Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 4th, 2024

[Dania Majid]

This phenomenon has grown. I referenced the report by Irene Khan that talks about this global repression we are seeing around expression on Palestine. It has grown. It is present in places where academic freedom is revered, including spaces like journalism, artistic and art spaces, and academic freedom.

What we have been seeing is, again, the use of hate. Whether it be through institutional policies or hate speech, it's being used and interpreted as not extending to Palestinian speech. While these pieces of legislation or policy are intended to protect the rights of minorities to speak up, criticize governments and so on, when it comes to Palestinian speech, all of a sudden we hear, “No, you can't say that.” Whatever is being said is being described as something that extends to hate speech, which is a very high bar. Therefore, we start seeing criminalization or reprisals in the employment sector.

This is having a real impact, and not just on Palestinians. In the last year, we have seen these provisions or the description of anything related to Palestine expression as supportive of terror or as anti-Semitic. It is being applied to racialized and marginalized Canadians. I have gotten a lot of calls in the legal profession, for instance, from young Black women being fired from their Bay Street jobs because they supported Palestinian rights in an open letter. I've had colleagues who've lost their office space because the person they were renting the space from disagreed with their work defending Palestinian rights. As criminal defence lawyers, they were defending protesters who have been arrested.

This is having a chilling effect on expression. We just keep seeing it entrenched further and further. We are concerned that people will be afraid to speak out on Palestine, especially if they increasingly think they will be criminalized for it. That's the worst thing we can have happen right now, when we do have a plausible genocide unfolding and we do need people to speak out more than ever at this time.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Absolutely.

I want to focus on your work around anti-Palestinian racism. Of course, this is an issue that we have raised in this committee. We even pushed to hear from the minister, particularly around the government's refusal to include a definition of anti-Palestinian racism as part of their anti-racism strategy. Now, we've heard a lot of excuses from the Liberals as to why they refuse to define anti-Palestinian racism as part of the anti-racism strategy that came out earlier this year.

The Arab Canadian Lawyers Association has done extensive work on this, particularly in terms of consultation. Can you discuss whether you had any input into the anti-racism strategy, the document that came out before the summer? As well, why do you think the government refused to define anti-Palestinian racism in the anti-racism strategy itself?

[Dania Majid]

We were informed that there were consultations done with the Palestinian and Arab communities. However, we don't know who was consulted as part of the consultations around the Canadian anti-racism strategy. I am not aware of which groups or which individuals they spoke to. No one has come forward to say that they have actually met with the ministry. I have had discussions with the ministry to reinforce the importance of recognizing anti-Palestinian racism and to express what was happening to our community and our allies in our community, but that was not part of the formal consultation process.

What we find really puzzling, however, is that the anti-racism strategy recognizes in three instances that Palestinians have experienced an unprecedented level of hate in Canada. However, the strategy then does not go forward into recognizing anti-Palestinian racism as a distinct form of racism.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Dania Majid]

We have heard that a commitment has been made by the Prime Minister to define anti-Palestinian racism, but again, it's weird that they've made the commitment to define it when they haven't actually officially recognized it. We're looking for them to recognize it.

In terms of defining it, we've done global consultations in Canada, the U.S., Palestine and Europe around the definition we have put together. There is a broad consensus over the paragraph we came up with. Each one of those terms in there came out of those consultations. It is important that we recognize the manifestation of anti-Palestinian racism, including Nakba denial and the smearing of advocates as being anti-Semitic or as terrorist supporters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. We've gone over time again. Thank you.

We're going to a second round, and I'm going to ask people to please keep to the timelines on the second round.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order before we go to the second round.

I have two quick things. One is just to go back to Mr. Waugh's earlier note in respect of sending in written instructions. I believe that it would certainly be the view of the majority, if not all parties here, that we could do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I was going to ask about that, and then I would hear from the committee.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Okay, that's great.

The second thing that I was going to ask is this. Given that it is 5:51 p.m. and that this portion of the meeting was scheduled to end at 6:30, I'm curious how many rounds we have left so we can determine whether or not everyone wants their time, etc.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We've done only one round, Mr. Noormohamed. We have witnesses who've come here to answer questions and taken the time to do so, so I think we should try to at least go to a second round.

The meeting began at 4:38. If everyone is in agreement to cancel the final hour, then we will go until 6:38, if everyone is in agreement. I need to get consensus around the room. I see heads nodding, so we will go to 6:38. Monsieur Champoux is nodding yes and then shaking no at the same time, so I think he might have a crick in his neck.

I'm going to ask us to do one more round, but before we go there, because everyone is going to be running out of this room when we adjourn at 6:38, I just want to remind members to submit their recommendations for the order of reference for the CBC, because it is something that we must do. Today is the deadline, so you have up to today to send recommendations. I think you've passed your deadline, but it's important that you do that because this committee is going to be in contempt of Parliament if we don't get the work done that we worked on and promised to do. We created extra time on our committee meetings in order to do it. I just want you to know that today is your deadline. It passed at 5:30. I expect that somebody has deadlines in the mail, and it's going to come to the clerk after we leave this meeting, but I really expect you to comply. Thank you.

