Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 11th, 2024

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

What is that?

[Kristopher David Wells]

I believe that is the Conservative Party, which sits with the Conservative caucus.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Just to confirm, unelected Conservative senators sit in the Conservative caucus along with Conservative colleagues in this room.

[Kristopher David Wells]

I believe that to be the case.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I see.

Do you sit in any political caucuses with other parties in the House of Commons?

[Kristopher David Wells]

I do not. There are none.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Okay.

I think it's important for those who are watching this to understand that the only party that is actively engaged in partisan politics in the Senate with unelected senators is in fact the Conservative Party.

With that now on the record, Senator, you spoke about the importance of making sure that kids have the ability to feel safe in their communities and their schools. I've asked this of other witnesses, and I wonder if you might take a minute to answer.

A lot of folks on the right are triggered by the use of pronouns. I certainly don't give a damn what somebody's pronouns are. As long as I understand what they are, I'll use them. I don't particularly care one way or the other. Why do you think the right is so triggered by people's use of pronouns?

[Kristopher David Wells]

I think when people are triggered, it says more about themselves and their own beliefs than the individuals who just simply want to be respected for who they are and how they identify. It comes down to good Canadian values about common decency and respect for your neighbour and respect for your community.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

You're from Alberta. It's a province that prides itself in talking about freedom. Every time I've gone to Alberta, I've been struck by the incredibly kind, wonderful people I've had the chance to interact with, from all political stripes. They all are very keen on personal freedom. Why is it, then, that there are these right-wing elements that are so triggered or so opposed to the expression of personal freedoms by members of the LGBT community?

[Kristopher David Wells]

It's a great question.

You know, I was born and raised in Alberta. I chose to stay and work in Alberta and I'm proud to represent Albertans, including those from the 2SLGBTQ+ community who are proud Albertans, and all they want is to be respected and have the same rights, freedoms and privileges as anyone else in this country. It's very perplexing why it's freedom for me but not freedom for thee.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

That's an interesting point, this freedom for me but not for thee, and we've heard a lot of this.

The thing that I really wonder if you could spend a little bit of time on—I don't know how much time we have left, probably another minute or so—is exactly this question about the notion of freedom and the freedom of expression.

How do you reconcile this notion that Conservatives—small-c conservatives perhaps less so, but certainly big-C Conservatives—these days in your home province and perhaps other places have taken on some of the most vulnerable in our communities, young people who are dealing with identity issues and with sexual orientation issues?

Why do you think that is? Do you think it's because they're an easy target? It certainly doesn't align with the values of “love thy neighbour”, so why do you think that is?

[Kristopher David Wells]

I think we've seen, around the world in countries like Russia and in certain states in the United States where these people become political targets, that it distracts from the real, important issues to Canadians, like being able to afford food, worrying about housing or worrying about the kind of job that you're able to have or retain. These become distractions, unfortunately, that are aided and abetted by unregulated social media and algorithms that seek to divide Canadians, and when we're divided, we're at our most vulnerable to foreign interference and foreign governments and agents.

This is a clear strategy to sow dissent and to rip apart the very fabric of our democracy and the diversity, multiculturalism and pluralism that are the hallmarks of our country, which every Canadian should be proud that we have in this country.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Thank you, Senator Wells.

Mr. Noormohamed, your time is up.

Ms. Ashton, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

First of all, before I begin, I just want to clarify something.

As many have raised the issue of the Senate, I just want to put on the record, since this has clearly become an issue of discussion in our committee, that I'm proud of the NDP position that doesn't support an unelected Senate at all, and I think that would be a solution to most of our problems. If we're going to talk about strengthening democracy, there's a lot to focus on, and fighting for the Senate isn't one of those things.

Moving on to questions, Monsieur Marcoux, the point of what we're doing here is to come up with recommendations. There's been a fair bit of focus around legislation, but I want to get into one issue that we also raised in the discussion around online harms that we had a few months ago, and that is the issue of gender-based violence.

A lot of the talk around child exploitation really points to the very deep issues we face as a society with respect to gender-based violence. We know that gender-based violence is on the rise. We are seeing an epidemic of femicides across the country, and we know that for young women online, the online realm poses immense risk and danger.

I wonder if you could speak to how important it is to have a federally funded strategy to end gender-based violence, not just online but in general. To what extent do we need to take gender-based violence seriously as a way of also taking online harms and the online safety of our children seriously?

[Jacques Marcoux]

Thank you for your question.

I am going to stay in the online lane, if I may. That's really our area of expertise.

You're right: There is definitely a gender-based violence component to the online harm space. The majority of child sexual abuse material that we see is often young girls and women, and even young adults at times, with non-consensual intimate image distribution.

There has been a bit of a hiccup in that trend recently: Online sextortion has flipped that notion on its head, in that it's almost entirely boys, for a number of reasons. It is primarily because the motivation isn't sexually driven but financially driven. Boys are falling prey to these sexual conversations online, and then they're being extorted. That is a more recent nuance. Absolutely, this is a gender-based violence component.

It's also marginalized groups that tend to be overrepresented in online harm, so I think it's really important that we have these systems in place, these comprehensive approaches to tackling these issues before they become crimes or before there is harm that happens.

Multiple times over the last hour, I've echoed this notion of a systems approach whereby we anticipate harms. At this point, after 20 years of social media, it's pretty easy to anticipate harms. We know what the tactics are. We know where the harms are and where the pitfalls are. Now it's just a matter of ensuring that those who control these digital environments are actually acting on this information.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Martin Champoux]

Thank you, Mr. Marcoux.

Ms. Ashton, we've gone way over time, but I wanted to let Mr. Marcoux finish his answer.

Mr. Marcoux and Senator Wells, thank you very much for the insight you have shared with us today through your remarks and your answers to our questions, which aren't always easy to answer.

This was the last hour of our study on freedom of expression.

I want to take a moment to thank all my colleagues for being so kind and understanding with me. This study was very important to me, and I have to say you were all very collaborative. You helped me make sure that we were able to achieve our goal, which was to complete this study before the holiday break. I'm sincerely grateful to you all.

I also want to thank the entire team, the analysts, who will have another wonderful report to write over the holidays. What a nice way to spend Christmas.

I also want to thank our clerk, the always-indispensable Ms. Widmer.

I'm infinitely grateful to you.

If no one has anything else to add to the agenda, I move to adjourn the meeting.

Happy holidays.

The meeting is adjourned.