Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, all members of the committee, for inviting me to participate.
I will try not to take up too much of your time, other than just to preface my remarks by saying that I speak to you in two capacities—one as the chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and the other in a much more personal capacity as a child of a Holocaust survivor. My father was the sole survivor of his Polish town, the sole Jewish survivor out of 750 Jews. That means that his wife, his two children, his seven brothers and sisters, and all the Jews of Bothki, Poland, were murdered as a result of Nazi genocide.
The swastika, the crooked iron cross, is what we came to view as one of the most evil symbols in modern history. We address today the need to understand the importance of these symbols. I do so as a child of the kingdom of death. I had no paternal family whatsoever, and that one particular symbol is a symbol that drove evil, drove murder and drove genocide.
Such symbols, whether they are the Nazi swastika or the KKK emblem, such as the blood drop or the Confederate flag, are unmistakable symbols of hate that show support for genocide and slavery or grossly minimize their violence.
Canada already has laws against the promotion of genocide—section 318 of the Criminal Code—certainly disallowing and making hateful comments illegal, as well as the wilful promotion of hatred under section 319.
In our opinion, hate symbols already contravene these laws because of what they represent and communicate, but law enforcement needs this spelled out for them, so let's spell it out for them.
Any legislation that we decide, or that you decide here, needs to be very explicit and tight around the following issues. Only symbols that target identifiable groups should be eligible to be banned, in order to prevent the legislation from being “webinized” against people and groups who advocate against an inclusive, equitable democracy and society. Identifiable groups have been spelled out in the Criminal Code. They're identifiable groups by race, creed, colour, nationality or sexual orientation.
There must be exceptions for good faith educational use, as well as for opposition to the banned symbols. For example, you don't want to ban books like Maus, which is an excellent source for understanding the Holocaust, or crossed-out swastikas, where we're saying “no swastikas”. We have to be careful about that as well.
This will be a very carefully thought out law.
In the end I want us to consider the victims, consider those who have survived great genocides, great mass murders and slavery. Consider how they feel when they see the symbols that in fact targeted them in the first place.
This is our time. Hatred has really engulfed much of the world. We've seen it here in Canada. We've gone from hateful words to hateful symbols to actual assaults and murder. It's time for us to take a stand. It's time for legislators to take a stand and it's time for us to tell police authorities that these symbols are symbols of hate and they have to act upon them.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I will be happy to answer any questions at the end of this session.