Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 4th, 2024

[Bruce Pardy]

That's the answer. Repeal the bills.

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

I don't think I have time to get another—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Okay, that's good. Thank you.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Chair, if I can, I think it's been agreed among the parties, at least here, that we cut short today's meeting. I know that, of the six groups that have appeared here today, we have two or three that have to go very shortly. I'm just flagging it for you, the analysts and the clerk.

As far as the CBC is concerned, we're fine just submitting an email to you on the plans on the CBC.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Do you mean the CBC report?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We have a very tight timeline to report back to the House. I want to remind the committee that if we do not report back to the House by the deadline, this committee is in violation of the motion and we are in contempt of Parliament. I'm just reminding you of that. Thank you.

As people know—I have pointed it out—Ms. Hunter, Ms. Off and Ms. Shephard are leaving soon. If you wish to ask them questions, you can please direct those to them now and ask the others later.

The next person is Patricia Lattanzio for six minutes, please.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for the witness who has to leave us soonest.

Ms. Hunter, your organization is a national leader when it comes to advocating for gender equality and justice. Can you elaborate on the ways in which these issues interact with and are impacted by the laws surrounding freedom of expression in Canada?

[Mitzie Hunter]

Thank you so much for the question.

I believe that our conversation today is important, because we have to think about the people who are impacted by what is being expressed. As I illustrated in my opening remarks, if we look at the online space, it currently does not have those safeguards in place in the same way as public spaces in the physical realm. What we're seeing is a lot of people being harmed. We've been doing research, and we're happy to provide that to the committee if it is useful.

We want to challenge those harms. We see self-censorship of people, particularly women, gender-diverse people and people with intersectionalities, because of the level of hate they are experiencing. They no longer want to be in those environments. That limits their choices and opportunities.

I'm a former politician. I have to declare that. I've seen those environments where women have experienced undue hate. It comes in the form of verbal bullying of them and their staff. Many have decided that this is not an environment they want to be a part of, which limits the gender lens that is so important when we think of policy, government and politics.

My message to the committee as it makes its deliberations is to consider those who are being impacted. We want our environments, whether online or physical, to be safe for everyone.

Thank you.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Hunter.

I thank you for sharing the fact that you were a former politician. Can you share a bit more of your particular and personal insights from your own perspective on the role of government and what it can do to protect freedom of expression in this country?

At the same time, I invite you to speak about psychological violence.

[Mitzie Hunter]

I don't think we can expect that governments are going to know everything and have all the answers at all times. What governments can do, which we're doing today, is convene. We can bring in those who have that knowledge, technical expertise and lived experiences. They can really inform policies that the government has to be accountable for legislating.

Governments have a very profound obligation to listen to groups and individuals who may be the most impacted and who may not feel that they can come into these environments. Consultation and having their voices heard are very important. In our work, we talk to people who are excluded, feel marginalized and are concerned about their ability to be safe, whether online or in public spaces.

You talk about psychological safety. One of the aspects is young people and children. There are obligations to.... Bill C-63 actually goes quite far in protecting those vulnerable groups that need protection online. We see rates of suicide, for instance, among young people increasing.

It is our responsibility to protect all people and ensure that all spaces are safe for all people.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

In your opinion, Ms. Hunter, what do you see as the biggest threats to progress for gender equality and justice? How do you see the freedom of expression playing a role in tackling these obstacles?

[Mitzie Hunter]

The biggest threat I see for gender justice is not feeling safe even to talk about the harms. We have to push against that in society in Canada. We know that we still have a gender divide. We're doing work right now just on even very simple things, like how safe women feel in the streets when walking. There's a mental load that women carry because they feel less safe. They have to take greater precautions to protect themselves.

I think it's something that we have to recognize as a challenge and continue to think of through a gendered lens: to think about how this would impact and affect women, girls and gender-diverse people and make that a consideration. When we have a neutral way of looking at things or of looking at things as if everybody is going to experience it in the same way, it's sometimes not the case. Intersectionality matters. For Black women, Muslim women and people who have different vulnerabilities and risks, how do they experience what we're putting forward in terms of laws and legislation?

That's one of the aspects that a couple of our presenters and I talked about. We do have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which looks at those minority and individual rights in making sure that we safeguard those in this country—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Lattanzio. We have gone over the time.

We will now go to Monsieur Champoux from the Bloc Québécois.

Martin, you have six minutes, please.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.

Professor Potvin, Professor Gaudreault‑DesBiens and Professor Lefebvre, we are pleased to have you here.

I think you were a major piece of the puzzle we are dealing with in our study on freedom of expression. I'm very pleased that you agreed to join us.

Mrs. Lefebvre, in your opening remarks earlier, you stated that you support the bill to repeal section 319 and remove the religious exemption.

I'm very happy to hear that, Mrs. Lefebvre. I think there is a general consensus on that in Quebec society.

Today, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I tried to move a motion for the unanimous consent of the parties in the House of Commons.

