House of Commons Hansard #75 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was police.

Topics

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Mr. Speaker, preventive measures are very important, which I think we would all agree on, but we also have to ensure we put a process in the bill, which we have done, that allows individual privacy to be protected, data to be retained and preserved, and a court order to be garnered before existing data is used. Police officers cannot simply say that they are going to start an investigation and grab all the information just for information sake. They actually have to ask for it to be preserved. They have to go the court to seek the appropriate legal warrant to use the data and then proceed with the criminal investigation. That is why Bill C-13 is so much better than what was proposed by the opposition.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Conservative member opposite mentioned that the government's approach was better than the approach taken in the two bills introduced by the opposition, the NDP.

Based on my motion calling for a national bullying prevention strategy, we could have tackled many different kinds of cyberbullying. The Conservative bill deals only with sharing intimate photographs without people's consent. Many young people in Canada are being bullied in ways that do not include nude pictures being passed around. This can include hateful or threatening comments. Unfortunately, the government bill does not cover that.

Not only does the Conservative bill not meet Canadians' expectations, but it covers only one small part of the equation of cyberbullying.

Given what I just said, how can my Conservative colleague say that the NDP approach, which was more comprehensive, was not as good as the government's approach, which covers only the sharing of intimate photographs without consent?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we look at what we are trying to achieve here. We are not trying to get into partisan politics. We are not trying to say that ours is better than theirs, or theirs is better than ours. What we are really trying to do is focus on the fact people out there are being cyberbullied.

There is a process that needs to be put in place. There are tools available to the police services that they are not able to utilize. This bill would allow them to be utilized. It would also take on the fact that privacy would have to be respected. The bill would put in place a process to not only protect the data, but to ensure that the RCMP or the police services involved would have to get the legal warrant before they could continue on with their investigation.

The bill would safeguard privacy and would put in place tools so police forces could be effective in doing their job. These are tools that the police, at this point in time, are unable to use.

I am not going to get into partisan politics on which bill is better or who could do this better. I look forward to the debate at committee, because it is a great place for all of that to be discussed. There might be some better ideas that need to be added.

The reality is that this is a really good step. This proposed bill will save lives. It will address cyberbullying. It will address intimate images being used in cyberbullying attacks. I hope the bill will also address the disgusting act of convincing somebody to commit suicide over the Internet. It is a step in the right direction. Not only that, it is part of the bigger picture and the bigger puzzle. Education and other items of knowledge need to be passed to our kids so they understand exactly what they are doing when they send that text message or that email.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, I must start by thanking my NDP colleagues for allowing me to speak on Bill C-13 today, because as a result of the application of time allocation for what I think was the 58th time, many of my colleagues will not have an opportunity to speak on this bill. Despite all of my colleagues obviously being New Democrats, we are a very diverse caucus with different experiences, and we represent different kinds of ridings here in the House of Commons.

I have risen to speak in favour of Bill C-13, but I do so with some reservations.

Unfortunately, the bill is, in effect, yet another omnibus bill that mixes together many other issues with the one that should have been central—that is, bullying and cyberbullying. Instead we have a rather mixed bag of provisions instead of a focused response to the urgent challenges of bullying and cyberbullying.

Rather than trying to address all the issues in the bill, I want to focus my remarks today on two aspects: first, the need for effective action to combat bullying; second, the proposed amendment to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code which, surprisingly, also appears in the bill in clause 12.

Since 2011, we in this House have had several opportunities to act on the issues of bullying and cyberbullying, but unfortunately we have made little progress. Nearly 18 months ago my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, put forward a motion, Motion No. 385, which called upon the federal government to develop a national strategy with concrete steps to combat bullying. Unfortunately, the Conservatives voted down the motion, dismissing it as a call for further study, when in fact it was a call for leadership from the federal government in the fight against bullying and cyberbullying.

Last summer, on June 17, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-540, which would amend the Criminal Code in order to make the non-consensual making or distribution of intimate images a criminal offence. At that time, we asked the government to expedite passage of the bill in order to try to prevent further tragedies like the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons, which took place as a result of cyberbullying. Unfortunately, the government preferred to wait for its own bill, which has delayed action on this critical issue for nearly a year.

What we have before us now in Bill C-13 is much narrower than a strategy to combat cyberbullying, though it does have some provisions similar to those the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour proposed many months ago.

We are, of course, supporting the bill going to committee, precisely because some legislative action against cyberbullying is necessary, but again I want to emphasize that focusing on bullying after the fact can only be part of the solution.

Today I want to reiterate two points I made when speaking 18 months ago in support of our motion for a national anti-bullying strategy. They relate to the pervasiveness of bullying in our society and to its amplification by the existence of new technologies.

The prevalence and pervasiveness of bullying in Canada is truly shocking. In fact, bullying is happening around us all the time. In one analysis of Toronto-area schools, it was found that a student is bullied every seven seconds.

Egale Canada conducted a survey of homophobia and transphobia in schools across Canada. It found that 74% of transidentified students, 55% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual students, and 26% of non-LGBTQ students reported being verbally harassed. More than half of those reported that this bullying occurred on a daily or weekly basis.

One UBC study of students in grades 8 to 10 found that 64% of students reported they had been bullied. Even more saddening for me is their acceptance of that inevitability, because 64% of these same students said they found bullying to be a normal part of school life.

