Status of Women Committee on Dec. 9th, 2024

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I'll be sharing my time with Emmanuella.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Serré.

Thank you so much to all of our witnesses for being here with us today to share your testimony and answer some of our questions.

I found today's testimony extremely touching. It brought me back to my teaching days. I taught ethics and religious culture in a Quebec school. One of the focuses or units that I would teach was gender education. I would teach my students about the gender spectrum and the sexual orientation spectrum because I knew that I had students from different backgrounds, and there were members of the 2SLGBTQ community, and I wanted them to feel like they had a safe space. If someone was at least mentioning it in their classroom—which I don't think other teachers were necessarily doing at the time— they could speak to me out of class and could also teach the rest of the students to be good human beings and to treat each other with respect.

I don't know how aware you might be of the way that different provinces handle their education systems and what the curriculum is in different provinces, but how important is it to include gender education in the classroom so that these students hear it from teachers who are doing it in a very respectful manner and at least educating all of the class about issues that may come up or things that members of the 2SLGBTQ community face?

Anyone can answer the question. I have a question afterwards as well.

I guess we can start with Fae Johnstone.

[Fae Johnstone]

This education is critical. It looks different in different provinces. To be clear, from a young age, we often talk about representation of different kinds of families. There's an incredible book, From the Stars to the Sky to the Fish in the Sea, by a trans author named Kai Cheng Thom.

It's a book about kids from different kinds of families being given the freedom to be themselves and explore who they are. This kind of education is a preventative factor against bullying so that kids who might be hearing some messages at home that are hostile to our community or that aren't as inclusive as we would like are getting that different education in the classroom. It allows those queer and trans kids to be seen and to feel supported.

Growing up in New Brunswick and Manitoba, and then coming to Ontario, I didn't know much about queer or trans people until I tripped out of the closet as a queer person at 16.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Fae. Could you slow down a little bit for the interpretation?

[Fae Johnstone]

My apologies, Madam Chair.

I would simply stress that without this education, queer and trans kids don't get the language to know who they are and to feel pride in themselves. Without that, they are taught shame and stigma. This education should be continued, strengthened and furthered so that there's consistent education across every school in every province and territory.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

I think that covers a lot of where I wanted this to go, because I don't think that it's necessarily mandated in the same way at every level. I think it's really up to the teacher to incorporate it as it currently stands, at least in my province and at least at the high school level. I appreciate that.

I know that my colleague, Ms. Gazan, asked a question earlier on what recommendations you might have to provide to our committee on how to prevent and stop the increase of hate.

I don't see him online anymore. I noticed that Dr. Lamrock wanted to raise his hand, so I wanted to give him an opportunity, but he may no longer be online.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

He is not. We're trying to connect with him, but, at this point, we haven't been successful.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Does anybody else want to chime in? I know that only one person ended up answering that question. I think it was Mr. Jensen.

Does anyone else want to chime in on that and give some recommendations?

[Naoufel Testaouni]

When there is an absence of education, misinformation and disinformation take over. That's what also fuels this hate. This education is critical so that people are aware of all of these questions.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

To the person who just spoke—I can't see you on the screen anymore, I'm sorry—you earlier mentioned online harms and the fact that we need to protect these spaces and forums. A lot of 2SLGBTQI+ people are experiencing online hate. This is where they get most of their harassment. This is where a lot of violence begins.

You said that you would want platforms to report the numbers and the stats around how frequently it's happening, and you mentioned that we should be working together. Do you have any specific recommendation as to how the federal government should intervene here and move ahead in that direction?

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

I'm sorry to interrupt. We're already about 20 seconds over.

If you have any answers that you don't have an opportunity to give members, perhaps you can incorporate them into some other answer and/or submit them in writing after the fact.

Michelle, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks so much for this. I have a couple of things I want to dive into that you guys have talked about in the conversation that's happened.

One of my favourite doctors is Dr. Stuart Shanker in the field of self-regulation. When you speak about kids who don't know who they are or what they are, that's a real challenge. Then, if you don't have parents who have the tools or resources to communicate that to the kids, it can be a real swirl for disaster. I love one of the sayings of Dr. Shanker, that “labels are for spice drawers”. It's one of my favourite things, because the label in itself can be a double-edged sword, right? I think Dr. Seuss was way, way ahead of his time when he was like, “a person is a person”. I'm a big Dr. Seuss fan. So I think that's a really big piece of it.

To Mr. Jensen's point, you touched on something very important that I think we have to acknowledge but I'm not sure we can, or how we would, ever legislate. What online discussion has done is it has prevented discussion. I don't see you. I don't see your body language. I don't hear your tone. I wonder how many of us have had a fight with our loved one on a text: “What did you say that for?” It creates a lot, and I see it a lot on social media.

When I first started on this committee, I was very interested in this, because I believed our children, especially those the age of my children, were guinea pigs, truly guinea pigs. They were given something that their brains weren't able to handle. Their prefrontal cortex wasn't developed. Now we're starting to see the research come out. I believe it's Australia that banned social media for kids under 16. A lot of people are having this discussion. It's a challenge.

Then, if at home the parents still don't know how.... We've heard some crazy testimony in this committee with sextortion. Parents—good parents—are sitting right beside their child watching a Raptors game, and this kid is getting bullied and threatened. It is wild. The only thing I can see is not having that, but it's their world and how they're going to grow up in it.