I would like to read it to you, and I would like your comments on it. The motion reads as follows:

That the House affirm that no hate speech is tolerated in Canada; That it deplore the religious exemption provided for in paragraphs 319(3)(b) and 319(3.1)(b) of the Criminal Code on hate speech; That it deplore the fact that the religious exemption provides a legal shield for radical extremists to encourage hatred and intolerance towards ethnic or religious groups or to disseminate racist, misogynistic or homophobic speech; That the House support the urgent need to repeal paragraphs 319(3)(b) and 319(3.1)(b) of the Criminal Code in order to ensure the full application of legal protections against hate speech to all citizens of Quebec and Canada, as provided for in Bill C‑373, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (promotion of hatred or antisemitism).

Do you think the motion is reasonable? Parties in the House opposed it and even prevented me from reading it today.

I'd like your opinion on that.

[Solange Lefebvre]

I'm reading it now. It's a bit hard for me to comment on the details. My colleague Jean‑François Gaudreault‑DesBiens can say a few words about that.

In our view, it is clear that the paragraph must be repealed for three reasons.

First, in a country like Canada, we find it very problematic to justify a demonstrable incitement to hatred based on a religious opinion. A privilege cannot be conferred on religious speech.

Second, an opinion on a religious subject is very vague from a legal standpoint. It can also open the door to all kinds of things, even inciting hatred in a liturgical context, during worship or prayer. I don't see how that can be justified in Canada.

Third, and most importantly, a public prosecutor who considers bringing charges under Section 319 of the Criminal Code already assumes a very heavy burden of proof. Speech that meets the criteria of “extreme detestation” is rare. That is because hate needs to be very rigorously demonstrated and based on case law. For a few years now, paragraph 319(3)(b) on religious texts seems to us to have had an additional chilling effect on the possibility of laying hate propaganda charges.

In our recommendation, we said that paragraph 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code should be repealed and that elected officials who vote against the request should justify their opposition. They would have to state what their oppositions and fears are in this regard, but I would be very surprised.

I don't know what Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens thinks.

[Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens]

I agree with my colleague Solange Lefebvre.

Obviously, we start from the premise that the Parliament of Canada decided a long time ago to criminalize hate propaganda. Based on that fundamental intent, why confer special status on speech that would be hateful if it were not based on a religious text? Why do religious people get a free pass? In my opinion, it undermines the very idea of hate propaganda.

In exercising its parliamentary sovereignty, the Parliament of Canada could obviously decide to repeal the criminalization of hate propaganda. In the United States, hate propaganda is more or less allowed. That is a choice Parliament can make. To the extent that Canada has decided to penalize hate propaganda, it needs to be consistent. Let's not find a loophole that privileges one type of speech over another if it is otherwise hateful.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I could listen to you talk about this for hours. I think we would have some very interesting conversations. Unfortunately, my time is quite limited.

I'm not talking about societal changes, which are incredibly beneficial to everyone. However, do demographic changes and the arrival of newcomers mean that we have to look at these acts and paragraphs in a different way, with openness toward other people?

These paragraphs may have been justified or justifiable a long time ago, in another societal model. Might we not need to rethink the way we draft this type of legislation?

[Solange Lefebvre]

I don't know if I would connect it to new demographics, but we're very puzzled by the existence of the paragraph itself, which would protect a religious opinion that might lead to a strong incitement to hatred against an identifiable group.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

We've seen that.

[Solange Lefebvre]

I don't think it has ever been justified, regardless of demographics.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

No, but it was still used as a defence in a number of cases, for example in cases where Catholic priests were prosecuted because of comments they had made about the gay community. We've also seen that recently. A Montreal preacher called Charkaoui made some extremely violent remarks. Quebec's director of criminal and penal prosecutions didn't even see fit to lay charges, and presumably that's why.

Mr. Gaudreault‑DesBiens, do you have anything to add?

[Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens]

I would like to add a variable. An interpretation based on a religious text has to be put it in the context of freedom of religion. In Canada, freedom of religion is understood as requiring the demonstration of sincere belief. That's the fundamental test. It's not the legitimacy of a belief or an interpretation of a particular religious text in light of some religious tradition. It's really the sincere and subjective belief of the individual who is making the speech.

In my opinion, the issue of demographics doesn't matter when there are a multitude of possible interpretations of religious texts and the most fundamental criterion is sincerity. It can certainly give rise to what we call in our brief a “black hole”, which will allow all kinds of speech, as long as it is believed to be based on a religious text. That provides a loophole for promoting hatred, until the Parliament of Canada decides to change its position.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. We have gone a full minute over time on this one.

Now I'll go to Ms. Ashton.

Niki, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I'll be asking questions of Ms. Majid.

First of all, I want to thank you very much for joining us here today. You bring a critical perspective to this study. I also want to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association around the issue of freedom of expression, particularly your work on anti-Palestinian racism.

We know that a number of Palestinians and supporters have decried what they refer to—and what you refer to in your presentation—as the “Palestine exception” to free speech. If we're talking about freedom of expression, we need to be looking at where its limits exist and why. The Palestine exception to free speech describes a dynamic whereby advocacy in defence of the basic humanity of Palestinians is uniquely policed, suppressed and censored.

Can you describe in detail this phenomenon, and why you think so few are willing to take this on?