People are bullied for an almost infinite number of reasons, but almost all of those reasons are connected to hostility toward deviation from the perceived norm: for being too short, too tall, too fat, too thin; for where they were born, the colour of their skin, the language they speak at home; for having an accent, for the clothes they wear, for sexual orientation, for their gender, for their gender presentation, for what they are able to afford. The list goes on and on, but the result is always the same: creating a sense of exclusion for the victims of bullying.

As technology has advanced, so has the means of bullying, with social networking, smart phones, and the Internet becoming second nature to people in Canada, especially young people. So has utilizing these resources for bullying. As a result, bullying has become intensified and its impacts more widely distributed.

Bullying is no longer a problem that only happens at school, on the school bus, or on the playground. It is no longer just a workplace problem. It can now follow victims home and invade their lives 24 hours a day each and every day of the year.

The consequences of bullying and the effects of bullying need to be taken seriously. We all know that the impacts of bullying on youth can be drastic and long-lasting. Young people who are bullied are more likely to face depression. It is estimated that male victims of bullying are five times more likely, and females victims three times more likely, to be depressed than their non-bullied classmates.

People who are victims of bullying are more susceptible to low self-esteem and are more likely to suffer from anxiety and illnesses. Young people who are bullied are more likely to engage in substance abuse and self-harm, and in recent years we have seen the tragic rise in the trend toward youth bullycide. The list of those young people who have taken their own lives as a result of bullying is already too long, and unfortunately continues to grow.

The costs of bullying are found not just on its impact on individuals. Bullying has wider social costs. One study has found that of elementary school bullies, one in four will have a criminal record by the time they are 30 years old.

We can and must move beyond our platitudes and expressions of concern about bullying and not limit our responses only to actions taken after the damage has already been done.

We all know that these bullying behaviours are learned. People are not born with hearts full of hate. At the root of our response to bullying must be efforts to build a more open and accepting society. If there was a real intolerance for discrimination and hate, then bullying clearly would not be so pervasive.

We could make a good start by calling bullying what it really is. We need to recognize that most bullying is rooted in sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and classism. These are serious prejudices that most Canadians find unacceptable in theory, but for some reason they are deemed acceptable when they are expressed in the form of bullying.

The need for a broad strategy as well as for anti-bullying legislation is so obvious. Unfortunately, what we find in the rest of the bill is a mixed bag of only tangentially related provisions, some with no clear connection to the problem at all.

Some things in the bill have been brought forward from the previously failed Bill C-30, but fortunately in this version it looks as if the important principle of judicial oversight of police access to Internet communications may be preserved. I look forward to hearing from Canadians about this aspect again when the bill reaches committee.

One surprise in Bill C-13 was the inclusion of clause 12. This section proposes the addition of some important provisions to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code. I am at a loss to explain why this proposal has suddenly appeared in the bill, but I think it is a positive thing.

Bill C-13 suggests adding national origins, age, sex, and mental or physical disability to the existing provisions of the hate crime section of the Criminal Code. While the connection to the other aspect of the bill is not immediately obvious, as I said, I do believe this is a good thing, but what is missing from this section is gender identity. This House has twice voted in favour of adding gender identity to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code, yet it is not included in clause 12 of the bill.

My own private member's bill, Bill C-279, is still stuck in the Senate more than a year after being passed in this House, and while I remain hopeful it will be adopted soon, there is an obvious potential problem in the conflict between Bill C-13 and my own private member's bill. Unfortunately, if the Senate does pass Bill C-279, clause 12 of Bill C-13 would inadvertently undo half that progress. Bill C-13 in its present form would actually remove gender identity from the hate crime section of the Criminal Code if my private member's bill has already passed, so when we get to committee, we will be having a serious discussion about an amendment to add gender identity to fix this omission.

It was more than three years ago that this House, in a minority Parliament, voted to add gender identity to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code, and, as I said, more than a year ago we voted to do that in my own private member's bill, so I am hoping that this proposed amendment to the hate crime section was inadvertent in its omission of gender identity and that this omission can be fixed in committee.

Let me return to what I believe is the important question that should be at the centre of Bill C-13, which is that there is an urgent need for Parliament to provide national leadership in the fight against bullying.

Despite our concerns about the bill being an omnibus bill and despite many of the other things stuffed into Bill C-13, we are supporting sending the bill to committee so that we can continue the dialogue on the important issue of bullying and cyberbullying.

What is of concern to me, as I mentioned at the outset, is the attitude that has become prevalent on the other side of the House that when three or four members have spoken, it is time to end debate. The very root of the word “Parliament” means a place where we can talk about the important national issues.

I feel it is a great privilege to stand here and speak to Bill C-13 as a man who comes from the LGBTQ community, which suffers inordinately from bullying. I think I bring a perspective somewhat different from that of some other members of the House. As someone from Vancouver Island, where we have a lot of early adapters of new technology, I know we see huge problems of bullying and cyberbullying in local schools. Frankly, teachers are at their wits' end in trying to find ways to deal effectively with it.

One thing that has been common in the responses I have received is a warning that we not look simply to criminal sanctions for youth to combat cyberbullying and that criminalizing bullying for young people could in fact be a serious problem.

