Thank you, Chair.
In Canada, instances of criminal harassment are up 36% over the last decade, and that's just the incidents that are reported; countless other times, they're not. That's true for any Canadian, but particularly for elected officials. It's extremely difficult for victims to get justice. That's because of a lot of different issues: grey areas in existing laws, bail issues and lack of education in the judiciary and among law enforcement officials.
To end this problem, it's been suggested that the government should enact legislation that would create a so-called “digital restraining order”. In this, a legal threshold similar to criminal harassment could be met. If it was met—not impinging on charter-protected speech—courts could require Internet service providers and other online platforms to both identify digital stalkers and require them to take measures to prevent these people from communicating with these victims. This would provide victims, including elected officials, the judiciary and law enforcement, with simple, easy-to-use tools to quickly end online criminal harassment.
Would you recommend that the government enact such a measure, Ms. Nguyen?