Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 5th, 2023

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I will note with some irony that yesterday at another filibuster the Conservatives were provoking, this time at the public safety committee, they took exactly the opposite interpretation from what Conservatives are saying this morning.

They were arguing yesterday, as you correctly interpreted, Madam Chair, that the motion from the previous meeting continued on in that meeting. We have Conservatives now saying different things at different committees, all trying to push their causes. It's unfortunate. I have a lot of respect for Mrs. Thomas, but she knows full well that what she was doing in challenging the chair was not appropriate, given the Standing Orders. The Conservatives yesterday were actually correct that the motion continued on.

I want to speak to Mr. Champoux's motion. I know it comes from a place of genuine sincerity, but I do have concerns when we take away the palpitating, current issue of hate speech and how that has impacted Canadians across the country, and simply refer to “freedom of expression”.

We have seen far-right groups.... They took over downtown Ottawa just about a year and a half ago. We saw the impact they had in provoking misery in the lives of Ottawa citizens. They were cutting off seniors from getting medication that was absolutely vital. People with disabilities didn't get grocery deliveries anymore. It was profoundly disturbing to them. Families couldn't sleep for weeks on end. Thousands of businesses had to close.

Those extremists.... As we recall with horror, the Nazi flag and the Confederate flag were flown on Parliament Hill. In fact, the Nazi flag was flown just a few metres from the Hall of Honour, where my uncle, my grandfather and so many other Canadians who fought Nazism and fascism were figured.

We talk about freedom of expression, which we have in this country. The Toronto Sun can publish whatever scurrilous allegations it wants about any political figure. They don't have to be covered with any sort of journalistic integrity. They are heavily financed, of course, by taxpayers, but they are free to publish whatever they want. We see this on a constant basis. We see freedom of expression playing out.

The problem is hate speech. We have seen the reality of the increase in hate speech in Canadians' lives. We have seen the impact of the appalling homophobia and transphobia that exists in some Conservative provincial governments. Thankfully, this week, Manitobans rejected the racism and the homophobia of that Conservative provincial government and threw them out of office, but we're seeing this disturbing underpinning of hate speech right across the country.

I understand Mr. Champoux's intent. His intent is to have a discussion around the freedom of speech that we all enjoy as Canadians. I think we need to examine to what extent hate speech is having an impact on freedom of expression. To what extent is the deliberate fomenting of hate towards certain Canadians—racialized Canadians, indigenous Canadians, members of the LGBTQ2S community—diminishing the quality of life of those individuals? The prevalence of hate speech has real-world impacts as we learned from the Centre culturel islamique de Québec, as we learned in London, Ontario, and as we have learned in acts of hateful violence across the country.

I'm not prepared to support the motion at this time. I'm sure there will be a dialogue and other members of this committee will speak. I think it's absolutely legitimate to have that discussion around the freedom of expression that we all enjoy as Canadians, which is to the extent that any other country in the world would envy our freedom of speech.

The problem isn't there. The problem is the increase in hate speech, which is often fomented from abroad. We see American billionaires pressing hate speech every day. We see dictatorships like the Putin regime, dictatorships that are imposing their will by deliberately creating social media accounts to provoke and amplify hate and disinformation across Canada and that are often pretending to be Canadians with Canadian accounts. This is a matter of real and pressing concern.

To what extent Mr. Champoux is prepared to entertain a discussion and entertain amendments so that we can, as the Canadian heritage committee, rightfully tackle the massive increase in hate speech and real-world violence that comes from that hate and disinformation, ensure that we continue to have the remarkable degree of freedom of speech that we have and ensure that Canadians are not bullied, are not subject to hate, are not subject to hateful violence and are not subject to the appalling extremism of the far right.... That's something that I think needs to be incorporated in some way into the motion.

If the vote comes up today, I will be voting against, but I think we do have time off-line in the coming week and a half to hopefully temper and incorporate those elements of the impact of hate speech on so many Canadians and, in that way, get a stronger motion and hopefully a stronger study.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is the first time I'm speaking at this committee. I'm happy to be here. It's already proving to be a very interesting place.

It's good to see my friend Peter again. We had some good times at the public safety committee. This clearly is very much in the same vein.