I come back to the idea that we cannot just focus on what happens after the bullying. We have to provide national leadership in coming up with ways to attack this problem before the damage actually takes place. Some may say that is not a federal responsibility, but it is in the sense that when bullying and cyberbullying reach their most vicious levels, they often result in criminal acts. Since the Criminal Code is the responsibility of this federal Parliament, then we do have a responsibility for crime prevention. I would argue very strongly that a national strategy to prevent bullying and cyberbullying is a matter of crime prevention.

On the other side of the House we hear a lot of discussion about victims. We share the concern for victims in Canadian society, but how can we do our best job in addressing the needs of victims? We can do that by preventing victimization. Once again, there is a responsibility for the House to look at what we can do to make sure that victims are not created through bullying and cyberbullying.

When we get to committee, I would ask members on the other side to keep an open mind about those other things that we can do. We do not need just to find criminal sanctions, although there are some things here that I agree are necessary and that will be useful in the most extreme cases, but there are many more things we can do to make this the Canada that we all love and believe is a great place that includes a space for all Canadians.

Unfortunately, the evidence of bullying and cyberbullying shows that is not always the case. Whether we are talking about immigrant communities and their desire to contribute to Canada fully or whether we are talking about the LGBTQ community and our desire to be accepted in Canadian society and play our role very fully or whether we are talking about those with disabilities who are often sidelined in our society, we have to take all the measures that we can to make our country more inclusive and make it one we can all be even prouder of than we are now.

How do we do that? I come back to this argument again and again. We put forward a motion calling for a national strategy to combat bullying and cyberbullying, and this is where Bill C-13 falls short. It has measures looking at what we can do after the fact to investigate criminal cases of bullying. It has measures to help apprehend those people who ultimately have performed criminal acts when it comes to bullying, but it does not have measures that would help reduce this problem in our society.

I will return to my concern over Bill C-279.

It is a difficult situation for some people to understand. My bill should have already passed through the Senate and should already be law. We now have a situation in which transgendered Canadians are subject to hate crimes and bullying and are the group most subject to violence of all groups in our society. If that private member's bill—which passed the House a year ago, as I said several times today—had already been passed, we would have some of the tools we need to combat the epidemic of violence against transgendered people in Canada.

Canada is not alone. Transgendered people are the most subject to violence everywhere around the world. I remain very sad that the Senate has taken so long to get down to business on passing Bill C-279. It held hearings and heard witnesses a year ago in June at the human rights committee. It essentially finished the process of examining the bill and found it acceptable; then, because of prorogation, the process had to start over.

I am at a loss to see why the bill has to go back to another committee, this time to a legislative and constitutional affairs committee. We have had the promise from the senators that they will take up the bill in committee soon; however, that promise was made in February and we are now in April.

I am emphasizing this in Bill C-13 because this is where the two bills come together: in clause 12 and those amendments to the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code that are in this bill but fail to include gender identity. We have this unfortunate grinding of gears between the two Houses here. If in committee we are able to add gender identity to Bill C-13, that would be a good thing, because as a government bill it would make its way through the Senate expeditiously. I have now begun to fear that Bill C-279 will face the same fate as the previous bill on transgender rights and that it will die in the Senate without action before the next election. If we can get half a loaf here in Bill C-13, I am prepared to work for that. I look for support from the other side in correcting what I hope was an inadvertent omission of gender identity from those amendments that are in clause 12.

When we go back to our ridings when Bill C-13 is in committee, I know that all of us will hear from members of our communities about the urgency of what we are doing. And I know we will hear again from the Conservatives about the urgency. However, I have to emphasize that we have had many opportunities since 2011 to actually take action on what I call “remedial actions”, those things that take place after the fact. Again, I remain disappointed that the Conservatives would not expedite the private member's bill from the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and we could have already had the non-consensual distribution of sexual images in the Criminal Code by this time. We would not still be waiting for that to happen. Of course, we could have already had a committee that had prepared a national strategy with concrete actions to combat bullying and cyberbullying.

As we near the summer recess, I am hoping Bill C-13 will actually get through, but then it also would face the hurdle of the Senate. Would the Senate deal expeditiously with this bill? Would it actually get these provisions passed in a timely manner? I can only hope that it would, but the irony is that Bill C-13 would go to the Constitution and legal affairs committee of the Senate where my private member's bill is also supposed to be going. The chances of both getting through before we get to summer seems kind of small. We have both the broader group of all those who face bullying and the narrower group of those trans Canadians who are depending on the Senate to take effective action soon. However, that just does not seem to be the way the Senate proceeds.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

An hon. member

It is a mystery.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, as one of my colleagues said, it is a mystery to me.

We had Amnesty International provide leadership, in creating a letter from 100 civil society organizations, which was sent to the Senate earlier this year, asking it to take urgent action on Bill C-279. Within two days, there was a response saying that it would act immediately and nothing has happened. So obviously the sense of what “immediate” means in the Senate and in this House is quite different.

My plea with senators today is to deal with Bill C-279 expeditiously and also, when this bill gets to them, as I am sure it will before we recess for the summer, to also deal with Bill C-13 expeditiously. I have to say that I am not optimistic that this will actually happen.

In conclusion, let me say I am proud to stand in this House today and speak to Bill C-13. It does contain things that we need to take action on, but, and there is always this unfortunate “but” when it comes to legislation from the current government, too many things have been stuffed into the same bill and so we are going to have to have some serious discussions in committee about some of the other things that have been tacked on to this bill. One of those is something I am very interested in and that is the question of gender identity in the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code.

