Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I must confess that I find this panel extremely challenging, because I happen to live in the real world and I happen to live in this century. When we have members on the panel saying things like there is no gay-bashing in this country, which is simply not true, and when they say that hate crimes for the most part aren't violent unless you look at the case of transgender Canadians, when most of the hate crimes that are reported are violent.... We've had a lot of, I think, factually incorrect material.
I think for me the question comes down to the minimizing of the impacts of hate speech, so I'm going to talk very personally here as someone who has been the first out gay man in a lot of different positions. I don't think any of you three understand what the result of hate speech is for people in my position, or for transgender people, or for indigenous women in Canada. I don't think you understand at all what happens in the real world.
When I was appointed to the police board some time ago, we had to have a discussion with the police chief about whether I had to have more police protection, because there were people online—at that time it was early—who were inciting violence against me as an out gay man.
When I was elected to city council in a very progressive community, we had to have discussions about what would happen at the public meetings because of things that were being said and posted about the fact that—my favourite—“someone should do something” about me. I took that very seriously and certainly my partner took that very seriously.
When I was elected to Parliament, I received death threats, multiple death threats. I had to meet with the police chief and have a discussion about what was an appropriate response to those threats. Some were very explicit. Some were less explicit.
My conversation with the police chief was, “If I'm a member of Parliament and somebody who has been an out public figure for—by that time—almost two decades, and this is being directed at me, what is being directed at other members of my community?” It was, “What are they facing on a daily basis? If we don't do something about that, then we are in fact encouraging it to go on.”
The police chief I worked with was very progressive and said, “Surely you're not talking about arrests.” I said, “Of course I'm not talking about arrests, but I'm talking about some door-knocking with those who have directly threatened me and about saying that this behaviour is unacceptable and it needs to stop.” There were a number of cases where the police did agree to do that. In my case, I was not worried on a daily basis that any of those particular individuals which we'd identified would come after me, although it was possible. I was, as I said, worried about the impact of that kind of speech and that kind of behaviour on other members of my community.
I would have to say that for me, when I first arrived in Parliament, there was an official statement done by a party, which I won't name today, suggesting that I was a friend of pedophiles. You might say that's free speech. My argument with the Speaker was that it impaired my ability to do my job as a member of Parliament. By identifying me with a quite reviled—and justly so—group in society, people were affecting my ability to act as a member of Parliament.
Unfortunately, the Speaker at that time never ruled on that question, and I would have to say that perhaps that was a statement by an outlier, because that didn't happen again in Parliament. But it was necessary for me to speak up at that point to prevent the continuation of that kind of speech.
When you—and all three of you have done this—minimize the impact of hate speech on people's daily lives, I think you miss the entire point of these hearings. The entire point of these hearings is not about criminalizing speech. It's about deciding, in a modern society where social media have in fact become the public square, where do we draw the line?
We all know the old cliché that there are limits on speech, that you can't shout fire in a crowded theatre. The problem is defining where that crowded theatre is these days. Quite often, that crowded theatre is online and is the Internet. What this committee is trying to do in these hearings is to figure out where to draw that line. What's the appropriate place? It's not trying to ban speech or ideas.
I would have to say—because one of you did say it—that we need to debate these ideas so we know what's wrong with them. I would submit that we already know what's wrong with racism. We already know what's wrong with homophobia. We already know what's wrong with misogyny. What we're trying to do is to make sure that those ideas have less impact on the real lives of people in our society.
I guess I reject almost everything that you said today, because the context you place it in is academic, it's historical, and it has no relation at all to what happens in the real world.
I believe, Mr. Chair, that we're out of time as a committee, so I will leave my comments there.