Look, as Mr. Julian said, the motion by Mr. Champoux is something that we all think carefully about in terms of freedom of speech and how we ensure that we maintain that privilege in this country. To speak very personally, as a Muslim it's been a tough few weeks for a couple of reasons. One is that I represent a riding with a large Jewish community and a large Muslim community. The rise of anti-Semitic tropes, comments and commentary and anti-Muslim commentary, online and in person, has been really ramping up. At the same time, I saw members of my community participate in what I considered to be some pretty awful expressions of freedom of speech over the course of the last couple of weeks.

When we think about the context of freedom of speech and how hate speech factors into this, as Mr. Julian has rightly raised, I really do ask the question and wonder if we could think about this differently over the course of the next bit of time and have a real conversation about what freedom of speech really means in this country. What does this idea of hate speech mean? How do we situate ourselves in a place where people have the right to speak freely but also understand that there are implications to those comments when those comments are untrue or hateful or designed to cause harm to others?

I ordinarily would say, yes, absolutely, let's have a conversation about how we preserve this, but what it looks like today and what we are preserving I think is certainly worthy of a conversation. How do we ensure that there are guardrails around the consequences of what we say?

I would have a hard time supporting the motion as it stands today, but I do think that, over the course of the next however much time, perhaps we can find a way to move this into a conversation that allows us to remember and to confirm Canadians' rights to freedom of speech but also their right to live in safety and freedom without having to worry about the consequences of the freedom of speech of others to their own personal safety.

I will leave it there and offer that, while I don't know that I would support the motion in its current form, if we are open to having a discussion about what it might look like and how we might shape this into something different that achieves, hopefully, similar goals to what Mr. Champoux would like, then that's something that I would certainly consider supporting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Coteau.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much.

I agree with my colleague that this is an issue that needs to be examined, but I think there are some specifics that we need to look into. For instance, what is the difference between freedom of speech and freedom of expression? I agree with Mr. Julian that you can't speak to one side of the issue without looking at hate in this country. Often we've seen examples of where people can say some pretty hateful things and at the same time use the defence of freedom of expression or freedom of speech to protect what they said.

Again, the intent, I think, is very good, but I would like to look for a way to perhaps rethink the motion so that it reflects some of the things we've heard from previous speakers.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I like the intent behind this motion as well.

I know that last time Mr. Champoux explained to us a little bit more about why he brought this motion and the intent. I feel it's a little too broad the way it is. My colleagues have suggested it might lead us down a path that isn't necessarily helpful for Canadians.

If we can amend this and get to a place where we're all comfortable, I think you would have support for this motion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Lisa.

Marilyn Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to speak in favour of Mr. Champoux's motion, because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives us freedom of thought, expression, opinion and belief. I see in the country an erosion of that right.

Taleeb was talking about what he's seeing in his riding, and certainly there have been comments made that were offensive to Jewish people and to Muslim people. There have also been comments made that are offensive to Christian people, and there have been comments made that are offensive to the LGBTQ and trans communities. There have been offensive comments.

I think we need to be careful and understand the difference between hate speech, which is defined in the Criminal Code as something that would be reasonably expected to incite violence, and offensive speech—somebody who has an opinion that you don't agree with. I certainly find the extreme left opinions very offensive, but it is their right to express them and we've certainly seen violence on that side as well.

I know Mr. Julian loves to talk about the extreme right, but I would say the extreme right and the extreme left are demonstrating similar behaviours. As Canadians, we want people to express their opinions and views in a respectful way without violence.

I think there's value in this study, because I think something needs to be done to the legislation to take the threshold of hate speech from today, where nobody can really bring a suit on it, to an understanding of what commonly we agree shouldn't be said because it's harmful to communities or whatever. It's a lesser crime, if you will, but we still want to send the message that it shouldn't happen.

I think within this study there is the ability to do that. With the censorship that we've seen increasingly with bills like C-11, and even C-18, people are concerned about the censoring of their freedom of expression, thought, opinion and belief.

I support this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Marilyn.

Go ahead, Peter Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First of all, I find that Mr. Champoux always plays an important role on the committee.

He raises an important issue, but, in my opinion, he misses an extremely important aspect, which is the violence of the extreme right and its repercussions in Quebec and throughout Canada. We need only think of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City, the hate speech against the LGBTQ community, whether in Montreal or Western Canada, or the attack in London, Ontario. I think it's extremely important to talk about hate speech as a whole. The freedom of expression we have in Canada is unparalleled in the world. Freedom of expression is not constrained, except by Web giants like Meta, which has censored opinions at the request of regimes like Putin's in Russia and Modi's in India.

