Committee
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 1 - 38 of 38
Balpreet Singh
View Balpreet Singh Profile
Balpreet Singh
2021-06-22 18:40
Good evening. Thank you.
I'm a legal counsel with the World Sikh Organization of Canada. We're a non-profit human rights organization established in 1984 with a mandate to promote and protect the interests of Canadian Sikhs as well as to protect the human rights of all individuals.
Almost exactly five years ago, I testified in front of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on a similar topic to this, and I reported that Sikhs and Hindus are communities under siege in Afghanistan and face an immediate threat to their lives. They numbered approximately 2,000 at that time, from an original population that was estimated to be in the tens of thousands prior to 1992.
Today, as a result of ongoing persecution and several deadly attacks, the number has dwindled to approximately 200. Those who remain in Afghanistan are in constant danger, and those who have fled live in precarious and troubled conditions in India, with no real prospects of permanent settlement.
As a matter of background, my experience with the Afghan Sikh community began in November 2014 when I received a desperate series of messages from a remote Afghan Sikh community in Helmand province who were facing imminent danger. Their homes had been stoned, and their businesses had been publicly boycotted. At that time, Manmeet Singh Bhullar was a friend of mine, and I spoke to him about the situation. He made it his life's work to save that community until his tragic death in November 2015.
The current situation for Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan is one of fear, persecution and imminent threat. They are unable to freely leave their homes, find employment or attend schools. Women are unable to leave their homes unaccompanied and are in constant fear of kidnapping. The remaining Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan live collectively in gurdwara, as much of their property has been taken by others. These conditions also existed in 2016. What's changed is that the situation has gotten much worse with the community being actively targeted with attacks by Daesh, who vowed to drive them out of Afghanistan.
On July 1, 2018, the entire leadership of the Sikh and Hindu community was killed in a suicide bombing. Fifteen Sikhs and four Hindus, who were on their way to a meeting with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, lost their lives. Daesh took responsibility for that attack.
On March 25, 2020, just a little over a year ago, in another Daesh suicide attack, Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib was attacked in Kabul, where 25 Sikhs lost their lives, including four-year-old Tanya Kaur. The funeral for the victims of this attack the following day was also targeted with a bombing attack.
In June 2020, Nidan Singh was abducted from a gurdwara and held for almost a month until his rescue. On July 18, 2020, 13-year-old Salmeet Kaur, who lost her father in the March attack, was kidnapped from another gurdwara in Kabul. On February 2, 2021, a series of bomb attacks killed one Sikh and injured two others in an area with several Sikh shops. The victim, Sunny Singh, never got to see his newborn son in India, and his wife watched his funeral on a video call.
With the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan being imminent, the situation promises to get much worse for minorities. A member of the Hazara minority community said it best when he said: “To be a member of minority in Afghanistan is hell; but to be a Sikh means to be in the innermost circle of hell”.
In July 2020, 429 Sikhs and Hindus fled Afghanistan for India on a special visa valid for six months. Those who fled may not face an immediate threat to their lives, but they're still suffering. There are no real permanent settlement prospects for these refugees in India, despite the claims of the Indian government. India's Hindu nationalist BJP government is playing politics as it tries to project itself as a saviour of minorities fleeing Muslim countries but, in actuality, provides no assistance to them or any options for settlement.
Families that fled last July continue to be supported by Sikh organizations and private donors. There is no access to basic services such as health care and education or even vaccination for COVID. Very few of them have found employment. Eight Afghan Sikh families recently returned to Afghanistan out of desperation, a move that was celebrated by the Afghanistan government. Most of them have now returned once again back to India. One family reported that they couldn't find a hospital to care for their daughter in New Delhi, and after receiving treatment in Kabul, they returned because they felt unsafe remaining there.
Since 2015, we've repeatedly called on the Canadian government to create a special program for Afghan Sikhs and Hindus so that they can come to safety in Canada. In July 2020, 25 Canadian MPs from the CPC, NDP and Greens wrote to the Minister of Immigration for this special program, but I'm not aware of a reply to this letter, let alone any progress in this regard.
