Bill C-63

An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

Part 1 of this enactment enacts the Online Harms Act , whose purpose is to, among other things, promote the online safety of persons in Canada, reduce harms caused to persons in Canada as a result of harmful content online and ensure that the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies are transparent and accountable with respect to their duties under that Act.
That Act, among other things,
(a) establishes the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, whose mandate is to administer and enforce that Act, ensure that operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies are transparent and accountable with respect to their duties under that Act and contribute to the development of standards with respect to online safety;
(b) creates the position of Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada, whose mandate is to provide support to users of social media services in respect of which that Act applies and advocate for the public interest in relation to online safety;
(c) establishes the Digital Safety Office of Canada, whose mandate is to support the Digital Safety Commission of Canada and the Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada in the fulfillment of their mandates;
(d) imposes on the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies
(i) a duty to act responsibly in respect of the services that they operate, including by implementing measures that are adequate to mitigate the risk that users will be exposed to harmful content on the services and submitting digital safety plans to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada,
(ii) a duty to protect children in respect of the services that they operate by integrating into the services design features that are provided for by regulations,
(iii) a duty to make content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent inaccessible to persons in Canada in certain circumstances, and
(iv) a duty to keep all records that are necessary to determine whether they are complying with their duties under that Act;
(e) authorizes the Digital Safety Commission of Canada to accredit certain persons that conduct research or engage in education, advocacy or awareness activities that are related to that Act for the purposes of enabling those persons to have access to inventories of electronic data and to electronic data of the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies;
(f) provides that persons in Canada may make a complaint to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada that content on a social media service in respect of which that Act applies is content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor or intimate content communicated without consent and authorizes the Commission to make orders requiring the operators of those services to make that content inaccessible to persons in Canada;
(g) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the payment of charges by the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies, for the purpose of recovering costs incurred in relation to that Act.
Part 1 also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) create a hate crime offence of committing an offence under that Act or any other Act of Parliament that is motivated by hatred based on certain factors;
(b) create a recognizance to keep the peace relating to hate propaganda and hate crime offences;
(c) define “hatred” for the purposes of the new offence and the hate propaganda offences; and
(d) increase the maximum sentences for the hate propaganda offences.
It also makes related amendments to other Acts.
Part 3 amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to provide that it is a discriminatory practice to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech by means of the Internet or any other means of telecommunication in a context in which the hate speech is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination. It authorizes the Canadian Human Rights Commission to deal with complaints alleging that discriminatory practice and authorizes the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to inquire into such complaints and order remedies.
Part 4 amends An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service to, among other things,
(a) clarify the types of Internet services covered by that Act;
(b) simplify the mandatory notification process set out in section 3 by providing that all notifications be sent to a law enforcement body designated in the regulations;
(c) require that transmission data be provided with the mandatory notice in cases where the content is manifestly child pornography;
(d) extend the period of preservation of data related to an offence;
(e) extend the limitation period for the prosecution of an offence under that Act; and
(f) add certain regulation-making powers.
Part 5 contains a coordinating amendment.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, in fact, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who just spoke, has a private member's bill that is before the House as well, Bill C-412 which would do a better job of amending the Criminal Code to go after child predators.

What the Liberals are trying to do in Bill C-63 is create a new bureaucracy that would not be accountable to Canadians. From what we have seen with Bill C-27, I do not necessarily believe that the expertise in the Department of Industry is sufficient to manage the issues. The protection of children needs to be under the Criminal Code first and foremost, not under new regulatory bodies.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, based on what the member just said about putting the child first, Bill C-63, the bill I was referring to, talks about “content that sexually victimizes a child” and ensures that we can take it off the Internet. Does the member support the bill?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, we all are aware that, when a privilege motion comes before the House of Commons and the Speaker of the House of Commons rules that there has been a breach of Parliament's powers, no other business can come before the House of Commons. If, indeed, the member was so concerned about the passage of Bill C-63 through the House of Commons, the government would do what Canadians want and hand over the documents pertaining to the green slush fund from the former Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

Let me remind the House that it was, in fact, our current industry minister who suspended SDTC, and it was our Auditor General who clearly found close to $400 million in misspent funds and 180 cases of conflict of interest.

