Public Safety Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

We keep seeing that hand from you, Mr. McKinnon. It's getting older and older.

The last slot of this morning belongs to Ms. Damoff. Take it away. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to our witnesses that they're not familiar with Canadian jurisdiction and our different levels of government, but until the Emergencies Act was put in place, the federal government did not have jurisdiction. It was under provincial jurisdiction, and the Ottawa Police Service was the agency of jurisdiction.

We know the Ontario courts froze your accounts. Did you have contact from the Ontario solicitor general's office?

Maybe someone whose connection is not frozen can answer. Can we freeze my time if he's frozen?

[Heather Wilson]

I can answer. No, we did not have any contact with anybody.

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

The Ontario government did not reach out to you, either, when they froze your funds. How did you find out from the Ontario court that your funds were frozen?

[Heather Wilson]

We found out from social media and mainstream news.

The funds are in a U.S. bank, so they're not necessarily frozen. They cannot get to the recipient on the ground in Canada at this moment, but—

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

You were pretty clear that you thought the federal government and the Prime Minister should have been reaching out to you, but with all due respect, until the Emergencies Act was put in place, we had no jurisdiction to contact you. Once the Emergencies Act was put in place and we had jurisdiction, the crowdfunding funds that you were holding were already frozen, so there was no reason for the federal government to be reaching out to you.

I have another question for you, though, following up—well, that's the just facts. It's just the facts. You may not agree with them, but the fact is we were not the government of jurisdiction until the Emergencies Act was enacted on February 14. I'm really quite—

[Heather Wilson]

So you did nothing. You don't take any responsibility in this is what you're saying.

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

I'm sorry. We enacted the Emergencies Act, Ma'am, for the first time since that legislation was introduced, so we certainly did have a role. We took the occupation extremely seriously, as a threat to Canadians. It was a public safety threat and that's why we invoked the Emergencies Act, so we absolutely took it seriously.

I have extreme concerns, though, about the comments you were making to my colleague about the Proud Boys. We listed them as a terrorist entity in 2019. The United States has not done that. You continue to fundraise for them. You continue to fundraise for groups that promote Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Nazi sympathizers and white supremacists.

I just wonder how you can justify giving people like that a platform to raise funds.

[Jacob Wells]

That's a great question.

If we started mandating litmus tests for how good people ought to be in order to use public services, we would be in a very, very difficult situation very quickly. The problem is—

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

Would you allow a fundraiser on your platform from the Ku Klux Klan, sir?

[Jacob Wells]

If the fundraising activity was legal and it was legally authorized to happen, we would allow people to fundraise for things that are legal—

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

So the Proud Boys will still be able to fundraise on your platform and you would not have a problem fundraising for the Ku Klux Klan is what you're saying.

[Jacob Wells]

Just to be clear, if individuals or organizations that are legally authorized to receive payments and go through the KYC checks and the AML checks that everyone is required to do, and have been done through our platform, if they pass all of those measures and what they're fundraising for is legal, then yes, we will allow them to fundraise.

In the same moment, we will share our hope with them, which is—

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

Are there anti-hate provisions in your terms of service?

The groups that we're talking about are hate groups. Groups that promote Islamophobia, groups like the Proud Boys, groups like the Ku Klux Klan have no place in our society.

I'm sorry, all this mumbo-jumbo about legal.... Do you not have anti-hate provisions in your terms of service?

[Jacob Wells]

You can read our terms of service. They're very clear. They're right there on our website. We have plenty of terms in there that guide how we operate as a business, as an organization.

We believe, completely to the core of our being, that the danger of the suppression of speech is much more dangerous than the speech itself, and this has been attested through—

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

Sorry, my time is up, but I'm just going to say that my brand of Christianity is very different from yours if it includes hate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much, everybody. This has been an intense, dynamic couple of hours.

To the witnesses, thank you for making yourselves available and participating in sometimes an uncomfortable conversation, but a very important one. On behalf of my colleagues in committee and all parliamentarians, I thank you for your appearance today.

Colleagues, thank you for your insightful questioning and for co-operation on the motion.

I would now entertain the idea that we adjourn the meeting. Do I have agreement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

The meeting is adjourned.