Justice Committee on May 2nd, 2019

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

If you could provide the cybercrime protocol—the 2002 protocol—to this committee so it forms part of our evidentiary record, that would be helpful.

[David Matas]

My colleague, Brian Herman, was pointing out to me that there was actually a bill in Parliament to implement that protocol, which only went into first reading. We'll get you that bill as well.

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

When was that? Do you know?

[David Matas]

I think it was 2005.

[Brian Herman]

I'm not sure, but the election might have gotten in the way of that. I noticed on LEGISinfo that it's there, and it just went through first reading. We certainly will provide the protocol.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Housefather is going to cut me off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

I was going to pass it on to Ms. Ramsey.

Thank you, Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you so much.

I'll actually pick up on some of Mr. Virani's themes.

When you're talking about data, it's so critical. I know you're doing an annual audit at B'nai Brith on anti-Semitic incidents. I think it's a challenge for a lot of NGOs and faith communities to have the resources to do this type of data collection, but I have read your report. When you're talking about anti-Semitic incidents rising to 2,041 in 2017, 80% of those were online.

Mr. Matas, you talked about the gaps in criminal law, the tribunal, the AG's powers and everything. If you could follow that up with some more detailed information, that would be greatly appreciated. When we're talking about the detailed accounting of incidents, it's very important that we understand what's happening across the country. I certainly hear, and I'm sure my colleagues do too, of people who receive a threatening message on Facebook or other platforms. They go to the police and nothing really ends up happening. Sometimes it's a threat to that person's life. It's quite serious. That person's worried and concerned, and nothing actually ends up happening.

The question I have for you is with respect to this incident breakdown that you've done. You have month by month in your report. Certainly all of them are very deeply concerning, but I just want to ask about one that happened in June because it seemed that you were able to get someone.... There was a Winnipeg man who received a Facebook message—it's quite vile so I won't read it into the record—from a fake profile that was later erased. When you're receiving the information that this has happened on Facebook, can you describe, then, what you're doing with that information?

I'm wondering how it is that you are successful in getting this erased. The people who we haven't had at the committee yet, who are a key part of this, are, of course, police services across our country and the RCMP. We want to hear from them about the way they're handling each of those cases and the way they look at them. Our local police, I feel, simply don't have the tools necessary to be able to address these complaints when they come in. You have done this accounting and looked at these cases, so I wonder if you can speak to what happens when someone brings something they have received or see on social media to you.

[Brian Herman]

We are a small organization relatively speaking, with modest resources, so we can't necessarily deal with individual complaints. We do have a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week hotline, which is how we record a lot of our data, together with reaching out to police forces across the country when we prepare the audit.

When someone brings something to our attention, we advise them if it's a serious matter to take it to the police. We have to trust them to do it. If there is something that is sufficiently egregious and serious—usually it's an act of vandalism—we take it upon ourselves to notify the local police force and to press them and say, “What are you doing about it?” This also touches upon the point I made earlier about the need for our police forces to have hate crimes units, if the cities are large enough, or at least have hate crime strategies and properly trained officers.

[David Matas]

I would just like to add this. If you look at the terms of service of the major Internet service providers, they all prohibit use of their service for hate speech. In theory they can deny service, they can take anything down, in terms of the contract. It's a simply contractual arrangement. One of the things I often do—because I get these calls as well, I'm a volunteer—is to say, ”Just contact the service provider and see if they'll take it down.” Sometimes they'll do it if it's obvious. The problems with the service providers are their slow reaction time, there's no rationale when they do something and often they don't appreciate it. In theory it should work. The problem is that, systematically, it doesn't work.

When it comes to the police, it's also a problem of expertise and time. The advantage of the law is that the Internet service providers will always say, “We will respect the law”, whether they think something is hate speech or not. As soon as the police get involved, they easily accede.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you for that.

Part of your report also speaks about deterring people. Right now, if I were to go to my local town of Windsor and walk down the street, I see bus shelters that have a lot of information about marijuana because obviously that's something that's been recent. There is a lot of public outreach education that's happening around different topics, but not this. I don't see things that are addressed to people who are online on how to use it against hate, how to report hate, what to do if they see something but also what if something happens to them.

I wonder if you could each speak to how you think we can deter people by demonstrating that if you are involved in online hate, there are tangible consequences. Right now, to be quite honest, I don't think that a lot of people who are expressing this online are aware that what they're doing could be considered criminal behaviour.

How can we address that to the general public to deter people from sending these messages, being in these spaces and spreading this hate?

[David Matas]

One of the things that I was looking at when I was looking at the Canadian Human Rights Act in relation to section 13 is whether the Canadian Human Rights Commission has a public education function. It doesn't. A lot of the provincial human rights commissions do, but I didn't find it with the Canadian Human Rights Act. These provisions, as I said, exist with the provinces. You can just pick up the wording from the provincial legislation and add it to the mandate of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. This could certainly be a part of it.

[Brian Herman]

I think it is a question over education at all levels. That's why we constantly urge political leaders, community leaders at all levels of the government, to speak out and advise people about this.