Furthermore, pertaining to Bill C-27, the government decided not to continue the legislative review of that legislation when the House returned in September. Instead, it decided to start a study on Interac fees. That is on the parliamentary secretary to the minister of industry for not managing the legislative calendar appropriately and putting Bill C-27 on the side. This was done because they were worried about the amendments that all the other parties of the House of Commons deemed appropriate, but that were not deemed appropriate by the minister and the backroom lobbyists who are informing his position.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member just said that we cannot afford to neglect legislation about children and protecting children. That is what the member just said, yet for the last many weeks, we have seen the Conservative Party of Canada put the interests of their leader and the Conservative Party ahead of the nation's interests, to the degree to which they will not even allow legislation to be debated, let alone get passed to committee.

We have before the House Bill C-63, the online harms act. Why are the Conservatives filibustering to the degree that we cannot debate this bill regarding content and sexually victimized children on the Internet? Are they allowing it to continue to this degree because they want to filibuster?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a bit ironic that the Conservatives are expressing concern about legislation, yet they continue to play a game. It has lasted for well over three weeks; they are wasting time on the floor of the House of Commons because they made the decision to put their party and their leader ahead of the interest of Canadians.

The example I would use is Bill C-63, which is a bill that deals with intimate images communicated without consent. It also deals with content that sexually victimizes children. The Conservatives are holding up that legislation. They are preventing it from ultimately even going to committee. They are more interested in the leadership of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party's interest than that of Canadians. Can he explain why they do not support that particular bill?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

We have Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, and I know you mentioned Bill C-63 as well—direct threats to Canadians and the freedoms that Canadians are guaranteed through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That certainly seems like a censorship agenda to me that needs to be fought against.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for coming today.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you. Two and a half minutes go by very quickly.

Mr. Rainville and Mrs. Barraband, you talked earlier about Bill C‑63 and its shortcomings. Regarding hate speech, do you think we need regulations in line with what the Criminal Code already provides for civic life, for example? Do you think that might infringe on freedom of expression or freedoms of expression, since it is an umbrella term?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by thanking all of the witnesses for being here.

I'd like to start with Ms. Van Geyn.

Could you take a moment to clarify for me something I want to make sure I heard correctly?

When you were talking about Bill C-63, did you say that the law was too tough on hate speech?

[Pierre Rainville]

Very fortunately, the Supreme Court did draw some lines in the sand. Bill C‑63, for example, which I have looked over quite a bit, is in many ways faithful to the Supreme Court's rulings over the past 15 years.

The definition of hate speech is no broader than what the Supreme Court allows in terms of protecting freedom of expression. It is true that it updates section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which was repealed in 2013. The Supreme Court had nonetheless considered that provision valid. It is really another aspect of the bill that bothers me and that has gone undetected, so to speak, because the goal is very noble. It is the bill's definition of the sexual victimization of children. Let me give you two examples.

First, the bill does not include the defences provided in the Criminal Code. This is not criminal law, to be sure, but there is a defence related to artistic creation that applies to all forms of expression. In Bill C‑63, however, that defence is for visual representation, photographs and images, but very strangely, not for written expression. So there is variable protection for creative freedom or artistic freedom that requires a person to publish a photograph. Then artistic expression is protected all of a sudden. In the case of purely written expression, it is not.

I do not want to get into examples that are too specific, but I think the next one is telling. The bill prohibits written material that promotes sexual relations that are legal. For example, the bill would make it illegal to promote online a sexual relationship between someone who is 17 and a half and someone aged 20, who is thus of the age of majority. That is very surprising to me if not to say explosive. Once again, I don't want the bill to be thrown into the trash, that's not what I am saying, but we have not identified certain limits or exceptions to freedom of expression that are nonetheless significant.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses.

My first question is for Mr. Rainville.

Bills C‑11, C‑18 and C‑63, among others, attempt to establish a framework for freedom of expression in Canada. The line between what is possible and acceptable and what is not is nonetheless very thin.

Where do you draw the line?

[Christine Van Geyn]

I would add to that list Bill C-63, which has the potential to be one of the most censorious pieces of legislation that I have seen in a really long time. Bill C-63, the online harms act, would increase penalties for criminalized speech and for hate-motivated crimes to life in prison. Part of the concern around that is using these heightened penalties to overcharge criminal defendants and to create pressure for plea deals for lower-level offences when there is an argument that the Crown might make that there is a hate element. Even if it's not present, it can be charged, and this overcharging leads to pressure to plead out.

Another concern we have about Bill C-63 is that it would allow for someone who fears a future hate crime speech to request a judge to put conditions on the would-be speaker. Those could be things like an ankle monitor or even imprisonment, and this is for future speech that has not yet taken place. This is incredibly chilling.

