Justice Committee on May 28th, 2019

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

You had a comment.

[Shalini Konanur]

I would echo that. My last call was really for creating some sort of federal entity that can collect that kind of data. I think about the work of Stats Canada. We recently had a call with Statistics Canada around collecting information on hidden homelessness. While that seems like an extremely difficult area to collect data on, they had some really innovative ideas on how to do it across the country. The truth is if they can come up with ways to collect data on hidden homelessness, certainly the brilliant minds at Stats Canada, who are doing incredible things, can create mechanisms for collecting this data.

It has to be outside of just reporting on those things reported to the police, because that is nowhere near a picture of what's actually happening. I think some sort of national strategy and some sort of entity that has a subset that talks about data and reporting on that data is a really critical piece.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Virani.

Mr. Virani, you have four minutes.

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

I'm going to go very quickly.

You're all doing amazing work. Thank you.

Thank you particularly, Mr. Galloway, for bringing a voice that we haven't heard very often.

Shalini, we're very proud to always have SALCO at the committee.

Mr. Maharaj, I will pick up on where you left off and just say that it is critical, not just this year, but any year, that parliamentarians exercise discipline and appropriate behaviour. I will say that I am troubled when we have senators of this Parliament question white supremacy and its presence. I'm also troubled by reports today that we have elected officials potentially making announcements about immigration policy in front of hotels that were the site of arson attacks in Toronto. I'll leave it at that.

I have a question for all four of you that relates to section 13 of the CHRA. It's a bit specific because I'm a bit of a specific lawyer and we like to get into the weeds a bit.

The specific aspects are that the old version of section 13 had an exemption for the telecommunication provider. Do you think that should remain, or do you want more accountability for the telecommunication provider and the social media platform?

Second, can we quell the free speech antipathy by simply having a rider in there, which may be superfluous, saying that nothing in this clause is meant to derogate from the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression?

Third, do we need a definition of “hatred” incorporated into it? This was the suggestion by Irwin Cotler, a previous attorney general, in a private member's bill.

Fourth, should we have some sort of threshold for what constitutes the type of hatred that would trigger section 13 so that we don't get single instances but more of a mass-orchestrated attack?

If all four of you could opine on all or any parts of those, that would be terrific. Thank you.

[Shalini Konanur]

Who wants to go first?

[Dahabo Ahmed Omer]

You know, I already went first. You guys are going to make me do it again. Okay, no worries.

You asked a lot of different questions, and I wrote them all down.

In terms of the exemption, I don't think there should be one. I think social media platforms and telecommunication companies should be just as responsible as individuals. We're putting so much responsibility and accountability on individuals who put messaging online, but it should also be on those who should be monitoring that and reporting it and who should also be doing that data collection, because according to a lot of the information we heard today, we don't even know sometimes what constitutes hate. I think the telecommunication companies should be doing a lot of that monitoring and should not be provided an exemption.

In terms of the definition of “hatred”, I have a definition. I don't think everyone would have that same definition. The human part of me would say that if someone looks at me and says that because I'm a Muslim woman and I'm black, I'm inferior to them, that constitutes hate for me, from just being human and what I feel, but if we're going to put it into terms that everyone understands, I would say—and I wrote this down—hatred is predicated on destruction. Hatred against identified groups, therefore, thrives on insensitivity, bigotry and destruction of both targeted groups and the values of our society. Hatred in this sense is the most dangerous emotion and contradicts reason, an emotion that if exercised against members of these identified groups, implies that those individuals are despised, scorned, denied respect and made subjects of ill treatment.

That would be my definition. I think it captures the human side of it, but also, I want to say, the legislation piece, because words matter, and when we talk about hatred and about hate crimes, they always start with words.

I think defining hatred is key, and I thank you for asking that question.

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

I need to pause you, because I want to see if anyone else wants to jump in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

We have only about 15 seconds left on Mr. Virani's time, so if somebody wants to add a brief note, that would be great.

[Akaash Maharaj]

I will very briefly address one question: If section 13 is brought back, should there be a threshold? There absolutely has to be. I'll rephrase the numbers I gave you. Every second, there are 6,000 tweets. Every second, there are 521,000 Facebook posts. There is no court, no quasi-judicial body, no hearing that could possibly deal with the avalanche of complaints that such amount of activity generates.

If section 13 is brought back, it should be for precedent-setting or for cases that rise to a level that cannot and should not reasonably be dealt with by the social media platforms themselves.

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

Can we have another under 10 seconds?

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Yes, but hurry it.

[Shalini Konanur]

On your point around putting a catch-all at the end to say that nothing in this section limits freedom of expression, I don't agree that we need that. Our Supreme Court has been clear that none of our freedoms are absolute; they always can be limited by reasonableness.

I don't think we should water down section 13 by saying that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

I want to thank all the witnesses. You've been incredibly helpful again. You represent a diversity of groups, a diversity of opinion, and your life experiences will really help shape our committee report. Thank you so much.

We are going to move to an in camera meeting. I would ask that everyone clear the room in the next couple of minutes. I'm going to briefly suspend.

[Proceedings continue in camera]