Madam Speaker, I am always proud to represent the people of Montmorency—Charlevoix. I travelled around my riding all summer and I met with people. I went on a whistle-stop tour of all of the towns. Obviously, people talked to me about the issues that are on their minds right now, particularly access to housing, grocery prices and inflation. They also talked to me about the feeling of safety we have long enjoyed in Montmorency—Charlevoix, as well as in the rest of Quebec and Canada. We live in a safe country. However, people are noticing that that is gradually changing for the worse.
In my opinion, Bill C-9, which seeks to amend the Criminal Code with regard to hate, is well intentioned, but it must be be thoroughly examined. As we consider this bill, I would like to take the time to talk about the reasons why we are where we are today.
I believe we live in an excessively fast-paced society. People have access to information or disinformation in an instant. Quite often, people react very strongly to things they see on social media, such as a photo, a short video or a post. Debates become heated. People take sides and are rooted in their positions. Then they make enemies. Often, it is not just one enemy, but hundreds or even thousands of enemies. A short message on social media can escalate very quickly. Recently, in the United States, there was a video of a woman who took a young boy's baseball from him in a rather surprising interaction. The video was everywhere. The woman was harassed and her life was turned upside down. A small blip on social media can cause a really big stir.
There are a lot of what I call “masked vigilantes” online. These people take to their keyboards under the cover of anonymity, sometimes with fake accounts, sometimes even using real accounts. They feel they have excessive rights, and they take a stand. They try to create chaos online and they like to attract attention with their opinions, but they are not very knowledgeable. These are just angry and aggressive opinions, which social media loves.
I often refer to social media as extreme media. Extremist groups, like social media, are currently designed to activate these relationships, to push them further and make people believe that society is extremely left wing or extremely right wing. Algorithms are designed to show people only what they like, what they give a “like” to, what they watch.
Our phone can even analyze our scroll speed and our eye movements and use them as sources of information. Then it gives us only what we like the most. In fact, our phones are starting to know us better than we know ourselves.
We end up believing that everyone thinks the way we do, when the majority of people are more centrist. We would know that if we took the time to talk to one another.
There is also the notion of friendship. These days, we do not have as many people in our social circle. Everything happens on social media. We have hundreds, even thousands of friends, but very few know us. I think that is a serious problem.
We live in a society that, in my opinion, is very stressful, and there are four well-known stress factors: novelty, unpredictability, lack of control, and damage to self-esteem. When self-esteem is damaged, that causes stress. We live in a world that is extremely stressful.
The last few years have been extremely unpredictable and much has changed. It feels like things are out of control due to everything that is happening, particularly in terms of the cost of living, inflation, housing, and so on. In my region, things have changed a lot, and that is also true elsewhere. When we look at international politics, we wonder whether the world as we know it is collapsing. This is putting significant stress on society. I think that that leads to increasingly extreme positions.
Obviously, the solution is never to go to extremes. I would like to reference a very interesting statistic. Based on what we have seen to date, between 30% and 40% of the content on social media is not created by humans. It is created by artificial intelligence with the aim of getting a reaction. Often, people think they are interacting with a person and they try to convince that person, but they are actually trying to convince a robot, whose main objective is to get them to react. Once again, this creates extreme emotions in people and has a very polarizing effect. Once the snowball starts rolling, people either feel alone or think everyone shares their opinion, when, ultimately, the Internet is just telling people what they want to hear.
I also think that individualism has become a serious issue. It is as though each person has become the centre of their own universe, and people have largely forgotten about collectivism.
The one thing I did a lot this summer when travelling around Montmorency—Charlevoix was talk about history. Quebec and Canada evolved through collaboration and hard work. They did not evolve because people isolated themselves, avoided talking to one other and were in constant disagreement. When the individual is put before the collective good, I think society moves in the wrong direction.
I also think people have a hard time differentiating between news and facts. Social media, even the major news networks, spreads opinions to get a reaction out of people. People think they are facts, when they are actually opinions. Once again, this polarizes society and means that we no longer listen to each other.
Everything moves so fast that we speak before we listen, we form opinions before we know what we are talking about and we condemn people before we even understand the situation. I think that is what society's treatment of hate crimes stems from. In recent years, society seems to have allowed certain companies, or a certain system, to take hold and foment polarization and hatred. I think that today, we have to speak out to protect society.
Obviously freedom of expression is essential, but the way we live together as a society is also extremely important. In my opinion, this should once again be part of the debate. The idea that individual freedom should always come first, that small groups should get to monopolize the public arena to promote their opinions because they believe they have something to say, is something I do not agree with. Our goal should be harmonious coexistence and freedom for the majority. The one should not supersede the other, and we must learn to make them coexist.
Freedom is not synonymous with chaos. Far too often, a person is given the right to express themselves, but they conflate the right to express themselves and report a fact with the ideological right to act however they want, at any cost, without thinking about the consequences.
We must remain logical, pragmatic and thoughtful. Our society must encourage dialogue and listening and support discussion.
Things have gone downhill in recent years and crime has skyrocketed.
Over the past 10 years, since the Liberal government has been in office, violent crime has increased by 55%. Gun crime is up 130%. Extortion is up 330%. Homicides are up 29%. Sexual crime is up 76% and auto theft is up 25%. However, the government looked at all that and decided that what we need is new legislation to deal with the issue of hate.
I believe that we have a serious crime problem and that we should begin by giving our law enforcement agencies a clear definition of public order and providing the support they need to defend that order.
We must not miss the mark, as the government is currently doing with the firearm buyback program, for example. The government is missing the mark with this legislation that is nothing but smoke and mirrors. What we need is police officers who not only keep the peace but also protect the public order.
This firearm buyback program clearly shows that, ultimately, what the government wants is to give itself more power. However, by giving itself more power, it is missing the mark. This is a $750‑million program that the minister himself says will not work. Now they are starting to say that participation will have to be voluntary, when it is not. Going after licensed sport shooters and hunters does not seem like a good option to me.
What could we do with $750 million? Obviously, we could support our police officers. We could get good border officers, the necessary resources and even technology.
In Montmorency—Charlevoix, some companies make surveillance drones that could be used to monitor our borders more efficiently and prevent the weapons that are often used in hate crimes from entering the country.
Lastly, condemning hate is crucial, and we can all agree on that, but the Liberals have a bad habit of making the law more complex. We should start by supporting our law enforcement agencies, clarifying what public order means, helping our police officers and ensuring that people here in Canada feel safe and supported.
