Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and colleagues, for the opportunity to present to you Bill C-273, which is my private member's bill that seeks to clarify in the Criminal Code where cyberbullying is an offence.
I want to begin by thanking all of you, from every political party, who have supported my bill, as well as people like members of the Canadian Teachers' Federation and the Canadian Association of Police Boards, along with Jer's Vision and other groups that have supported the bill.
I want to clear this up right away. This bill does not add any new section to the Criminal Code. It asks that the sections of the Criminal Code be clarified to include communication by means of a computer under the areas of criminal harassment, false messages, and defamatory libel. Currently those three sections of the Criminal Code actually pertain to every single type of communication, whether newspapers, letters, telegrams, cable and television, telephones, or radio. All of those modes of communication fall under those three areas of the Criminal Code. The only one that doesn't—and that's because it's a new segment and the Criminal Code never brought itself up to speed on it—is using a computer as a means of communication.
All of these things are already there. I'm just asking that we add using a computer, because in theory the only thing that is actually protected, out of all of the communication means, is a computer. Every other means of communication was there.
I just wanted you to know that there have been a couple of misconceptions during the debates and so on about the bill, and I want to take those on right away. First and foremost, I was told that the reason this bill should not be considered was that the Senate was studying the issue of cyberbullying and therefore we should wait. We have seen the Senate report now. Actually the Senate report does not clarify anything. The Senate report actually only looks at talking about a task force, but it does mention certain areas that I'm trying to bring forward in my bill. I'll get to those in a minute.
The second misconception is that this bill is trying to criminalize children.
The third misconception—not misconception, but comment—is that more aspects of the Criminal Code than are currently there should be added, not simply those three areas: criminal harassment, false messages, and defamatory liable. In fact, it was the government, when it made its speech at the first reading, that suggested we should add other areas that currently do not include computers.
Lastly, I want to support anyone who has ever said that what we really need is an anti-bullying strategy that is comprehensive, that takes on all three levels of government, the private sector, NGOs, etc., and that deals with prevention and moves on to clarification under the Criminal Code and to assisting victims of bullying, etc.
I see cyberbullying as a public health issue, really, because it causes harm to others. It causes increased amounts of morbidity. People who do have depression are very prone to suicide under cyberbullying. So this strategy needs to be broadened eventually, but that doesn't mean the bill shouldn't be put in while we wait however many years it will take to come up with a conscientious strategy.
I just want to talk about the Senate's report. The Senate mentioned in its report that there is a need to study the issue further—which means, as we well know, that it will take another two or three years—and that we need to define what cyberbullying means. I thought the Senate would define cyberbullying, but it didn't.
Second, the Senate report highlighted witnesses' testimony stating that the sections of the Criminal Code dealing with harassment, which is what I'm talking about, effectively do not include electronic means of communication, which is what I'm asking for them to do.
The Senate report recommended that restorative justice initiatives be a key component of any coordinated strategy. I agree with that as we look down the road at developing a coordinated strategy. But the question is, as we wait to put all the i's and all the t's in place, while we dot them and cross them, how many people will be harassed? How many people would see their mental illnesses actually precipitated even further, and how many people could die? I am not being melodramatic here. We know that people have committed suicide as a result of cyberbullying. I think we should really take that into consideration in terms of timeliness of this issue.
Now, I've heard from a number of people that this bill will criminalize children, and that kids must be kids. Well, look, we all know the saying that “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me”, and we all know that words hurt. We've seen bullying in schools: you push and you shove, and you call names, etc.
One of the things that differentiates cyberbullying from that kind of bullying—and I have been told so by many people who have been cyberbullied—is that if you're being bullied somewhere, you can leave. You can go home. You can get away from it all. You can have your friends and your family and all kinds of people to support you. But this isn't true about cyberbullying; it follows you into your home. It follows you into your computer. It follows you wherever you go, so that you cannot get away from it.
The other thing we say about bullying is that the best revenge is to grow up and be successful, and that tells everybody that when they bullied you they were really being ridiculous. That doesn't happen with cyberbullying. The thing about cyberbullying is that it never stops. What was said about you when you were 10 or 16 or 20 or 30 remains there in cyberspace forever, to be Googled about you when you're 90. Even after you've died, it is there about you.
If it's a false message and if it's criminal harassment, then it really defames your character, to the extent that it can harm your ability to pursue your own career and your ability to be successful in whatever you do. It shames your family, and it creates the kind of harm that you can't run away from anymore, as you used to do when somebody said bad things about you.