After the March attack, there was a weekly call set up with a representative of CIC, which was then reduced to biweekly and then cancelled altogether, with no reply to our emails since August 2020.
The question isn't whether there will be another attack. The question is when the next attack will be. These are extremely vulnerable individuals who do not have a future in Afghanistan or in India. They're looking desperately to Canada to save their lives.
It's been frustrating to advocate without real results on their behalf for this long. The Sikh community is willing and able to pay for all the resettlement costs, and has done so for the small number of Sikh refugee families who have arrived from the Helmand group. We just need the government to give us the permission to bring them here.
Those are my comments for now.
Sukhwinder Singh
View Sukhwinder Singh Profile
Sukhwinder Singh
2021-06-22 18:46
Hello, respected members of the committee. Thank you for allowing United Sikhs to speak for Afghan minorities.
We are a United Nations-affiliated international non-profit NGO to empower those in need, especially disadvantaged and minority communities around the world, with humanitarian aid, advocacy and education programs. We have 10 chapters in Asia, Europe and North America. We also have an office in Peshawar, Afghanistan.
Ghazni, Jalalabad and Kabul are the three major cities in Afghanistan where minority families are concentrated in large numbers. United Sikhs has been providing legal assistance and humanitarian aid in these cities for the past many years. Our first case in Afghanistan started in 2010 with Harender Kaur and her daughter, to whom we provided help in taking asylum in Canada with the help of the Canadian government, because her husband was kidnapped and then beheaded.
After that, so many times minorities were attacked brutally. They were forced to pay jeziah. They had verbal and written threats, including ultimatums to leave the country, and social boycotts, not even drinking the water from the fountains in front of their shops and in front of their houses. They were called Kafirs. Kids couldn't go to school. Women and young girls couldn't go out because of kidnapping threats. This was the life they were living in Afghanistan.
Then there was the gurdwara attack in 2020. That was the day when all the NGOs and Afghan Sikhs and Hindus decided to move temporarily to India so that we could bring them to safe places like Canada and the U.S.A. As Balpreet said, a total of 95 families have reached New Delhi, India, from different parts of Afghanistan. United Sikhs and other NGOs are the only help for them. They have no help from the Indian government, and not even their IDs.
Last year United Sikhs started a helpdesk in New Delhi for these families. They getting medical treatment, including special tests as needed; the urgent assistance needed by pregnant mothers in government hospitals; assistance with the life-sustaining needs of newborn babies, including immunization; emergency medical procedures; the facilitation of UNHCR-related issues, such as the issuing of refugee cards and the renewal of cards for previously Afghan nationals in New Delhi; ration distribution to needy Afghan families; COVID-19 rapid tests; and assistance with temporary settlement of Afghan families in India.
What are the challenges they have now? They do not have any identification. If they make any identification, then they cannot get their refugee cards and refugee status. They are just in between. The UNHCR says they came to India on a visa, which is not suitable to get refugee status. These are their challenges. Their kids cannot get education. They have no jobs. They're not getting proper medical treatment.
Their only hope is us—the Canadian government—so I will make this request of the Canadian government: Please stop a cultural genocide.
I will ask Gurvinder Singh to add a few more points, please, and then wrap it up.
Thank you.
Ali Mirzad
View Ali Mirzad Profile
Ali Mirzad
2021-06-22 18:59
Should I continue? Okay.
The Hazara people have suffered more than a century of constant persecution because of their religious beliefs, their ethnicity and their physical and facial characteristics.
At the end of the 19th century, thousands, if not millions, of Hazara were massacred, forcibly uprooted and sold into slavery by the Emir of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan.
Through royal decrees, he openly labelled Hazaras as “heretic foreigners”. This paved the way for persecution that continues to this day.
In 1998, the Taliban issued a similar decree continuing that campaign by killing thousands of Hazaras in the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan alone.
