As a result of their deliberations committees may make recommendations which they include in their reports for the consideration of the House of Commons or the Government. Recommendations related to this study are listed below.

Recommendation 1—Funding for Training on Online Hate

That the Government of Canada increase funding for law enforcement, crown attorneys and judges to ensure that they receive sufficient training and orientation on the importance, and the need to combat online hatred, including being sensitive to complainants.

Recommendation 2—Sharing Best Practices

That Justice Canada develop materials and best practices on collecting data and combatting online hate to be distributed to law enforcement agencies across Canada.

Recommendation 3—Addressing the Gap in Data Collection

That the Government of Canada adopt a two-pronged approach to address the gap in data collection that recognizes the fact that members of marginalized groups often feel more comfortable reporting hate incidents and hate crimes directly to civil society organizations which reflect their community rather than law enforcement officials:

• Firstly, resources need to be allocated to assist in the collection of data, by both governmental institutions as well as civil society organizations. This will ensure that we have a more complete understanding of the extent of hatred in Canada, particularly hatred that is directed online.
• Secondly, in order to facilitate the reporting of hate crimes, it is paramount that agents of the state, including police forces, reflect the racial, religious, LGBTQ2 and general diversity of the populations they represent. Police forces, particularly their hate crimes units, must work collaboratively alongside civil society organizations including utilizing the data collected by such organizations, to fully address incidents of hate motivated incidents and crimes, including those occurring online.

Recommendation 4—Tracking Online Hate

That the Government of Canada implement the recommendations regarding the tracking of online hate formulated by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in its report entitled ‘‘Taking Action Against Systemic Racism and Religious Discrimination Including Islamophobia’’, dated February 2018:

• Recommends that the Government of Canada establish uniform pan-Canadian guidelines and standards for the collection and handling of hate crime data and hate incident data; this would include efforts to standardize the definition and the interpretation, by law enforcement, of hate crimes - Recommendation 5.
• Recommends that the Government of Canada create a national database to retain and analyze hate crime and hate incident data - Recommendation 6.
• Recommends that the Government of Canada mandate relevant departments and encourage partners at the provincial and municipal levels and within civil society to create additional reporting options for victims of hate crimes and hate incidents, in addition to reporting to law enforcement - Recommendation 8.

Recommendation 5—Preventing Online Hate

That the Government of Canada work with the provincial and territorial governments and community organizations who combat hate on appropriate requirements to educate the population as to what on the Internet constitutes hate. Federal organizations such as the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Canadian Human Rights Commission should be utilized to provide models of best practices on combatting online hate.

Recommendation 6—Formulating a Definition of Hate

That the Government of Canada formulate a definition of what constitutes ‘hate’ or ‘hatred’ that is consistent with Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. It is critical that this definition acknowledges persons who are disproportionately targeted by hate speech including but not limited to racial, Indigenous, ethnic, linguistic, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religious groups.

Recommendation 7—Providing a Civil Remedy

That the Government of Canada develop a working group comprised of relevant stakeholders to establish a civil remedy for those who assert that their human rights have been violated under the Canadian Human Rights Act, irrespective of whether that violation happens online, in person, or in traditional print format. This remedy could take the form of reinstating the former section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, or implementing a provision analogous to the previous section 13 within the Canadian Human Rights Act, which accounts for the prevalence of hatred on social media.

Recommendation 8—Establishing Requirements for Online Platforms and Internet Service Providers

That the Government of Canada establish requirements for online platforms and Internet service providers with regards to how they monitor and address incidents of hate speech, and the need to remove all posts that would constitute online hatred in a timely manner.

• These requirements should set common standards with regards to making reporting mechanisms on social media platforms more readily accessible and visible to users, by ensuring that these mechanisms are simple and transparent.
• Online platforms must have a duty to report regularly to users on data regarding online hate incidents (how many incidents were reported, what actions were taken/what content was removed, and how quickly the action was taken). Failure to properly report on online hate, must lead to significant monetary penalties for the online platform.
• Furthermore, online platforms must make it simple for users to flag problematic content and provide timely feedback to them relevant to such action.

Recommendation 9—Authentication

That online platforms be encouraged to provide optional mechanisms to authenticate contributors and digitally sign content, and couple this with visual indicators signifying that given user or content is authenticated, and provide users options for filtering non-signed or non-authenticated content.