Public Safety Committee on Feb. 13th, 2017

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)), Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I call the meeting to order.

We do have quorum, and I'm assuming other members will join us as we go.

This is meeting number 53 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Welcome.

I'd like to extend a special welcome to our witness guests today. Thank you for contributing.

This is a continuation of our study of the national security framework. Meetings were held in the fall here in Ottawa, and 10 meetings were held across the country as well. We are picking up a few extra meetings because we thought there was perhaps some evidence we had missed and we wanted to make sure we had a few more groups speak to us. Last week and continuing this week, we have been very pleased that we've had some additional witnesses come to share their wisdom with us.

A couple of you have been here before, and I believe a couple are new. The first panel will be an hour, from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. First the B'nai Brith will give 10 minutes of comments to the committee. Then the Islamic Society of North America will have 10 minutes. Then the committee will ask questions for another 40 minutes, and we'll continue that way.

We'll begin, but I don't know how you're sharing your time.

[Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer, B'nai Brith Canada]

Thank you very much.

It's Michael Mostyn. I'll start for B'nai Brith and then I'm going to pass to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Mostyn.

[Michael Mostyn]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

B'nai Brith is Canada's oldest membership-based Jewish organization. Through its League for Human Rights, which maintains an anti-hate hotline and prepares an annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents, it is the premier advocate of human rights for Canada's Jewish community.

B'nai Brith testified before this committee in 2015, focusing on our support for one particular aspect of Bill C-51 relating to the creation of an offence for the promotion of terrorism, seizure of terrorist propaganda, and deletion of terrorist propaganda from computer systems. We offered several recommendations for amendments. My colleague David Matas, who serves as the senior legal counsel for B'nai Brith in Canada, will update our position in that regard in his statement.

We know the Jewish community is particularly vulnerable to hate propaganda throughout the world, and many of the most powerful terrorist organizations in existence today, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Daesh, rely upon the promotion of hatred with a particular focus on anti-Semitism to inspire acts of terror.

There are many examples of this internationally, such as the Hyper Cacher supermarket attack aimed at French Jewry, which was tied to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and the horrendous attack on a Jewish religious centre in Mumbai that was specifically targeted as part of a larger Islamist-inspired terrorist attack in 2008.

In fact, terror attacks against Jews have taken place right across the globe. The Jewish community is quite cognizant of the threat it faces and knows that based on history, our community will continue to be the subject of terror attacks so long as incitement to hatred and radicalization continue around the world.

There is a tendency to think of terror as a foreign problem, but it is a Canadian problem too. In Canada the Jewish-owned West Edmonton Mall, as well as Jewish businesses worldwide, were the subject of a terror threat by al Shabaab, to the exclusion of non-Jewish-owned malls. We are not immune here in Canada.

The 2016 report on the terrorist threat to Canada cites Hezbollah, a listed terror group supported by the Iranian regime, as using its worldwide and Canadian networks for recruitment, fundraising, and procurement. Hezbollah remains a terror threat not only to the Jewish community but also to all Canadians, and it is believed to have a history of international terror operations, including the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina. This is one of the reasons that B'nai Brith was supportive of the closing of the Iranian embassy in 2012 and believes it should not be reopened until the Iranian regime ends it support for terror and anti-Semitism.

B'nai Brith's annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents shows that anti-Semitism in Canada has remained relatively constant since 2011. With no active conflict occurring in Israel in 2015, 1,277 incidents were reported in that year. Harassment, including online harassment, has shown a general increase over five years. Vandalism declined to a 15-year low that year, while violence decreased slightly to 10 incidents. Our 2016 numbers will be released this spring.

Our Prime Minister is in Washington today, meeting for the first time with President Donald Trump. Canadians wish to maintain a positive relationship with the United States to enable efficient and speedy border crossings and trade. This requires taking our national security very seriously. Canada's counterterrorism and anti-radicalization efforts must acknowledge that specific identifiable groups—including Jewish, LGBTQ, Muslim, women, and others—are often the target for violence, and we must create a balanced framework to protect vulnerable societal groups from terrorism while maintaining important principles of freedom of speech within society.

