Fantastic. Thanks for having me, guys.
I'll give you some quick background about myself. My name is Fahd. I'm an Ottawa native. I've been here for about 16 years now. I like to say that I grew up at the Boys and Girls Club. I've been going there for about 10 years as a kid, and I started volunteering. Today I work there as both a volunteer and as a staff member. Thank you for having me here today at committee to speak about Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act.
As some of you might know, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada are leading providers of quality programs for the healthy development of children and youth. Our association has 99 clubs and reaches over 200,000 children and their families in over 650 community service locations across Canada. So we're vast, and we really work with a lot of youth and really understand the issues that they're facing and the issues that we need to address.
Let me start off by saying that we very much welcome the action to address the harms of cyberbullying. We're concerned about the far-reaching consequences of cyberbullying and think that Bill C-13 is proposing to address one of the harmful manifestations of cyberbullying and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
Currently, young people who share intimate images of minors, and sometimes their own peers, are being charged with child pornography. We think this legislation is obviously more appropriate as a response than the use of criminal pornography charges. In this sense, we say thank you. This is a very positive step that Bill C-13 is taking forward.
We understand that Bill C-13 has also raised concerns on the respect of privacy. Young people deserve to be protected from cyberbullying, but they also deserve to be protected and respected for their privacy. Now, we're no experts on privacy, so our only recommendation on that is to encourage you to listen, obviously, to any concerns that are brought up, any considerations that are brought up, by the experts who are dealing with privacy, to make sure that we're protecting youth from cyberbullying but we're also protecting our children and youth and their privacy rights.
I have three main points that I'm going to bring up. Hopefully you can follow my train of thought; sometimes I ramble.
First, I want to talk about the importance of consulting with some of the youth that we work with. Bringing in legislation is great, but sometimes we have a different view on how the world of the Internet works for us and how it works for them. Second, to coordinate efforts across Canada, I'll be talking a bit more about the different legislation that's happening in different provinces. Unfortunately, the Internet doesn't really have borders. We have to take that into consideration. We also have to look at restorative justice versus criminal punishments.
I'll start with the first point, the consultation with youth. Young people are more connected. You all know this, and those of you who have kids. Young people are more connected that any generation before them. A recent study conducted by MediaSmarts actually polled 5,000 youth from grades 4 to 11 in the provinces and territories and found that youth in Canada have a universal access to the Internet: 99% of them have access to the Internet outside of school. We're digital natives. Twenty-four percent of grade four students have their own cellphones and that percentage increases to 85% by grade 11. The reality is they have access to everything and they're using it to socialize with peers. They're using it to find information. They're using it for sports, sexuality, and health. They're testing their boundaries, right? It's natural. It's a natural fit. So with the increased connectivity and the new social norms around electronic communications, young people are vulnerable to cyberbullying.
As David said, a lot of young people are victims of cyberbullying, and this bill will affect them the most. So my recommendation is that it is very important to speak to the youth and really understand where they're coming from and how they see that it will affect them on a very detailed basis.
To the second one, the desire to address cyberbullying has resulted in a patchwork of legislation across Canada. That really creates risks for children and youth confused about their responsibilities and rights, and the legal repercussions of their actions.
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights and the CCSO cybercrime working group both recommended that the federal government play a lead role in coordinating efforts to address cyberbullying, in part through a national prevention strategy, legal education, and digital citizenship. Whatever is decided and happens and moves forward, we argue that the leaders need to take charge, coordinate the message, and make sure that the federal government is playing a very strong role.
The government’s new campaign, Stop Hating Online, is fantastic. That's great. Those are the kinds of things we need. Taking the time to partner with organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, which serves 200,000 youth, would be even a bigger step, the next step forward. These campaigns are important. They really help what we're trying to do by educating young people and really moving them forward.
The last one is around restorative justice. We like to think we can educate our youth, but despite our best efforts the kids will break the rules. We were all kids. We work with them, or we have kids—I don't have any yet—but the reality is that's what's going to happen. You can imagine that to punish a sixth grade kid for pressing “send” on a cellphone and sending a picture that he received to a friend.... Giving him a legal punishment of child pornography doesn't seem logical to me. I know that many of you will agree with that.
What we've done is we have restorative justice programs. These foster responsibility in the wrongdoer and ensure accountability and meaningful consequences for the crime. The impulsive sharing of intimate images without consent, with no severe malicious intent, is perfectly suited for this type of intervention.
The Boys and Girls Clubs in British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, and Ontario have been offering youth restorative justice programs for several years now with great success. In recent years we've actually been referred sexting cases.
The Ontario Provincial Police recently reached out to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Kawartha Lakes, to ask if they would partner with them to respond when youth are accused of sexting. The OPP will refer cases of youth between the ages of 12 to 17. The clubs' restorative justice program has been well established and has a very solid track record.
Similarly, Durham Regional Police Service refers sexting cases to the Boys and Girls Clubs in their area as part of the pre-charge program. The club has seen a few of these cases now, and prepares individual restorative plans for each case, because each case is different for many of the youth in how it ends up unfolding.
Obviously, as we know, education around this plays a big role, and it has involved educating minors about the consequences of sharing these intimate images and how sharing puts the recipient at risk of child pornography charges. As they come to understand this, their actions change and they understand the legal repercussions behind sharing these images.
As I said, a lot of our programs are very refined for the youth and very tailored to the youth, customized to them. The measurement sanctions are dependent on the severity of the offence. A lot of times we see young people who don't have the malicious intent but kind of go with it, and they end up having charges that are not adequate for them.
To summarize, let's protect the privacy of our children at the same time as we protect them from cyberbullying.
Let's consult with youth about the importance of this bill and how it affects them, and how we can ensure it protects them.
Let's coordinate our efforts across Canada to make sure that everyone is receiving the same understanding, and understand that the Internet does not have borders.
Let's take a restorative justice approach instead of a criminal offence approach.
Thank you.