Public Safety Committee on May 5th, 2022

[Tony McAleer]

That's a great question.

The challenge here is that ideology and identity become intertwined. When we attack someone's ideology, we're also attacking their identity and all the defence mechanisms come up. They either lash out or shut down. How do you get through that?

In Life After Hate, there's a saying we have that is “never concede, never condemn”. People ask me what they say to their uncle or to Aunt Maggie who's spouting off all this nonsense. I ask them if they want to be right or if they want to effect change. If they want to be right, just tell Aunt Maggie all the reasons why she's wrong. If they want to effect change, listen. It's not about what they say, it's about what they do.

It's that tension between never conceding your values, but never condemning the person. The ideology and the activity is abhorrent, but it's still a human being. It's that tension of never concede and never condemn.

For facts, figures and counter-narratives, there is a place for that for someone who's just coming across this type of information. That's an effective place to deploy that, just not on the back end.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we're at the end of the second round of questioning.

I'd like to apologize to the witnesses for the delay. It's the world of the bell, and we have no option but to listen to the bell and be adherents to its time constraints.

On behalf of all members of the committee and of Parliament itself, I want to thank you for being with us and sharing your expertise and your wisdom on a subject that is timely, controversial and important for Canada. Thank you all very much.

Colleagues, this will be a very quick turnaround. The clerk tells me that the next panel are basically ready, so we'll be back in about two minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Colleagues, that was a quick turnaround, and we're ready to go for the second hour of testimony.

It's my pleasure to welcome in this second hour, Samuel Tanner, full professor, school of criminology at the Université de Montréal—

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I'm sorry, Chair, I have a quick point of order before we get into it.

Thank you to the witnesses. I apologize.

We're already tight on time, so I don't plan on taking a lot of time. We're being interrupted a lot lately, and we can't control these issues with the bells at 11 o'clock. It's obviously affecting our committee here.

I just wanted to know, going forward, if our intentions are to be sitting until 1:30 most days so we can adjust our schedules accordingly. Sometimes we have things on, as we all do, and we have certain things with our party that require attendance around 1:30. I just want to know going forward what we're doing today so we can all plan our schedules accordingly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

The first thing we have to do is ask the clerk if he has permission from the House of Commons to extend our sitting time. He has been able to do that, so we are able to go to 1:30. We've been able to handle a full round and then half a round of questioning, and that is presumably how we will proceed.

I'm in your hands. If we have even less time than that in the future, we'll have to make other decisions, but I think so far it's worked reasonably well. We'll go to 1:30, if we can buy the half an hour—and the clerk has been able to do that—and then we will have a fulsome conversation with witnesses if we have the extra half hour.

Are there other comments on the point of order or can we proceed?

I'll introduce Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of the national office of the B'nai Brith. Marvin Rotrand, national director, league for human rights of the B'nai Brith is with us as well. We also have Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Welcome to all of the witnesses. You will have up to five minutes for opening remarks, and we'll start with Mr. Tanner.

Go ahead, sir, whenever you're ready.

[Samuel Tanner, Full Professor, School of Criminology, Université de Montréal, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.

First, I would like to make some preliminary remarks on ideologically motivated violent extremism. This type of extremism and the radicalization process that precedes it poses a threefold puzzle. We have to seek to understand what people think, seek to understand how they come to think what they think, and seek to understand the progression, or not, from thought to action.

To do so, let us assume that the physical and virtual structures in which perpetrators of ideologically motivated violent extremism operate affect the way they view their environment and that this leads them to adopt frameworks that are generally at odds with the ordinary socio‑political referents shared by the vast majority of the public.

In this context, access to information, that is, what fuels our understanding and reading of the environment, and the transformation of the information ecosystem caused by the advent of social media, as well as the tools by which we access this information—largely social media—are a central node to consider in the process leading to ideologically motivated violent extremism. My presentation is about the virtual sphere and the role of social media in this process.

A second element that I think is important to mention is the relationship between the context of crisis and uncertainty, on the one hand, and information, social media and ideologically motivated violent extremism on the other.

We are seeing a massive spread information that, to be understood, requires us to trust the sources we are drawing from. However, in a context of uncertainty, crisis or social upheaval, such as the pandemic, immigration crises or opposition to health measures to fight the COVID‑19 pandemic, the mechanisms of trust are quite shaken. Digital platforms are becoming tools of mass disruption. This is evidenced in particular by the proliferation of dubious and even false messages and the mobilization of the public around this problematic information.

Social media are communications and marketing tools used by people we can call political influencers. They act in a way that shapes public opinion, not through advertising or product placement, as is done in the most traditional forms of influence, but rather by spreading doubt or a form of ready‑thinking. Thus, they propose ideas or easy solutions to complex social, health or political crises and uncertainties. These ideas or solutions resonate with people who, above all, want to be reassured and have a sense of order and security.

These influencers and activists need to develop alternative credibility to traditional sources of legitimacy, such as the authorities, intellectual elites or journalists.

