Justice Committee on Feb. 25th, 2013

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

So technically the bill wouldn't change much, but I understand where you're trying to come from or to cover.

Just quickly, have you had any consultation with the provinces on their actions and what this would entail?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

No, because this is a federal jurisdiction in the Criminal Code.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I understand, but they'll have to apply it in terms of how provinces—

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I have actually spoken in British Columbia, and they seem to feel this would be part of a good strategy. They had no comment because the Criminal Code is federal jurisdiction.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Mr. Mai.

Our next questioner, from the Conservative Party, is Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome a fellow British Columbian and colleague, and I thank her for her presence today.

Ms. Fry, the intent of your bill is certainly laudable, to ensure that existing offences apply to bullying conduct that is criminal in nature when it is communicated through the use of the Internet. However, its approaches, in my view, raise significant criminal policy concerns, and I'll just quickly go through those.

Offences generally apply to specific conduct, so even though the means used, such as the Internet, are not necessarily specified—for example, murder is murder regardless of a weapon or a means used to commit such a murder—amending some of the offences that could apply to bullying, and then excluding others, for example, section 264.1, uttering threats, could become problematic. An example of that would be that the inclusion of a reference to the use of a computer or the Internet in some offences could be interpreted to mean that its exclusion from others is intentional, such that other offences might not be interpreted to apply to conduct carried out with the use of a computer or the Internet.

Also, its proposed terminology, “computer or a group of interconnected or related computers, including the Internet, or any similar means of communication”, is inconsistent with the provisions throughout the Criminal Code, such as my colleague, Mr. Seeback, mentioned earlier.

I would say that having two terms relating to the same medium could cause issues or confusion.

In short, my view is that Bill C-273's proposed amendments to section 264 and section 298 do not enhance the Criminal Code's existing treatment of bullying that constitute criminal conduct and could even impede its current ability to effectively address such conduct.

How would you respond to these concerns?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I think I already did, but I will respond to it again.

I think it is still unclear in certain segments of the Criminal Code what the “other” means, and in many instances it has been found not to be adequately defined. As you read in the front part of my bill, it says, “to clarify”. So I am seeking to clarify exactly what is meant by “other”, because there are lists here that define exactly who the groups are and what the communications medium is, and it isn't necessarily defined.

If, in fact, this were true, then the Senate report, which also mentions that there needs to be clarification in certain elements of the Criminal Code, would not have mentioned it. But they heard from many witnesses who said that there needed to be clarification.

At the end of the day, no one is seeking to criminalize anyone. What I'm seeking to do is level the playing field in terms of what clearly are means of communication in the 21st—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I'm not speaking about criminalizing anyone, per se. I'm saying there are inconsistencies in the mechanism you have produced as a private member's bill. Certainly the goal is laudable, but the inconsistencies that this is creating, even within the code itself, to me, do not necessarily add to that clarity.

Earlier in your testimony you mentioned that this bill gives new tools to those in law enforcement. I would just challenge that simply, for example, by saying that we have before the house Bill C-55, which gives tools to law enforcement in extenuating circumstances, where someone is about to commit a crime that would cause significant harm to public safety, or perhaps someone is suicidal and is about to hurt themselves. Law enforcement can then access that. I certainly hope you'll be supporting that legislation, because that will actually give law enforcement tools they need in order to maintain public safety and to save lives.

Lastly, I would just ask for your response, because you've given the impression, at least in my view, that this would help law enforcement deal with ISPs. You mentioned the Amanda Todd case, which was very tragic. I would like your response on the ISP provisions, because I don't see anything in here that would actually help with that.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Currently, I will read it again, subsection 372(1) of the Criminal Code states—and I'm talking about false messages—

Every one who, with intent to injure or alarm any person, conveys or causes or procures to be conveyed by letter, telegram, telephone, cable, radio

One of the things that allows people to do is to get into cellphone records, to get into telephone records, and to find out exactly who made the calls that spread the false messages.

People are not always able to do that with ISPs at the moment. The piece left out that I'd like to put in there with a little thing that says “add this” would be “using a computer”. It isn't there. I have heard from enough people, from academics and others, to suggest that in fact it is necessary. This is one of the reasons the police boards are supporting this.

Mr. Chair, I would also like to make one comment. I said I brought in my bill in 2007, but that was another bill. This bill was introduced in 2009.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for your questions. That's your time, Mr. Albas.

