Thank you so much for inviting S.U.C.C.E.S.S. to present before you today. We believe that this is an important topic of the study and we are honoured to provide our perspective.
To provide you with some context, for those people who are not familiar with S.U.C.C.E.S.S., we are one of the largest immigrant and refugee-serving agencies in Canada. We have 46 years of history. We provide a broad range of settlement and social services to more than 61,800 clients every year. Our clients come from diverse backgrounds and have unique settlement experiences in Canada. As such, my presentation today comes from the perspective of a settlement service provider for newcomers to Canada.
We believe that all forms of hate, including online hate, increase the exclusion, isolation and marginalization of members of our community. It is an attack to our values of being welcoming, open and inclusive, as well as to the safety of our communities, and it has no place whatsoever.
Online technology, which brings tremendous benefits in promoting knowledge and in sharing and facilitating connections, is being used to spread the messages of hate and to radicalize people. Online hate is touching many members of our community. I recall seeing statistics earlier this year from a national survey conducted by the Association for Canadian Studies. The survey found that almost 60% of Canadians have seen some form of hate speech posted on social media. We believe that strategies to combat online hate must consider the experience of newcomers, who also are significant users of digital technology as well as often the recipients of hate.
In our experiences with newcomers directly and through our work in community development, we find that many newcomers may not feel comfortable reporting any form of crime, let alone online hate, for various reasons. For example, they might feel that their engaging with enforcement in any way—even if it is a reportable crime—may jeopardize their citizenship application or PR status. They may not trust the police, or they may not understand what constitutes hate speech and not know that it is something that is reportable. They may believe that if hate speech is in a non-official language, it does not count as a crime in Canada and local law enforcement will not take it seriously. Some do not understand the process of reporting online hate and what happens afterwards. They may not believe that reporting it may make a difference, or they may feel that they are just causing problems by reporting a hate crime, especially if it is being perpetrated by a member of their own community.
While these issues are not unique to newcomers, they are often the barriers that prevent newcomers from reporting hate crimes. We believe that a national strategy to combat online hate is needed.
One of the first steps is to ensure broad and inclusive engagement across Canada, including population groups that tend to be under-represented when doing consultations—including newcomers—in order to understand their experiences with online hate. We need to ensure that the process is as accessible and inclusive as possible to engage diverse groups and that there is a safe space for more vulnerable people and groups to express their experiences.
For example, for newcomers, this cannot be just hiring interpreters to run several focus groups with newcomers. Instead, there need to be consultations, starting with the design process, to ensure that diverse newcomers are engaged and included in a meaningful way.
However, it is not enough to do consultation or make legal amendments. Laws around online hate need to be communicated to the community using language that is accessible and inclusive. The definition of what constitutes online hate versus offensive material needs to be clear.
All community members, not just the legal community or subject experts, need to understand what is online hate and how hate can show up online, whether it be under the guise of educational material or news; how to make a report; and what happens after reporting a hate crime. If the community does not understand the definition and process, they will be reluctant to intervene or make a report.
We also need to be better at tracking online hate experienced by different population groups, including newcomers. There needs to be a clearer definition and standardization of data collection and reporting so that there is more reliable data on the prevalence of online hate. We also need to do more community research to understand the prevalence of unreported hate crimes, as well as to understand which community groups tend not to report hate crimes and the barriers to doing so.
Open communication about the existence and prevalence of hate is also important, not only about the experience of hate against certain communities but also about how we all have a responsibility to do something if we see someone in our community disseminating messages of hate.
Online hate is something that can spread wide and fast, very quickly and easily. While we believe social media companies, law enforcement and policy-makers all have key roles to play, it is also the responsibility of all community members to take some type of action when they see online hate. We need to better educate community members on how to be allies and how to respond appropriately in this situation to ensure safety and promote reporting.
Education is particularly important to engage newcomer youth. They have unique and complex experiences and pressures. They have challenges in navigating a new social reality and have limited trust in authority figures, as well as feelings of being powerless and hopeless.
Dr. Ratna Ghosh, from McGill University, is currently doing important research about education as a form of soft power and a critical prevention tool in countering violent extremism, by supporting youth to develop values, skills, behaviours and norms that promote security and resilience. However, most community education and resources about hate crimes in Canada are created for the mainstream community and tend only to be available in English and French. We need to create linguistically and culturally inclusive engagement strategies and resources to engage diverse communities, including newcomers. At the same time, there needs to be more support to newcomers to enhance their media awareness and learn now to critically engage with media in order to assess information and news online in terms of whether it is credible or designated to incite hate.
We also need to build community resilience against hate by fostering diversity and inclusion. This includes building greater connection with communities, whether they are faith-based, ethno-cultural, indigenous, language-based, LGBTQ2S+, and so on, in order to foster greater intercultural awareness and understanding, break down the fear of others and understand how our experiences are similar. These connections strengthen our communities so that we will stand up and be each other's allies in combatting hate.
Of course, meaningful action to combat online hate must come with an adequate level of resources. There must be sustainable funding investments across Canada into community outreach, education, training, reporting, prevention and enforcement dedicated to combatting online hate.
Thank you again for providing the opportunity to share our perspective with you today.