Bill C-63 would also create a civil mechanism for people to complain to the Human Rights Commission about speech. It's a return of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which was rightly repealed for dragging before the commission journalists and members of the clergy. There is no cost to bringing a complaint, but there's great cost to the person complained about. We have seen human rights tribunals bring before them comedians—that's in a Quebec context, though.

Giving this power to these commissions will chill expression. I did not have time in my five minutes to mention Bill C-63. I understand that there is a separate committee hearing that will address that, but I wanted to put on the record our serious concern about that.

With respect to the Online News Act and the Online Streaming Act, while perhaps not censorship in the most classic form, I do share the concerns of millions of Canadians who have lost access to news as a result of the Online News Act. I share the concerns of a lot of academics and of Canadian content creators about the regulation of user-generated content on social media platforms like YouTube. I'm a YouTube creator myself. I have one of the largest...or I think probably the largest YouTube channel about Canadian constitutional law, perhaps—

[Pierre Rainville, Co-Chair, Chaire de recherche France-Québec sur les enjeux contemporains de la liberté d'expression]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the members of the committee for inviting me to appear.

You're inviting us to speak to you about a very specific fundamental right. Freedom of expression is much more than a fundamental right. It's the bedrock of the vast majority of fundamental rights. There is no freedom of religion, for example, without freedom of speech.

It is appropriate to make an observation before formulating avenues to protect freedom of expression.

The first observation is that it's too easy to forget that angering or disturbing remarks fall specifically under freedom of expression. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that over and over again. The second observation is that freedom of expression is sometimes mistreated, including by federal regulators, as well as Parliament itself.

I'll give you some illustrations, starting with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.

In 2020, the title of a book that may be considered offensive by some was mentioned on air on the Société Radio‑Canada. However, there is nothing racist about this book. It's one of the books that left its mark on Quebec in the 1970s. However, the CRTC blamed Radio-Canada, and went so far as to require a written public apology from the Crown corporation. The Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, or FPJQ, was alarmed by this decision, as were a very large number of Radio-Canada journalists. The Federal Court of Appeal intervened and blamed the CRTC for ignoring freedom of expression and for underestimating the risks of self-censorship created by its own decision.

The Canadian Parliament isn't blameless either. Look at the brand new crime of Holocaust denial that was adopted in 2022.

It was rushed through, buried in a 450-page budget bill. The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs apologized for doing things this way, as did the Canadian Bar Association, or CBA. The process didn't provide parliamentarians with the analytical framework they should have when a law infringes on freedom of expression. My point is simple. There need to be institutional safeguards, parliamentary safeguards, so that bills that impede freedom of expression aren't rushed through.

I can give another example, that of the current Bill C-63, which concerns online harms. I'll be explicit. This bill is valid and legitimate in a number of respects, but it contains provisions that undermine freedom of artistic creation and contravene the teachings of the Supreme Court of Canada. I can talk more about that if you wish. Surprisingly, that same bill prohibits counselling certain perfectly legal sexual activities. The infringement on freedom of expression seems glaring to me.

Considering the passage of federal legislation that would proclaim the importance of freedom of artistic expression, as well as journalistic expression, as other states have done, could be a solution. This legislation would also remind us that the mere act of offending another person is not a valid reason to silence speech.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to do a quick recap for anyone who missed the first part of my speech before QP. I started by saying why we have been here for three weeks debating a parliamentary privilege motion. I explained that it is because the Liberals will not produce the documents the Speaker ordered and that it is related to the green slush fund and the $400-million scandal, so no government business or private members' business can come forward until they produce the documents. That is what we are waiting for.

I started to debunk the myths of the weak reasons the Liberals have given for why they cannot produce the documents, beginning with their claim that giving the documents to the RCMP would be a violation of people's charter rights. This is absolutely not true. The police and the RCMP get tips all the time, for example through Crime Stoppers, phone calls and documents about criminal activity, and they have to exercise due diligence by looking into the evidence that is presented. If they do find evidence of criminality, then they need to go to the courts and request the documents formally so they can be used in a court case.

That is the law, so the argument is just a total red herring from the Liberals.

I talked about the Liberals' hypocrisy in even talking about charter rights, since they have violated every one of them, and I went down the whole list. I did not get to indigenous rights because if we started talking about the way they have violated those, we would be here all day. Therefore I will move along to my second point.

The Liberals have claimed that there needs to be more separation between Parliament and the RCMP. Certainly I agree that there should be separation. The job of the RCMP is to enforce the rule of law for everybody equally. I think that we are what our record says we are, so let us look at the record of the relationship and the separation between the RCMP and the Liberal government.