Mr. Jensen, how do you walk that line of freedom when the horse is out of the barn, so to speak, versus helping our kids navigate what I believe is destroying their mental health?

[Bennett Jensen]

I was chuckling to myself as I listened. I don't have children, but I have a niece and nephew whom I'm very close with. I was thinking about how they would possibly murder me for what I'm about to say, because I agree with so much of what you've said.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bennett Jensen]

I would say that the flip side to this—then I'll probably turn to my fellow witness, if it's okay, Madam Chair, to speak more specifically about online regulation—is that it is powerful for people in minority communities to find community online. A lot of bad things, from a technical standpoint, came out during COVID, but one of the nice things, and one of the nice things online, is that sometimes—

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

It's a double-edged sword.

[Bennett Jensen]

It's a double-edged sword. I would say that.

I think the level of toxic and harmful bullying that the young people I work with experience is real. A lot of misinformation—Mr. Lamrock spoke about the kitty litter misinformation—has been perpetuated online. That has been very dangerous as well.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I want to just say the following, because we're studying this at the justice committee too, looking at how to put in place online regulations. Even this weekend, I'll tell you, I was scrolling and....

Look, I only have a minute left; this is such a big conversation.

I watched that security guard in Edmonton who was shot and killed. I watched it before I knew what I was watching, and our children are watching this. Our children are literally being exposed to murder online, and it is so disturbing.

I also really wanted to get into housing with you. There are a million different avenues I want to discuss.

However, where I want to go with this is that these companies also have the ability to put in place algorithms to prevent that from being shown. That is where I was going to ask for your recommendation and whether you agree with an algorithm that prevents children from literally seeing murder and other things that can harm them.

[Bennett Jensen]

My mind was going in the same way; there are protected versions of online apps and websites for young people, and I think that's quite important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

Mr. Serré, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I am sorry that we lost Mr. Lamrock.

I'll start with Bennett and then I'll go to the three of you.

I want to go back to the comment that was made earlier about the social conservatives. We know they've been emboldened by the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. You see that coming in Canada, and you see the movement here online and from our political leaders who are utilizing the abortion debate and gay marriage, but they're using the trans issue to get to those elements you mentioned earlier.

We heard a lot about the online hate and what we can do to look at that. We also see a lot of provincial premiers attacking trans and maybe utilizing that playbook that we see in the U.S. with the misinformation, and also with the notwithstanding clause. As well, we see a person, the Leader of the Opposition, who wants to be the next prime minister saying that he might use the notwithstanding clause. How scary is that?

I want Bennett to comment first on that.

[Bennett Jensen]

It's very scary.

On the provincial point, it's a good opportunity to respond to a previous statement by another member on parents wanting to know what's happening with their kids at school. I think that's very fair, and I think the misinformation that happens is the suggestion or the impression that's given that there is some sort of conspiracy or epidemic happening at schools that parents aren't aware of. That's where it becomes dangerous. That's a really helpful example of ways in which some provincial leaders have given a false impression.

In fact, what is happening, as Mr. Lamrock and another member of the committee spoke about, is that teachers are using the judgment they do all the time to support young people as they grow up, using discretion to help them develop into the adults they'll become.

I would also add, to paraphrase Mr. Lamrock again, that we're seeing a scary moment where the “T” is being separated from the rest of the acronym, which is really scary.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Fae, would you care to comment?

[Fae Johnstone]

I would echo.... First, the notwithstanding clause generally gives me concern, but if it is used, it should be used only with great consideration. In Saskatchewan, it was pre-emptively invoked to avoid a court's ability to limit the implementation of a policy that was found by a judge, I believe—and I'm not a lawyer—to potentially cause zero irreparable harm to children. If we're going to be responsible policy-makers and legislators, we should be responsible in our use rather than reactive, and it becomes dangerous if we allow that reactivity to take root because these are, under our charter, protected rights and freedoms.

To go off on what Bennett was speaking to, we want kids to have the freedom to be themselves, whether they want to wear a hijab or a cross, or whether they want to use a different set of pronouns. We absolutely value the role of parents in raising happy and healthy kids. What I would have loved to see in Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick was, actually, an announcement of more supports for parents, especially parents from newcomer or faith-based communities, where there might be different paces on these conversations. The fact that they didn't go that path or listen to the needs of those kids says a lot about their motivations, which were not in the best interest of their constituents but were unfortunate and cynical politics at play.

I want parents to be as involved in their kids' lives as possible, and there's a lot we could do in our education system on that front. What I take issue with is the creation of a false choice between the role of parents and the well-being or best interests of children. We can address both of these issues at the same time, but what that takes is engaging in good-faith conversations. It also takes recognizing that we have data that shows that 20% to 40% of homeless young people in this country are members of queer and trans communities, and so we need to be mindful of these issues. I want these kids stay in safe and supportive homes, but we need to empower teachers and schools to work with those families, and not to create a false choice that puts kids at further risk of harm.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Testaouni, you mentioned online harm. What can we do? We have an online bill right now. Do you have any suggestions on...? We know that the Conservative Party is voting against it, and has been against it from day one. We have to make sure that this bill passes sooner rather than later because of extremists on that element. What would be your comments on that?