I want to go to one last thing just quickly, because, again, I know that once we adjourn, everybody's going to run out of here. We need to okay a budget. The budget is for the study of job cuts at CBC/Radio-Canada. We originally circulated the budget for the study. We've now had to put a bit more money into it, so we have a budget here, and the supplementary amount requested is $21,066.40.

Can I get an okay to pass that budget for us to move forward?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Everyone is obviously agreeing with it, so the budget is done, and I can sign it later. Thank you.

We now go to the second round. First is Mr. Jivani for five minutes.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to direct my questions to Mr. Pardy.

Mr. Pardy, I think what we've seen on display in some of the comments made today at this meeting is a certain logic that has informed the legislation that you've referenced: Bill C-11, Bill C-18 and Bill C-63. That logic seems to be people pointing to problems in society and suggesting that the expansion of the federal bureaucracy is somehow the necessary solution to those problems. They're not really making a case for the efficacy of that bureaucracy but are nonetheless saying that the bureaucracy must grow and that the Canadian taxpayer must pay for that growth.

I'd like for you to speak to your concerns related to the expansion of the federal bureaucracy. In particular, I'm referencing some of your writing on the growth of the administrative state.

[Bruce Pardy]

Thank you for that question. I agree with its premise 100%.

We have mangled the idea of rights, such as those in the Charter of Rights. They're supposed to be negative rights, meaning they are rights against government interference. If the government does not interfere with you, your rights are being observed. We have an idea in this country that there are rights we need the government's help to achieve, that we need the government to intervene in this and to impose on that. This group asks the government to make that group stop saying things about it, because it's not right. That's not the conception of rights we were supposed to have. The conception we're supposed to have is this: If the government leaves you alone, your rights are being observed. It's government intervening that is the problem. You can see that reflected in the comments and submissions here.

To your larger point, we have a government that has grown beyond its useful limits. The other day, I saw an estimate that said the public sector has grown to 40% of the economy of this country. That is not sustainable. That is one of the reasons this country is becoming poor. You need more people than that in the private sector to make it possible to have a government. We think that money grows on trees and that government is the solution to everything. We're in that trap so deep that we cannot see anything else. Whenever there's a problem, the only possible solution is more, not fewer, government programs, rules, taxes and structures. Sometimes—if not always, in this day and age—the solution is fewer, not more.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Anchoring this in our broader conversation about freedom of expression, how would you articulate to the average Canadian citizen why hearing people in Ottawa talk so cavalierly about expanding the footprint of the state may be a danger to their being free to articulate themselves, particularly when they might disagree with the government and want to be able to express those views?

[Bruce Pardy]

Well, we're approaching a society in which the government runs the show, period. It's happened to us slowly and insidiously. It's grown without actual revolution or anything. It's the way public authorities spread their influence. It happens over time. We have had an administrative state for many years, but it's now as big as it has ever been. By the way, the administrative state is not provided for in our Constitution. It's not prohibited, but it's not provided for.

Fundamental ideas like the separation of powers among the legislature, the executive and the courts have been practically put by the wayside. The bureaucracy now, more or less, runs the show. If you think you live in a free country, and the bureaucracy actually runs the show, you are mistaken. The greatest threat to our liberty now is the administrative state.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

There's a line you wrote in an article for the National Post that I'd like to ask you to elaborate on. You wrote, “We trusted that these institutions”—by “institutions”, you were referring, in part, to the administrative state—“would commit to their own restraint.... We have been tragically naïve.”

Can you comment on what “restraint” means in this context and, for the purpose of freedom of expression, why people need to be concerned about trusting the administrative state to be restrained in its use of power?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Jivani. I'm glad you came back to the topic at hand, because we were moving away from it.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

We have been talking about the topic at hand the entire time, actually.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'll ask the witness to stick to the topic at hand.

Thank you.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

We've been talking about the topic at hand. You're wrong. You're editorializing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Can you please go ahead and answer the question?

[Bruce Pardy]

The rule of law is an idea, and the idea is that the state is restrained in all kinds of ways, including the way it restrains our speech. The rule of law depends upon the people in charge believing in the idea. Now they don't believe the state should be restrained. Now they think the solution to everything is the state. When you have conflicts between people who disagree, they both want the state to intervene and make the other guy stop speaking. That's always the way—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We have gone a minute over the time, Mr. Jivani.

I'm going to go to the Liberals and Ms. Dhillon for five minutes, please.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you.

My first question is for Mr. Pardy. You appeared last week at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research and spouted talking points from the great replacement theory. This rhetoric has inspired attacks around the world and has been very dangerous.

How do you think such testimony on a largely debunked conspiracy theory is useful for freedom of expression?