Justice Committee on May 28th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

We will resume.

Our meeting was suspended. We apologize for taking away your time. It was important for the committee to discuss and deal with the issue.

I'm going to give the floor back to Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

While I certainly find the comments made by Mr. Suri to be deeply offensive and objectionable and vehemently disagree with them, I will withdraw saying that he should be ashamed. That was not unparliamentary, but I understand it made some members of the committee uncomfortable, so in the spirit of moving forward, I withdraw those specific comments, but certainly not the rest of what I said.

Mr. Benlolo, you cited sections 318 and 319. What about subsection 320.1.?

[Avi Benlolo]

I think I did cite that section.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Maybe you said subsection 319(1), but perhaps you meant subsection 320.1.

[Avi Benlolo]

Sorry; I have to refer to my notes.

No, sorry.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I raise that because you did cite section 13, but section 320.1 is an interesting section of the Criminal Code, one that, for whatever reason, has been completely underutilized. It provides a judge with the authority, on reasonable grounds, to order the removal of something on a computer system that constitutes hate propaganda.

Intent isn't required. All that is required is that, on reasonable grounds, a judge is satisfied that it constitutes hate propaganda. Would that not be a tool that's already there that has been overlooked or underutilized?

[Avi Benlolo]

Fair enough, and that's why I cited these provisions in the Criminal Code in general. It's because there really are tools in the Criminal Code. The problem is they are not being effectively utilized by the legal system and police services.

When section 13 was there, we were able to use that as a tool to essentially call up Internet service providers. It was really that simple to say, “Look, this is actually illegal according to section 13. Please remove it.” They did. They often complied. We didn't have to go through legal channels.

Those kinds of provisions help. In my experience, it's a fact that section 13 worked. That's why I would like something like that, perhaps a little updated, corresponding as well to the Criminal Code, to make our system a little bit more robust in addressing these things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

I want to talk a little bit about section 13. We've heard before, in this committee and elsewhere, very opposing views as to whether we should have a section 13, whether we should have an amended form of it, or whether we should find other mechanisms of enforcing more safety online when it comes to hate speech.

I've heard from witnesses here today. Mr. Suri said that we should amend or open up the Canadian Human Rights Act. Ms. Moore mentioned bringing back section 13. Mr. Benlolo mentioned bringing back section 13 as a tool.

If section 13 were to be brought back into the Canadian Human Rights Act, what kind of amendments would you like to see to its old form?

Mr. Benlolo, would you comment?

[Avi Benlolo]

The framework of section 13 essentially addressed old digital formats of communication. To my recollection, it did not address modern-day issues that we're dealing with, so that needs to be updated and essentially updated to websites and social networking sites, and anything else we can project potentially into the future, because everything is evolving. That's really where I believe the update is required. It's not, as was previously mentioned, the telephone as much anymore, as we all know. That's where the update is needed.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Suri, would you comment?

[Faisal Khan Suri]

I will definitely second what Avi is saying. It goes further back, I think. The CHRA has not been reviewed since 1977, I believe. Back in 2001, a panel was created for its review, but nothing ever came out of that.

Hate has evolved. It has been more modernized. We see the media that are being utilized. Now it's ever more important to make sure we consider the use of technology we have today that was not present back in 2001. That would merit a review. In looking at some of the language used to eliminate section 13, I believe it should be brought back in.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Moore, would you comment?

[Elizabeth Moore]

I certainly second what Faisal and Avi have mentioned. I would like to see the addition of something very specific to deal with false news within section 13. If you have something that is inciting violence or inciting hatred and if a person is, let's say, using altered or doctored videos or photographs of a Jewish politician, for example, that would be given specific consideration. You're not just promoting hatred; you're also, literally, putting words in someone else's mouth, potentially. That needs to be addressed as well.

[Mohammed Hussain, Vice-President, Outreach, Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council]

Could I make a comment?

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

Yes. Please go ahead.

[Mohammed Hussain]

On top of what Avi mentioned.....

Avi, you talked about Zundel and how he essentially took something from print media and then was able to take it online and expand its reach very much.

If you were looking at section 13, a quick addition would be applying it to telecommunications as well, anything to do with the Internet. Let's face it: 41% of hate is on YouTube.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You have about 15 seconds.

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

I'll pass, then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Ms. Ramsey is next.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you very much to all of our witnesses today.

We're looking at the digital charter, and all of you have mentioned strong enforcement and real accountability when it comes to social media platforms. Today on the Hill we have an international grand committee that's looking into citizen rights and big data. We have a real challenge, because we have Mark Zuckerberg refusing to even come to the committee. He's in contempt of Parliament, essentially, because he refuses to come before this international committee, and therein lies the biggest part of our challenge.

If the big digital players don't respect what we're trying to do in our respective legislatures around the world, how can this end up being meaningful? It's a very significant challenge. It's really going to require, I think, all of our countries to call them on the carpet and tell them that they are responsible.

When you hear about the numbers online, the percentages that you've all raised here, it's just mind-blowing. That, in and of itself, is a very serious challenge when we can't even hold them accountable to what we're trying to put forward. We can put forward what we think will be important legislation, but if they don't adhere to it, where are we?

I want to go back to something.

Lina and Sinan, thank you for being here from my local community of Windsor-Essex. I appreciate your being here by video conference today.

I want to go to something that Lina said when talking about that real-life experience. I wonder what this looks like on the ground when you're trying to combat online hate or you see something and you think, “Is this hate? What is this?” You start to have those conversations among others to try to get them to stop it as well.

I also wonder if you can speak to the impact of having that burden on you and your community and in particular on young people. I know you do a lot of work with youth. What is the impact of this responsibility that's now on their shoulders to battle this every day when they're seeing things online?

[Lina Chaker]

Thank you for the opportunity.

Honestly, I referenced it as a popularity contest. I feel that's the best way to picture it.

When somebody feels attacked online, the way they get that recognition and get a post taken down or content removed is really by just texting all their friends and telling them to report it so that Facebook or whatever platform takes it seriously. I think that's part of the....

As you were saying, it's not only a burden, but it's not uniform in the way that people who face those kinds of online hate messages.... Not everybody is uniformly receptive to helping to take those messages away. It's really how many friends you know, and it's almost telling people that you have to share and you have to pity yourself more and more. It turns into this cycle of everybody trying to gain sympathy for what's happened to them in order to feel that something is going to happen. I feel that's not good in and of itself. That's more a symptom of the problem of it not being recognized in the first place.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you so much.

I'll ask this more broadly. How can we hold social media companies accountable? We are all, essentially, their customers, right? We're in that space. It's a very big question, but I have to ask. I feel that you, obviously, are looking at ways to combat online hate. The biggest partners in that are the social media platforms. What are your suggestions for holding them accountable for what's happening on those platforms?

I'll go down the line.

[Avi Benlolo]

Look, the question you raise is obviously the biggest question, because they're becoming bigger and the landscape is changing. They're essentially running countries now.

There isn't a simple answer. Obviously, I've suggested penalizing them and imposing fines and sanctions, etc. CRTC perhaps has an answer in terms of how it deals with broadcasting in general.

A lot of these social network providers also have offices here in Canada. They're running their business here in Canada, and as well there are heads, CEOs, here in Canada, so that may be the angle to enforce our laws.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

I'm sorry, but I have to get to the next questioner. Sorry about that, everyone, but we're running short on time.

Mr. Boissonnault and Mr. Virani are splitting these four minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Boissonnault.