In post-9/11 Afghanistan, Hazaras continue to be the subject of daily attacks, be it within the sanctuary of religious places, in gymnasiums, in the streets or on public buses. Attacks such as the May 2020 assault on the Médecins sans frontières maternity ward in Kabul's Dasht-e-Barchi, where infants still in incubators were targeted, or the May 2021 attack on the Sayed Al-Shuhada, all-girls school where as many as 94 young girls died, have proven that Hazaras are a target regardless of age or gender.
To put it simply, the life of a Hazara in Afghanistan is that of a death row inmate living on borrowed time, awaiting an impending execution.
For years around the globe and indeed across this nation, coast to coast to coast, Hazaras have cried for help. We humbly request to this committee, and through it, the Canadian Parliament, to, first, formally recognize the 1891-93 ethnic cleansing perpetrated against the Hazara as a genocide; second, designate September 25 as a Hazara genocide memorial day; and, third, support Bill C-287 to ensure that all development assistance sent from Canada to Afghanistan is contributing to the peace and security of the region for all peoples.
At this point, Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the committee once more for giving me the opportunity to testify before you today.
My thanks also go to the three highly distinguished individuals representing our association. We have with us Dr. Melissa Kerr Chiovenda, assistant professor of anthropology, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and Dr. William Maley, emeritus professor of diplomacy at the Australian National University.
We also have Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi, lecturer in international relations at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all of our witnesses today. This is incredibly compelling testimony and very important information for us to be gathering from you. The question that I really want to understand and maybe get quite a bit of clarity on if I could, is the current context we're in.
Of course, we know right now that we are in the middle of a COVID-19 pandemic. Different places around the world are responding differently and are at different points in recovery from that, but we also know that the United States is pulling out and that Canada's pulling out after spending a significant investment in Afghanistan, after spending significant time talking about the importance of ensuring that rights for women and girls are protected, for example.
I'm just wondering. Has this violence against both the Hazara and the Sikh populations...? What does it look like? Has it gone up significantly? Has the increase been significant? How much of that is related to COVID? The challenges around COVID, is that providing cover for what's being done by the Taliban? How much of that is because of the withdrawal? I would like to get an understanding of the context in terms of the withdrawal and COVID-19, the global pandemic.
Mr. Maley, if I could start with you that would be wonderful.
William Maley
View William Maley Profile
William Maley
2021-06-22 19:34
Thank you very much.
There has been a very significant escalation in violence against minorities in the period since the signing on the 29th of February 2020 of the bilateral agreement between the United States and the Taliban. That's not to suggest that there wasn't significant violence before that, indeed there was, but there's been an escalation.
The reason I think is that the agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban provided for, as it were, a moratorium on Taliban attacks on the forces of the United States and its allies, but the effect in practice has been to channel attacks by the Taliban against targets within the Afghan community. It inadvertently incentivized those kinds of attacks. If the aim of enemies of the Afghan state is to put on display, symbolically, the incapacity of the state to provide protection to the general public and, in a sense, discharge a key state function, then killing minorities is a very effective way of sending the signal that the government is impotent because in this kind of situation, as Hobbes once said, the “Reputation of power is power”.
The Americans with their agreement boosted the reputation of the Taliban and undermined the reputation of the Afghan government. Attacks on minorities since then have aggravated that particular problem. In a sense it's likely that in any situation of similar dimensions minorities will find themselves significantly under attack and for that reason I don't see any likelihood that we're going to witness a diminution of such attacks in the near future.
Jasjeet S. Ajimal
View Jasjeet S. Ajimal Profile
Jasjeet S. Ajimal
2021-06-22 19:36
To add to that, before the troops were leaving the Sikh and Hindu communities in Afghanistan had to pay a jeziah tax, a special tax to the Taliban, in order to survive. When ISIS came in different parts of Afghanistan, they had to pay ISIS. The tax is utilized by these terrorist organizations to not only persecute these minorities, but under their law determine a way to kill them, as in they will raise the tax to a point where these people cannot pay and then in their eyes it's okay to go and target these people for killing. It's also a way to fund their crime and continue to fund their terrorism.
