Justice Committee on April 11th, 2019

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you. We would love to use that as we deliberate.

Second, just in the interests of time, I'm going to stick with you, Mr. Neve.

We see social media platforms give organizations and individuals the opportunity to pay to have more viewership of their messages, their opinions and whatever they're sharing. We've seen organizations raising money by playing on people's fears. We've seen organizations that are paying money to these specific interest groups to spread that very hateful message.

Do you think perhaps there is some kind of framework that can be developed with respect to that sponsorship piece, of getting your narrative out there, so I guess whoever has the most money would eventually then have the loudest voice on the Internet? Could I have your comments on that, please?

[Alex Neve]

Sure. I'll be very frank in admitting that Amnesty International sometimes makes use of that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Exactly.

[Alex Neve]

We don't have the resources that most others do, so it's a little boost on Facebook, but that's sometimes an essential part of also getting positive messages out there.

I think that as a wider strategy around tackling online hate goes forward, that is a key aspect of it. The strategy needs to be looking at all manifestations of how hate finds its place and gets an even greater profile in the digital world. If sometimes whoever has the deepest pockets is going to get the greatest reach with their hate, that has to be of top concern in any such strategy.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

I will pass the rest of my time to Mr. Virani.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

That's generous. Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

There are about four minutes left.

First of all, thank you to all of you.

It's good to see you again, Shahen, in Toronto. Thank you for being here. Your contributions are invaluable.

I have a few points.

Thank you for the reference to Bill C-51 and the amendments that were made. There have also been amendments by the government in respect of the security infrastructure funding, which is the funding we provide to increase surveillance capacity and security in places of worship. Unfortunately, these things have all been triggered by horrific events. It was doubled after the Quebec mosque shooting. It was doubled again after the New Zealand shooting. However, I think that's important.

Mr. Neve, you also mentioned that the anti-racism secretariat money in budget 2019 is dedicated to developing a robust anti-racism strategy. There are issues that all of us care about. I, in particular, care deeply about these kinds of issues.

Mr. Schutten, I want to ask you a question, because it's really germane to what we're studying here. Is the issue with section 13 a problem—you seem very well-versed legally, so I'm going to put to you a very strict legal question. The analogue to that provision was tested by the Supreme Court of Canada in its Whatcott decision, and section 13 was upheld. There was a minor amendment about how you should be able to belittle. Belittling is in the domain of free speech.

However, is your issue with the text of section 13 as it then was, which has effectively been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, or is the issue you raised—and raised poignantly—with the decision-making that took place? As a lawyer, I know that inconsistent decision-making is the bane of any litigation lawyer. Where's the rub there?

[André Schutten]

The Supreme Court, in the Whatcott decision, said that having a hate speech provision in the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code was one way a government could combat hate speech and so on, but it did not say that it was a necessary provision. So it's not that it's constitutionally obligatory for a government to have a hate speech provision. I would say that this is what the Supreme Court was pretty clear on.

That said, I think that even post-Whatcott, the better policy decision is to not be policing expression, even Whatcott-style expression, because it does not rise to the level of violence. It doesn't rise to the level of the types of things that have triggered this very hearing.

I do not defend Mr. Whatcott's way of expressing himself at all, but he's a person who is trying to engage in a public policy debate. He's doing it poorly, but that's what he's trying to do. Also, his engagement is particularly around political speech, and of all free speech, political speech is the most important to protect. We can quibble about whether or not the Supreme Court got it right, but I think it's playing a very fine line around that freedom of political expression.

I can share with the committee, as well, a peer-reviewed journal article I've published with a law professor from Osgoode Hall on the Whatcott decision and on how we think the Supreme Court got it wrong.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I think that would be helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You have 30 seconds.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

With all of you leveraging how we better track.... And I'm cognizant that when we did the M-103 study, people came forward and said that Muslims will report to Muslim civil society groups, and Jews will report to Jewish civil society groups. B'nai Brith, which is in the room right now, has done a great report on hate crimes. How do we leverage civil society to help us do that tracking that we've heard about this morning?

[Dr. Geoffrey Cameron]

I think it's very hard for groups to track online hate. I spoke with the NCCM before testifying today and asked for their reporting on online hate against Muslims, and they weren't able to supply comprehensive reporting. This is an organization that's very well organized and does an effective job, so I think it's hard to track effectively.

[Alex Neve]

I would say there's some danger in leaving it only or primarily to communities to do this themselves. There will be resource constraints. There will be fearfulness factors. There will be all sorts of things that stand in the way of that.

I would say that government has a role to work with communities to jointly design, resource and maybe even run the right kinds of reporting mechanisms. That really needs to be a joint effort going forward. Otherwise, at best, it's only going to be piecemeal. Some communities will have greater interest, capacity and resources, but others less so, and the last thing we would want, as a result of that, would be to have an incomplete and skewed picture of the extent of hatred in the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all the groups that participated in this panel. You have been enormously helpful to us.

I wish everybody a wonderful day.

The meeting is adjourned.