Evidence of meeting #32 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was you're.
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Do you think there should be some reasonable limitations on certain kinds of speech that go beyond what is allowable by the charter?
As an Individual
I think it largely depends on your role, essentially. As a citizen, you should pretty much be allowed to say dang near anything, I would think.
I'm a big fan of shows like South Park and Family Guy. They talk about everything and they say horrible, terrible things about just about everybody, but that's freedom of speech. That's the world we live in. That's what we should be doing.
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Right, but if you were threatening somebody with your words—
As an Individual
If I'm on the train and threatening someone there.... Usually you'd want to see citizens stand up in unity and have people essentially self-policing. If you see something's wrong, stand up and do something about it. I think that's what we're taught in school to do. Maybe it's not so prevalent in our modern society, where we get more compartmentalized away from each other, but I would think that people would just stand up and—
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
What if the other guy's a bully and it's likely going to escalate? Does it make sense to you that this is why we have police and law enforcement de-escalate and take some of the—
As an Individual
Yes, in general, it can be a very positive thing. It's just worrying, this letting these enforcement bodies run rampant with their power, right? I'm not saying that we're at that stage now. I'm saying that I'm worried about getting there. I don't want to head in that direction too much. I prefer being on the more free side of things rather than too much law and order.
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Okay, but I think, if I'm hearing you correctly, you recognize that there are some limitations, even to freedom of speech, if it goes beyond the realm of what's acceptable and permitted by the charter into threatening or encouraging people to commit terrorist activities. You wouldn't say that this is right either, right?
As an Individual
It honestly depends on how you're speaking about it. Tone means a lot—where you're coming from, what is being said—so you'd have to get into some very specific situations, I feel.
I think in general you should be allowed to say what you want, even if it's super negative. I think people should be open-minded enough to know that you're either upset or have some sort of issue that just gets under your skin or something like that. You can approach a situation with a calm mindset. It's just one of those things where everyone chooses how they react.
I feel like people can personally choose to react well to a situation. I feel like freedom can work, essentially.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Matthew, I want to continue on what Mr. Mendicino was asking about.
You started out on freedom speech. I'm 100% with you on that, but I started to feel very uncomfortable toward the end of your remarks.
We all want freedom. Freedom works very well in Canada. That's a very good thing and a positive thing. But you said something about too much law and order and being super negative. I'm wondering if you think it's okay if somebody goes beyond criticizing somebody for something...which politicians deal with all the time, and that's fair game.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Yes, it's part of the job, as long as it's respectful.
Do you think it's okay, as far as freedom of speech goes, that you can say, just because you're—pardon my French—pissed off about something that you're going to kill that guy or whatever? Do you think that's okay?
As an Individual
I don't necessarily know that you need to go to jail for it immediately.
As an Individual
Okay. I understand what you're saying now. You're talking about people saying something horrible to someone, and that they shouldn't do that, that it's morally objective. I get that. Honestly, in a perfect world, people wouldn't do that sort of thing, but obviously it's going to happen. People are going to be really nice and people are going to be really bad.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I have one other question, but before I go to that, in our society—it's been like this for a long time—if you say you're going to kill somebody or harm them in some other way, if you don't think you're going to have a cop or some other person of authority knocking at your door, there's something wrong. I'll just leave it at that.
The next question I want to ask you about is this. You can criticize the Prime Minister, or a former prime minister, or me, or whomever on Twitter or Facebook. That's fine as long as you're respectful. But do you think it's okay for somebody to go on Twitter, for example, and criticize and say derogatory things about people under an anonymous name, without showing who they are? Any time any of us in this room makes a comment about any issue, we are held accountable for that, because our name stands behind it. What are your thoughts on that question about anybody else in society?
As an Individual
It's definitely not the sort of thing I think we need to aspire to. You do have Internet trolls.
You're familiar with the term “trolls”, right?
Conservative
As an Individual
They say the most horrible things just to say them. You can't get rid of that. I don't know what you can do to get rid of that. Are we going to send these people to jail just for being nasty?
I understand that it can be really tough to be in the spotlight and everything. It's not something I have to deal with. I get it. We shouldn't encourage people to make these comments. I feel that's true. Through our education system, morality and stuff like that, we can teach people that this is not ideal, but you're always going to have people go against what's going to happen. There are going to be rebels in any situation. Freedom of speech allows us to at least talk about it. It can bring up some very irresponsible things as well, even in horrible ways.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
First of all, Matthew, thank you for coming today.
I also sit on the status of women committee, and we're looking at cyber-violence against young women and girls. In what we're looking at here with the national security framework, one of the headings is “Investigative Capabilities in a Digital World”. You talk about terrorists, and you're talking about freedom of speech, but there are also women who have been harassed online.
As an Individual
You can't even go on certain forums if you're a woman, right?
October 18th, 2016 / 5:55 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
There was a woman who sued Twitter and lost.
Where do you draw that line when you want freedom of speech? We've all had trolls who have harassed us on Twitter, which is different from someone systematically harassing someone else. They might consider that freedom of speech.
How do you propose that we, as a government, deal with that fine line? Sometimes it's easier in your mind to see it when you're talking about a terrorist threat, but if you're talking about a young girl who is being harassed, when is it okay to have the police investigate these things and get involved?
As an Individual
That's a difficult question for sure.
I would definitely say you need to look at it on a case-by-case basis. Most of the time we're talking about sexual harassment. I think most people would agree that is not acceptable, and you should definitely look into it.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Just think about it though, because we have a police force.... We have to create laws around this. Maybe you can take it away and give it some thought, but I always find when I put it in that context, people say we shouldn't be allowing that.
