Evidence of meeting #78 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crime.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Reuven Bulka  Congregation Machzikei Hadas, As an Individual
Michael Mostyn  Chief Executive Officer, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada
David Matas  Senior Legal Counsel, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada
Shimon Fogel  Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
Tamara Thomas  Policy Researcher and Analyst, African Canadian Legal Clinic
Sikander Hashmi  Spokesperson, Canadian Council of Imams

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Levitt Liberal York Centre, ON

Thank you.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

Thank you.

Now you may go ahead with Rabbi Bulka.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Levitt Liberal York Centre, ON

In light of the January 29 murder of six Muslim worshippers after evening prayers at their mosque in Quebec City, local faith leaders in my riding of York Centre created an interfaith council to increase and improve interfaith and multi-faith dialogue. The attacker tried to sow fear and division through violence, and they decided to fight back with compassion and understanding. We know that discrimination does not end at one group or community. The acts of hate affect all Canadians and attack the very values we stand for.

My question for you, Rabbi Bulka, is in two parts. First, what role does interfaith dialogue play in reducing intolerance between peoples and faiths? Second, how can faith groups work together to reduce and eliminate acts of hate that affect them all?

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

Thank you.

Go ahead, Rabbi Bulka.

4:05 p.m.

Congregation Machzikei Hadas, As an Individual

Rabbi Reuven Bulka

The power of the clergy is enormous, and getting together sends a loud and a potent signal that we are together. Going back to the fateful day of September 11, what we did here as a community was that all the faith leaders got together and announced publicly, at a time when the attack against the Muslim community was probably the most acute in my recent memory, that an attack on one religious community is an attack on all religious communities. That's been the motif that's working here in the national capital area. That message has generated a spirit of co-operation. I would be deluding you if I said that it involves everybody, but certainly it's not exceptional to see leaders of different faith communities here working together.

After the attack in Quebec, one of the things that we wanted to do was send the message of inclusivity. We had a blood drive in December that involved all of the faith communities, which now hopefully is going to be an annual thing, with the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities getting together to promote this in all of their religious quarters. We all get together, so Muslims, Jews, and Christians are all interacting. They're all spilling the same red blood into nice pouches that are going to help other people of whatever faith, or even no faith.

These types of creative things—and there's no shortage of them—are certainly going to help. The more we build positivity, the more the naysayers and the negatives become isolated and even more, shall we say, distinguished by their not being part of the Canadian mosaic.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

Okay. I will now go to David Sweet, for the Conservatives.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON

Madam Chair, thank you very much.

I want to echo Mr. Levitt's kind comments about the four gentlemen who are here. They have served in ways in public policy that are tremendous, going from Mr. Matas's work in the collection of evidence in regard to organ harvesting to much more in regard to reducing racism and anti-Semitism. I just want to thank all of you.

Chair, I just want to say on the record that based on Mr. Fogel's comments, one of the positive non-partisan things that could come from here would be a recommendation in regard to a first ministers meeting in the future, where the focus would be, from the Government of Canada, on hate crimes and hate incidents.

Discussion and collaboration could happen in regard to the collection of hate incidents and crime data and the way it's aggregated and subsequently categorized so that it could be used for best practices in the future for legislators like us, as well as our provincial and municipal counterparts. That would include all levels of law enforcement, including, as we've studied previously in the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, security on university campuses. Some university campuses have their security sworn in and have their data collected by local law enforcement, but there are many across Canada where it is not collected, and hence has not been able to be used properly. I want to put that on the record.

Mr. Mostyn, I want to go to your testimony. Mr. Vandal—and I believe his comments were sincere and 100% from the heart—mentioned on a couple of occasions that we certainly wouldn't want to do anything to limit free speech. I absolutely believe that. There isn't anyone here who would want to do that. You mentioned something about Islamophobia and the fact that the definition has been hijacked. I want you to speak to that and why that's important in regard to our conversation and why it's not our decision where free speech might be limited but someone else's.

4:10 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada

Michael Mostyn

Certainly.

As opposed to certain terms of racism—such as anti-Semitism, which may have been confusing at one point, but on which there is now an international consensus, and the Ottawa protocol process was part of that—“Islamophobia” is a confusing term, unfortunately, at the moment. I would just like to point, as an example, to witnesses from the NCCM, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, who appeared before this committee two weeks ago. They testified that they were in favour of the definition consistent with the Ontario Human Rights Code, the OHRC, yet it was this organization that vetted and put its logo on the Toronto District School Board guide my colleague from CIJA just mentioned, which had a very problematic definition of Islamophobia, including criticism of politics in Islam or culture in Islam.

By the way, the same group had a third definition of Islamophobia, which it published in a guide in 2016, in which it included attacks on Islam itself. Internationally, the OIC, which has 57 Muslim states, has its own definition of Islamophobia.