[Daniel Cho]

Can I just add something? I agree with what's been said but that's the million-dollar question. There has to be an acknowledgement that there is something that was committed in order for that to be deterred, in order for that to act as a deterrent. There are very few people who would acknowledge that their actions or speech are motivated by hate. Very few people would acknowledge that. I think that's the problem. It's not just the explicitness of what is said or done.

There have been a lot of incidents that have been reported of people confronting a person of minority background and saying, “Go back” and “That's my opinion”, but they would not acknowledge themselves to be a hateful person: “That's just my opinion.” They've been bolstered and buoyed by the acknowledgement that there are other people in this world online who feel the same way. It's very difficult.

I'm tempted to quote Dr. Phil, “You can't change what you don't acknowledge”. I think that is probably one of the most fundamental problems in this whole debate about online hate and that kind of bigotry that we all hold and is able to be expressed in some insidious and subtle ways.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

It's probably the first time Dr. Phil has ever been quoted at the justice committee, so thank you.

[Daniel Cho]

My apologies to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

It's always appreciated to draw him in.

Mr. Fraser.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much to the witnesses for being with us today. I appreciate it.

Mr. Cho, I will start with you.

I thought it was interesting how poignantly you put forward the idea of people being radicalized online because they're able to find like-minded individuals who share hateful views. When we talk about online hate though I'd like your view of what “online” means, because in certain circumstances we have things like the dark web where individuals can go and find like-minded individuals to communicate with each other about hateful sorts of practices and views.

Then in other circumstances you have much wider social media platforms where they're able to perhaps radicalize individuals who have those deep-seated views perhaps as residual, as you had indicated, but maybe hadn't necessarily turned their mind to that to the extent of going and actively seeking like-minded individuals online.

I'm just wondering if you could touch on the difference between the different media platforms and the dark web and what could be done in order to better understand how those different ways of people connecting actually happen.

[Daniel Cho]

That's an interesting question. Thank you for that.

I'm not an expert in online communications. I've only recently become educated about the dark web. I would say that anything that allows people to communicate, transmit ideas and connect with any kinds of ideas or community would constitute online, anything that joins people together.

One of the essential points that I was making is that I think that, before the world of the Internet, whatever ideas we may harbour—be they prejudicial or whatever—we tended to keep them relatively private, understanding that there is a bit of unacceptability to some ideas that we may hold.

The reality of these online connections, I think, introduces a wave of legitimacy. I think that's a very key problem. One discovers that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who agree with them. All of a sudden, what has been harboured in private now becomes almost acceptable, because it becomes validated by the mass understanding of so many people in agreement. It becomes normalized. Whatever flows through this online information highway becomes normalized.

I think that's one of the problems that people.... We have all encountered these terms about fake news. In a way, the public has been made to not be able to distinguish anymore, because whatever came on TV was considered real news back in the day, but now, since everything flows through the Internet, everything is on an equal playing field. It's left to the individuals to determine for themselves what is legitimate and what is acceptable. If I don't agree with something, I can just dismiss that, and I agree with these things.

The communication, the media, that form of communication and transmission is all on an equal playing field now, and I think it makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is socially acceptable and what is not.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you for that.

If I could turn to Mr. Herman and Mr. Matas, one of the things I think we've come to terms with and understand is that there are foreign actors at play, for perhaps geopolitical reasons, who are getting online in our social media platforms in western society in order to divide people against each other. Some of the hate propaganda that we see is certainly targeted at the Jewish community in order to divide Canadians or divide people in the western world.

I wonder if you have any comment on foreign influences on our social media platforms, in particular as they relate to anti-Semitic statements and what we can do to combat those foreign influences from having such a role in dividing people.

[Brian Herman]

I understand that, at the end of May, there will be an international parliamentary forum looking at disinformation and fake news that will be taking place here in Canada. We hope they will be able to address these sorts of things.

One has to be constantly on guard for this. We're embroiled in a bit of a situation right now where we have been speaking out against Nazi glorification in countries of Europe going back to the experiences of World War II. There are signs that there are some countries that are taking advantage of those who speak out against this to try to divide us from one another, particularly NATO members from one another.

We have to be on guard for this sort of thing, but there's no doubt that it happens, and there's no doubt that we have to use these examples as a way of trying to educate ourselves to spot when someone is trying to use legitimate discussion to divide us. It's a process of education.

[David Matas]

As a follow-up, I'm a member of the Canadian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as a representative of B'nai Brith. That's one of the subjects of discussion there.

There's this protocol we mentioned. Basically, when you're dealing with international phenomena, you need international assistance and international co-operation. There's always the possibility of blocking, at least in some cases. Something you might also consider is the use of the Magnitsky legislation, if you can find identified perpetrators. That might be useful as well.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

We're now out of time. I'd like to thank the witnesses. I really appreciate it.

B'nai Brith, I want to thank you so much for your work on the audit. It was very helpful and informative. I certainly share your view that a national action plan on anti-Semitism needs to be coming out shortly.

Thank you also, Mr. Cho. I really appreciate your presence here today.

I'd like to ask the people from the next panel to come up as quickly as possible.

Thank you again to everyone in this panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

We will now resume.

Prior to our introducing the witnesses for the next panel, the clerk has reminded me that we have the budget for the online hate study, which we should be adopting.

Mr. Clerk, can you let everybody know what the proposed budget is?