So, censorship exists, but not against hate speech. Meta always says it doesn't have the means to prevent Islamophobic or anti-Semitic speech and hate speech towards the LGBTQ community, but when a dictatorship demands that certain things be censored, as we saw in the case of the murder of Mr. Nijjar, in Surrey, a few miles from where I live, they are censored.

However, the Conservatives don't say a word. They don't say it's unacceptable. When Meta limits free speech, Conservatives don't say a word.

So it's important to discuss all of these issues. I don't think we'll be able to resolve this today, but fortunately, we'll soon be in our ridings for a week and a half, since it will be Thanksgiving, so we'll be able to discuss it and come back here to adopt a motion that will satisfy the majority of committee members.

For now, Madam Chair, I think it's important to have these discussions. Even if we don't have time to reach an agreement today, we can come back to it later.

I have a lot of respect for Ms. Gladu. I want to follow up by saying that violence is unacceptable to any degree. I completely agree with her. The difference is that the extreme right, as we have seen repeatedly in North America, is the cause of over 90% of the violence and acts of hate taking place.

This is something that I think my Conservative colleagues need to understand and speak out against. The rise of the extreme right, the attacks against various communities that are promoted by right-wing dictators and extremist American billionaires, this is something that is a real and present danger to our democracy, freedom of speech and a wide variety of communities and Canadians across this country. When all the violence comes from the extreme right, at 90% levels, we have a duty to denounce it.

Madam Speaker, I would hope my Conservative colleagues are denouncing that violence from the extreme right. It's well documented. There are myriad research tools they can use to document the rise of the far right and the violence that takes place. I would hope they are reflective of that and denounce violence in all of its forms, as I certainly do as well. Wherever that violence comes from, we denounce it.

The real and present danger to our democracy is far-right extremism.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Mr. Julian.

I have Mr. Shields, Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Noormohamed. Then I think I'm going to allow Martin Champoux to respond to some of the questions and concerns in regard to his motion. I'm a little befuddled by the term “expression”. “Expression” could mean the way you dress and present yourself. It's not only with regard to speech.

You can clarify that, Martin, in a minute.

I'm going to go with Mr. Shields, Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Noormohamed.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's interesting that you say “expression”.

Being an old guy, I remember how in grade 12 I would have been kicked out of school if I didn't shave and if my hair touched my collar. When you talk about freedom of expression, I would have been denied an education if I didn't shave or cut my hair. Not too long before that, girls weren't allowed to wear pants in school as an expression.

You're very right, Madam Chair, that expression can come in very different ways. Sometimes we forget history in the sense of what rules we can effect for expression.

It's World Teachers' Day. I am a former high school teacher and university instructor, and one of the challenges I always presented to students was expressing opinions, and a wide range of opinions, to get students at secondary and public school and university to feel free enough to express whatever opinions they would like in a setting in which they should be free to do that.

I was in university in the States in the riot and revolution times in the late 1960s when universities got burned down and cities got burned down. I was in those places. I was in Detroit when it burned. I was at San Francisco State University when it burned.

If you haven't lived where violence becomes extreme, then be careful what you're saying about what you know. Freedom of expression is critical. It needs to be respected, but when people feel they are living in a society where they can't express their opinions, then we have moved in the wrong direction. We all understand legally why you can't yell “fire” in a theatre. We know that in a public space. Anyone who has been through legal training knows what freedom of speech is allowed and not allowed, whether you're sued for libel or whether you're disrupting the peace.

Freedom of expression is critical in a democracy. My youngest grandchild is taking political science in university. We've corresponded a lot in the last month about questions she has asked. She asked about democracy in her last assignment.

I said that we, as a representative democracy, try to represent our people in our constituencies. Our constituencies are varied. The city I live in is a small one, but per population it is the most ethnically diverse one in Canada. That's for economic reasons: The largest meat-packing plant in Canada is right beside my community. We have over 100 different nations represented in our community. It's a very lively, very culturally diverse community, and that is really a good thing.

There is freedom of speech on our city council, on our school board. We have different races on our school board and on our councils representing our community. Freedom of speech is critical to that happening.

When I see things like Bill C-11 and when I see things like the announcement this week, those things bother me because that's the kind of thing I encouraged in a university classroom, the kind of thing I encouraged in high school classrooms, to get young people to think, to express their opinions and to be varied in their opinions.

Sure—do research. Attempt to do all the research you can and find it, but there were over 100 Christian churches burned in the last couple of years in Canada. There were well over that. It's been well documented. I'm not saying it's something concerning my religion or background, but you have to make sure you're talking about both sides of the issues.