La Meute and its Facebook page are particularly representative of this phenomenon. Remember that this group was originally formed in Quebec on a Facebook page created in the fall of 2015. At the time, we were in the midst of a Syrian crisis, which caused an influx of migrants to western countries, including Canada.

Let's also remember that 2015 was a year marked by a series of Islamist attacks, including the attack on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January, and the attacks in Paris, France, in November 2015. The cases of young people leaving for Syria, which made headlines in Quebec in 2014, and the shooting that took place at Canada's Parliament on October 14, 2014, had already heightened a feeling of insecurity among the population.

La Meute's Facebook page quickly became a tool and a forum for discussion on these issues, as well as a space for the dissemination of comments from citizens concerned about the situation. They accused the government of endangering the public through its lack of action on the threat of terrorism and its perceived inaction on the Islamization of Quebec and Canada.

So we're seeing the emergence of a populist, identity‑based, anti‑immigration, anti‑multiculturalism, and anti‑Muslim discourse, which is very quickly finding a broad audience. At that time, La Meute had 60,000 subscribers. This leads to the emergence of a community of individuals at odds with ordinary socio‑political referents shared by the vast majority of the public. Our research shows that social media contribute to trivializing and promoting ordinary racism among citizens. This creates lines of rupture within the population.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mostyn, and Mr. Rotrand, you have, between the two of you, five minutes for an opening comment.

The floor is yours, whenever you're ready.

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

Thank you very much.

My name is Michael Mostyn. I'm the chief executive officer for B'nai Brith. I'll be sharing my time with Marvin Rotrand, our national director of the league.

B'nai Brith is Canada's oldest grassroots Jewish community organization dedicated to eradicating racism, anti-Semitism and hatred in all of its forms, championing the rights of the marginalized while providing basic human needs for members of our community. We focus on anti-Semitism, but of course, we're concerned with all forms of discrimination. Hate is hate, whatever the source.

There are two quick items that I just want to mention in my statement. First of all, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran is an entity that my community, and many others, have been asking for years to designate as a terrorism entity. It must happen on an urgent basis.

Secondly, we need to focus, for IMVE and terrorism in general, on a system that works. Our system is being questioned at the moment. There was a front-page article in the National Post last weekend talking about Khaled Barakat. Khaled Barakat is the leader of the PFLP. That is a listed terrorist organization in Canada. Not all IMVE groups are from the right. It is a Marxist-Leninist organization. It is anti-Semitic. It is hateful. It is active, and one of its leaders is present in Canada. Canadians are questioning why he is here. It is strictly forbidden for members of terrorist groups to enter Canada, or to obtain Canadian citizenship. We have no answers as Canadian citizens.

We need to deal with IMVE. We need to deal with all of the causes. We need to deal with hate, as hate, but at the same time, when there are serious issues with respect to members of listed terrorist organizations here in Canada, Canadians demand answers. We need to all know that our system works, and is effective. We need to have a national strategy and undertaking to deal with this issue holistically.

I'd like to now pass on to my colleague, Mr. Rotrand.

[Marvin Rotrand, National Director, League for Human Rights, B'nai Brith Canada]

My name is Marvin Rotrand. I'm a former Montreal city councillor, now national director of the League for Human Rights, B'nai Brith Canada.

Indeed, we do oppose all forms of discrimination while we concentrate on anti-Semitism as our main mission as an organization. We have existed since 1875.

We recently released our audit for 2021 of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada and discovered that we have reached the highest level ever recorded in the 40 years we have been tracking anti-Semitism in Canada. One of the areas where we note a large increase is online hate. During the pandemic, we've experienced less in-person harassment, but online hate has exploded. In fact, the number of incidents tracked in 2021 was 2,799. The bulk of them were online incidents. There has been an increase of almost 100% in online incidents in a mere five years. Clearly, ideologically motivated violence and hate is being advocated on Facebook, YouTube and on podcasts.

I take note of a statement that was made by the Liberal Party during the election:

A re-elected Liberal Government will:

Introduce legislation within its first 100 days to combat serious forms of harmful online content, specifically hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, child sexual abuse material and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. This would make sure that social media platforms and other online services are held accountable for the content that they host. Our legislation will recognize the importance of freedom of expression for all Canadians and will take a balanced and targeted approach to tackle extreme and harmful speech.

We support this statement, and we support Parliament acting upon it.

We urge the update of Canada's 2019-22 anti-racism strategy, which ends this year. The new strategy should make hate better defined; currently it aims at racism. I would point out that Jews are 1.25% of the Canadian population. According to Statistics Canada in 2020, 61% of all victims targeted for hate were members of religious minorities.

We laud the Government of Canada for its Malmo pledge made by the Prime Minister in October of 2021, and we would urge Parliament in October of 2022 to renew the hopeful promises made within the Malmo pledge.

One of the areas we see as necessary is increased education for Holocaust remembrance as a basis of countering Holocaust denial and distortion. We invite the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada to meet to examine best practices. Education is a provincial mandate, but we invite the federal members to follow this as well with the goal of having the provinces improve what is taught in high school, so that when students get out of school, they actually know what the Holocaust is.