The reason we have sections in the Criminal Code dealing with criminal harassment, false messages, and defamatory libel is that we know those things are harmful. What I'm saying is that adults are also victims of cyberbullying, not just children.
When bullying crosses the line from just having mean things said about you to become a criminal act, such as criminal harassment, false messages, and defamatory libel, then it becomes a criminal matter, and the court treats it that way. If you use a telephone to do it, if you use television to say it, if you use a telegram, if you print it in a letter to the newspaper, or if you send it to someone in the mail via a newspaper, the courts and the police are able to track who sent it and where they sent it. They're able to get the telephone companies, the stations, and the newspapers to say exactly who sent that letter.
You cannot do that with a computer. One of the things about the computer today, while it's a good thing and we all applaud the digital medium and how it has really changed the world...the point is that it is anonymous. It's the anonymity that has allowed people to stray from simply saying nasty things to moving forward into sometimes crossing the line to criminal activity. This is where we're looking at dealing with it: when it crosses that line. Right now, you can't tell who's doing that and who is sending the message, but you could if they had used any other means of communication.
I want to talk a bit about this happening with adults. We need look no further than right here in Ottawa, where a woman, Ms. Katz—and this is open information, so I'm not giving you private information—was cyberbullied because she tweeted a bad review of a restaurant. The owner of the restaurant went on to impersonate Ms. Katz, so there is identity fraud involved there in e-mailing her boss and creating an online dating profile for this woman. Of course, she took it to court because she could, and it was obvious who was doing it; there was no anonymity there. It was the restaurant owner. The restaurant owner was convicted on two counts of defamatory libel and sentenced to two years in prison.
Justice Lahaie stated at the time that Ms. Simoes, who is the person who did the bullying, “was vindictive, vicious, and highly personal” in her “anonymous attacks against Elayna Katz” and that they were “akin to cyberbullying”. The judge said, “Cyberbullying of this nature can drive people to more tragic consequences than what happened here.” Justice Lahaie went on to say, “Unlike graffiti”, cyberbullying “can never be fully washed away.” I've heard this from a number of people, of whatever age. Young people have told us they cannot escape it. Young people have said this follows them through their lives as they get older.
We know that someone can cyberbully in the workplace. You and that other person are going up for some sort of promotion and competing against each other and suddenly there are anonymous things to the boss, with someone saying things about you that aren't necessarily true.
It not only happens in the workplace; it also happens in the House of Commons. We've seen it here, in the House of Commons, where someone decides it's okay to defame or to libel or to spread false messages causing harm.
We saw it in the case of Amanda Todd in British Columbia, where the actual bullying was not simply bullying but criminal harassment. It in fact affected her life, and she committed suicide.
Rebecca Marino of British Columbia was a very promising tennis player. She suffered with depression, and she was cyberbullied. People said that she should be killed, that we should get her. People said negative things about her. It increased her depression, and in fact she has now quit. She has closed down any computer and social media that she had. She has quit tennis. And she was carded; she was a seeded player in the world.
Now, at second reading of this bill, I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice say that we need to see more sections, not just the three, clarified. He named, for instance, section 264.1, uttering threats; section 266, assault; section 271, using the computer for sexual assault; section 346, extortion; section 403, identity fraud and impersonation with intent, as we saw with this other lady here; and section 423, intimidation.
This is an issue that goes beyond partisanship, and I hope we can all work together to make this happen.
Mr. Chair, if you can give me one more minute, I'd like to address the concerns around a comprehensive strategy. I agree with this; I think we need to talk about this as a secondary event that we should get on and look at in terms of a comprehensive ability to deal with other levels of government, NGOs, private sector workplaces, etc., to deal with the issue of cyberbullying. This bill was never intended to deal with any of those things; it was just to look at the issue immediately that was causing a lot of harm to people and costing them their jobs and their lives.
I just want to say that the anonymity of the Internet is a problem here in its ability to shield the identity of the person who is doing these criminal activities. It has led to a viciousness not normally seen in face-to-face bullying. Let's not forget that anyone can be a bully, especially if you have anonymity to hide behind.
Finally, this bill presents a logical and important step towards ensuring that bullies who pursue this brand of criminal activity and online cruelty and harm to individuals are appropriately punished and recognize the seriousness of what they do when they cross the line.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.