As my colleague David Matas was saying, there are those in terrorist organizations in the world who claim to speak on behalf of Islam. It would be unfortunate if organizations and terrorist organizations like those could hijack the term by saying that Canada has stated something with respect to Islamophobia and that it applies to their definition. It's a necessarily problematic term, and it's something this committee needs to deal with.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON

There has also been mention in regard to the existing laws not being rigorously enforced right now. I think you alluded to that. Could you expand on that so we have that on record as well, please?

4:10 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada

Michael Mostyn

Thank you.

Actually, another incident that my colleague mentioned was that last February an imam in Montreal three times called on Allah to annihilate every single last Jew on the earth. This was done in front of his entire congregation. It was only when video of this incident surfaced that our community pursued this issue. Police did, just a little while ago, announce that no criminal charges were warranted.

However, this hate speech provision under the Criminal Code is a hybrid offence. There is no statute of limitation on indictable acts, and the police could have acted indictably. In fact, B'nai Brith believes that they should have, and we're continuing to work with law enforcement to understand why this decision was made and to challenge this decision, because this individual should face justice. There is no statute of limitations according to the Criminal Code for the criminal act that was done.

In contrast, in Montreal—so again in Quebec—a man was arrested recently and criminally charged this year, and quite rightly so, for a single tweet in which he called for Muslims to be killed. Muslims should not be targeted for hate, but neither should Jews. There should be no double standard in the law, so I think it's an excellent point that you made about law enforcement getting together, having a first ministers meeting, and having common definitions, because the law is not being evenly enforced. Different police forces have different understandings of hate acts in terms of its criminal definition. This must be done uniformly, and every identifiable group in Canada must be protected and must feel to be protected in the same way in this country.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON

I was hoping that I could get Rabbi Bulka to comment.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

He has 45 seconds to comment.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON

No, it was about something different, because we formally had a group here called the All Party Interfaith Friendship Group that Rabbi Bulka actually co-chaired with me, in which we had Zoroastrian, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish people. We actually had some members from Tony Blair's organization, and we were doing something that other witnesses mentioned—not legislating and regulating, but bringing people together with constructive dialogue from different communities. Mr. Levitt alluded to these being things that members of Parliament and public figures can do to greatly increase not only the tolerance but the community love for everybody.

I wanted to thank you for alluding to that, Rabbi Bulka. Unfortunately, I think my time has now vaporized.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

I'm sure Rabbi Bulka can have the time. Some other witness will probably allow him to expand on that a bit, I'm hoping.

Now, for seven minutes, we go to Jenny Kwan for the New Democrats.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for their very thoughtful presentations.

I'd like to explore the notion of recommendations a little bit further. There was some discussion about the need to ensure there's proper training amongst officials, whether it be the police force or otherwise. We also had previous presentations from other witnesses who suggested that work needs to be done. I wonder if I could get some comments from our witnesses with respect to that.

Then, aside from officials, what about the education system in terms of intercultural sensitivities, interfaith knowledge and awareness, and teaching the notion of respecting each other, because we know that hate is really a learned behaviour? How do we tackle this in a national realm?

I see all of the witnesses are eager to answer.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

The chair will direct it. First we'll go to David.

4:15 p.m.

Senior Legal Counsel, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada

David Matas

One of the problems we see with the police forces when dealing with hate-motivated crimes is sometimes—indeed, perhaps all too often—they will identify the crime without looking at the motivation. I mean, obviously if somebody paints a swastika, you can see the motivation, but if it's a simple assault, they may just go after the assault without looking at the motivation. The low figures we hear about hate-motivated crimes are in some instances the result of the police just not looking to see whether it's a hate-motivated crime. One of the things we could usefully do in terms of training is sensitize police forces, so that when there is a hate dimension to a crime, it gets noticed, it gets reported, and it gets acted on.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Further on that notion, should it be mandatory?

4:15 p.m.

Senior Legal Counsel, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada

David Matas

I hate to impose something mandatory on the police, because—

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

I mean in terms of mandatory training.

4:15 p.m.

Senior Legal Counsel, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada

David Matas

Oh, mandatory training—I can tell you what I think the content of training would be, but whether training should be mandatory, I think you'd have to talk to the police about that. I assume they go through some training in any case, so it would just be a component of their training.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thank you.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

Would you like to weigh in, Mr. Mostyn, or should I go to Rabbi Bulka?

4:15 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, National Office, B'nai Brith Canada

Michael Mostyn

The only thing I have to add to my colleague's remarks is this. You were talking about education and talking about tolerance and understanding. The only way that can happen in real-world terms is to also ensure that we teach history, because that's the reality. I think if students understand history and understand the consequences about the most horrific acts that have happened around the world, only then will they come to realize that they need to treat their fellow people with respect. It has to be personalized to a degree. Once again, there must be a consistency, and I think civil society groups need to work with police to help them understand, because it's always evolving in terms of different hate groups and the code language they're using for hate. That has to be identified, and it needs to be acted upon when there are criminal offences.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

Thank you.

Go ahead, Rabbi Bulka.