On the platforms piece, I generally understand the answer to that. There is financial accountability in the form of some type of sanction if they don't take down obviously illegal content, and there's basically a duty of care and some type of negligence there.
What I struggle to understand is that we have hate speech laws under the Criminal Code and we have laws against threats and laws against harassment, but it's a very cumbersome process to apply those laws. We tend to apply those laws in extreme cases.
I have a local case where a paper called Your Ward News was being delivered to thousands of households. It was shut down through Canada Post, and rightfully so. Then there was a criminal prosecution and a judge recently found that the publishers had broken the hate speech laws, and now there will be a sentence and punishment doled out. So it is with someone with egregious behaviour or with a Whatcott case.
Egregious behaviour deserves a more appropriate and significant punishment, yet if someone makes a hateful remark online, posts a comment that is harassing toward a female, for example, whether a politician or not, the Criminal Code is not an effective instrument. I don't even think section 13 was a particularly effective instrument.
Do you have any suggestions about what would be a more effective instrument?