free Community Alliance’s mission and vision is to build and sustain positive communities. Our work began over seven years ago when our children became victims of bullying. We witnessed our young, vibrant, intelligent, and happy children withdraw and become physically sick, anxious, and scared. We felt helpless. We searched desperately for support and found ourselves having to navigate the effects of bullying on our own. We knew that pointing fingers and laying blame would accomplish nothing productive, so our research began and our organization developed.

Our organization collaborates with many stakeholders within the York Region community.

We have partnered for the past four years with the York Region District School Board. Due to our long-standing relationship, we sit on their Caring and Safe Schools Committee and are members of their newly formed Cyber Bullying Task Force.

We are contributors to the Ontario Ministry of Education’s “Parent Tool Kit”, which has just been launched. We are members of the York Region Bullying Prevention Partnership, comprising the York Regional Police, both Catholic and public school boards, Addiction Services of York Region, Character Community, and Children’s Mental Health, to name a few. We work with the Toronto Argonauts Foundation’s Huddle Up Bullying prevention program, as well as the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness. We work directly with the York Regional Police and the Town of Newmarket, including the Newmarket Recreation Youth Centre, where we currently are implementing positive programs and initiatives for youth and their families.

As we discovered early on in our journey, there is very little help or support for victims of bullying and their parents. Often, schools are ill-equipped and lack the knowledge, support, and information necessary to successfully address the problem in an effective manner, particularly in cases of cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying poses significant challenges. It has no boundaries and no limits. It can only be addressed with efforts that parallel its limitless nature. To effect positive change, we must work together. Our efforts must span communities and provincial borders. We must identify the root of the problem, where we are going wrong as parents and as a society, and how we can make it better.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

So we'll go with 1 Wellington on Thursday. Let's hope there are no votes.

I think that covers off everything.

Your notice of motion we've looked after. We'll invite the new Privacy Commissioner, who will be fully appointed by Thursday. Hopefully they appear. I will let you know on Thursday if there are any issues.

Thank you, witnesses, for your patience on that. It's an important bill, and we want to make sure that all of the witnesses who have been requested to come and see us do so.

As per our order of reference of Monday, April 28, we are dealing with Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. We have a number of witnesses today. Each group will have ten minutes, and then we will go to a question and answer period.

Without any further ado, we'll start with the Bully Free Community Alliance. We have Ms. Anderson, the co-founder, and Ms. Schinas-Vlasis.

Thank you very much. The floor is yours for ten minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Therrien, for coming and presenting yourself today.

I would echo my colleague, because we only have seven minutes and there are so many issues regarding privacy that I'd like to keep our conversations short and to the point.

The interim Privacy Commissioner who has just left, Chantal Bernier, raised concerns about the warrantless access provisions in Bill C-13, about which she said there was “a lack of accountability mechanisms”.

Would you share her belief that Bill C-13 should be split in two so that the warrantless access provisions are given further scrutiny, aside from the issues of the cyberbullying provisions?

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I felt quite confident that the House would certainly want to hear from the member for Ottawa South, and I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues for that.

Today it is my honour to stand to speak to Bill C-26, and I want to state from the outset that I am reluctant to support the bill. However, we will vote at second reading to send the bill to committee, and will do so in order to provide the government with an opportunity to present what evidence, if any, has emerged since 2012 that has prompted the introduction of even more mandatory minimum sentences.

It was just two years ago that many of these same provisions were contained in Bill C-10. In the two years since the coming into force of Bill C-10, child sex offences, as we heard from the minister, have risen by 6%. To repeat, in the two years since the coming into force of Bill C-10, child sex offences have risen by 6%.

The House will remember that when the Conservatives introduced Bill C-10, in 2011, they spoke at length about how these measures would combat child sex offences. I think we are still in agreement that reducing child sex offences is a priority that we all share. The government has made much of the fact that it imposed mandatory minimum sentences, stating that this would somehow reduce incidents against children.

Again, that legislation, Bill C-10, came into force in 2012. Since the coming into force of that bill, and despite the rhetoric from the Conservatives, it must be accepted, and indeed it was earlier in debate this evening, with obvious concern, that child sex offences have actually risen.

I want to make it clear that I do not for one minute believe that the Conservatives planned or hoped for this result, but I do believe that they need to accept the idea of being smart on crime.

At the justice committee this past March, I raised this issue with the minister. It was the same issue that I raised with him in the question and answer period following his speech this evening. I wanted to know why the government would introduce further flawed legislation for these offences when very clearly the evidence suggested that its previous approach had not worked.

The same question was posed at the justice committee when these statistics were introduced by the minister at committee, as they were again this evening. I asked him where the statistics came from, and at that point he did not know. He indicated he would get back to me, and I guess that happened tonight. We now know that these statistics came from Justice Canada.