I hope we will have co-operation in committee and that we will be able to get that amendment made, get Bill C-13 through this House, and take at least some limited action against bullying and cyberbullying before we recess for the summer.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca is right that this bill is a bit of an omnibus bill. It covers everything from terrorism to telemarketing, cable stealing and hate speech.

I wonder if the member, who is very rightly concerned about the overlap between this bill and his private member's bill, Bill C-279, which is stuck in the Senate, thinks that splitting off all the provisions that relate to cyberbullying into a separate bill, which would allow the committee to leave aside examining the other parts of the bill, would be a better strategy to at least pass part of the bill and make sure it is coordinated with his own private member's bill and get it through the Senate before we rise for the summer.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands takes a reasonable approach to these matters.

I would point out that when Bill C-13 was introduced, on this side we offered exactly what the member suggested. We told the government we were prepared to take out those urgent matters dealing with cyberbullying, have them in a separate bill, and pass them expeditiously through the House. It rejected that approach to doing so. Therefore, while I take seriously that the government wants this action to happen, I remain concerned that at each turn there is more and more delay on things that could have been done much earlier in the House.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on the tireless work he does on behalf of transgendered people.

I feel it is important to mention during this debate that the NDP has tabled bullying prevention measures. I would like to mention the initiative of my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who introduced Bill C-540, as well as the work done by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who moved Motion No. 385 to create a national bullying prevention strategy.

We asked the Conservatives to work with us but, unfortunately, they played petty politics with this very important issue.

As my colleague mentioned, the government often uses its bills to impose measures that have nothing to do with the bill's objective. We have seen the same thing with omnibus bills.

Could my colleague explain the link between cyberbullying and the fact that this bill includes a two-year sentence for stealing cable signals?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, I did not suggest that there be theft of cable signals in this bill. It is a good example of this tendency to stuff a bunch of other things into a bill which is called the prevention of cybercrime as kind of a catch-all title for the bill. Therefore, it makes it very difficult for us as members of Parliament to debate and vote on bills when the government has a bunch of unrelated things put into the same bill.

As I have mentioned, in this case we have seen bills that were dropped, such as Bill C-30, brought back into this bill, admittedly in a better form. However, I am not sure what that has to do with bullying or cyberbullying.

There have been a lot of things mixed together in this bill, which makes it difficult for us to debate and make decisions on this. When we get to committee, perhaps there will be some opportunity to narrow the focus of the bill or improve the focus of the bill. I certainly hope that is the case.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, who spoke so well, talks about the privilege of speaking here today. I have to say I do feel privileged as well on this issue, especially with respect to the comments regarding the LGBTQ community. My riding of Burnaby—Douglas was home to the great Svend Robinson, who was the first openly gay MP, and Bill Siksay, who was the tireless champion of the LGBTQ community. Now I have the privilege of sitting beside my friend, who is our critic for this area and who I would say is probably the foremost champion of LGBTQ community issues in the House. I thank him for his work. I was struck by his comments about the absence of transgender rights in this bill and was wondering if he cared to comment on that more and what we should do to fix that in committee.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his kind comments. It is a privilege to share a desk with him here in the House of Commons. I get the benefit of his very sharp sense of humour, which does not always appear through the microphones.

I thank him for his kind words. Like all members of the NDP caucus, he has been a firm supporter of LGBTQ rights, and I am very proud to be the spokesperson for our party. It is the only party that has a spokesperson for LGBTQ rights in the House of Commons.

I guess that I am feeling charitable today. I am going to say that I hope that the omission of gender identity from the additions to the hate crimes section was inadvertent. Sometimes, we make Machiavellian conclusions about what is happening in the House when they are not really deserved. I am just not sure.

If we were going to amend that section and the House has already pronounced twice on the issue, it would seem to be obvious then that gender identity should have gone into clause 12 of Bill C-13. When we get to committee, we will certainly be suggesting that it be dealt with at the committee stage.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn to thank my colleague for the work he is doing on bullying and to also thank my colleagues from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord and Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. They are part of a group of MPs who have worked very hard on this issue over the past few years.

The specific question I have is about one of the subjects the member alluded to during his speech, namely the fact that new technologies sometimes make bullying harder on young people. Bullying used to happen in the schoolyard and, once students were out of the yard, there were far fewer ways to connect with young people than there are today.

Why is it important that we, as legislators, adjust our laws to these new technologies, which make it possible to engage in other types of bullying?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member's question reminded me of my own experience, which was of course back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in elementary school. I lived in a rural area, and the bus ride home was hell for me because I was perceived, even at that age, to be insufficiently masculine. As a result, I faced severe bullying on the school bus each and every day. I have to say that I did not face it in the classroom at school and, of course, I did not face it at home. I was literally terrorized by the bus ride every day, and my parents had a hard time understanding why I begged them to drive me to school and begged my grandparents to take me to school. I never wanted to ride the bus.

However, for me, it was a very short period of the day when I was subjected to it. Once I was home, either at my parents' home or my grandparents' home, where I spent a lot of time, I was safe from that bullying. That is the big difference now. Technology has brought that bullying into peoples' homes. It has made it not just a short period of the day, but something that people have to live with and deal with constantly.