Many often forget that minority Muslim groups are also targets of radical Islamist terror groups. Our community appreciates and supports the federal security infrastructure program, which supports the security needs of at-risk communities. It's unfortunate that children growing up in Canada today are made to realize that a police presence is required at Jewish synagogues during high holidays because of the ongoing threat of hate and violence.

Hatred is taught, and may prove the inspiration towards a violent pathway to radicalization. In this regard we should not forget that hate speech in Canada might play a role in sensitizing individuals to future radicalization efforts, whether in person or via the Internet, by desensitizing them to the humanity of their fellow human beings. Recently B'nai Brith exposed an Arabic-language local television show in Toronto, AskMirna, that had promoted holocaust denial. Rogers Television was not aware of any problems with the content, since they rely on the honour system and a complaint process. There is much work to be done in removing channels of hate from Canadian society, even from television and newspapers.

Those are my opening remarks, and Mr. Matas will now provide his update.

[David Matas, Senior Legal Counsel, B'nai Brith Canada]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of B'nai Brith Canada, I would like to address only one question posed in the “Our Security, Our Rights” green paper. The question, found on page 46 of the background document, is this: “Should the part of the definition of terrorist propaganda referring to the advocacy or promotion of terrorism offences in general be removed from the definition?”

Our answer to that question is no. Freedom of expression is a right that must be jealousy guarded, but so must the right to be free from terrorism. Generally, human rights have to be viewed as a whole, and rights have to be balanced off against each other. Practically, what this means is that the rights of one set of people have to be balanced off against those of another. In this case, it is the right to security of the person of victims and potential victims of terrorism that must be balanced against the free speech rights of those advocating or promoting terrorism.

We see the addition to the definition of “terrorist propaganda” of advocacy or promotion of terrorism offences in general as a re-equilibration of the balance in light of the enhanced terrorist threat with which the planet in general and Canada in particular have been confronted. The world has changed, and the balance has to change too. Victims and potential victims need better protection than they have had. Whether the addition overshoots the mark requires consideration, but conceptually the drift makes sense.

We have three suggestions, which we believe are consistent with the spirit of the current legislation.

One is to import a defence for the offences of promotion or advocacy that already exists for the offence of promotion of hatred. The Criminal Code now provides that no person shall be convicted of wilful promotion of hatred who in good faith intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters tending to produce feelings of hatred towards an identifiable group. Something similar could be drafted for the offences of advocacy and promotion of terrorist activity.

Second, the legislated offence prohibits promotion and advocacy of “terrorism offences in general” without indicating what those offences are. We assume that this phrase “terrorism offences in general” refers to terrorism offences set out in the definition of that phrase in the Criminal Code. We suggest that whether the assumption is correct or not, the phrase “terrorism offences in general” be defined so that it is clear which offences are intended.

Our third suggestion relates to the requirement of consent of the Attorney General. A requirement of this consent, which we welcome, has its own problems. The relevant attorney general for these offences is the federal government Attorney General only for the territories. For the provinces, the relevant attorneys general are the attorneys general of the provinces in which the alleged offences occur. Our experience with the offence of wilful promotion of hatred has been that some attorneys general were most reluctant to consent to prosecution of this offence, even in clear-cut cases.

From our experience with the hate speech laws, we have learned that allowing for any member of the public to launch proceedings against any other member of the public without screening means too little in the way of safeguards to free speech. Conversely, legislating a requirement of consent of the Attorney General, without more, is too much of an obstacle to the effective working of the law.

We would suggest that in addition to the requirement of Attorney General consent, there be guidelines. Attorneys general, we certainly hope, would not end up having experience combatting advocacy and promotion of terrorism sufficient to make them become experts in the matter. They would benefit from guidelines.

