Public Safety Committee on June 16th, 2021

[Mustafa Farooq]

Thank you for your very important question, and thank you also for continuing to reach out and engage. Indeed, I thank all members for chatting with our communities at this time. Your words are appreciated and very heartfelt.

What I think is critical to understand is that there are a number of steps that can taken immediately, and by “immediately”, I mean some today and some within the next few months that are critical in order to protect Canadian Muslims, Canadian Jews, Black Canadians and indigenous folks. These are steps that need to happen. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever that the Three Percenters are allowed to exist as a group in Canada. It baffles me that we have appeared and spoken to folks again and again about the existence of groups like the Three Percenters and that our concerns don't appear to be heard. They don't appear to be dealt with. It baffles me that a group like the O9A, which is deeply connected and implicated with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia internationally...that the individual who is linked to the O9A and the killing of Mohamed-Aslim Zafis.... It boggles my mind that the O9A is not dismantled. That's something that could be done today. There is nothing to prevent that.

There is an urgent security threat in Canada that needs to be dealt with, and I think that at the national action summit, we also want to discuss important long-term systemic changes that need to happen. We want to make sure that those are actioned appropriately. However, indeed, there are numerous things that can be done today.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have a little less than a minute.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you.

I probably won't have the opportunity to hear the response, but I'll pose the question, and maybe I'll get a response. I want to ask about the recent findings in the NSICOP report, which noted that right-wing extremist actors are active online with 6,600 channels, pages and groups. Professor Barbara Perry noted that there are over 300 groups in Canada that are anti-Muslim, as well as anti-Semitic, and that are described as a foundation—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Excuse me, Kamal. Mr. Farooq's connection seems to be frozen.

Am I right about that?

You may be addressing your question to him, or at least he should hear the question. I don't want to go on until we get him back.

Now we've lost him totally.

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

I think he's gone, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Mark D'Amore]

Mr. Chair, we're contacting him right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We'll suspend for a minute, or for a few seconds, I hope.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Let's just back up a bit here. We'll say that you have another minute, Ms. Khera.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question was about the recent findings of the NSICOP report that right-wing extremist actors are now active online with 6,600 channels, pages, groups, accounts and Canadians. They're actually perhaps more active than we've seen in the U.S. or the U.K. Professor Barbara Perry noted that there are about 300 such groups in Canada that are anti-Semitic as well as anti-Muslim, which describe a foundation for so many other forms of hatred.

I want to ask both of you, based on your experiences, do these numbers surprise you? What role do you think social media played in terms of hatred towards your members?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Be very brief, please.

You're on mute, Shimon.

[Shimon Koffler Fogel]

John, you'd like to keep me on mute.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I know that's impossible, Shimon.

[Shimon Koffler Fogel]

Maybe Sameha has something else to offer.

I think there is no question that social media has changed everything. It has allowed for not just the flourishing but the explosion of hate that is insulated, protected, anonymous and enables people to act out their most vile thoughts. We have to come up with remedies that are calibrated to align with the potency that social media represents.

I don't think it's unique to Canada, but here's the thing: We have to be mindful. That's why I was so happy, Mr. Chair, that you were focusing more broadly and moving away from some terms, because what pose as specific threats to Jews may not pose the same threat to Muslims and may not pose the same threat to women or to indigenous people. We have to have instruments that are sufficiently malleable or flexible that they can address and include the whole range of threats that are out there and that are expressed on a common platform like social media.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. We really did blow through the time there.

I apologize. I'm going to have to move on.

Madame Michaud, you have two and a half minutes.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, may I only suggest that I get a written response from the NCCM on that as well? Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay.

I'm sorry. Time is the enemy at all of these kinds of meetings.

Madame Michaud, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I was going over the briefing note prepared by the analysts—who, by the way, did a great job—I was surprised to learn something. In 2019, Quebec City's police force under-reported hate incidents targeting Muslims. The National Council of Canadian Muslims flagged the situation that same year, criticizing the police force. According to the council, Statistics Canada's figures for Quebec City indicated three times more incidents than the number reported by the city's police force.

Perhaps Mrs. Omer can answer this.

Why do you think there was such a discrepancy between Statistics Canada's figures and the police force's reporting of hate incidents targeting Muslims in Quebec City in 2019?

[Sameha Omer, Director of Legal Affairs, National Council of Canadian Muslims]

I'm sorry, Madame. I won't be able to answer that question in regard to it being in 2019. We can follow up with you in our submission.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you. That would be great.

I'd like to hear what Mr. Fogel has to say, since it doesn't seem to be an isolated occurrence; apparently, the figures do not match in a number of places.

Why is that? Is there an attempt to keep the number of hate incidents from coming out?

What do you think the reason is? Is it merely an error?

I am curious to hear what you have to say.

[Shimon Koffler Fogel]

That's a super-important question, and thank you for putting it on the floor. I'm going to offer you two explanations. They're complementary; they're not mutually exclusive.

Number one, there is no uniform way of capturing what constitutes a hate crime. Different jurisdictions define it differently. They have nuanced distinctions about what would fit within a category and what would not. One of the needs is for the federal government to set national standards that everybody is able to respond to.

I'm also going to be very frank. Law enforcement has a real challenge, and I don't mean this in an adversarial way, but they have to ensure that the information they then forward to the Crown is responded to in a way that's going to reflect the amount of investment, investigation, research, interviews and so forth they put in. When they get the sense that the Crown is not going to lay hate-related charges, that's a disincentive for them to move in that direction when they're investigating a particular allegation or crime.

One of the things that really has to be addressed is, for the lack of a better term, Mr. Chair, the “political will” of attorneys general to direct their staff to accurately and vigorously look at particular crimes to see if they meet the standards of hate crime, because reluctance on their part means it won't go ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

The reluctance on my part is to interrupt your answers, but it is what it is.

Mr. Harris, you have two and a half minutes please.

Apparently Mr. Farooq's Wi-Fi has crashed, and he's trying to connect through his cellphone.

Mr. Harris, you have the floor.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Fogel.

Perhaps you could elaborate on that. I think I agree with you that there need to be national standards to identify and record all incidents of hate. It seems to me that you're right that there isn't a procedure whereby they can even be identified, and there needs to be political will.

Is there more that the federal government can do in treating this as a national priority and establishing those national standards? I think you talked about a leadership role and playing a convenor role, but is there more that you would suggest?

[Shimon Koffler Fogel]

I think a lot of it, Jack, has to do with demonstrating moral leadership. If they convey signals and expectations to their provincial and municipal counterparts, those cues will be picked up, and if there's a sense that there's a broad consensus reflecting all levels of government, I think we would see more aggressive attention on the part of the appropriate bodies—in this case, the attorneys general—to lay the kind of charges that reflect the seriousness of these crimes and the category or the nature of these crimes.

Police forces are going to be reluctant to expend the resources necessary if they feel they're going to fall on deaf ears of the Crown. It's so much interrelated and therefore requires that kind of leadership on the part of the federal government.