I want to thank you, Madam Fry, for your hour. Your hour is up. You did an excellent job defending your bill. As I've said before, I've been there for other private members' bills, which have been defended by the member's staff and not by the member. So I do appreciate your efforts.

We will take a two-minute break while we set up for the next hour.

Just for the information of the committee, if you are going to move amendments to this bill, it would be appreciated if they were in by 5 o'clock tomorrow. That's not required, but it would be appreciated.

With that, we will suspend for two minutes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Ladies and gentlemen, I call this meeting back to order. This is meeting number 60 and we are dealing with private member's Bill C-273, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cyberbullying).

We are fortunate to have Professor Shariff with us, an associate professor from McGill University on integrated studies in education. She is here as an individual.

From PREVNet, we have Professor Craig, who is the professor of psychology at Queen's University.

Joining us by video conference, representing the Canadian Association of Police Boards, is Ms. Cathryn Palmer, vice-president.

We will go one at a time for presentations and we'll do them in the order you were introduced. You have a maximum of 10 minutes, and then we'll go to a question and answer period.

To start, Professor Shariff, you have the floor.

[Professor Shaheen Shariff, Associate Professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, As an Individual]

Thank you for inviting my submission today.

I'm an academic and researcher at McGill University and I have studied legal and policy-related issues regarding cyberbullying for approximately 10 years. I currently hold a five-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and an inaugural digital citizenship grant from Facebook.

Although cyberbullying is not specifically mentioned in Bill C-273, I have concerns about some of the inconsistencies in the bill, as we heard in the questions posed to MP Hedy Fry.

Cyberbullying can involve such acts as criminal harassment, threat of sexual assault, defamatory libel, extortion, identity fraud, impersonation with intent, intimidation, as well as sexting, many of which can currently be addressed under the Criminal Code.

My concern is also that there is no mention of smart phones, digital media.... I'm skipping over my notes because I know I don't have a lot of time.

My biggest concern is that the code applies to everyone. It talks about everyone. I'm worried that this amendment is in response, as Ms. Fry said, to a lot of media reports related to cyberbullying and related suicides.

The problem here is that we should be looking at two sets of audiences. One is adults, who are mature enough to be held culpable for some of these crimes. They're old enough to know what they're doing. What we're finding in our research, though, is that young people, digital natives—these are children growing up immersed in digital technologies—quite often don't realize what they're doing.

The norms and perceptions of harm by digital natives have changed. These kids, as young as eight, are on Facebook, even though it's illegal to be on Facebook under age 13. There is a higher tolerance for insults, jokes, and pranks. There's less consideration of impact on others. There's less recognition of boundaries between public and private spaces online. There's less awareness of legal risks, which is where I would argue for improved education on legal literacy.

Perpetrators of cyberbullying are often victims as well as perpetrators. This would place them in an awkward position if this code were amended and they were ultimately charged. We might be overreacting. We might be putting the wrong kids in jail.

A lot of kids are dealing with mental health issues. We've seen that putting young people in jail when they have mental health issues is a problem. We've repeatedly seen coverage of Ashley Smith when she was incarcerated, and the problems she had.

An Austrian study found that anger and fun are at the top of youth motivations to cyberbully. In question time I can cover some of the cases, should anyone have questions regarding exactly what I mean.

In light of these shifting social norms, amending the code might result in charges for the wrong reasons.

The other thing is that adults.... When you talk about the different audiences, adults are the worst models of behaviour, and yet so much of the focus has been on youth because of the media spotlight on youth. I fear that this amendment is being brought about just to calm the public's fears, that something is being done.

We need to do a lot more research. We need to look at how much the legal community knows and understands about how digital natives are using the Internet.

Our five-year research with SSHRC is looking at the assumptions that underlie judicial reasoning when it's listening to cases of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is extremely complex. There are so many facets to it. We really need to make sure we're targeting the right kinds of issues.

There's defamation. There's sexting, which as many of you know the police here and in the U.S. have been using child pornography laws to address.

Kids are posting things online without really thinking about it, and repeatedly we see patterns in our research where the kids are saying they were just having fun: “It was just a competition between friends.” They forgot about the victim. They weren't even thinking about the person they were teasing. It was just trying to have their voices heard over the din of the Internet. These were kids who were wanting attention.

Now, I'm not suggesting that there should be no consequences. I'm very much a supporter of discipline for young people, and I think that can be done through education. We need to have relevant consequences. I don't think these sorts of piecemeal amendments to the code will have a lot of impact.

