Public Safety Committee on April 28th, 2022

[Dr. David Morin]

Thank you for the question.

The book provides an interesting perspective. Many western researchers examine the phenomenon from a western standpoint, including the growth of Jihadism and right-wing extremism.

To answer your question about the far right, I believe that one common mistake is to see the far right as if it were something that goes back only a few decades, as a form of neo-Nazism that advocates violence and the overthrow of institutions. But the far right has evolved. Today's far right includes people who wear a suit and a tie. Also relevant is the fact that the United States has managed to create an "alt-right" that has transformed its political discourse. For example, there has been a shift away from racism to culturalism. Rather than saying that one race is superior, it's now one culture that is better than another. My colleague put it very well earlier when he addressed the issue of white nationalism.

There is also a lot of victimization. The argument is that the white majority, in a reversal of history, is threatened by immigrant populations and other cultures. You are no doubt familiar with the conspiracy theory about the great replacement. What we're seeing is the same kind of argument in a more polished form, by which I mean more politically correct.

Another important factor is that the far right movement always claims to be defending people against the elites. These elites are you, us, the researchers, and, of course, the mainstream media. The tone of the far-right agenda is now much more populist.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have 10 more seconds.

[Dr. David Morin]

The final factor, about which not all of us agree, is the use of violence. Some people take it for granted, whereas for others it's much more subtle. The fact remains, however, that it often underpins anti-democratic arguments.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The vote was delayed, so what I want to know is whether there will be a second round of questions and how things are going to go between now and the end of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

We will cut the allocation of the second round in half. It will be in the same order but in half the time. We don't have the time available that we'd expected.

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes in this round. The floor is yours, sir.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to our witnesses for helping our committee make its way through this study.

Mr. Rigato, I'd like to start with you. Thank you very much for sharing some of the research you've done on the Three Percenters. I'm sure that the way in which they maintain their membership through active and mandatory participation, tactical military training and enforcing a code of values amongst their members works for other groups as well.

I guess what I'm interested in is this. Has your research covered any former members of those groups, such as the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys, and have those former members said anything about what would have helped them during the time when they were active members? I mean, they're stuck in this closed ecosytem where their ideological beliefs are reinforced but also expanded upon. Have they ever mentioned what kinds of interventions may have helped them, during the time when they were active members, to get out of that lifestyle?

[Brandon Rigato]

Thank you very much for the question.

There's a whole host of literature on what it takes to get people in and out of extremism.

With regard to the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys within Canada, I don't have any data on that. I can't honestly answer on how the Canadian participants have engaged and then disengaged with it. I don't want to take up any more time unnecessarily.

Thank you.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for that.

Dr. Morin, maybe I'll turn to you. I was looking at the UNESCO chair's website. One of the sections on the website for your organization says, “one of the priority issues is the development of evidence-based research and the exchange of knowledge and best practices at the national and international levels.” I think a lot of that covers the role that social media has played in allowing extremist ideology to spread and find new members.

In our earlier meeting this week, we had representatives from Facebook and Twitter appear. Facebook in particular said that they have a lot of policies in their community standards that outline what is and is not allowed on their platforms. They said they were actively monitoring the Ottawa protests in the lead-up to the illegal occupation of Ottawa.

One thing that is quite evident is that Facebook allowed Pat King, one of the main organizers, to not only grow his online presence by tens of thousands during the convoy. He was also livestreaming himself and encouraging people to break the law. That strayed far beyond what I think is allowed on the platform.

Facebook has taken the time to try to explain that their policies do try to prevent this, but it's obviously not working. Do you have any thoughts on what kinds of government interventions we need? We've had suggestions about maybe setting up an ombudsperson. The main concern is that, if you clamp down too hard on the main platforms, you're going to spread it out to other alternative media sources. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Dr. David Morin]

I'd like to thank the hon. member for his question.

You're absolutely right when you said that there are sometimes collateral impacts. The idea behind the current deliberations on regulating social networks is to create basic standards that would enable the platforms to determine what regulations they are required to comply with, and to contribute to a form of standardization that factors in the specific features of each of these platforms.

You gave some very clear examples of content that had not been withdrawn from platforms when it was problematic. I don't want to mention too many names, but Twitter and a number of platforms had recently placed restrictions in connection with documentaries about QAnon that were critical of QAnon. These platforms claimed to be placing restrictions on these documentaries based on their internal policies, which they could not talk about, and that they had to limit the dissemination of this type of content. That's definitely a problem.

