Status of Women Committee on Dec. 16th, 2024

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Michelle.

Next we move to Mr. Serré.

You have six minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here and for your testimony.

I'm going to start my questioning with Lauren Pragg.

Thank you for working with the YouthLine. It's very important.

I just have a couple of quick questions. You mentioned that the line is available six days a week. What are the hours, and where do you get your funding? I just need a quick answer on that.

[Lauren Pragg]

Thank you so much for the questions.

The hours are 4 to 9:30, six days a week. We're not open on Saturdays, but every other day. Our funding comes from a mix of sometimes government and corporate grants and money, and then there's a lot of great community support from individuals.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

We definitely need to look at that being 24-7. There's no doubt.

For my next questions, you mentioned parental rights and the whole discourse that's happening right now. I want to get your thoughts because, obviously, when we look at 2SLGBTQI+ in schools, it was a safe place. Now youth are feeling that it may not be a safe place. I have two questions for you.

First, what would you want to tell parents who are listening today?

Second, where do youth go for a safe place now, if the school is not safe?

[Lauren Pragg]

Thank you. Those are both great questions.

I'll start with your second one first. Asking where youth can go is a great question. Like I said, sometimes youth have to make exceptions and have to stay in friend groups or in different kinds of relationships that don't feel supportive to them, so their options are limited. I also think that our communities do turn to online a lot of the time. That's a really important place for our communities.

There's also, as we all know, a lot of misinformation and disinformation happening online. Social media algorithms contribute to a lot of dangerous trends and can really impact mental health. It's not a pretty picture, I guess I would say. More funding and more spaces are needed. The spaces that exist need to train people so that they can be more supportive, welcoming and inclusive.

As for what I want to say to parents, there's a lot that I want to say. I think, for now, I will say that I can understand parents feeling afraid. I can understand parents feeling confused. What I've heard in previous conversations at this committee is that we want to open a dialogue, if this is about helping people to understand.

When things are presented in an extreme way, with very little facts and information, it can feel very different, new and scary for parents. Give your children the opportunity to speak for themselves. Offer your understanding and empathy, and also be open to learning for yourself. These are still the same children and young people you've always known and who have been in your life. They need the support to say who they are, to speak up and to be themselves. Without that room, very dangerous things can happen, as we've seen. Without a supportive home space, there are higher numbers of youth in homelessness and engaged in substance use and abusive relationships and all kinds of things, because people are looking for a place to go. As I mentioned earlier, there aren't very many options.

I would ask parents to come to the table with an open mind and some empathy. Hopefully I, and other organizations that do this kind of work, can help with some of that information and can help create dialogue.

Thank you.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Lauren. I have limited time.

Tyler Boyce, thank you for mentioning North Bay and the issues there in your testimony. My nephew and godchild Jenna Seppa lives in West Nipissing, right beside North Bay. He's feeling some of those threats in terms of queer youth. He's a drag queen and I'm very proud of him.

You mentioned online radicalization. Do you have any recommendations for us when we're looking at the algorithms of social media, and the bots? What would you recommend the federal government do? It's these companies like Elon Musk's Twitter. I call Twitter “the cesspool of hate”. What would you recommend we do, as a government, in that space?

[Tyler Boyce]

I appreciate the question.

I think it's very difficult, because we have to weigh our civil liberties against what is right and keeping people safe online. I can share that what we've seen in our work is this: When it is the wild west online and there are no guardrails for the safety of queer and trans folks, there are real-life consequences to that hate. I brought up in my testimony how folks are being radicalized in extremist, anti-gender movements, and a lot of that is happening online. We know that about a third of gen Z identifies as being part of the 2SLGBTQI+ community. We also know this generation—the future leaders of tomorrow—is spending a lot of its youth online.

I'd recommend this government do that balancing act between our online civil liberties with preventing online hate crimes and the real-life consequences. Consider the real-life experiences of queer and trans folks who are being impacted by the Internet. There is a role for government to play in that conversation.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Mr. Serré.

Next, we move to Madame Larouche.

You have six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to begin by thanking all five witnesses for being with us today for our study, which is taking place in a rather troubled and uncertain environment. The statistics on the rise in hate against communities are striking, and they follow a study on the rise in femicide. Clearly, this could all be linked, to some extent, and that's extremely disturbing.

I will begin my first round with the representatives of Fondation Émergence.

Mr. Breault, I'll come back to you after I ask Ms. Baker my question.

Ms. Baker, you concluded your opening remarks quickly by talking about Dangerous Speech Project. I'd like to give you a minute or two to add anything that you didn't have time to say at the end of your opening remarks.