I asked the minister at committee, on March 6 of this year, “Do you not agree that the stats that show that child sexual offences have increased in the last two years indicate that the increases that you put in C-10 haven't worked?”

The minister responded, and not exactly in the same fashion as he did this evening, but his response was:

I'd answer that two ways.First, I would say that C-10 would hardly have had effect in the time period we're looking at. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it indicates to me that we have more to do. It indicates very clearly that we have to take more steps toward prevention, deterrence, and denunciation.

That was, in part, the exchange that I had with the minister this past March at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, a part of which we heard repeated here this evening.

If it were the intent of the government when introducing Bill C-10 to reduce crime as it relates to child sex offences, then it must recognize and accept that its efforts have failed. Some members of the Conservative caucus, including the minister, would argue that not enough time has passed to properly measure the impact of Bill C-10. I assume they believe that with the passage of time, the data will indicate Bill C-10's effectiveness.

If that is the case, why are we here today discussing Bill C-26? Why are we here debating this bill, if, as the minister himself suggested, we need more time to properly assess the impact that Bill C-10 will have in reducing crimes against children? It does not make sense. It has caused many of us on this side of the House to wonder why the government is doing this.

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. No one in the House would accuse the Minister of Justice of being Einstein, but the government's behaviour on this issue gives rise to the suspicion that they are playing politics with a very serious issue.

I have said time and again that I find it very troubling that the government would seemingly use sensitive subjects as a potential wedge issue, or worse, to raise money from its base leading up to an election. We have seen this approach to cyberbullying in Bill C-13, presently before the justice committee, where the government is using real victims of cyberbullying to bring in measures that have absolutely nothing to do with cyberbullying. It is using victims to bring in a law that would allow for the widespread invasion of our privacy.

Suffice it to say, though, that on the matter of crimes committed against children, the House is very united. I want to reiterate that no one in this House is immune from heartache when we hear of any child who has suffered because of the actions of an adult. I know that members on all sides share this view.

The Liberal Party remains steadfastly committed to the protection of the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, our children, against the most predatory of practices: child pornography and sexual offences against children. We support concrete measures aimed at the prevention of sexual offences against children as well as appropriate punitive sanctions against those who commit such heinous acts.

I earlier quoted the justice minister, who had indicated in a response to a question I posed that he believed that we need to do more to combat crimes against children. He indicated that we need to do more in the areas of prevention and deterrence and that prevention and deterrence are important elements in reducing crimes against children. This bill, however, includes no measures to prevent sexual offences against children or measures to ensure the treatment, rehabilitation, or reintegration of sex offenders. Again, why this glaring inconsistency?

By increasing mandatory minimums, the bill would reduce judicial discretion and could result in charter challenges.

We need to know that the laws we are passing will be effective in reducing the incidence of sexual violence against children and will not be merely symbolic expressions. That is why we will seek a detailed study and analysis with stakeholders at committee. Liberals will seek to ensure that the policies adopted in this area reflect the best evidence and the latest research available and will not be based on fear and ideology, or worse, on an effort to raise money from a political base using the Criminal Code and this sensitive issue as a way to exploit the fears of Canadians.

We also want an effective law that addresses these issues and not laws that will be met with endless charter challenges defended at taxpayers' expense.

We have some concerns about charter challenges to the sentencing provisions of the bill and about privacy suits that may arise from the offender database. Moreover, travel restrictions may raise concerns as to the mobility rights of Canadians, as guaranteed by the charter. I raise these issues knowing that the government's record on crime legislation is abysmal. Time and again, we see the courts tossing out its legislation, because it is found to be unconstitutional.

Sexual violence, like other forms of violence, is traumatic and devastating. The minister also suggested in committee that along with prevention and deterrence, we need denunciation of those charged and convicted of crimes against children. No one would disagree with that position, but denunciation does not equal deterrence. We must endeavour to find methods of prevention, as well as punishment, while not overlooking the importance of treatment and rehabilitation and the reintegration of offenders.

Evidence-based criminal law policy is a guiding principle of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is through this perspective that we review and critique all legislation.

While we have supported mandatory minimums in this area in the past, we no longer support them as a matter of policy, given that they are ineffective in achieving their stated objectives and may violate the charter. Indeed, mandatory minimums should be the exception, not the rule. Under the current government, they have become the rule, not the exception, despite the fact that mandatory minimums have no basis in evidence pointing to their effectiveness.

There would not be one member of the Conservative caucus who could rise today in his or her place and point to any independent study that would suggest that mandatory minimums work. Indeed, that challenge was advanced to the minister immediately after his speech.

This is not an issue that should divide the House, because we all want to protect children. We in the Liberal Party want to do it in a way that respects the charter, respects evidence and facts, and respects the overwhelming need to be smart on crime.