With regard to the implications of this bill for youth, digital natives who are unaware of legal risks may end up with criminal records when they cannot differentiate the impact of their jokes and pranks from serious criminal liability. Although they should be disciplined, they also need to be educated in legal literacy. Criminal records or jail terms would reduce their chances of being accepted into good post-secondary educational institutions and limit their ability to find jobs in an already difficult market, resulting in increased burdens on social assistance. Ultimately, this could cost the government substantial resources and cost some children their potential to succeed.

A more thoughtful alternative would be to invest in education, support for teen mental health, increased sensitivity awareness, and legal literacy. Last year we gave evidence at the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights that looked at Canada's responsibility to protect children from cyberbullying under article 19 of the international Convention on the Rights of the Child. I'm sure many of you are aware of that report. That report brings together a very comprehensive range of issues that were raised by experts and researchers across Canada, and I think this committee ought to consider what was raised in that report.

One thing that was suggested was a children's commissioner. The other was a national strategy. I know that motion was defeated last year because it was controversial. But I think we need something, such as a task force that involves experts, to look at these issues and determine what legislation needs to be amended. How do we amend this legislation? What is the role of the law? Do we really want big-stick sanctions? A scholar at Harvard University, John Palfrey, made the same kind of plea to Congress, and he did this in 2009 when they wanted to amend their legislation.

My Australian colleagues, Kift, Campbell et al, are the ones who coined the term “big-stick sanctions”, because they don't really work given this context. Given that kids don't understand...they're not even differentiating between public and private spaces.

I have submitted a 25-page brief, as academics do, and I would urge you to read it or skim through it by tomorrow, before you make your comments. I really think this issue needs to have further consideration.

I have here—I can pass some of these around—my basic...almost my logo. For the last 10 years, as I've been studying cyberbullying, this is the reactive stance the schools and a number of provincial governments have taken to deal with these kinds of issues. I'm suggesting a much more proactive stance that addresses education.

We're talking about substantive law versus a positivist or more punitive law. Let's look at the pillars of our Constitution, our human rights laws, and let's see how we can help young people understand why they should not be engaging in this. The challenge is in bringing these kids to their own understanding. Engage the kids. They are the digital experts. Engage the kids in contributing to changes in legislation.

This is what we're doing.

Part of our research, if I may explain it quickly, with our grant from Facebook and SSHRC is doing surveys and focus groups with young people from the ages of nine to 17. We're asking them how they define the line between joking and teasing and criminal offences. How do they tell the difference when they're crossing the line to committing a crime? How do they define the difference between public and private spaces? In the third phase we will get the kids to develop online interactive projects. We'll engage the kids to do this, and that will get them thinking about how they're defining the line.

We've already piloted this in Vancouver, and we got some amazing responses. My website is www.definetheline.ca, and we've had a lot of responses to that. What we do is inform educators and policy-makers about the various legal—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Professor, I'm going to have to cut you off there. I enjoy cutting professors off.

I'm assuming there will be questions to ask you about your research during the question and answer period.

Thank you very much for that excellent presentation.

Our next presenter is Professor Craig.

[Professor Wendy Craig, Scientific Co-Director, Professor of Psychology, Queen's University, PREVNet (Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network)]

I'm Professor Craig. I'm from Queen's University. I'm a child clinical developmental psychologist.

Much of what I'm going to say is to reinforce what's been said by my colleague.

I will start by saying that I primarily think about children and youth, and when we think about laws, there is a difference between children and youth and adults. One of the most important things I can send to you as a message is that children are a process in development. Think of your own children. Children need to learn how to behave differently. They need to learn those skills. They need to be coached by adults. They need scaffolding; they need education.

Punitive measures aren't going to provide that learning context that's going to give them the strategies to be different. I think we need to think about a different response for children and youth than we have for adults because of many of the developmental things that have been raised.

I also do research in the area of cyberbullying, and there are a couple of things in that area that make this legislation a bit problematic. We currently have no universally agreed upon definition in the area, although there has been work by the centre for disease control. I've been part of a task force to define it. There is no universally accepted definition. Part of the current definition uses intent to harm. That's a very hard and difficult thing to measure under a legal context. The current definitions are intent to harm, that there is a power imbalance, that an individual is repeatedly targeted. The more elements we have in a definition, the more the burden of proof is on the individuals who have to prosecute them to make that change.

We need a universal definition. We need to define each of the elements of that definition, such as intention to harm and harm. And we need to know when intimidation and humiliation cross the line into becoming a criminal behaviour problem. Those, I think, are very grey areas without a lot of information.