Additionally, the anonymity that is sometimes provided by the Internet gives people licence to be even meaner, more vindictive, and more prejudiced than they might otherwise be if their names and faces were assigned to the comments that they are making.

Technology has expanded the time and the places in which individuals are subject to bullying, and it has expanded the intensity of that bullying. It is time to recognize the difference. It is not the bullying that took place when I was a kid. This is something new that is much more pervasive and much more intense.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:05 p.m.

Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo B.C.

Conservative

Cathy McLeod ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act.

I would like to first set out a bit of context in terms of where we have come from. Members might be aware that it was 25 years ago when the first test was done on the World Wide Web. We have to look at how far we have come in 25 years.

Facebook, a powerful tool, was introduced in 2004. I might be dating myself a bit, but I remember going to my first tutorial to learn about the World Wide Web, and it was very complicated. There were DOS commands and giant computers. Now we have the ability to take a picture with something the size of our palm and distribute it immediately around the world. That is an absolutely incredible change over a relatively short 25 years.

Before I go into the details of the bill and why it is so important, I need to reflect on the fact that this tool in some ways has been fabulous for Canadians and people around the world. I remember a colleague telling me how his grandmother in Argentina every night read a book over Skype to put his child to bed.

We have the ability to pay our bills by email. We have the ability to interact immediately with family around the world. It is much easier to keep those connections we treasure and value.

As politicians we have seen the dark side of the Internet. Anyone who has a Twitter account or a Facebook account regularly sees some of the very vicious comments that come in through those forums. As my colleague across the aisle just said, these comments are often anonymous and vicious. As politicians, we deal with that, but that is nothing compared to really overstepping the bounds and the issues some children and adults have had to deal with.

A quick Google search on cyberbullying immediately brings up hundreds of names. There is Ryan's story, Bronagh's story, and Megan's story. Look at Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd. Just recently we heard the she allegedly fell victim to someone on the other side of the world.

Times have changed incredibly, and we need to change with the times.

This legislation proposes changes to the Criminal Code, the Competition Act, and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The bill would create a law to address the behaviour that can occur in cases of cyberbullying. This new offence would be called non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Investigative powers need to be updated to ensure that they are in line with the modern technology I just talked about, where in one minute, something as small as one's hand reaches across the world.

I would like to expand a bit on the amendments to the Criminal Code and highlight how they are designed to ensure appropriate privacy protection in the face of the new technology. It is a difficult balancing act, because we need to ensure that privacy is protected while providing the tools to tackle these horrendous issues.

There are a few areas I would like to talk about. I will start with preservation orders and demands and updates to the tracking warrant provisions, which are essential tools to ensure that effective investigations are conducted in Canada when the police are faced with crimes involving technology.

What is this new preservation order? The preservation order would create new powers, to be used in both Criminal Code and Competition Act contraventions. The goal of these two new provisions is to ensure that volatile computer data will not be deleted before the police have time to get a warrant or court order to collect it for investigations.

The need for these tools is obvious. Not only is computer data easily deleted but it can also easily be lost through carelessness or just in day-to-day business practice.

A preservation order or demand would legally require a person to keep the computer data that is vital to an investigation long enough for the police to seek the judicial warrants and orders necessary to obtain the information. This tool would ensure that the police could get the investigation under way without the loss of really important evidence.

People may have concerns about the impact of these amendments on a person's right to a reasonable expectation of privacy. They might have heard about Europe's data retention regime and worry that our legislation is going to import that to Canada. That is not what Bill C-13 is doing.

Data retention would allow the collection of a range of data for all telephone and Internet service subscribers for a defined period of time, regardless of whether or not the data was connected with the investigation.

Bill C-13 does not provide for data retention. It provides for data preservation, and that is a very important fact. It would require that specified computer data in connection with a specific investigation and specific people be preserved for a limited period of time.

It is important to understand that this data would not be turned over to the police unless they first obtained a judicial warrant or court order for that disclosure. Also, any of the data that was preserved and whose presentation was not otherwise required for regular business purposes would have to be destroyed as soon as it was no longer needed for the investigation. This would protect the privacy of Canadians. This would also ensure that the regime created in this bill did not inadvertently result in the kind of data retention I have just described.

As members can see, the data preservation scheme the government is proposing is actually quite constrained in its focus and has been designed as a stop-gap measure so that the judicial warrants and the court order police obtain subsequent to access to the evidence are not rendered useless. Again, it is a really important intermittent tool.

Another change Bill C-13 proposes is updating the Criminal Code's existing tracking warrant provision. Of course, this warrant was created in the early 1990s. Police could obtain and use this warrant to track people, cars, or objects. Again, as I described earlier, so much has changed in tracking technology since then and in the accuracy of this tracking technology. The continuity with which it can track things has also improved.

Because of the improvements, the existing tracking warrant is outdated, and its privacy safeguards no longer reflect the reality of modern tracking technology, which could allow for greater privacy invasions than before. This is an important thing we thought we had to tackle.

Bill C-13 proposes to heighten privacy protections for the most invasive uses of tracking technology. This legislation would do this by creating a dual threshold for tracking warrants.The police would be able to get the first kind of tracking warrant the way they have always been able to get one for the less invasive type of tracking: prove to the judge or the justice that they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the warrant will assist in the investigation of an offence. The police would use this warrant to track objects, vehicles, and transactions.