[Olivia Baker]

Actually, I didn't have much more to say. I would add, however, that I find the concept of dangerous speech very interesting. It's not just a question of hate speech, but rather it's about really looking at the consequences of that kind of speech and rhetoric.

My colleague Mr. Boyce talked about social media as an environment where anything goes, but this type of discourse sometimes also spreads through public communications, such as columns, books or perhaps larger media outlets, that paint an alarmist and biased picture of gender-affirming care or the place of LGBTQ+ people.

In our training sessions, someone might tell me that they read such and such a thing in the newspaper, even though the reporting was not based on proven facts. It's harder to disprove something that comes from a column or report that appears in so-called traditional media than when it comes from a Facebook post.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Other witnesses have drawn a link between the U.S. elections and the climate observed over the past year. Would anyone like to comment on that?

[Laurent Breault]

I just returned from a mission in Geneva, where I met with Canadian representatives at the UN.

There are tons of red flags all over the planet when it comes to LGBT rights. Certainly, with the changes in the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court favouring a shift to the right, it sends a signal worldwide that LGBT rights are now an easier target.

Setbacks have occurred pretty much everywhere. Canada is not excluded from this, and what happens in the U.S. eventually, over the years, ends up here. The debate happening in the U.S. right now is very heated, very complicated and very complex. The situation varies significantly from one state to the next. In fact, if you superimpose a map of U.S. states that are experiencing setbacks overtop of the actual map of the United States, what you'll find is that the states where LGBT communities already had very few rights or protections are regressing even further. This is a global phenomenon, and we feel it coming here.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

That's very interesting.

Another topic you touched on in your opening remarks was conversion therapy. I know you care deeply about this issue. The federal government passed a law to ban these therapies and, in response to that law and to see how things were going, you organized a symposium on these therapies at the beginning of the year. I would like you to comment on your findings. We realize that it is still very easy to circumvent the law, especially for religious groups. Is that correct? Is that consistent with the initial findings?

[Laurent Breault]

You're absolutely right. Thank you for raising the subject. We're very proud of the fact that Canada is one of 11 countries or states that have banned conversion therapy, making it a criminal offence. What we're learning on the ground is that very few people know what conversion therapy is, and that includes stakeholders, law enforcement, the health care community and educational community. When we meet with people on the ground, there is a great deal of confusion among the public. Many people believe that conversion therapy is gender-affirming therapy, in other words, to become gay, lesbian or trans. So we're working hard to raise awareness and inform people about these therapies.

Also, just because conversion therapy has been banned doesn't mean the work is done. We're seeing a number of challenges, because therapies are taking other forms. They're even more hidden and more insidious, and they're still happening. For example, two journalists from the former Metro newspaper infiltrated churches in Montreal and were very quickly able to obtain conversion therapy services. In addition, with everything we know about telemedicine, therapies are being moved elsewhere and offered virtually, often from the United States. So that's where we're at with conversion therapy.

As a final thought on that point, we need help finding victims. Let me explain. The very nature of conversion therapy means that victims are often stuck with the people immediately around them who are complicit in the conversion therapy. This makes it very difficult for victims to report the people in their circle who encouraged them to undergo conversion therapy in the first place. This makes it hard for us to find victims, given the complexity of conversion therapy.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Joined—EMM Thank you.

Next is Ms. Gazan.

Ms. Gazan, you have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I'm so sorry that I can't be with all of you in person today.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here.

I want to talk about the radicalization of the far right, and in particular about Jordan Peterson. I've heard he's moved to the States. Good riddance to bad rubbish. He supports things like the one million man march. What is concerning about Jordan Peterson is that the Conservative leader actively fraternizes with him and supports him. The reason I'm concerned about this—I try to stay as non-partisan as possible in committee—is that I worry, as one of the witnesses mentioned, about another Polytechnique, but this time against the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community in Canada.

I believe you mentioned that, Olivia Baker.

I'll give you some examples. The current leader, Pierre Poilievre, appeared on a show with Jordan Peterson on the latter's YouTube channel on May 16, 2022, to talk about freedom.

Jordan Peterson wrote an article very recently, on February 29, 2024, entitled “Jordan Peterson: The awe-inspiring conservative counter-offensive against woke nonsense”, which is something that we have to hear about. Gender-affirming care is now “woke nonsense”, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ having the right to access safe bathrooms is now “woke nonsense”. That was written in the National Post. Those are a couple of examples.

We know there has been an increase in far-right nonsense since the pandemic. I said recently in a national documentary that I think people are really struggling with mental health and that these far-right movements are usurping people into these anti-gender movements that have the potential for violence.

I want to start with you, Lauren Pragg. Why is it dangerous? Why does it put the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community in danger when political leaders fraternize with people who spew hate speech?