This is a place where we need to express our opinions in this setting. If we're a representative democracy we can express a variety of opinions, as my friend Mr. Julian does, I do and several others on the committee have done for years. We need to do that in these committees. This is what freedom of speech is about. We're a representative democracy. We need to protect freedom of speech and protect it at all ends.

I've seen situations in which it has not been protected. Those are pretty brutal and they destroy our society. We need to protect freedom of speech.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Shields.

I'm going to go to Mr. Noormohamed and then to Martin Champoux.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have just a couple of quick things.

We've heard a lot today about the risk of the loss of freedom of speech. Mr. Shields has made some very powerful comments around this, yet look at our own recent history in the last few years in this country.

The Black Lives Matter protests were allowed to occur across this country. The occupation of Ottawa and the remarkable and profound disturbance, noise and impact on the quality of life of citizens in this country was left unchecked for weeks. Folks who protest climate change are allowed to do so in freedom without the police attacking them. There are marches against the LGBTQ community, which I personally find remarkably abhorrent, but they are allowed to occur across this country with freedom.

I have been part of sit-ins. I walked and marched in one of the first Black Lives Matter protests in New York City when I was working there. I've seen the privilege of freedom of speech, but I have also seen the consequences of freedom of expression on people's lives.

The social contract that I would argue we have in this country is that we have to ask ourselves what the consequences are to others of the things we are saying and doing. We may not go up to somebody and punch them in the face, but the words we use can have a profound impact, particularly on young people and vulnerable people. We have an obligation to ask ourselves, as all of us come from different faith traditions, whether our faith traditions allow us to behave in these ways. These are personal questions. Whether you're Muslim, Jewish or Christian, “love thy neighbour” is an important concept. The idea that we think about the well-being of others—these are important concepts.

No one should have to worry about their church, mosque, gurdwara or synagogue being burnt down or attacked. It is unacceptable. I agree with you that it is absolutely unacceptable for any place or worship or any place of gathering to be attacked or burnt down. However, the idea that we should put ourselves in a place where that is left unchecked is something that does cause me a tremendous amount of concern.

With respect to C-11, I'm sure we will have lots of conversations about this. My goodness, though, as somebody who worked in tech for over a decade, I don't understand why we would have a problem with companies that are making $10 million in this country telling us where their headquarters are. I don't see that as being censorship at all. I see that as being responsible corporate citizenry, but we'll leave that where it is.

We are in a place now where we have this motion that Monsieur Champoux has put together. What I'd really love to know from Monsieur Champoux is what he would be open to in terms of changes to this. What would be some of the things he might be willing to look at or be open to in terms of change and in terms of areas where he might put some sort of parameters around this?

In particular, with the expression “the means the Government should have at its disposal to ensure its exercise”, how does he see that playing out? There's a government of one stripe, and there may be a government of a different stripe in a decade. Different interpretations of that might mean different things to different people. I was wondering if he might share with us how he sees that shaping up.

Perhaps that's a good segue into his time at the microphone.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Julian put his hand up.

Peter, are you going to speak again? I know Martin has been very patient. He wants to answer the questions. Can you please give a short intervention?

Thank you, Peter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Absolutely.

I want to cite...because I believe.... I have enormous respect for Ms. Gladu. She seemed to pooh-pooh the 90% figure I mentioned earlier.

The Anti-Defamation League published its report earlier this year, in February. Here is the headline:

Right-wing extremists committed every ideologically driven mass killing identified in the U.S. in 2022, with an “unusually high” proportion perpetrated by white supremacists, according to a new report published [by the Anti-Defamation League last] Thursday.

This is dated February 23, 2023—this year:

The number of mass killings linked to extremism in the U.S. in the past decade was at least three times higher than any decade since the 1970s, per the report.

I flagged 90%. However, in terms of ideologically driven mass killings, the Anti-Defamation League identifies 100% of the killings taking place in 2022 in the United States—including attacks against the Jewish community, the Muslim community and the LGBTQ community—as being committed by far-right terrorists.

This is not a childish game. This is not something that should give pause or...is a matter of freedom of expression. This is a real and present danger to the lives of so many minority communities and to our democracy. I would hope that all colleagues around this table understand the enormity when the Anti-Defamation League tells us every single ideologically driven mass killing in 2022 was committed by far-right extremists, and that we take it seriously and understand the degree to which hate speech and hate-driven agendas are having an influence on the safety of so many of our citizens.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Martin, thank you for your patience.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

My pleasure, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Before you begin, Mr. Champoux, I would appreciate your defining “expression” in your motion. You didn't say “speech”; you said “expression”.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes, indeed.

