Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 11th, 2024

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Mr. Kurek, there are quite a few points of order.

Mr. Noormohamed, you're first, then it will be Dr. Fry's turn.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Chair, someone has clearly decided to turn this into theatre of the absurd. We're here to talk about a serious issue.

It is not acceptable for one committee member to speak on another's behalf, let alone to misrepresent them. Simply put, he can't put words in her mouth. That is not how we generally do things at this committee.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Mr. Kurek, I would ask you to keep your questions relevant to our study, which is on freedom of expression.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate—

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Excuse me, Mr. Kurek, but Dr. Fry has a point of order as well.

Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

My question of privilege is that the honourable member has attributed things to me that I never said. I would like him to apologize for putting words in my mouth and misrepresenting my statements.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Mr. Kurek, you've heard Dr. Fry's request. Do—

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

Thank you.

On the point of order, Mr. Chair, Dr. Fry said this was not related to this ongoing study on freedom of expression. I would submit to you, Mr. Chair, with all due respect, that the ability of Albertans to express their democratic will by electing senators is absolutely in line with freedom of expression and the assured ability that specifically Albertans have to exercise that freedom of expression.

If she didn't mean that, then I am happy to retract it, but her suggesting that this is somehow not relevant to the study, I would suggest, emphasizes the exact point I was making.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to respond [Inaudible—Editor]—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Dr. Fry, please wait until I recognize you. Thank you.

Dr. Fry, you have the floor.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

On a question of privilege, Mr. Chair, the ability to interpret what someone said despite the fact that I never used the language the member attributed to me is really unfair. It's totally the kind of thing we've come to expect from the Conservative Party. They actually misrepresent what people say. They treat others with total disrespect—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Dr. Fry, I think we're getting into debate. I'm going to call everybody to order.

Mr. Kurek clearly said that if he misinterpreted what you said, he would withdraw what he said.

If you don't mind, we'll go back to Mr. Kurek.

Mr. Kurek, I will remind you, though, to stick to the topic of the study and Senator Wells's testimony, his speech and his remarks.

You have about four minutes left.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wells was asked to appear here not simply as an expert in his previous field of work but as a senator, so it directly relates to relevance and highlights the fake appointment process and the fake reforms that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has brought forward to the Senate. They truly are not only fake in terms of what they were said to accomplish, but directly relate to taking away the ability of Albertans to express themselves freely and to have their representatives do the work that Albertans expect them to do in our Senate.

Mr. Chair, I will cede my time to Mr. Jivani.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Mr. Jivani, you have the floor for three minutes.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to direct some questions to Mr. Marcoux.

First off, Mr. Marcoux, are you familiar with Bill C-412, which is being considered in relation to a lot of the issues that you raised in your opening statement today?

[Jacques Marcoux]

Yes, I am.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Certainly I think a lot of the issues you raised, sir, are concerns shared by many of us.

One of the points of debate between Bill C-63 and Bill C-412 is whether the existing laws and frameworks in our country can be updated and strengthened to respond to your concerns. This is a primary objective of Bill C-412, compared to Bill C-63, which is focused largely on building a $200-million bureaucracy and asking the Canadian public to trust that bureaucracy to accomplish the objectives that I believe you are sincerely interested in.

I'm wondering if you could comment on whether you believe Bill C-412 is an adequate response to many of your concerns, and, if not, why you would prefer Bill C-63's highly bureaucratic, longer-term response to issues that people are looking for urgent action on.

[Jacques Marcoux]

Thanks for the question.

We've been calling for government regulation in the social media and tech space for years. When we look at the landscape of what other countries are doing, certainly we can pick and choose components of what's going on in Australia, the U.K., the EU and the U.S. and cobble together what we think would be an ideal piece of legislation. There are also components within Bill C-412 that are very interesting.

The thing, though—and I addressed this in my opening remarks—is that there's a perception that we have the required laws on the books currently. Oftentimes, people will point to the Criminal Code and say that a lot of these things are illegal, but what we see when we deal with kids is that a lot of the harm doesn't necessarily reach a criminal threshold. Even if it did, our strategy can't be to wait until the crime has occurred and then try to respond. I think, ideally—and this is how we treat a lot of areas in Canadian society—we should anticipate what those harms are at the system level and try to get ahead of them so that they don't happen in the first place—

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Marcoux, we're low on time, and I do hope you'll get to continue your thoughts in future questions.

What I would just leave you with, though, is I still think that the current Liberal government and the supporters of Bill C-63 have yet to make a convincing argument to the majority of the public that a $200-million bureaucracy is the appropriate response to your concerns. I think that's a challenge we put forward to them, and they regularly continue to fail to meet it.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Thank you, Mr. Jivani.

We will now go to the Liberal Party and a regular member of the committee.

Dr. Fry, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair, and welcome to the chair, Mr. Champoux.

I want to thank the witnesses for coming and I would like to thank them for taking the time to discuss the broad framework of freedom of expression, which is more than freedom of speech.

My last colleague asked a question about Bill C-63, and I want to go back to that question in a way that says I know the Conservatives do not approve of Bill C-63. They call it a “$200 million censorship bureaucracy", but the bottom line is that the Criminal Code changes are not enough to stop this kind of online harm. We know, in fact, that taking down the harmful content, which can stay online for years afterwards, is something the Conservatives also oppose and disapprove of.

Can you elaborate on why it's necessary to do more than the Criminal Code and why it is necessary to remove offensive content online, as Bill C-63 proposes to do?

[Jacques Marcoux]

The space that we work in is a challenging one, in that a lot of the content we look at is fundamentally illegal, or the spaces we go looking for it are perhaps illegal for others to research. There's actually quite a narrow group of people in the world who have done a deep dive into these spaces and have a really good understanding of what's happening. I think that if average Canadians—or any Canadians, for that matter—were to wrap their heads around the things that we see and the way that online spaces are weaponized against kids, it would be incredibly shocking, and it would set off alarm bells for just about everyone.

I keep circling back to this notion of lawful but harmful, and this is a really sticky, murky and challenging space for us. When we issue takedown notices for content that is unambiguously illegal, like child sexual abuse, we get pretty good compliance from major service providers. We get really bad compliance, sometimes, from service providers located in eastern Europe or somewhere in eastern Asia.

With the harmful and abusive content that we call “lawful but awful”, there is a lot of push-back, so you can't necessarily go to a police officer and say, “This happened to me,” because the content itself doesn't necessarily rise to the mandate of a police officer or even the justice system, so you need other mechanisms in place.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Marcoux.

I have very little time to ask my questions, so I'm trying to get another one in. This question is for Senator Wells.

Senator, I think we are well aware that governments are trying to prevent the freedom of expression of LGBTQ people, especially transvestites and trans persons, to use their pronouns and present themselves as they truly are.

What kind of harm happens to LGBTQ communities, drag queens and trans children especially, when they are forbidden from expressing themselves? What are the physical and psychological harms that occur to them?

[Kristopher David Wells]

Thank you for the question. I'm glad we have an opportunity to talk about the harms directed towards the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

We can talk about the impacts of mental health distress but also what it fundamentally means to be denied the right to identity and bodily autonomy. Impacts often turn to negative coping mechanisms. We know we have increased rates of depression and anxiety and negative coping mechanisms like turning to drugs and alcohol, and increased suicidal ideation as well.

We know, for example, that gender affirmation, whether that happens at home, in your faith community, at school or through the health care system, helps to improve mental health and well-being and makes you feel part of the community around you.