Information & Ethics Committee on June 7th, 2021

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Could Bill C-10 have helped, yes or no?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

No, it's a bill that...

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Well, then, let's talk about something else, Minister. We're not talking about culture, we're talking about protecting our children.

When will your next bill be introduced?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

As quickly as possible. I can already tell you that your party will oppose that bill as well. Your party...

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

That is speculation, Minister.

We want to protect our children. Table your bill as soon as possible, before an election is called. If there is an election this fall, absolutely nothing will happen for the next two years.

There are children in Canada who are thinking about suicide. They are not being protected right now, Minister. Why is this coming back into your court? It should have been the responsibility of the Department of Justice. You may not be in the best position to help our children right now.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I want to start by saying that the Internet and the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet existed before 2015. Your party was in power for 10 years. On the one hand, you did nothing about this issue, despite the existence of this phenomenon.

On the other hand, the sooner your party stops its systematic obstruction of Bill C‑10, the sooner...

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Minister, you are electioneering.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

...I can quickly table my bill.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Your arguments are being made from an electoral perspective, Minister. You don't want to help children. Right now they need help and we want to help them. You are not helping us.

You are already in an election campaign. You are making election-minded comments and it's really sad. I'm really disappointed in your attitude, because we are all elected to improve the lives of Canadians. Please stop your electioneering and tell us how you are going to help our children.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We want to do several things. As stated in my mandate letter, the bill will make it possible to remove all illegal content within 24 hours, thereby forcing companies to do so. Companies currently aren't doing this. The bill will also help implement an effective and user‑friendly content moderation system. Platforms will be subject to greater transparency obligations with respect to reporting online harms, such as child sexual exploitation, to law enforcement.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Rest assured, Minister Guilbeault, that we'll be there to help you. Don't speculate. This bill hasn't been tabled.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Monsieur Gourde.

We're going to turn to Mr. Dong for the next round of questions.

Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to thank you, Minister Guilbeault, for coming to the committee today and talking about a very important topic.

First of all, I want to go back to your opening statement. You cited an increase of xenophobia and Islamophobia in behaviours or speeches online over the recent months. As a member of the Asian-Canadian community, I observe and witness first-hand some of these intolerable behaviours online.

I have to say that the pandemic is changing people's socialized behaviour. More and more, people are spending time on social media. Then we have some of these bad actors using various platforms, seeing them as tools of disguise, seeing them as a protection, and also utilizing bots and trolls and saying all kinds of things they otherwise wouldn't say in public.

You mentioned that children in the country are being victimized, and the platforms are not doing anything. That's precisely what we are talking about today.

We know that social media companies, including the one we are doing a study on, have been acting unilaterally and opaquely. Sometimes they introduce half measures after public pressure, but they haven't been serious about consulting with industry experts and listening to the recommendations of the audience and the groups of victims.

In your opinion, what can the giants do to respect Canadians' will and Canadian law in terms of protecting the general public? It's in their best interest as well, because that's their audience and their client base. A very few bad actors are contaminating the online environment.

Can you talk a little about that?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

There are many elements in what you said.

First, I think one of the purposes of the legislation is to ensure more transparency on the part of the platforms in terms of their guidelines and practices regarding content moderation, because right now it's very uneven. Some companies have better content moderation practices than others, and some have very little. You're right—they are not transparent.

Some may have rejoiced in the decision of this platform or that platform to ban this user or another user, but under which criteria? Why them and not someone else? This is clearly something we want to tackle. Frankly, there is an issue where we see the very business model of some of the platforms being about creating controversy and nourishing hate speech and intolerance, because it creates more traffic on their platform. Therefore, they can sell more publicity and make more money.

As part of the legislation that will be tabled, this is also something that we as a legislator will need to address.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Minister, thank you very much for that.

We heard opposition colleagues talk about.... We're dealing with content online; therefore, they suggested that it's your sole responsibility, but at the committee here we heard from the witnesses that the makeup and structure of these companies is designed to get around government regulations. We have a company that is operating out of Quebec but registered in another country, so I understand what you mean when you say it's going to be a joint effort between different ministries and different ministers.

I'll go back to what my colleague, MP Angus, asked about earlier, which I thought was interesting. In your opinion, is Canadian law, as is it currently, inadequate to police what's going on online, to the point that they are committing crimes according to our Canadian values and the Canadian law?

Are our laws adequate at all? If not, what will be the direction? What kinds of changes can we introduce to protect victims?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

The first part of your question is a very interesting one, because what we are, in fact, seeing is that these companies—many of these companies, perhaps not all of them—are using different loopholes around the world to try to get away from having to obey national laws, whether it's in Canada, Australia, Germany, Finland, France or the United Kingdom. What we want to do with the legislation will ensure that whether or not a company is Canadian, or based in Canada, or registered in Canada, or its websites are housed in Canada, if it broadcasts images and videos in Canada then the law will apply to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Minister. I gave some extra time to allow you to answer some of that question.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Hopefully we can get back to that if there are additional opportunities.

Madam Gaudreau, we'll turn to you for the next two and a half minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My remarks will be a little different. I want to talk to you. What just happened is a concrete example. I think, or rather I know, that I'm the only one who can make this type of comment.

Our conscience is telling us that we must protect our children, our youth. We need to legislate and move quickly to do so as well. We're in the committee making the case that this is important and necessary. We're trying to speed things up, but we've lost a tremendous amount of time. You'll argue that I'm a new member of Parliament. However, the fact remains that people are watching us.

Despite our willingness to help our constituents, the political scene ensures that the pursuit of power takes precedence. We're seeing this right now. We're seeing pre‑campaigning, filibustering and so on. It's all about drawing things out. Minister Guilbeault, I believe that, in order to help our people, we should have had a meeting and a specific bill already in hand. However, we didn't even pass Bill C‑10, which I find extremely disappointing.

People back home are telling me things. If you ask the people back home, they'll tell you to stop carrying on the political games and the pursuit of power. We need to help our people. I'm ashamed of that part. I won't give up. Why won't I? Because my party is the only one that can claim that it promotes and protects the interests of Quebeckers. We aren't looking for power. On the contrary, we don't want it anymore.

That said, Minister Guilbeault, you spoke about five categories of illegal activities included in your bill. I don't know what they are and I would like you to identify them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Minister, I just want to let you know that you have just 15 seconds left to respond, as the member took most of that short round. Minister, I'll give you a chance to answer with a short answer.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I may specify, it is 11:50 and I must remind you and all members that I have a hard stop a few minutes before 12, as I must be present in the House of Commons at 12 o'clock sharp for a debate. Thank you for your understanding.

I'll respond in 15 seconds.

These are the five categories of harms that we want to address in this bill: child sexual exploitation, incitement to violence, incitement to terrorism, non‑consensual sharing of intimate content and hate speech.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Minister Guilbeault.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Angus, we'll turn to you.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you so much, Minister.

In the examples we've had some really hard meetings with survivors sharing their stores. I look at Canada's Criminal Code. Section 162, filming people without their consent and then promoting it, is a five-year prison sentence. Section 163, selling and promoting non-consensual sexual assault videos, is a 14-year prison sentence.

I would ask you, how do you tell the survivors that it's okay for the Justice Department of Canada and the RCMP not to apply the laws to a company when they know it exists in Montreal, because some day there will be a regulator that will deal with this?

We have laws that are very clear. We're talking about very obvious issues of a breach of law. Why is it that your government has not acted?