Justice Committee on April 11th, 2019

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Mirakian, do you have a response?

[Shahen Mirakian]

No, I'm sorry.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

One of the things we've heard is the alarming rise in online hate. We heard about bots. We heard all sorts of horrific numbers. One of the things that concerns me in particular with respect to certain communities is that they face state-sanctioned hate. In the case of the Bahá’í community, it's good to hear, Mr. Cameron, that there isn't a lot of activity in Canada that should be disconcerting.

Have we seen state actors necessarily take on particular groups? Have you evidenced anything of the sort when it comes to the Bahá’í community in Canada?

[Dr. Geoffrey Cameron]

Do you mean overseas or in Canada?

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Overseas, yes, and your sense that other states are trying to promote online hate.

[Dr. Geoffrey Cameron]

As I mentioned in my testimony, the evidence that we have from Iran indicates that tens of thousands of pieces of state-sponsored propaganda have been published in state media, which have also then been picked up and repeated by other actors in society. There have been cases of murder with impunity that are directly linked to that violence.

As I mentioned, although our community has not been a target of online hate here in Canada, we're not unaffected, given the number of Iranian Bahá’ís who have come to Canada, many as refugees, seeking shelter from violence that is in many cases provoked by state-sponsored propaganda, often online.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Mirakian, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you the same question. Has there been any evidence of state-sanctioned hatred by other countries that we should know of in Canada?

[Shahen Mirakian]

I'm not certain if it's been in Canada, but the President of Azerbaijan, for instance, once tweeted that the enemy of Azerbaijan was the Armenian diaspora, or all the Armenian people. He tweeted this in the English language for everyone to see.

It's hard to know whether he was sanctioning the sort of attacks that we are subject to from overseas perpetrators who are repeating that sort of propaganda, or if he, himself, is just being provocative and then thinking, what happens, happens.

Obviously, I have no way of figuring that out. I would appreciate if Canadian law enforcement were to look into that sort of thing and figure out if there is actually state sponsorship behind some of these acts of online hatred.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Ehsassi, you have 30 seconds.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Neve, can I ask you about section 13 of the human rights act? Could you comment on that and how much of a gap has been created?

[Alex Neve]

We think this is something worth exploring. We recognize, and don't disagree with, the concerns about how some cases proceeded in the past.

This is not the past; this is today. The realities around online hate are different than they were even five or six years ago when section 13 was abolished, and certainly in the years before that when it was being used.

I think it does merit considering whether there is a role for the commission to play here, with all of the provisos that I highlighted earlier. It would have to go forward with a clear recognition of the importance of both rights, and the kind of training, expertise and resourcing—drawing on international standards—that really help develop a sophisticated understanding of how those two rights have a profound interplay with each other.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you, panellists, for being here today.

One of the challenges in online space is that people see articles and published material and believe them to be true. They don't often look at the source. I think there is a general distrust in mainstream media in our country and there is such a significant need for media literacy for people.

Mr. Cameron, you were talking a bit about education. I think a core piece of what we're looking at here is people understanding how to identify what is a legitimate piece of media and what is something that shares perhaps hateful messages and things on the Internet, and how to distinguish between those things and determine that.

I don't think that people generally have those types of analytical skills. The members of Parliament who sit at this table receive many emails from constituents who send us a link to something and ask what it is about. We're often able to debunk it or say that it isn't a credible source, but it's a very significant challenge.

I wonder if you could each speak to the role you think our education systems in Canada should play in combatting hate in general, but certainly online hate. I have two teenage sons, and I don't believe that our education system is keeping pace with the culture, specifically, the online activity and technology. Our kids are on platforms that we don't even know about. There are these corners of the Internet where they are sharing information, and there probably aren't many parents or adults who are even in those spaces.

I wonder if you can talk about how our education system could address that, and how we can address that gap for adults as well. Most of us in this room saw the Internet come and we got onto Facebook and all these different platforms and used it for whichever purposes—sharing things with family and friends—but it certainly has grown to a place where even our understanding of what's there and what's happening there is very limited.

I wonder if you can speak to the role you think education should play in this.

[Alex Neve]

Yes, is the short answer. I couldn't agree more. I think that to frame it as media literacy is very important.

I think we probably would all agree that even before the advent of social media, media literacy was always underplayed and overlooked in our education system. Even when it was the traditional mainstream legacy media that we were mainly concerned about, there were issues as well, including how to empower citizenry about how to engage with media and how to make use of media. That is exponentially more the case now.

While there certainly are some good teachers, practices and modules that I'm anecdotally aware of—including some of the experiences my own children have had as they went through the education system—there is no doubt that right across the country there is, at best, profound inconsistency as to what is offered to young people around digital media literacy in a wider context of media literacy and empowerment. I think it absolutely needs to be prioritized.

[André Schutten]

I'd agree. I think education is always a good thing. I guess a question for this committee would be jurisdiction. Obviously education is a provincial matter, but certainly the federal government can encourage the provincial governments to be pushing more on this.

I think Internet safety is a big concern. We definitely pushed for more of that in sex education and so on, so that there would be more awareness about Internet safety among young people.

As well, I think what would be needed as part of that is both a good and healthy definition of what hatred is and then a good education around how to disagree well. I think that would help a lot as well, and it would simmer things down a bit more online.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

The anonymous element online, too, is something that's significant. People don't have their real name, they're under an alias or it's a bot. You don't even really know, at the end of the day, if that is really the person.

Of course, we see horrible instances of this being used for trafficking, luring and all of these really sordid things, but when there isn't a clear identification even of who the person is, I don't know how you can attempt to stop them from what they're doing.

[Dr. Geoffrey Cameron]

I would agree that media literacy is incredibly important.

I'm also concerned about hate-adjacent speech, the kind of prejudice that can percolate online where it becomes funny to make anti-Semitic comments or racist comments with friends in a joking way. I'm also concerned that the kind of polarization we see in our society is becoming reinforced by online algorithms that push young people especially toward content that is more and more at the extremes or margins of discourse, which then naturally cascades into exposure to more hateful material.

I think, beyond just literacy about the sources of news, the kind of education that's required is one that goes much deeper, actually, to recognize comments as prejudicial or potentially hateful before they get to an incitement to hatred or violence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You have 15 seconds left.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Okay. I will go over to our guest in Toronto, then, quickly.

[Shahen Mirakian]

I think one place where the federal government does have a role is providing more examples in Canadian and world history of the consequences of hatred, which should be included in the resources that the federal government makes available online, especially.

There is already a Canadian Holocaust resource web page that the Department of Canadian Heritage has online. I think that should be also for other incidents of crimes against humanity and genocide. Also, incidents of hate crime in Canada should be highlighted, whether on the web page of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights web page, or that of the Department of Canadian Heritage, or even Global Affairs Canada.

Certain of these incidents are important in our history. It's important to remember things like the Christie Pits riot or.... I don't remember the exact name. I do know that every Japanese ship's name ends in Maru, but there was an incident on one with the Sikhs. Certainly the incidents between European Canadians and indigenous people should be highlighted better. These resources need to be available and people should have somewhere they can look and say, “This is what's real”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Ms. Khalid.

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

I just have one question, and I'll be passing on the rest of my time to Mr. Virani.

First, Mr. Neve, you referenced that a study has been commissioned by Amnesty International, if I'm not mistaken. Can you share that study with the committee, please, if possible?

[Alex Neve]

Certainly. I wasn't commissioned by Amnesty, but it was carried out by Amnesty.

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

It was carried out by Amnesty. Wonderful.

[Alex Neve]

It was a study that focused on the gendered dimensions of violence in the world of Twitter, called “Toxic Twitter”.