Evidence of meeting #38 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
We have time for one last question, about a minute and a half. Ms. Ludwig, go ahead.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you, all, for your presentations.
This is to Malika.
The future First Lady, Melania Trump, stated, “It is never okay when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied, or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground, and it is absolutely unacceptable when it's done by someone with no name hiding on the Internet.”
I have two questions.
When celebrities take on an issue as a key platform, how might this impact the awareness and ultimately the policy and issues such as cyberbullying? Second, if you were a member of Mrs. Trump's committee, what would you hope she would highlight?
Senior Counsel, Human and Civil Rights, Google
To your first question, I think we've seen with a number of different issues that when celebrities give voice to an issue, it allows the issue to be in the popular culture, in the public square, and that's valuable. We have certainly seen, in the U.S. and in Canada, that girls have committed suicide because of the extent to which they were cyberbullied. The shared narrative in those girls' experiences is unbelievable isolation. They were hurt, and the violence done to them was never named.
I do think there is power in a celebrity voice to be able to name it and to allow that girl who feels so isolated and unheard to be validated in some way because of the celebrity presence. It also allows us to have a conversation about this in the public circle, in the public square, which I think is absolutely critical.
Again, this is very similar to domestic violence. Part of the work here is naming this as violence. To the extent to which we can have these conversations in multiple ways and in a pervasive manner, I think we are better for it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Excellent.
We are out of time. I'm sorry.
I want to thank all of our witnesses today for the information and for the work that they do.
If you have things that you think the committee would be interested to hear about, please direct those comments to the clerk, and we would be happy to read them.
We are going to suspend briefly while we go in camera for our drafting instructions.
[Proceedings continue in camera]