Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 30th, 2024

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

If I could just add that I think the algorithms on social media push the angry social media to the top—and the positive, or even just policy-related, social media posts don't get the same kind of engagement. I think that plays into what we as politicians post. The angry, aggressive types of things that get posted, which in turn drive the public to contact MPs, do play a big role in it.

I see a huge difference in the kind of engagement that I get versus a Facebook Live from an MP calling Liberals corrupt, which gets shared 500,000 times. I don't get anywhere near that when I post about young women in leadership programs or something like being really proud to have supported Len Webber's private member's bill on organ donation, posts that go nowhere, whereas the angry, aggressive social media goes straight to the top, because of the algorithms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have only a few seconds left.

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

I'll conclude, Mr. Chair. I'll have two and a half minutes in the next round.

I'd like to tell you this in the context of our soul-searching exercise: When the political parties agree to accept unacceptable behaviour, I view that as a conspiracy. I hope you clearly understand what I mean.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Ms. Mathyssen, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'm often amazed by colleagues in this place, for good or for bad. Today you have shown incredible strength, and I am grateful for that. This is actually one of the reasons why I was so adamant about having this study, and so grateful that we could get to it.

I want to pick up on MP Damoff's mentioning that social media piece and the algorithms. Oftentimes, it's seen as the individual's responsibility to police social media, and yet there is a role, of course, for what we're seeing from the social media giants and their responsibilities, given the money that they make.

The Sergeant-at-Arms, actually, even at the last committee meeting, stated that when they were trying to address specific issues with Twitter, they at one point had connections, and they no longer have those.

What can we as legislators do as part of that, to address that better? I think building off what Ms. Romanado said about a code of conduct online, are there things that maybe we need to do in our internal security systems that have to do with monitoring or policing that a bit?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I do think a code of conduct would be helpful. I don't know if there would be consequences. I know that I heard at the last meeting a description of harassment as it applies elsewhere, and cyberbullying was one of them, but I also think that we as individuals need to think twice before posting something that we know is going to incite an organization like the gun lobby.

When you deliberately post something that stirs up that kind of anger in public...I will say that being on the ethics Committee has been an eye-opener for me because of the number of times I've been called corrupt and a criminal. It's actually quite shocking. You know, it goes beyond just what the policies are; it's individual attacks that stir up the public.

The social media companies do bear responsibility in this. Even when we could report, I can remember reporting tweets that were horrific and getting a message back saying these didn't contravene community standards. There is some responsibility there with social media companies, not just for MPs but for every Canadian that gets subjected to abuse online.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

On the MP piece, of course, though, that's what we're trying to also deal with here, understanding our role within this. A lot of my colleagues have said that when they've tried to report these incidents, or when they have—and I would like to know about the examples you gave and what your experience was—there were clear links to far-right extreme organizations pumping it up, the Rebel News media outlet and the Proud Boys, as examples, and the links that police found if they were investigated. Did you find that in both of your experiences?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I've had right-wing extremist members stalk my office and hang out in front of me.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair. I'm very concerned about our interpreters. It's impossible for them to hear the comments clearly because two microphones are unmuted at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

All right. Just a moment; we'll see what's going on.

Ms. Gaudreau, we are going to try again. Tell us if there is a problem.

Madam Khalid, go ahead.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

As I was saying, I've had members of right-wing extremist organizations who have stalked my office, shared my home address amongst each other, laughed and obviously called me a lot of names verbally, videotaped me while walking around in my community, etc. There's definitely a link. When I talk about the politics of agitation, that's exactly it.

I gave the example of when I tabled Motion No. 103, the Conservative Party leadership race used my motion to raise funds for themselves by spreading deliberate misinformation. Specifically, they leveraged a lot of these organizations to come to raise the alarm and agitation amongst Canadians, to pit Canadian against Canadian. There's definitely a role here and a link between members of Parliament and how the information is spread and used for our own political gains.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Mathyssen, there are just a couple of seconds left in your round here.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'll bank them then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

That sounds good.

Ms. Rempel Garner, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to be clear with my two colleagues here. You aren't suggesting that the Liberal Party hasn't made statements that have agitated people in the past, right? You admit that's happened.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I think every MP needs to look at what they've done, Michelle. I'm not going to say the Liberal Party has, but I will say that there have been instances when individuals in my party have done things.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I asked this to prove a point because where we can't get to a point.... If you two aren't willing to say that the Liberals have not engaged in this behaviour, I have to say that I have been on the receiving end of what you have described, but it's what your members have done.

What we can't get into when we're talking about solutions is pretending that one party is above scrutiny, right? To avoid that, I would suggest that the solutions need to be oriented towards using what is in law for criminal harassment and hate speech and, where there are gaps that prevent not just us but any Canadian from accessing justice or de-escalating these types of behaviours, that we go there.

Would you agree with the principle that any forward solution to this can't be governed by a partisan body?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I absolutely agree. In my remarks, I even said that it's not all Conservatives. I and my colleague can only speak to what we've experienced, Ms. Rempel Garner. We can't speak to what you, Ms. Ferreri, or anyone else has experienced. I can only speak about what's happened to me and the impact that has been a direct result of a Conservative MP. I can't speak to anything that anyone else has experienced.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

However, you wouldn't suggest that the Prime Minister is directly responsible for the harassment I've received, would you?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I've been trying to stay above the fray because I'm not getting into whether the opposition leader or the Prime Minister.... I mean, if you want to go there, we can, but I really would prefer not to.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

The point I'm trying to make is that solutions have to be objective and not be governed by.... I have concerns that a code of conduct that would be governed by a partisan or a quasi-partisan body wouldn't get to that point.

For recommendations, would you support a recommendation, particularly going into the next federal election, where intimate images that are created by deep fake technology would be subject to to the same Criminal Code sanctions that are in the Criminal Code right now for traditional intimate images?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'm not a lawyer, so I'll just give my own personal opinion. I know you've done a lot of work—a lot more than I have—on AI and that type of thing, but absolutely.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

The other thing I was thinking of was that there needs to be a mechanism by which, when there's a clear instance of repeated harassing behaviour that has gotten to a point where a court of justice sees...or when there's a summary conviction, law enforcement should be able to go, under some sort of an order, to obtain the identity of somebody from a social media platform so that charges could be laid. Right now there's a grey area in the law. Would you recommend something like that?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

The ethics committee actually went to the RCMP last week and got a whole training session on their digital forensics, and that's an issue they raised with us.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay, so we need some legislation on that.

The other thing is that, when there are clear instances of repeated harassing behaviour online—and we're not talking about a single mean tweet or something here, but somebody who's clearly repeatedly harassing somebody, being threatening and obscene, whatever the definition is—there needs to be some sort of intervention available to the court of justice so that this person is directed to stop communicating with somebody. That doesn't exist right now. Would you recommend that as something that the government should be looking into at this point in time?