I want to talk a bit about the problem so that you understand what we're dealing with when we're building laws to address it. Let's look at the health behaviour survey—I'm part of the team—which surveys about 27,000 children. It is an across-the-country survey funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, and it is nationally representative. If we look at the prevalence of cyber victimization—that is, what proportion of children report being cyber victimized—by grade 10, so at age 15, it's about 18% of children who report it, and 99% of those children who are victimized also are victimized in face-to-face bullying.

For me, the message there is that we need a comprehensive national strategy. That has been raised before in the House of Commons, and it is absolutely essential if we're to have an integrated approach to deal with it.

Approximately one in five children report being victimized by it, but it's one type of many types of victimization that they're experiencing, so we need to deal with it.

The other thing is, if you look at the research about what happens to kids online, about 43% of them say that in the last 30 days they've received an e-mail that upset them, they've received an instant message that upset them, they've been made fun of, they've had something posted on a website, they've had something posted online that they didn't want others to see, or they've been afraid to go to the computer. They don't define any of these acts as bullying, so how can we begin to define it when the kids themselves aren't clear on the definition? That's an educative process that requires a public health campaign through a national strategy.

We've done research looking at the perceived harmfulness of cyberbullying and electronic bullying. What did they say? Girls report it as being more harmful than boys do, and incidentally, girls are much more likely to perpetrate it than are boys. They do report it as being more harmful than physical bullying, but as harmful as verbal bullying as well.

So bullying in general is harmful. Cyberbullying is one form that is harmful, but then they don't report it to adults.

When you ask children what happens to them online, the majority of things that happen to them online are about threats and name calling. Very rarely is it the more extreme cases, such as inappropriate sexual behaviour or people pretending to be somebody different.

We also know that online and offline behaviours overlap. Both behaviours happen in social relationships. Both types of kids are involved in both. With cyberbullying, we have children who are also more likely to aggress and be victimized. That puts us in a dilemma, because if we think about a criminal perspective on these children, we're actually revictimizing them when they've actually found a way, although inappropriate, to try to establish some power in themselves.

We do know, however, that the psychological harm of cyber victimization is over and above the effects of cyberbullying. That is, it's more significant and more severe in terms of the severity of the depression or the severity of the anxiety they experience.

The other thing that's important is that we've also looked at who's doing the cyberbullying. Who's doing it to you? What we find is, no matter what type it is, whether it's name calling, threats, rumour, pictures, or even sexual things, it's most likely to be friends. It's happening to them by known identities. There's a very low prevalence that it's happening by strangers or someone they don't know. That's the least likely to be who's doing it. That says to me that it's a problematic way in which the kids are interacting, and we have to provide them with the support they need.

That's my other last point in terms of what we know from the research. We've also done research looking at the roles that kids play in cyberspace, how they contribute to cyberbullying. Kids report that the number one role they play is to go online and defend each other in some context. Girls are more likely to do that, although I should very clearly state that about 20% of them say they also go online and are similarly aggressive. That might also be an educational point. Children, as mentioned in the earlier testimony, are not aware, or do not define what they do as aggressive or behaviour with a criminal intent, with possible criminal consequences.

I have a couple of messages for you. One is that if we proceed with this, we need to have a legal definition of bullying and standards that can be supported when we enact that law. The second is that we need to have a consistent definition, and that definition has to be known to children, youth, and adults and be equally applied and be equally able to be applied across all of that. The third piece that we need in the legislation is an understanding about when we're crossing the line into criminal behaviour. When does humiliation and criminal intent occur?

The other thing we need to realize is that the majority—at least half of the youth, anyway—report that they don't tell adults about it. They're not reporting the incidents. We don't even know the true prevalence of it. They're not reporting it for fear of consequences. If we make it a legal problem, it becomes more problematic.

The last piece, the message I want to leave with you, is that children are developing beings. They play multiple roles; they try things out. Sadly, part of what we do, one of our developmental tasks, is to try out different roles, to try different types of identity, to try the aggressive behaviour. It's part of experimenting. It's part of us defining—children are taking the process to define who we are. If we're really going to be effective at addressing this issue about cyberbullying or bullying in our society, we need to start with a preventative approach, a public health education campaign. There's a role for government to be the integrative coordinator of that strategy, because it's a public health issue, and we have many examples—drunk driving, smoking—of where public health campaigns make a difference, can change children's lives, and can help them develop into the developing beings we want them to develop into.