Let us start with the billionaire's island fiasco. Members may remember that the Prime Minister wasted 215,000 dollars' worth of taxpayer money. It was alleged that if he did not give himself written permission, it was actually fraud. The internal RCMP documents showed that the force considered opening a fraud investigation after details of the trip came to light, but it cited numerous reasons why it did not, including the fact that neither Parliament nor the Ethics Commissioner chose to refer the case to the police.

We can see from that, first of all, that the RCMP does accept documents from Parliament. We can also see that there was no evidence of whether or not the Prime Minister granted himself permission to go on the billionaire's island trip. If he did not, he definitely had committed fraud. The RCMP did not even bother to investigate.

Next is the SNC-Lavalin scandal. We know that Jody Wilson-Raybould was clear with the Prime Minister and Elder Marques that they absolutely could not talk to the prosecutor about getting SNC-Lavalin the deal to get it off the hook. The Prime Minister kicked Jody Wilson-Raybould to the curb and put his buddy David Lametti in place, and voila, SNC-Lavalin had the agreement it needed in order to get off the hook.

Did the RCMP investigate this? No, it did not, until four years after the fact, after Brenda Lucki retired, when the RCMP decided it was going to start investigating. Interestingly, as soon as it announced that, David Lametti was kicked out of cabinet and ended up stepping down as an MP.

Let us talk about the Brenda Lucki situation. In the Nova Scotia massacre, it was clear that the RCMP was working on behalf of Parliament, with the Liberal government. An article from the National Post says:

In June, the Mass Casualty Commission revealed disputes between RCMP investigators in Nova Scotia and the commissioner, with allegations Lucki let the politics interfere with the probe.

Notes from the Mountie in charge of the massacre investigation said that on a conference call, Lucki expressed disappointment the types of guns used by the killer had not been released to the public because she had promised the Prime Minister's Office and the public safety minister the guns would be detailed, tied to pending gun control legislation.

There is not a lot of separation there.

Now let us talk about the WE Charity scandal. Subsection 119(1) of the Criminal Code outlines that it is illegal for a holder of public office to take an action that benefits themself or their family. It is clear to everyone that the Prime Minister took an action by approving nearly a billion dollars for the WE Charity scandal.

We all know that his mother, his brother and his wife were paid by the WE Charity to do speaking engagements. According to a BBC News article, the Prime Minister said, “I made a mistake for not recusing myself from the discussions immediately, given my family's history”. He did not make a mistake; he broke the law. Again, the RCMP did nothing. If we look at the history, we see that there is not enough separation; there needs to be more.

If we go on to the next thing, they are claiming there is really nothing to see. However, a whistle-blower said there was criminal activity. We should at least get the documents the Speaker correctly ordered, and we should get to work on that.

However, it is a pattern of corruption. We have seen that with the government from the beginning. Since I was elected in 2015, there has been a history of corruption, not just at the Prime Minister's level but throughout the Liberal Party.

If we recall, there was Raj Grewal, a former MP, who was charged with fraud; Joe Peschisolido, a former Liberal MP, whose company was involved in and charged with a money laundering scam; Hunter Tootoo and Darshan Singh Kang, who were charged with sexual misconduct; the current Minister of Public Safety, in the clam scam, who gave a $25-million clam quota to his relative and a company that did not even own a boat, which was terrible; and the Minister of Transport, who gave money to her husband's company. It is a total conflict of interest.

The government is showing that it has this pattern of behaviour, and whenever the Liberals are caught, they do the obvious: They delay and refuse to release documents, or they release them all redacted. That needs to stop. Canadians have a right to know what happened to the $400 million and to get to the bottom of it.

The good news is that, while we continue to debate the parliamentary privilege part of this situation, no government bills can come forward. Therefore, the awful legislation the Liberals are trying to bring forward is not going to happen. For example, Bill C-63, which would put someone in jail for life if the government thought they might commit a hate crime in the future, is not going to come forward, nor is Bill C-71, which would take the children of Canadian citizens who live abroad, children who have never lived in Canada, and grant them Canadian citizenship. When they turned 18, they would be able to vote and decide, on their honour, where they wanted their vote to count. That is a new level of foreign interference, so I am happy that one is not coming forward.

Of course, we will also not see the bill that changes the date of the election so that MPs who lose their seat still get their pension. That will not be coming forward either. Nevertheless, it is an absolute disgrace to Canadians that money, $400 million, has basically been given out with 186 conflicts of interest. They act as though there is nothing to see here. It is totally unacceptable, and if the government wants to get back to work, the Liberals should do the right thing. They should produce the unredacted documents as the Speaker has requested.