We have a few proposals to make by way of what these guidelines should be, but obviously they could be added to. Here are some of our suggestions.

First, generally consent should be forthcoming if the Office of the Attorney General is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that a prosecution will lead to a conviction.

Second, given the gravity of the offence of terrorism, exercise of the discretion not to prosecute and therefore not to consent, even when the prosecution is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that a prosecution will lead to a conviction, should be uncommon.

Third, the right to freedom of expression is a factor that must be considered in determining whether to consent to prosecution, but the right of potential victims to be free from terrorism and the threat of terrorism must be given priority.

Fourth, freedom of expression considerations alone should not justify denial of consent when the offence is otherwise made out.

Fifth, a person commits the offence whether he or she personally promotes or advocates terrorism or causes another to do so.

Sixth, promotion or advocacy of terrorism includes glorification of terrorism for the purpose of emulation.

Seventh, for the offence of advocacy or promotion of terrorism to be committed, there need not be a direct linkage between the advocacy or promotion and any specific terrorist act.

Eighth, for the offence to be committed, it is not necessary to establish that a person was in fact encouraged or induced to commit an act of terrorism because of the advocacy or promotion.

I'll stop there. Our general approach, both in proposing amendments and in suggesting guidelines, is that a law criminalizing advocacy or promotion of terrorism should not be too easy to invoke, but it should not be a dead letter either.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

We'll continue with our second witness. I'm not sure who's going to begin your 10 minutes either.

Go ahead, Ms. Chowdhury.

[Safiah Chowdhury, Representative, Islamic Society of North America]

Thank you for your invitation to address the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Muslims have felt under siege since 9/11 and generally excluded from public discourse about us, so we appreciate the opportunity to be part of the process re-examining Canada's national security framework.

The Islamic Society of North America of Canada, or ISNA Canada, was incorporated in 1982 and is an outgrowth of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada, founded in the early 1960s. We have around 1,000 members across the country, from Vancouver to Prince Edward Island.

My name is Safiah Chowdhury. I hold an M.Phil. in Islamic studies and history from the University of Oxford and I am a member of ISNA Canada's executive committee.

With me is Dr. Katherine Bullock. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto and teaches Islamic politics at the Mississauga campus of the University of Toronto. She was elected to the ISNA Canada board in 2015.

ISNA Canada is a grassroots community organization that serves the spiritual, psychological, educational, and social needs of the Muslim community. It operates mosques and Islamic schools; assists the poor through disbursement of charitable donations; operates food banks; provides pastoral care to congregants; organizes religious festivals, conferences and lectures, matrimonial services, and family events; and conducts funerals.

ISNA Canada promotes living in peace and with good relations with neighbours. It is part of the Canadian interfaith community. It is thus grounded in the everyday experiences of Muslims in Canada. Our imams, our religious leaders, face an overwhelmingly constant stream of people turning to them for assistance on all matters to do with life, often in crisis situations.

As Canadians working very closely with communities and families, we understand and share the need to protect against violence. We recognize that we live in an increasingly globalized and digitized world and that threats to our safety can thus come from anywhere and are more complicated than ever to track. This violence and these threats compromise not only our safety but the very quality of life that we cherish so dearly that ultimately allows us to thrive.

We know that you will be hearing or have already heard from a number of organizations, Muslim and non-Muslim, such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association, and other civil liberty organizations, that the Anti-terrorism Act, the even more frightening Bill C-51, and now Bill C-23 privilege fear of threat over real rights. This bill compromises the very Charter of Rights and Freedoms upon which we purport to exist. The people whose rights it compromises, who now feel targeted and, ironically, unsafe, are the country's almost 1.1 million Muslims.

We are not here to repeat those arguments, most of which we endorse. We are, as you've heard, not legal experts. As representatives from a large community-based organization, we are here to tell you about the very human impact anti-terror legislation has on our communities, our dignity, and our ability to thrive. We will refer to two points in particular. The first is how the narrative around terrorism leads to a rise in fear of Muslims. The second is about the impact on freedom of speech.