[Lauren Pragg]

Thank you so much for the question.

I think the bottom line is that it legitimizes these positions. For folks trying to make an informed political decision, it seems as though these are viable options and real and legitimate claims. I would suggest Naomi Klein's book Doppelganger. It really lays out a lot about how the pandemic contributed to misinformation and disinformation and the kind of radicalization it led to.

The other thing I will say is that some of these campaigns are really about scapegoating. We know that. We see that. It's come up again in this committee already. I think we need to get a bit deeper in what we're asking. What is the purpose? What are far-right figures trying to scapegoat our community for? It's for division. It's for control. It's for increased limits to freedom, even though they speak largely about freedom.

I think that is the risk.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I totally agree. It's like freedom for some and not for others. I've said that many times before.

I want to move now to Olivia Baker.

You spoke about Polytechnique. It sent shivers down my spine. It's one of the reasons I supported this study. You said that you were trying to define dangerous speech. It seems like freedom speech is called “woke”, but let's talk about dangerous speech. I think what's happening...even with petitions being brought by Conservative members against women and girls, talking about an attack on the safety of women and girls to have gender-affirming bathrooms, or having trans women going to bathrooms. I would say that's dangerous speech, because it's not based on fact.

You've said that dangerous speech is any form of speech that will condone or encourage violence against the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community. It's aimed to recruit and attack. You specifically mentioned bathrooms. How is the current rhetoric...?

I take my role as a member of Parliament seriously. I know that what I say has impact, and that it can be either good or harmful. How is the current political discourse emboldening far-right extremism and putting the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community at risk?

[Olivia Baker]

I would like to say two things about that.

First, I mentioned the Polytechnique massacre, but I could have mentioned the incident at the University of Waterloo, when someone stabbed a gender theory professor for those same reasons. I and my fellow trainers at the organization wondered whether we too were in danger when giving our training sessions. Would I be stabbed next for talking about gender theory? I'm being sarcastic with the use of air quotes.

Second, I think it's very interesting to note that the concept of dangerous speech came about when statements made prior to acts of violence such as genocide and war were studied. Why do humans act on something or agree with certain types of violence?

When you instill fear in someone by telling them that people in the LGBTQ+ community are coming for their children, you are using an argument that is going to cause a lot of violence. If a parent feels that their child's safety is at risk, resorting to violence will seem much more acceptable to them. This type of threat mobilizes a lot of people, but it can also be a caricature. We've seen trans women caricatured a lot in relation to their use of women's bathrooms; they are depicted as sexual predators. That rhetoric becomes dangerous because it gives people permission to defend themselves against the threat.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Leah.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thanks so much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

We are starting the next round with Mrs. Roberts.

You have five minutes.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm going to start by asking if anyone has heard of Bill C-412.

No.

Bill C-412 is a better alternative to Bill C-63, the online harms act. It will keep Canadians safe online without infringing on their civil liberties. The online harms act creates a costly censorship bureaucracy, which the PBO has estimated at $200 million—arguably the most expensive in the world. Bill C-412 gives Canadians more protection online through existing regulations and the justice system.

The reason I ask is that I understand free speech. I get it. However, what I'm getting from all the witnesses is that we're not holding people accountable. I feel it's important that if you commit a crime, you should be held accountable. If we don't stop the perpetrators from hurting people.... It was said earlier by Ms. Baker, I believe, that 91% of 2SLGBTQ1+...do not report.

How can we make this a better world if we don't hold these individuals to account?

I'll start with you, Mr. Boyce.

[Tyler Boyce]

I really appreciate the question.

I'll be more specific than I was earlier.

I agree that justice must be part of this conversation, but I don't want the sole focus of this conversation to be on punitive approaches to justice.

I think another alternative to justice is taking the path of deterrence. Right now, there is a public education imperative that is necessary in this country. Maybe Canadians in general understand what it is to be gay, bisexual or lesbian, but in this committee, I think the focus has been squarely put on gender. That means trans and non-binary communities. I don't think we should jump the gun by not giving Canadians the chance to be publicly and properly educated about the realities trans people face. Bring Canadians into the conversation before we jump to the punitive approach. There are many ways we can have that conversation on deterrence.

To close, I think education has to be a first step.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

One of the reasons I asked this question is that, in my previous life, a customer of mine who was gay could not speak about it at home due to cultural beliefs. She was therefore always very cautious and fearful because of the repercussions, even at home.

You talked about education. How do we educate individuals who are coming to Canada about this being acceptable in Canada and that we need to embrace it and not make people feel insulted or harmed—or effectively have harm come to them.

How do we do that?