Canada has decided that it now wants regulation, and I believe that's excellent. It will be important to measure how effective such regulation will be. One avenue open to us, as you were saying, is to create a digital security commissioner position in Canada. Other countries have done so, and the commissioner would be responsible for ensuring that platforms comply with these obligations.

A second key point that the chair is working on with the support of Canada's Department of Public Safety and the Community Resilience Fund is the matter of evaluation. This is somewhat related to the previous question you asked my colleague in terms of prevention programs. It's essential to have much more rigorous evaluation mechanisms—Canada is headed in that direction—to be able to determine what works and what doesn't, particularly upstream prevention programs. Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention are all very important today if we are to rectify our practices and adapt how we are all working.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

[Dr. David Morin]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will now move into the second round of questions, with half-time for every member of the committee.

We'll start with Mr. Lloyd.

Sir, you have two and a half minutes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Dr. Morin.

In your expertise at the Chair of Prevention of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism, would you conclude that one of the root causes for people to be radicalized and to be susceptible to violent extremism would be things such as economic disruption?

Would you say that the prospect of unemployment or becoming unemployed and the negative outcomes that come out of unemployment are a significant contributing factor to radicalization?

[Dr. David Morin]

Yes and no. The data show that it depends on the context. Sometimes socioeconomic status is problematic, but most of the time, the cause is a feeling of economic hardship. So it's less tied to income as such than to having the impression of not having access to what we feel we are entitled to.

Let's take the United States as an example. I'm going to draw a very important parallel. Many of the people who attacked the Capitol appear to have been upper middle class and not in circumstances that involved a great deal of hardship.

However, most of them felt deprived—deprived of something they felt entitled to, or about to lose their middle-class or upper middle-class privileges.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Dr. Morin.

I only have limited time, so I want to drill down.

I wouldn't want to suggest that we were suggesting that people with a lower socio-economic status or who have lower socio-economic privileges are more susceptible, but I like what you're talking about in terms of deprivation.

If somebody has a good middle-class lifestyle and has strong family and community bonds, but then loses those things through an event such as unemployment—let's say their industry gets put out of business by a recession or by a government policy—is that not an act of deprivation that could cause somebody to become radicalized?

[Dr. David Morin]

Definitely, Mr. Lloyd.

And it can be seen in how it is linked to an increase in conspiracy theories. There is a very clear correlation between a form of anxiety, caused among other things by socio-economic status or the loss of losing that status.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have 10 seconds.

[Dr. David Morin]

So it may be a factor, but the radicalization process is mainly a combination of factors specific to each individual.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

[Dr. David Morin]

That's why it's hard to identify very broad trends or factors that are systemically important.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chiang, you have the next block. You have two and a half minutes, whenever you're ready.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses today for participating.

Dr. Morin, in your opening remarks you mentioned loss of trust and the potential for violence. Can you provide your thoughts on the role that celebrating cultural diversity can have in combatting hate and extremism?

What are some of the best ways the federal government can promote a more inclusive society that stands up against hate and extremism? What are your thoughts?

[Dr. David Morin]

I'd like to thank the hon. member for this question.

I myself, as co‑chair, was involved in an initiative called Dialogue Plus, whose purpose was to prevent radicalization and discrimination in societies, particularly among young people and older people. So you've asked a very good question.

I believe that celebrating cultural diversity is essential. Unfortunately though, the message is not often received by the people who are not at all convinced of the benefits of cultural diversity. So I think that less talk and more action is needed. Opportunities for meetings on the ground between people from the diversity and others from the cultural majority—I always have a bit of trouble with all these terms. I think that the solution is to do things together, concretely, on projects, rather than systematically declare broad principles, even though it's important to reiterate these principles.

It's important to go out in the field and provide community organizations with the resources they need to facilitate meetings and dialogue. Generally speaking, that's what has worked best in terms of prevention.

I hope, hon. member, that this answers your question.

Thank you.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Dr. Morin.

My next question is for Mr. Rigato.

From your research, what are some ways that alt-right communities seek to undermine established knowledge and expertise? [Technical difficulty—Editor] could be taken to address this right-wing fight against established trusted media sources?