Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is David Salvo. I represent the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a transatlantic civil society organization that focuses on countering extremist, terrorist and authoritarian threats to democracy. I'm based in Washington, D.C., but my work often brings me to Canada. This is not because Canada's democracy is comparatively brittle; there's plenty to keep me busy where I permanently reside.
All democracies require constant vigilance. In the face of an increasingly complex threat environment, it's critical to invest even more in civic resilience in Canada.
An interweaving nexus of foreign state actors, non-state actors and domestic extremists of all ideological manifestations seeks to divide Canadians and undermine their trust in institutions at all levels of government. Moreover, the information ecosystem that creates the conditions for many of these threats to metastasize is itself becoming more complex and conducive to facilitating real-world harms.
ISD's digital analysis shows how crises off-line can translate into Canadian communities' being directly targeted online. A major world event such as the Israel-Hamas war produces spikes of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Violent incidents such as the tragic school shooting in Tumbler Ridge spark a dramatic rise of online hate speech, in this case targeting the LGBTQ community.
My organization's study of anti-South Asian hate online in Canada found that between 2023 and 2024, such activity increased by 1,350%. This followed a four-year period in which police-reported hate crimes against South Asians increased by over 200%.
In general, we've witnessed a rise in domestic extremism in Canada, including white supremacist groups that increasingly mobilize off-line through various social clubs and whose online activity either incites violence or, even when the groups are engaging in lawful speech, serves to drive polarization and isolate marginalized communities, such as those of migrants. This all has implications for democratic resilience.
Amidst this backdrop, there are foreign interference operations that seek to intimidate Canadian citizens, undermine the integrity of Canadian elections and further polarize Canadian society. This committee knows those details quite well, so I won't belabour the point. Increasingly, though, these foreign operations are targeting local governance, critical social services and specific communities divorced from electoral contexts. Strengthening civic resilience will also require building better defences against these foreign interference threats at the local level.
The good news is that a vibrant civil society in Canada is eager to scale up its activity to address this hybridized landscape of online and off-line threats. For it to do so, there must be resources for civic actors and community leaders at the local and municipal levels. I therefore endorse the recommendation made by other witnesses before this committee to establish a non-partisan Canadian democracy fund that would provide greater opportunities to support civic resilience work in Canada. I also believe that by investing in democratic resilience, government will pave the way for Canadian philanthropy to step up its own investment in this work, which is important.
There are also the longer-term challenges in the information space that Canada must address. Regulation of big tech is not a panacea—I want to be clear—and it will inevitably draw the ire of powerful players to Canada's south. Nevertheless, I think there should be a coherent legislative mechanism that demands companies allow algorithmic transparency to understand how these platforms are curating speech rather than facilitating a true marketplace of ideas. To protect expression, Canadians should be able to appeal and seek redress when companies make incorrect content moderation decisions that do not align with Canadian law or their own terms of service.
Together with trusted allies, Canada should also begin to invest in long-term digital sovereignty that gives Canadians meaningful alternatives to foreign-owned systems. This doesn't refer just to AI and data sovereignty, in which Canada has already taken some strides to bolster its domestic capabilities; it also refers to establishing digital infrastructure and an online information ecosystem that advance democratic principles and don't facilitate threats to Canada's national security and democracy.
The fact that Canadians cannot access news articles on Meta Platforms, as my colleague has already outlined, is but one example of a glaring vulnerability. Leaving critical decisions that shape how Canadians separate fact from opinion and truth from misinformation to foreign-owned behemoths has implications for Canada's civic resilience. A Canada that's less prone to the whims of foreign big tech will be a more resilient one.