On Islamophobia, since 9/11 there has been a sharp rise in hate crimes against Muslims in Canada. As the “war on terror” centralized Muslims as the primary source of terrorism, Muslim communities—everyday average individuals who are at home or going to work, school, the grocery store, or the community centre—came under scrutiny.

Statistics Canada data tells us that crimes against Muslims are increasing despite the overall drop in identity-based attacks on other communities. Despite these accounts, as Canadian Muslims ourselves, we know that these are under-reported numbers. People in our community don't report hate crimes. We typically tend to brush them off as isolated, perpetrated by “lone wolves”, because historically this is what we have always been told.

That is despite the rise of right-wing extremism in Canada, which has been thriving and growing at alarming rates. Internal documents from CSIS, a body from this committee, suggest that extreme right-wing and white supremacist ideology has been the main ideological source for 17% of attacks in Canada. This is more than Islamic extremism. We know so acutely that this extreme right-wing hatred is often directed toward the Muslim community, from street harassment to the firebombing of a mosque in Peterborough, to the most recent example, on January 29, when six Muslims were ruthlessly killed in a Quebec mosque that had previously been targeted by these “lone wolf” white supremacists. These acts of violence by hatred-filled individuals are yet to be tried as terrorism, a term that seems to apply only to Muslims.

From what we know of the perpetrators of anti-Muslim attacks, they are propelled by dangerous rhetoric that positions Muslims as problems, as threats to the security of the state. The discourse around the Anti-terrorism Act and Bill C-51 speaks to this. In fact, in your very own green paper on national security, the only threats identified come from organizations or countries associated with Islam.

It is a strange situation, honestly, to navigate. Rhetoric on national security targets and typecasts Muslims, who then are increasingly becoming the victim of terrorism-related offences due to this very same rhetoric.

It places us in the perilous position of needing to protect ourselves against threats of violence because the world and our country position us as the threat.

[Katherine Bullock, Representative, Islamic Society of North America]

Hello. I'm Katherine Bullock. When I start my lectures at my university, I usually explain why my name is Katherine Bullock and I'm dressed like this. I converted to Islam in 1994 and I started wearing the head scarf in the same year. I decided not to change my name when I converted.

What I teach as a professor is that one of the key problems of Bill C-51—indeed, of the Canadian counterterrorism approach in general—has been the move from what's called criminal space to prevention space. This is the move from “will” commit an offence to “may” committee an offence. In the move from “will” to “may”, we enter the realm of interpretation.

In an environment of increasing Islamophobia, the “may” space becomes a space of problematizing and criminalizing Muslim faith communities for their everyday practices. Growing a beard or putting on a head scarf becomes a potential security threat rather than a spiritual expression. We have indeed seen this through the recent travel limitations to the United States that were imposed on visibly Muslim individuals simply for who they are.

As a professor in the university system, I am deeply committed to the importance of freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience. I am especially worried about how Bill C-51 can lead to the curtailment of these core liberal values.

A recent round table with Muslim youth found that while most of them saw political and civic engagement as a key, core aspect of Canadian identity, most of them also felt that there was not enough of it in their community. One reason they gave was the fear amongst the youth of being attacked for voicing their opinions on controversial topics.

A similar finding is in the data collected by the last Environics survey of Canadian Muslim opinion, conducted in 2016, which found that “One in six (17%) says he or she has felt inhibited about doing so because of [race], ethnicity or religion. This impact is...to be expressed [most] by Canadian-born Muslims (32%), those under 35 years of age (24%), and those who have experienced difficulties crossing borders (27%).”