I'll try to be brief, but it won't be easy. I know we have other motions to debate this morning, and I can see that this one is generating a lot of discussion. The fact that we already have extremely varied, even diametrically opposed opinions, demonstrates the need to have a discussion on it.

Now, let me explain why it would make me uncomfortable to target, for example, hate speech in this study: a bill dealing precisely with hate speech will soon be tabled. Now, before we start discussing online hate speech and the markers and parameters to be established around this notion, we must at least start by agreeing on the markers or means that the government can have to protect the concept of freedom of expression, which is fundamental to our democracy.

I didn't say freedom of speech, I said freedom of expression, because, as Mr. Shields was saying earlier, freedom of expression is a broad spectrum that includes, among other things, freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, but also the freedom to dress as you like, for example.

So I want us to have this discussion before we tackle the extremely tricky subject of hate speech. Indeed, if the discussion we're having today on a little motion that simply proposes to discuss it together is anything to go by, we won't be out of the woods when we tackle a subject as thorny as hate speech. It's true that there is a resurgence of violence among various groups. I'm not going to point the finger at the far right or the far left. For me, all extremes are harmful. I think there are extremes on both sides. We can discuss this, if you like.

That's why it would make me uncomfortable to focus too much on one particular aspect of freedom of expression during this study; we're going to have to debate it at length when the bill is finally tabled. We've been told it's been ready for two years, so we can't wait to see it. We've spent an hour discussing our perceptions of this or that aspect of freedom of expression. I'm proposing something. In fact, I was hoping we could have this discussion without flaunting our political colours too much, and maintain a certain openness and neutrality.

There are many concepts within freedom of expression, and there are a host of things that are even somewhat abstract. For example, the right to be offended doesn't exist, but being offended is measured at different levels, depending on the individual. To answer Mr. Noormohamed's question, this is what I was thinking of when I talked about the means that the government should have at its disposal to ensure the exercise of freedom of expression. When can you say that someone has gone too far? Does it depend on the thickness of my own skin, my resistance, or the hypersensitivity of certain groups? We need to do something to make people understand that, yes, sometimes we will be offended by what someone says. Can we make it clear that at a certain point, it becomes incitement to violence and the line of what's acceptable has been crossed?

In short, it's complex, but we can't hope to study the online hate bill without having managed to agree ourselves on some markers and recommendations that we could eventually give to the government to ensure the exercise of freedom of expression in our society.

I agree that we should focus on the somewhat sad episodes we've been seeing in our society over the last few years. I was not in favour of the truckers' demonstration, the “freedom convoy”. I was inconvenienced by it like many others, but I never thought these people had no right to be there.

That said, how far did they have the right to be there? To what extent was their freedom to express themselves and their discontent acceptable? These are things we didn't discuss together, precisely because the political positions were extremely tense.

We aren't open to a discussion on this. We've locked in on the left, we've locked in on the right, creating two distinct camps with an unbridgeable divide. But that's not the way to exercise freedom of expression on this issue.

In short, I propose, Madam Chair, that the motion be withdrawn for the time being. I am more than willing to entertain amendments to the motion, but I will not support a motion that specifies a particular aspect of freedom of expression, such as hate speech. I want to keep this discussion fairly broad and open.

I also don't want us to follow suit on Bill C‑11 by the CRTC, which gives Conservatives the urge to discuss government censorship. This is not at all the discussion we should be having.

I propose that we talk about this again next week, when we return from the parliamentary break. If any of my colleagues have amendments to propose, I'll be happy to consider them. For the moment, I don't think the present discussion allows me to support an amendment proposed to the current motion.

Madam Chair, I propose that discussion of this motion be stayed and that we return to it at a later date with any amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is there any objection to suspending discussion on this? The mover suggested it, and I think we want to move on to other things. We have to finish this part of the business meeting at 9:15 and then move on to Bill S-202, which is on our agenda as it's written.

I would just entertain anyone who has an objection, or is everyone in agreement with the mover of the motion that we suspend it to another time?

Mrs. Thomas, are you speaking specifically to Mr. Champoux's motion to suspend it to another time?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I just want to make sure that we're clear. My understanding is that.... I'm sorry. It might be the interpretation, but is he withdrawing it or is he suspending it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

He is asking to suspend it.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. Thank you.