Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for this invitation today.
I'm here on behalf of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, ICLMG, a coalition of 45 Canadian organizations from a broad range of sectors. ICLMG was founded in 2002 to serve as a watchdog around the impacts of Canada's national security and anti-terrorism laws on civil liberties.
Our coalition has observed with distress the increase in hate-based violence across Canada over the past several years. We believe that greater measures must be taken to address instances of hate-based violence, but that such measures must be targeted and specific and must ensure that they do not unduly impact the civil liberties or charter rights of Canadians, including those who the measures are sensibly meant to protect.
Unfortunately, several measures in Bill C-9 fail that test. We share the concerns of the 37 other signatories of an open letter led by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that pointed to detailed and substantial problems with Bill C-9 and that ultimately called for it to be withdrawn and revisited.
While we share the overall concerns expressed by our colleagues today, I would like to focus on one particular area of the bill. We are concerned with the provisions in clause 4 of the bill that would create a new offence of “wilfully” promoting “hatred against any identifiable group by displaying” certain symbols in public. These new provisions pose a significant threat to freedom of expression by granting broad and discretionary powers to police and by basing the determination of which symbols are included on a flawed terrorist-listing process. Moreover, the provisions are redundant and, therefore, unnecessary.
With regard to that last point, the “wilful promotion of hatred” is already a Criminal Code offence. It is understood that the determination of wilfully promoting hatred can already include the use of particular symbols, including those of listed terrorist entities. The only difference would be that the wording will place greater emphasis on the use of a symbol in the commission of a hate offence.
This leads to our second concern: that the wording of this new offence creates the serious risk of police making discretionary decisions related to what constitutes a symbol “associated with” or “used by” a listed terrorist entity.
Over the past several months, we have seen heated arguments and accusations that certain symbols associated with protests in support of Palestinian human rights are hateful, are associated with a terrorist entity, or both. Peaceful and lawful protests have been unjustly accused of fomenting hatred, based on the signs and slogans that they carry or chant.
Under this new legislation, police can make a determination, in the middle of a march or protest, not just of what constitutes a symbol associated with a terrorist entity but also that it's being used to wilfully promote hatred. There will continue to be pressure on police to stop and arrest anybody carrying a symbol that they may believe is “used by” or “associated with” a terrorist entity, whether that be a Hamas or Hezbollah flag, a kaffiyeh or a disputed slogan on a sign.
This is made more complicated by the fact that police would be empowered to make the decision that a symbol so nearly resembles the symbol associated with a terrorist entity. For example, would Arabic writing on a sign that a police officer believes is similar enough to writing found on imagery used by a listed terrorist entity give rise to grounds to arrest the individual? This confusion would, of course, apply to all listed entities and could impact protests from a broad range of communities.
These issues raise important questions of guilt by association or the tarring of entire movements with suspicion. We have seen this throughout the last 20 years of anti-terrorism measures and acutely over the last two years during protests or rallies in academic settings or even in parliamentary committee meetings.
Given the severe potential for overreach, along with the stigma of being accused of committing a hate crime, we believe that this law will create a significant chill on free expression and dissent.
Finally, we are also troubled by the fact that the symbols in question are based on the terrorist entities list, which itself is a problematic tool. Serious issues with Canada's terrorist entities listing procedure include the imposition of serious financial and possibly criminal consequences on the basis of unaccountable, secret, executive listing decisions; the use of secret evidence; and the absence of adequate avenues for challenging listings and obtaining redress. Decisions to list or not list can also be political in nature.
New criminal offences, especially those that themselves invite discretionary decision-making, should not be founded on a process already demonstrated to raise significant constitutional concerns.
As mentioned above, this is simply one of the many areas of concern with Bill C-9. Beyond removing this section, we agree that the bill should be withdrawn and the government's approach revisited.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to the questions.