This finding is troubling for three reasons at least. The first, of course, is the signal that a segment of a democratic society feels less than equal to their fellow citizens in expressing their points of view, without which a democracy cannot properly function. The second problem is that the feelings of inhibition, of not feeling free to speak out, are higher amongst Canadian-born and the youth, who are the future of our community, the very segment of the Muslim community who should feel most embraced for their Canadianness. Finally, those who feel inhibited in expressing their political or social opinions also express a weakening sense of belonging to Canada, 13%. I'm sure we don't have to tell you that the best defence Canada has is a population that feels a strong sense of belonging to Canada.

Candice Malcolm, a journalist for TheRebel, in her praise for Bill C-51, argued that “while our rights and freedoms [are sacred and] should never be needlessly sacrificed, freedom means nothing if we are not safe.” In fact, this is not true. Over the centuries, people have sacrificed their lives to bring freedom to their country. Safety without freedom is Pinochet's Chile, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba.

We do not want to turn Canadian Muslims into the canary in the mine, making them into scapegoats, political prisoners, or prisoners of conscience. The terrain for what constitutes support for terrorism currently represents a slippery slope whereby core Muslim traditions and concepts—noble concepts, like sharia, hijab, and even the much-maligned jihad, which is a concept that means “to struggle for justice”, wrongly slandered as “holy war”—are refracted through an Islamophobic lens into prohibited speech in a liberal democracy.

The youths, the converts, the uninformed among the Muslims as well as the wider community need to be able to hold seminars and lectures and round tables and private conversations about these religious verses and traditions and concepts, the very ones the Muslim extremists call upon when trying to justify their turn to violence: what remains of jihad, what are the proper rules of engagement in war, what about participating in secular democracies, what is extremism from an Islamic point of view, what is the sharia, and what is the caliphate?

Bill C-51, Bill C-23, the preceding Anti-terrorism Act and the narrative swirling around it in the mainstream, especially in the right-wing media, do not give us this space to investigate these questions. A thought that cannot be debated in the open, in the cleansing light of day, will go underground and grow up twisted in the swamps of darkness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need you to wind up pretty quickly.

[Katherine Bullock]

To sum up, as representatives of a Canadian Muslim association we have talked about the impact of Bill C-51. The narrative about it is harming the Muslim community, first by leading to an increase in Islamophobia and then by having a negative impact on freedom of speech.

No religion condones the killing of innocent civilians. Canadian Muslims are committed to Canada's national security. We just do not want it to be at our expense.

Thank you for listening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

We'll begin our questioning with Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'd like to thank both groups for coming here today and sharing your testimony with us. It's very helpful as we're studying our national security framework.

I'd like to direct my first question to both of you.

We've heard testimony about the need to engage the community, and you've spoken about it. One of our witnesses talked about the solutions or strategies that shouldn't be legislative or come from the top down but come from police, clubs, mosques, and church organizations. We've heard and seen that the more communities work together, the better educated they are about each other.

I wonder if you could talk about any community programs you may be aware of that are useful, and ways we can engage young people in particular to ensure they are part of the solution.

I'll start with B'nai Brith.

[Michael Mostyn]

Engaging the youth is absolutely imperative. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we want to make sure.... I think that all of us here in Canada support and promote each other's values, the values of tolerance and support of the other.

Many groups do interfaith, inter-ethnic work. B'nai Brith has a long history of doing that as well, working with other community groups. It's important. It's important to do it in the schools as well, to begin teaching that we're all human beings.

It's also important for community groups to stand up when they see hate within their own communities and be the voice to say it's wrong, that this is my fellow Canadian and their ethnicity, their religion, or their skin colour doesn't matter.

We need a lot more of that in this country, and I'd like to see the government encourage that by working with various community groups, because I don't think we're seeing enough of that.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Ladies?

[Safiah Chowdhury]

I would second his comments.

A lot of work is occurring through ISNA and also through a number of other Muslim organizations that focus on youth development.

I often identify as a child of the post-9/11 world, growing up as a young Muslim woman who was identified first as Muslim, and then everything else followed. That's not an identity I chose for myself. It's an identity that was often imposed on me.

