Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to offer our comments on this legislation, which is very important to our organization.
I will be coming at this from a slightly different perspective than the previous two very learned speakers did.
First, I'd like to just mention, if I could, a little bit about the organization I'm representing. The Canadian Association of Police Boards was founded in 1989, motivated by a desire to find common ground among police governors on matters of mutual concern, matters that have a national implication. We are the national organization of police service boards and commissions providing civilian oversight and governance of municipal and first nations policing in most parts of Canada.
The police boards and commissions that are our members are responsible for the more than 75% of municipal policing in Canada. We manage the services, set priorities in our municipalities, establish policy, and represent public interest through the civilian governance and oversight process.
Local policing today, as you know, involves a number of major functions besides dealing with crime. Our officers are in schools, they assist people suffering from mental illness, they prevent social victimization, they police international waterways, they're involved in national security and anti-terrorism-related matters, they participate in integrated and joint policing projects—and the list goes on. Often they are the agency of first resort when other programs are reduced or eliminated due to fiscal challenges that municipalities face.
We have a duty to ensure that police officers have the tools at hand to make appropriate decisions that protect public safety, especially the safety of our children.
We also believe that the laws they enforce should reflect our values and principles and what we stand for in our communities.
If a law can provide the push needed to change both an offending behaviour and the related attitudes towards that behaviour, then we have to support it.
In 2009, a resolution was voted on and approved by our membership. It reads as follows:
WHEREAS new technologies allow individuals to increasingly enter private domains; and
WHEREAS these same technologies allow individuals to hide their identities while targeting others; and
WHEREAS cyber-bullying is increasingly affecting Canadian youth; and
WHEREAS current legislation does not criminalize cyber-bullying;
THEREFORE be it resolved that the Canadian Association of Police Boards request the Federal Government pass legislation to increase and strengthen current Criminal Code provisions to criminalize cyber-bullying behaviours and to increase the accountability of technological service providers for ongoing abuses of their systems.
You can see that this resolution supporting amendment of the Criminal Code as well as increasing culpability of Internet service providers around the issue of cyberbullying was fully supported by the membership of CAPB.
Each year, copies of approved resolutions are sent to the appropriate federal and provincial ministers to ask for feedback and commentary.
I would like to read to you the response we received from the Minister of Public Safety at that time, the Honourable Peter Van Loan. Minister Van Loan wrote:
Concerning the Association's resolution on cyber-bullying, I agree that we must protect our children. Bullying in any form is unacceptable social behaviour. This Government has taken a number of actions to raise awareness and prevent bullying through activities carried out by the National Crime Prevention Center and the creation of a partnership between the RCMP and the Canadian Teachers' Federation to provide young people with information about how to identify, deal with and put an end to cyber-bullying. There is no more important role for Government than the safety and protection of Canada's must vulnerable population, our children.
We applaud the government for being proactive with these measures to educate and try to prevent cyberbullying, but we strongly believe that their efforts do not go, and have not gone, far enough. We need to bring our criminal laws up to date regarding modern technologies and the potential abusers of those same technologies as they do have an impact on our society.
Part of our responsibility as an oversight body is to ensure that the police have the proper tools they need to do their jobs effectively. Sometimes these tools come in the form of legislation without which their hands are tied.
It is from this perspective that I appear before you in support of Bill C-273, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying). The Canadian Association of Police Boards supports the proposed legislative amendments, as they reflect the influence that modern technologies have in our daily life.
Many concerns arise for law enforcement around the issue of cyberbullying. The Nova Scotia task force report on bullying and cyberbullying states:
Cyberbullying poses a particular challenge to the community because it happens in a sort of “no man’s land”. The cyber-world is a public space which challenges our traditional methods of maintaining peace and order in public spaces. It is too vast to use traditional methods of supervision.
In simplest terms, this bill clarifies that existing sections of the Criminal Code apply to communications made by means of the computer or electronic device. We agree and we fully support this.
We also agree that tougher legislation alone is not a cyberbullying strategy, but one part of a broader national anti-bullying strategy that is needed.
Similar to comments made previously, last week I had the opportunity to listen to a young recruit constable on the Edmonton Police Service deliver her final project presentation, which was on creating a bully-free Alberta. Constable Cunningham very clearly stated that bullying is a social problem that requires an understanding of human relationships; we need to purposely promote positive social development in our youth; all children involved in bullying accidents—perpetrators, victims, and bystanders—must be included and considered in interventions; and we will effect the most change with the largest group, which is bystanders. She stated: “We need to intervene at multiple levels if we are to effect real change in bullying in our society.”
Thus, this legislation is seen perhaps as just one tool that is necessary at this point. Cyberbullying can be a very serious crime with real victims and, for some, a crime that has some very tragic outcomes.
Our duty today, to borrow a phrase from the former Minister of Public Safety, is to assist in any way to identify, deal with, and put an end to cyberbullying. There is no more important role for us, as the association representing civilian oversight of municipal police in Canada, than the safety and protection of Canada's most vulnerable population, our children. We believe the amendments to the Criminal Code put forward in Bill C-273 will be one step towards that goal.
Thank you.