Mr. Speaker, is there quorum?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise and speak in the House, but I am disappointed that we are on week three of speaking about parliamentary privilege.

Those who are watching at home want to know why we are here and how we got here. It all started with Sustainable Development Technology Canada. This is a fund that was designed to support initiatives for green technology, emissions reduction and things like that. The fund started in 2001, and under Liberal and Conservative governments, it went along just fine until this corrupt bunch of Liberals got involved.

Cabinet ministers decided to give a billion dollars to the fund. They picked their friends to be on the committee to decide who was going to get the money, and the friends gave the money to their own businesses. The Auditor General found 186 conflicts of interest; 80% of the projects had conflicts of interest, and there was a whistle-blower within the Sustainable Development Technology Canada department who said that there was criminal activity involved.

As such, as parliamentarians, we wanted to look into the matter. The documents related to this fund were requested in June, but the government, the Liberals, did what they normally do: They delayed. Then, when they sent the documents, they blacked out all the useful parts. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle stood up on a question of privilege because it is our right, as parliamentarians, to get whatever documents we need to do our good work. The Speaker absolutely correctly ruled that, yes, this was a violation of our privilege, and he ordered the Liberals to deliver the unredacted documents so that we can turn them over to the RCMP.

We have been waiting for three weeks and debating this matter of privilege every day. No documents have been delivered. That is why we are here.

I am going to spend my time today talking and pushing back against the Liberals' very weak arguments about why they cannot bring the documents forward. I will start with one of the myths they are spreading. They say that they cannot produce the papers, because giving them to the RCMP would violate the charter rights of Canadians. This is not true at all. The police and the RCMP get tips all the time: They get tips from Crime Stoppers, as well as phone calls and documents alleging criminal activity.

The law says that the RCMP must do due diligence by looking at the evidence presented. If they find evidence of criminality, then they have to go to the court and order those documents through the court in order for them to be used at a trial. That is the law, so it is ridiculous to suggest that the government cannot produce the papers for that reason.

The other thing I would say is that it is very hypocritical of the Liberals to say that they are concerned about the charter rights of Canadians. They have violated nearly every charter right. They are what their record says they are, so let us look at their record.

First, let us start with freedom of expression. There is Bill C-11, the censorship bill, by which the government-appointed CRTC can take down an individual's content if it finds the content objectionable. Let us also talk about Bill C-63, which is the online harms bill. It would put someone in jail for life if the government thought that person might commit a hate crime in the future. That is utterly chill on freedom of expression.

Let us talk about freedom of religion. There are people crying “death to Jews” from coast to coast to coast. The government has done nothing to stem the flow of vandalism and harassment that is happening at synagogues and at Jewish businesses in our country. The Hindus are being persecuted by the Khalistanis; again, the government has done nothing. There are 112 Christian churches that have burned. The government has said nothing. Therefore, there is no protection for freedom of religion from the Liberal government.

If we want to go down the list of other freedoms, let us talk about mobility rights. Every Canadian has the right to freely enter and leave Canada. That is in the Charter of Rights. However, during the pandemic, Liberals trapped four million people in the country for over two years, even after it was medically proven that people who were vaccinated could get and transmit COVID in the same way as the unvaccinated. Therefore, 90% of vaccinated people were allowed to go wherever they wanted, to leave and enter Canada. However, 10% of people, who were not a higher risk, were trapped in the country. This separated them from their families and caused a lot of trauma.

Then we get to the Emergencies Act, which was ruled by the courts to be illegal. I am not sure why there were no consequences for that. If I were convicted of something, I could appeal, but I would have to appeal from prison; therefore, I am not sure why there has been no action on that. However, Liberals froze people's bank accounts. That is unlawful search and seizure, so they violated another charter right.

When it comes to freedom from discrimination, people are not supposed to discriminate against anybody based on race, religion, age, etc., but we have seen that the Liberals do. The Canada summer jobs program discriminated against people of faith who would not sign the attestation. Moreover, the Liberals discriminated based on age when they decided to give an increase in OAS to people over 75, but not those between 65 and 74.

[Rachel Curran]

We don't actually have a position on the parts of the bill that amend the Criminal Code or the Canadian Human Rights Act, because they don't apply to us. The part of the bill that applies to social media platforms we have been supportive of, because it requires us to remove material that is already illegal and that we already remove expeditiously.

We are also supportive of Bill C-412, which is MP Rempel Garner's response to Bill C-63. We think both of those bills are good attempts to deal with harmful content online. We look forward to working with MP Rempel Garner and with Minister Virani on both those bills.