One of the key parts of helping me make sense of this, of navigating my identity in a world that positions us as threats when we know that often we are the victim as well, was Muslim organizations. Muslim Youth of North America—MYNA, we call it—is a subsidiary of ISNA. It was essential because it allowed me to be a teenager, go to camp, go canoeing, go skating, whatever it was, and do so unproblematically. There were no questions of why I wear that on my head, my thoughts on this issue or this notion of being oppressed and those kinds of things, or if I was in need of being saved. It provided a safe space to just be me.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

How can the government assist in promoting that, though?

[Safiah Chowdhury]

I think a key component is that it's difficult to be unproblematically young. You ask lots of times foolish questions as you're exploring and learning about your place in the world and distilling truth from falsehoods. A lot of times the discourse that comes from the top is one that positions our communities as always needing to be on the defensive. I think the government can show leadership by reaffirming our place as equal parts of this community, by allowing us to have the space to probe and to question and to explore, and not always having to explain ourselves foremost as Muslims but to exist as people who belong to a society with everyone else.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'm going to change gears just a bit, and I have limited time. You mentioned young people and particular problems that they had faced. We all know there are people who have been on the passenger protect program. I'm just wondering.... You know that Minister Goodale has put in place in place a passenger protect inquiries office. Have you any recommendations on that, or have you discussed as a group ways that you'd like to see the government move to help people to have their names removed when they're wrongly on that list,?

[Safiah Chowdhury]

To be honest, we haven't done a lot of that work. I haven't, and I don't know if Dr. Bullock.... Flying is always a matter of anxiety for us because of these kinds of provisions, and that requires immediate addressing. I think in our increasingly digitized world, there are ways to vet people or to know who's who without simply their names. We know that people have the same names often. We know six-year-olds have the same names as 45-year-olds, and those kinds of things, so I would explore a number of options there.

The behaviour that gets criminalized, I think, is also of concern, and that should be part of the inquiry. What is the reason the original person was even put on the list to begin with? What is the behaviour that was criminalized?

I don't know if you want to add anything.

[David Matas]

Yes, I could add something here, because I've had some experience with this. It's very difficult to find out what's going on if you're stopped or queried. There are different regimes. Typically what happens is that if you want to question it, they might show it to a judge, but they won't show it to you and they won't show it to your lawyer, so the whole thing has an air of mystery to it.

There needs to be some way of correcting mistakes. Also, because of the way the records are kept, once something is there, it never disappears, but a comment may be added on. What happens is that once you're stopped, you're always stopped while somebody reads through everything and figures out what's going on.

The system, I would say, needs more accountability, more transparency, and there needs to be a possibility of completely eradicating a mistaken record.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Clement is next.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you to both groups for being here.

I wanted to start with Mr. Mostyn. I have a quote from previous testimony by your group, B'nai Brith, before the hearings pertaining to Bill C-51 in the previous Parliament, where Marvin Kurtz of your organization said:

Canadian law in the form of a series of Supreme Court of Canada decisions has frequently confirmed the propriety of legal limitations on hate speech, recognizing the tie between hate speech and hate crimes. We say that the tie between speech and action or crime is even greater in the case of the promotion of terror, which is why we support the provisions of Bill C-51....

Do you still agree with that assessment and agree that Bill C-51 is an effective way to assist in this issue?

[David Matas]

Yes. There's a back-and-forth on this issue, and we're definitely on the side of using the law to deal with these phenomena of incitement to hatred and incitement to terrorism. As I indicated in the preliminary remarks, there is an issue there, freedom of expression, and it requires a balancing of rights, but we, I think, should avoid absolutism of any right over any other right, including an absolutism of freedom of expression.

We have seen an increased threat of terrorism in the last years that requires, I would say, an increasing legislative action so that it is effective to deal with that incitement to terrorism.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

We've had Bill C-51 in place for over a year and a half now. Is there anything that has happened that in your view derogates from that point of view of the balance that has been struck?