Thank you. I'm finished for the moment, Mr. Carr.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we're now ready for one full round of questions, and that's all the time we're going to have.

To lead us off, I will call on Ms. Dancho. The floor is yours.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

My questions are for B'nai Brith. Thank you again for being here today. As a little bit of background, I wasn't familiar with anti-Semitism. I grew up in rural Manitoba, and it wasn't something we were really exposed to. I later went to McGill University, and my first exposure to this were large, from my perspective, very angry protests for the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement, or whatever you'd like to call it. That's where I first started learning about these issues, and those images of seeing those protests really stayed with me.

I know recently that McGill University was in quite a bit of hot water regarding their student society. There's a news release on your website that refers to how the student society recently voted “to adopt an extreme 'Palestine Solidarity Policy'”, which is a document that accuses Israel “of engaging in 'settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians', and commits SSMU, the students' society, “to boycott all entities [it calls] 'complicit' in this activity.”

Your interpretation of that is that the document is “so broad that it may compel [the students' society] to boycott virtually all Jewish clubs and associations on campus.”

I have considerable concerns with this and the impact on Jewish students both at McGill, but also in all universities across Canada. I'd like you to comment on the impact this has on Jewish students, and what it is like for them to attend university under these circumstances.

[Marvin Rotrand]

I'm going to let Michael Mostyn begin this. I'd be happy to add a few words, but it's been his file.

[Michael Mostyn]

Sure. Thank you very much.

This is absolutely something of great concern to the Jewish community, and certainly to Jewish students on campus, also to their parents. Nobody should have to go on a university campus and deal with issues other than getting a great education here in Canada, but unfortunately Jewish students are regularly made to feel unsafe on campus in various ways. It could be through the political process of unions, and there have been updates at McGill since then. This is something we note on campuses across Canada. They contact our organization and other Jewish organizations. Basically, a lot of this comes down to the fact that Jews are often forced to defend themselves in the face of others proposing who and what they are and what they think, because of their connection as Jews to the Jewish state of Israel. “Zionism” is often treated as a dirty term on campus, and because you're Jewish or you appear to be Jewish, you may get treated with different forms of abuse.

In fact, at the University of Toronto, they had a couple of times when student unions would take the position that even kosher food, which is a religious commandment for Jews, should be negatively impacted. It shouldn't be allowed if you hold a certain political ideology, that of Zionism. Of course, more than 90% of Jews in Canada are Zionists. That is the overall connection between our community. It is something that's disturbing. We consider BDS anti-Semitic—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Sorry to interrupt, but on that point, in 2017, a member of the SSMU's legislative council and board of directors—as you put on your website—“infamously told his Twitter...to 'Punch a Zionist today.'” I actually remember this. Is violence something that your students experience?

[Marvin Rotrand]

We do get reports of threats, rarely actual violence on campus, but we should all be worried. This year's audit revealed the number of violent incidents against Jews in Canada went up from nine in 2020 to 75 in 2021—a 733% increase. While at McGill, the board of trustees annulled the student society motion, clearly, there's been a movement at certain campuses to make anti-Zionism the new form of anti-Semitism, denying the rights of Jews to self-determination in their historic homeland, and basically attacking Jews everywhere for decisions made by Israel.

I'd like to say that in 2016 you may recall Parliament passed an anti-BDS motion. We think that Parliament might want to update that. In Germany, Austria and certain countries, advocating BDS is actually illegal. In Canada, the motion adopted by Parliament had no legal force.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

I did want to ask you, in terms of the impact, if you think there's a connection between these movements on university campuses and protests that we see in support of the BDS movement. For example, in Toronto, as I'm sure you're aware, recently there was a large protest from the BDS perspective. They were chanting things like “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, which is in reference to a one-state solution. Can you comment on whether you think there's a connection between these elements that are happening on university campuses and the extremist, hateful rhetoric we're hearing in many of these protests in Toronto and elsewhere?

[Marvin Rotrand]

I do—

[Michael Mostyn]

I do—

[Marvin Rotrand]

Go ahead.

[Michael Mostyn]

We both do, and that is how it's felt generally within the Jewish community.

As a community, we've been complaining for years that if this is allowed on campus, if you are allowed to discriminate and if universities are not enforcing their own policies to protect their students, their faculty and their administration, then eventually we will see spillover into general society. We saw that happen—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but in my last 15 seconds, what role does government play in addressing this issue?

[Marvin Rotrand]

Canada has to support the two-state solution as it has done recently in reiterating that Canada has to denounce efforts to portray Israel as an apartheid state, and Canada has to push for democratic expression in Palestine to allow the Palestinian people to finally have voices that represent them—

[Michael Mostyn]

Also, implement IHRA—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you.

Colleagues, we have to move back into the agenda.

I inadvertently forgot to give Mr. Ahmed his five minutes of opening comments.

It's back to you, sir, with my apologies. You have five minutes.