However, for the more invasive technique of tracking a person using a device usually worn or carried by the person, such as a cell phone, the police would have to get a second type of warrant, which would provide for greater privacy protection than the first.

Bill C-13 would provide that to get such a warrant, the police would have to prove to the judge that they had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of a tracking warrant would assist in the investigation of the offence.

Legally, this is a tougher standard to meet, and as a result, it would provide more privacy protection than the first type of warrant, which is about tracking objects. This is an important distinction, as it reflects a higher level of protection, commensurate with the more intrusive potential of tracking persons, which is reflected in the second type of tracking warrant. It was designed to very carefully meet that difficult balance in terms of giving the police tools in the modern day that ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place.

To bring things to a conclusion, I talked about two specific measures. Canadians have understandably been outraged by the crimes committed through the use of the Internet, including massive fraud and horribly cruel incidents of cyberbullying. I believe that Bill C-13 is both a necessary and balanced response. It would enable law enforcement to have tools to respond to these criminal activities. I encourage all members in this House to support Bill C-13.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:15 p.m.

NDP

Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Conservative colleague for mentioning the names of some of the young people who, in the time since we were elected in 2011, unfortunately took their own lives to end the pain caused by bullying.

These days, many cases of cyberbullying do not involve the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. What does the member's government propose in Bill C-13 for those particular cases of bullying?

I read this voluminous, 75-page bill and I did not see any measures for protecting our young people from cyberbullying that does not involve the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

Can my Conservative colleague elaborate on that?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:15 p.m.

Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, a crime is a crime, regardless of whether or not it is on the Internet.

More importantly, we have talked about the distribution of non-consensual intimate images and the ability to remove them. He should talk about the issues we looked at in terms of some of the people. For a good majority of them, the issues are around the distribution of intimate images. We are taking an approach that is going to give police the investigative and legislative tools to truly tackle this issue.

Of course, we need to continue to do the very important work, outside of a legislative process, that is focused on education and making sure that Canadians are aware of this issue. Anything this big requires a multi-pronged approach.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:15 p.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was rather sanctimonious as she spoke at length about bullying, which of course is the matter at hand today.

I wonder why the Conservatives voted against the bill introduced by our colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, which would have filled the gaps in the current legislation. It seems that part of his bill is included among the other measures in this bill. Why did the Conservatives refuse to work with us when they had a very fine opportunity to do so in the House? Today, the government is introducing more or less the same thing. Why did they refuse to work with us?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:20 p.m.

Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

Mr. Speaker, this is typical of the fundamental difference between the NDP and the Conservatives. The NDP regularly wants to have national discussions that go on and on, whereas our government is a government of action. We are a government of giving the police the tools they need. We are a government that will see that criminals receive the criminal sentences that should rightfully be coming their way.

Again, we are a government of action, not a government of continuing to talk and talk about issues.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:20 p.m.

NDP

Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

Mr. Speaker, as is the case for the vast majority of my colleagues in the House, the subject of cyberbullying and bullying in general is something I am deeply concerned about. This issue is so important to me that I decided that my one and only bill to be debated and voted on in the House would be about bullying. That is why, almost two years ago, I introduced a national bullying prevention strategy. The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois voted overwhelmingly against it.

Ten minutes is not a lot of time for me to say everything I want to say about this. Before I begin my speech, I would like to respond to my Conservative colleague who has just finished her speech and answers. The parliamentary secretary talked about how proactive her Conservative government is when it comes to dealing with bullying. That is a lie. It is not true. This is 2014 and we are debating Bill C-13.

In 2011, 15-year-old Jenna Bowers-Bryanton took her own life. She lived in Truro, Nova Scotia. When the media reported the news, Jenna's parents, family and friends spoke about what this young woman had gone through. They said that she had been bullied via social media. She was receiving vicious messages and comments from anonymous sources. In these messages, she was even told that she should kill herself.

According to her parents, Courtney Brown, another Nova Scotian, was bullied via Facebook in 2011. She too committed suicide when she could no longer deal with the situation. These are two cases of young Canadian women who, in 2011, were victims of Internet bullying, which is called cyberbullying. The Conservative government, which was in power at the time, did nothing.

Meanwhile, the opposition introduced two bills. We are proactive in the NDP. I spoke about how my initiative to implement a national bullying prevention strategy was defeated. The bill introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour focused strictly on closing loopholes in Canadian legislation to prevent the distribution of intimate images without consent. The Conservatives voted against this measure twice.

I therefore do not believe the Conservative member when she says that her government is proactive. That is not true. This debate has been very emotional for me. I was talking about this earlier with my parliamentary assistant, Steve Slepchik. We sent some messages back and forth about how sad we felt when preparing my speech, which is still somewhat off the cuff. We researched the number of young people who had committed suicide as a result of bullying since we were elected in 2011. Some took their own lives as a result of cyberbullying. Others were bullied at school. We in the House of Commons know the difference, and we know that bullying in schools falls more under provincial jurisdiction. However, we also know that telecommunications fall under federal jurisdiction, and that is why the federal government must play its role in that regard, a role that goes beyond the measure this government has proposed.

I would also like to remind members that the NDP is in favour of this bill since it is quite similar to a bill that we ourselves proposed. What is more, when it comes to cyberbullying, we agree with the part of this 75-page brick that closes the loophole with regard to the distribution of intimate images without consent. However, cyberbullying has a much larger scope than that.

