Evidence of meeting #139 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was example.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'm not a free speech absolutist—absolutely not.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay. Thank you. That's all there is for that.
Regarding the media landscape we have, we know mainstream media is the digital world now, as well. However, there seems to be the emergence, as I spoke about earlier, of Infowars, far right conspiracies and all of these other things taking hold right now.
In your estimation, how important is it to have a regulated media landscape that has accountability and journalistic standards?
Director of Education, MediaSmarts
I don't think we can speak about government regulation.
We can say that journalistic standards are a key part of how we identify whether or not a source is—
NDP
Director of Education, MediaSmarts
Where the standards come from is not something we have an opinion on. It's something we educate people about. We educate people about what the markers are of a source that is sufficiently reliable to be worth your attention, because there is so much information coming to us all the time. Our initial task is always going to be separating—
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
On Monday, we heard from other experts who gave testimony on how important truth-seeking, trained journalists are to ensure our society is not being misled, yet we have partisans attacking the validity of mainstream media. How dangerous is that, in terms of the general public gauging what is and isn't true?
Executive Director, MediaSmarts
To Matthew's point, what we think is critically important.... The luxury of just absorbing what we hear or see no longer exists for any of us. We need to have the verification skills to do that. It is unfortunate that this is our current situation, but this is the current situation, along with AI, deepfakes and everything else. We have to be vigilant, as consumers of information. However, it's also incredibly helpful to have standards.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
Thank you.
We'll go to Mr. Kurek from the Conservatives for five minutes.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for what has been a very productive conversation today.
Professor Sérafin, we've talked about Bill C-63. One of the concerning aspects I read in that bill is.... Nobody disagrees with wanting to protect especially children from online harms, but the key is how you do it. In some of the language that is proposed, it changes from an objective measure of hate speech to a subjective one, including words that may discredit, humiliate, hurt or offend.
It's especially that last word that is I think so deeply problematic when I read this bill. I'll use the example that I shared the other day. Because I support the oil and gas sector—and there is, ironically, a bill before Parliament that would make it illegal to advertise for that—there have been Liberals in Parliament who have said that my views in support of the oil and gas sector, as a key part of the economy in the regions I represent, are somehow hateful.
With what I've described there, Professor Sérafin, I'm just wondering if you could expand a bit on the impact of changing from an objective measure of what would incite violence and harm, for example, versus a subjective measure, which could be as low as somebody being offended by what somebody says.
Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
A very simple way of putting this difference is that when you shift to a subjective standard, you're just formalizing the heckler's veto. That's what you're doing. You're giving anyone who claims offence and who claims offence and wants to express that.... There are some people who won't want to do it, but anybody who wants to claim offence is going to be able to do that and effectively gain heckler's veto, because they, in theory at least, have a claim against the other person for hate speech. They can get damages and other sorts of remedies for that under the proposed amendments.
The concern is precisely this: Instead of having some kind of objective standard that weighs both the expressive rights of the one party and the rights of the other party, you're one-siding the conversation. You're saying it's the offence that matters and we don't have to take into account the expressive rights of the person entirely and also the values they embody, like democratic participation and everything else.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
I appreciate that.
For the folks from MediaSmarts, thanks for being here.
I think this touches on part of what your organization does, which is educating people and helping them to make informed decisions and understand that freedom of expression can include differing opinions, including opinions that might be offensive.
When I read that portion of the bill, should something that offends someone be a measure that could result in banning from social media? Should the minister have the ability to create an administrative process that would ban somebody from being able to share an opinion? Would that be concerning versus teaching people how to effectively engage in civil society in the debates we should be able to have?
Executive Director, MediaSmarts
I think my answer is going to disappoint, because we're not legislative experts, and we don't know the legislation well or have staff who can do that.
What I can share is that we will always support that education needs to be considered. What I would say and what is our concern is that education is missing from the bill, and it is, as you're describing, a critical part of the solution for how we're going to get to a better place. This is our goal. I know that it's a long-term solution, so it's not as exciting, perhaps, as some others, but it is an important and evidence-based one.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Teaching people to be able to argue is, I think, one of the beautiful things that Parliament is supposed to do.
Professor Sérafin, just in the last minute or so, on your experience as a professor facing some of those challenges—the DEI, while well intended, and some of the possible negative consequences of that—is there anything you'd like to add to that in the next 30 seconds or so? I know it's a big subject.
Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
The only thing I'd add to that in 30 seconds is that if you value universities as centres of intellectual life and as cultural contributors, then you would think that in a robust democratic society they would have viewpoint diversity reflected as well. EDI policies are part of the problem. They're not the only problem affecting universities, but they're definitely contributing to those problems right now in universities.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Have you faced some of those challenges yourself?
Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I have, yes, and I can get into it, but I don't think I have enough time to do so.
Conservative
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Please feel free to submit more information, if you're so inclined.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
Yes, you can submit information to the clerk. You're more than welcome to submit it to the clerk at any time. Make it quick, though, because our report will be done the second week in December.
Ms. Lattanzio, go ahead for five minutes.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Hill and Mr. Johnson, your organization has partnered with The Canadian Journalism Foundation to work on enhancing trust around quality journalism. Can you tell us more about why you believe that quality journalism needs support at this time? What are some of the challenges that quality journalism has experienced over the last few years?
Executive Director, MediaSmarts
The Canadian Journalism Foundation has projects that we have been a part of or that we have worked with. We don't have expertise in the area of what the problems are or, to specifically answer your question, of what a remedy is. We do refer to, and reinforce heavily with everyone we work with, the importance of journalistic standards and of being able to know what makes a source verifiable. Professional journalism allows us that opportunity to determine what is a reliable source and, then, to put our trust in that source.
Director of Education, MediaSmarts
I would highlight, as well, that identifying that a source is reliable is not the end of critical thinking; it's the beginning of critical thinking, where the skills of verifying sources tell us which sources are worth reading closely. We're not advocating that people blindly trust everything they read in a legitimate news source, but rather that they sift out things that are not worth their attention so that they can apply their critical thinking to those reliable sources that deserve it.