I hope as an academic I made that under my 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You are under your 10 minutes, Professor. Nice job. Thank you very much for your presentation.

Now we will go to our guest, who's joining us by video conference. Ms. Palmer is the vice-president of the Canadian Association of Police Boards.

The floor is yours, Ms. Palmer.

[Cathryn Palmer, Vice-President, Canadian Association of Police Boards]

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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Ms. Palmer, thank you for your presentation.

Now we will go to our rounds of questions.

Our first questioner is Monsieur Morin from the New Democratic Party.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank our witnesses. Each presentation provided a wealth of important information.

My first few questions are for Dr. Shariff and Dr. Craig.

I would like to know what you think about the part of the bill presented by Dr. Fry that deals with…

intent to harm.

How could this affect young adults, adolescents or children who are not fully aware of the scope of their actions? How could these three words compromise the essence of this bill, which is to prevent or at least limit the damage done by bullying?

[Prof. Shaheen Shariff]

I'll take that. That's a very good question, because as I said, young people aren't distinguishing.

You're asking about the younger children, but when we talk about digital natives who are growing up immersed in digital technologies, we're finding that even at the university level now young people are having a hard time. For example, a couple of years ago we had a young student at McGill who tweeted that he was at a seminar and he wanted to use an M-15 to shoot the presenters. Then basically, when asked, he said he was just venting. These are repeated.

There was a case in California. A Justin Bieber type of young man had a promising career in music; he was about 14 years old. He put on his website that he had golden brown eyes, and in response to that he got such venomous posts on his website by his classmates and schoolmates, some of whom didn't even know him. They testified in court that this had become a competition as to who could post the worst insults. They said they weren't even thinking about the victim; they were just being jocular and funny.

If you look at society—if you look at television sitcoms, comedians, reality shows—you'll see that the norms of what is funny, what's a joke, what's an insult, and what's harm have shifted. As the Supreme Court of Canada said in the A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc. case, this is now discernable harm. But as Wendy mentioned, we need some legal definitions as to “intent” and “harm”. What is “perceived intent”?

If I can continue quickly, a British Columbia teenager committed suicide because one of her former friends yelled at her on the phone, “You are effing dead.” She thought the kids were really going to kill her, and she killed herself before that. The lower court in that case said that when there is perceived harm, that can be considered as criminal harassment, so the perpetrator was charged. But that's still a grey area; the high courts haven't really ruled on that.

So yes, these amendments would affect kids, because they really don't realize. If school principals see this as a way of reporting it to the police and putting them through the criminal justice system, then I think you're taking away opportunities to teach them and you're putting them through a system in which they're now labelled as criminals or young offenders, and then they're treated like young offenders. So that's one of the issues, that they could be labelled.

I agree that the police actually do play a very good liaison role, but for young people who don't know what they're doing, it's a difficult issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Professor.

That's your time, Mr. Morin, sorry.

Next is Mr. Goguen, from the Conservative Party.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is an open question to all three of the witnesses. If I have any time left, I'll share it with Mr. Wilks, who is prepared.

In December 2012, just recently, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights released its report entitled “Cyberbullying Hurts: Respect for Rights in the Digital Age”, and quoted on page 73 therein is a Professor Shelley Hymel, who is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hymel noted that the vast majority of schools today still rely on punitive methods of discipline. Nevertheless, in Dr. Hymel's view, a more effective approach is to teach children to be responsible for their own behaviour through restorative and restitution practices that build empathy and help to make children who bully accountable for their own behaviour.

Now, there are differences of opinion in those witnesses who testified before the Senate, but a clear message that was endorsed by most of them was that working with children in the restorative justice approach was the most effective.

I'd like to canvass your thoughts on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Who'd like to go first?

[Prof. Wendy Craig]

Well, I guess I'll say absolutely, yes, when we look at the research on what are the successful components of bullying prevention: restorative justice, a whole-school approach, and an approach that works with the individual children involved and teaches them the skills and the competencies they need to be different.

Also, it's not just about teaching them the skills. What we think about are educative consequences. There are consequences to these actions that need to happen, but they also have to be educative. They have to teach the children or the students a new way of being and moving forward. Clearly, the research shows that those types of positive approaches work, and in fact that the deterrent approaches are not effective in terms of bullying prevention. Restorative approaches that build up the skills that kids need are the way to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Ms. Palmer, you would like to answer that question?