I have another example, and it always makes me sad when I talk about it. Todd Loik, a youth from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, also took his own life at the age of 15. He was being taunted and teased online, but it was much more than that. He was threatened and bullied on Facebook, until the night he decided to take his own life because he could not take it anymore. Even his mother, who read with great sorrow the Facebook messages to her son, called them disgusting.

She even said that he received these insults on his cell phone and home computer.

The cyberbullying of young people in Canada and around the world is more than just the distribution of intimate photos without consent. Passing Bill C-13 and giving it royal assent will not give the Conservatives—who boast about enforcing law and order, but actually do very little about it—bragging rights about having done something to set limits on and curtail cyberbullying in Canada. The distribution of intimate photos without consent is just one aspect of cyberbullying.

Youth suicide is covered extensively by the media, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Parliamentarians in every Canadian province and territory have admitted that they were victims of bullying. I am one of them. We have to do something. We must adopt a national bullying prevention strategy that will give parents more tools.

In Canada, parents who know that their child is a victim of bullying or cyberbullying do not have the tools to deal with it. The government can use the means at its disposal to inform the Canadian public and to provide parents with documentation that will help them do their job and defend and equip their children.

The Conservatives' approach would simply have us criminalize cyberbullying instead of preventing it. Unfortunately, bullying leaves scars. When a young person is the victim of bullying over the course of months or years, the harm has been done, even if the bully is punished. However, the victim is sometimes no longer even alive when the bully is punished. Is that fair? I do not think so. The families and loved ones of bullying victims, even those who do not resort to suicide, are left with scars.

I would not want any young person in Canada to be the victim of bullying, but bullying most often involves young people. It could be a matter of carelessness or cruelty on the part of these darling angels who are not aware of how much their actions can hurt others. Some young people imitate their parents or loved ones. When they see their parents saying negative things about a colleague or being mean-spirited, the children absorb this information and emulate this kind of behaviour at school, on the bus or on the Internet.

I wish we could pass legislation requiring Canadians, teens and children to show love for one another, so that we can put an end to bullying and cyberbullying, but I know that is unrealistic.

However, it is not too late to take action, and the government must not rest on its laurels. After it passes Bill C-13, it must move forward and impose further controls on cyberbullying. We need to work on prevention.

For example, the committee should look at meaningful measures to ensure that a teen who is bullied via text message, Facebook, Twitter or email can access a government-run website to complain. The teen could take a screenshot and indicate where the bullying took place, so that the police can investigate it. By working with Internet service providers, we could track down the bully and send an email warning to the owner of the IP address, which is likely the parents. That way, the parents could do their job and talk to their child about what they have done.

Those are some concrete ways to combat cyberbullying that the NDP would like to work on.

I thank my colleagues for taking all of this into consideration.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:30 p.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask a question of my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who gave a heartfelt speech. I know he has worked very hard on this issue. He has travelled across Canada to speak with young people and try to raise as much awareness as possible regarding this phenomenon and the repercussions it can have. I am convinced that he would have visited every school in Canada if he could have done so. However, that is unfortunately not possible, which brings me to my question.

What more can we do, besides what the government is proposing? As we have heard, the government is suggesting one very specific measure, one that had already been proposed earlier in this Parliament.

What more can we do besides tackling the very serious problem of sharing photos without the person's consent? What other measures can we take to ensure that this problem is taken into account and resolved once and for all?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:30 p.m.

NDP

Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Sherbrooke for the question.

The government needs to listen to the opposition members, even if it does not agree with them, and it needs to listen to the Senate. I feel this is an odd thing for me to say. However, about two years ago, the Senate published a report on cyberbullying. As we know, the Senate has a Conservative majority. The report's first recommendation was to create a national bullying prevention strategy.

The report was published shortly after the government rejected my motion. When I read that report, I realized that even the Conservative senators wanted a national bullying prevention strategy, just as I had proposed to the Conservative members in the House. It really saddens me that the government voted against it for partisan reasons. Perhaps it needs to reread the Senate's report. It is a good report.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:30 p.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech. He spoke with great emotion. His speech was very interesting and quite relevant to the current debate.

When we talk about Canada, we need to talk about the youth who are Canada's future. We need to look after them. This bill is clearly a first step. I also think it is important to support the communities that are doing the everyday work on the ground.

In Drummondville, there are a number of local organizations and committees that are looking at the issue. We have a committee on violence and a subcommittee that works on bullying prevention. They bring together all of Drummond's social organizations.

I believe that my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord proposed a national cyberbullying prevention strategy. It was a great way to tackle the issue because it is not enough to address instances of cyberbullying; we have to work to prevent it, too.

I would like the hon. member to talk about the important role that the federal government could play in preventing bullying through a national bullying prevention strategy.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:30 p.m.

NDP

Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to respond to my colleague.

To begin, I would like to commend the initiative in his riding. He mentioned that there are groups in his riding that help young people deal with bullying. That is wonderful. That is why the fourth pillar of my national bullying prevention strategy called on the government to provide more financial and other types of support to front-line organizations that are already doing good work across Canada. We do not need to reinvent the wheel.

To prove just how important this is, and I will end with this, here is a quote from a 2012 Kids Help Phone report:

...cyberbullying can be very damaging to young people’s mental health and well-being. According to recent research, cyberbullying has a range of negative social, emotional, and educational outcomes on victims, from anxiety, to poor concentration and lowered school performance, to hopelessness or helplessness, to depression and suicidality.

Clearly, the government needs to do something, something more than just Bill C-13.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime ActGovernment Orders

1:35 p.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to speak in the House as a representative of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, particularly today as we speak in support of Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act. As we have heard today from all speakers, it addresses the serious criminal behaviour associated with cyberbullying.

This is an issue that affects Canadians across the country, whether in small communities, like mine, or in large cities, in remote areas, or in urban areas. It is an issue of grave concern to all of us. For Barb and me, who are parents and grandparents, as aunts and uncles, as parliamentarians and as Canadians, we take this for what the act talks about.

We have all heard of the tragic results of cyberbullying. My colleagues who spoke mentioned a number of individuals who have been captured and caught in the effects of cyberbullying. There are stories of children so distraught that they take their own lives because they can no longer handle the barrage of taunts, threats, and humiliation that is absolutely heartbreaking to them and everyone around them.

We have the opportunity to take decisive action now and try to prevent, as much as we can, future tragedies. The legislation before us is one that would move us ahead with reforms to our laws to deter the effects and types of destructive behaviour. Certainly, having stronger penalties in place would act as a strong deterrent to those who would post intimate pictures of someone online without their consent. It is also critical, and we have heard a lot about that today, that every possible step be taken to prevent bullying in all its forms.

In my time today, I want to talk about our government, and specifically Public Safety Canada, which is prepared to establish a number of prevention, education, and awareness activities. As the lead federal department on the issue of cyberbullying, Public Safety Canada is tackling this form of intimidation. This includes supporting programs that work to change behaviours among young people to prevent bullying of all types, whether online or in person.

For example, our government is currently supporting the development of a number of school-based projects to prevent bullying as part of the $10 million that was committed in 2012 toward new crime prevention projects to address this and other priority issues such as preventing violence among at-risk youth and offending among urban aboriginal youth. Education and awareness are also critical to addressing this harmful and extreme behaviour. We are working on a number of initiatives to encourage youth. We need youth themselves to speak up and to let adults know what is happening.

Our government supports the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which operates Cybertip.ca, an initiative that started in 2002, and NeedHelpNow.ca. These are websites that Canadians can use to report online sexual exploitation of children and to seek help for exploitation resulting from the sharing of sexual images.

In addition, the RCMP Centre for Youth Crime Prevention offers resources such as fact sheets, lesson plans, and interactive learning tools to youth, parents, police officers, and educators on issues such as bullying and cyberbullying. We also talk about cyberbullying during Cyber Security Awareness Month, which takes place each October.

The focus of Public Safety Canada’s Get Cyber Safe campaign is to educate Canadians of all ages on the simple steps they can take to protect themselves from people who want to do harm to them online, or for things like identity theft, fraud, and computer viruses.

Part of helping our people stay safe online includes making them aware of the dangers of cyberbullying and what they can do to stop it. As part of our efforts in this regard, Public Safety Canada launched a national public awareness safety campaign called “Stop Hating Online”, in January 2014. It does a number of things. It provides information to youth and their parents about the potential serious legal consequences around cyberbullying and the distribution of intimate images without consent.

It also informs Canadian adults that they have a role to play in the prevention and reporting of cyberbullying and raises awareness among young Canadians regarding the types of behaviours that constitute cyberbullying and the impacts of that on people. We want to help them understand that they can be more than a bystander, and give them information on how and when they can stand up to cyberbullying.

We want to make sure that we go beyond that. In order to reach as many people as possible, we want to make sure that we cover both adults and youth. Our government wants to work closely with the private sector and other government partners to deliver the campaign using a wide variety of media, awareness activities, but with a particular focus on using social media to spread the word and encourage Canadians.

I hope that members of the House were able to see some of the ads played on national TV networks between January and March. The idea was aimed at parents and youth, the latter being a little more edgy and dynamic to capture the attention of our tech-savvy youth. Both ads illustrated how easy it is for kids to share intimate images of each other through mobile phones and social media, often without much thought. Both ads end with a clear and serious message: that sharing intimate messages and images without consent is not only wrong, it is also illegal—something we are working toward with the legislation before us.

Because the younger generation is not necessarily watching the evening news, the same ads were played online and at movie theatres. The ads drove people to a comprehensive website called “Stop Hating Online”, which provides concrete tools and tips for youth, parents, educators, and all those concerned about cyberbullying. The campaign uses social media like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to reach out to youth.

This is where we are seeing a significant engagement and positive feedback from youth and parents who are embracing this campaign and telling us clearly that they are not going to accept this destructive behaviour for themselves, their families, or their friends.

In fact, Facebook Canada reported that interest and engagement is much higher than average for the Stop Hating Online initiative. It has also had over one million views of the youth-oriented ad on YouTube since its launch. Facebook accounts for more than 60,000 times its usual hits. We are saying that when we reach out across all media and all types of contacts, it is starting to hit home. As we watch television news and listen to reports of those who have been caught in this, they need to understand the severity of it.

For obvious reasons, as a proud parent and grandparent, I would ask members of the House to support Bill C-13.