As the troops are departing the situation is going to escalate. These folks, just like the professor mentioned, will continue to get a larger amount of tax. They will continue to be persecuted not only for symbolic reasons that they're maintaining control but also to finance the terrorism.
Mustafa Farooq
View Mustafa Farooq Profile
Mustafa Farooq
2021-06-16 16:18
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for providing us the opportunity to offer our thoughts on your study of ideologically motivated violent extremism in the aftermath of the London terror attack.
My name is Mustafa Farooq. I am a lawyer and the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. I'm joined today by my colleague Sameha Omer, the director of legal affairs for the council.
By way of background, NCCM was founded as an independent, non-partisan and non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights and civil liberties of Muslim communities living in Canada. For almost two decades, we have been a leading voice in the promotion of human rights in Canada, working tirelessly in the areas of community education and outreach, media engagement and public advocacy, and challenging discrimination and Islamophobia.
With the independently documented rise in hate, racism and Islamophobia faced by our communities, we are here today because we are greatly concerned about public safety. I think this came to a clear head for me personally when over the weekend I introduced members of the Quebec City mosque to members of the London Muslim community at the funeral of the Afzaal family, and then drove back to Toronto to try to attend a vigil at the IMO mosque in Etobicoke.
The reality is that something has gone terribly wrong in this country. The reality is that while I was preparing for this committee last night, I was also at the IIT, the Islamic Institute of Toronto, after two individuals yesterday threatened to bomb the centre after attempting to break in. We were also reaching out to a Black Muslim woman allegedly assaulted in Edmonton. We were also in conversation with the Baitul Hadi centre in Edmonton, which had a swastika drawn on it.
On the evening of January 29, an armed male entered the CCIQ in Quebec. He gunned down six Muslim worshippers and injured several more in a terrorist attack targeting a masjid and the Muslims inside it. The victims were Ibrahima Barry, Azzedine Soufiane, Aboubaker Thabti, Khaled Belkacemi, Mamadou Tanou Barry and Abdelkarim Hassane. In an instance of hate and violence, their earthly presence was taken from us in what remains the worst attack on a house of worship on Canadian soil in modern history.
On the evening of September 12, 2020, a man with alleged links to a white supremacist group, the O9A, walked onto the parking lot of the IMO mosque in Etobicoke and slit the throat of Mohamed-Aslim Zafis. I saw his body that night in the parking lot—even as I had met him that year handing out food to the poor in the worst of the COVID-19 epidemic.
On June 7 a family was run down in London by an accused with alleged hate-based motivations. Terrorism charges have now been brought against the accused. I will read the names of the deceased into the record: Salman Afzaal and his mother, his wife Madiha Salman, and their daughter Yumna. Before leaving London, I met the young child, the sole survivor of the attack. I don't really have words to fully describe what that meant.
We are here today because white supremacist, violent Islamophobic, neo-Nazi and alt-right groups are growing precipitously. They're becoming bolder, whether it's groups like the Soldiers of Odin surveilling a mosque in B.C., a group calling itself “The Clann” intimidating worshippers at Canada's oldest mosque in Edmonton, groups like La Meute in Quebec, or the groups that are now planning celebrations of the London terror attack in Ontario. This list excludes all the other things I was dealing with yesterday. Amongst others, in Calgary a woman wearing a burka was allegedly accosted. As my colleague Sameha can tell you, this is pretty much a consistent occurrence for us. We get these calls 365 days a year.
My submissions before you today are squarely around how we can dismantle white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups that first act as a major source of incitement and enabling of hate, xenophobia and violence against certain segments of the public, including members of the Muslim community. I will also note that our colleagues who join us today from CIJA, in tandem with dozens of leading Canadian organizations, joined with us last year in our call for more action on white supremacist groups,
In the interest of time, I'll dive right into the recommendations that we want to highlight before this committee. These key recommendations and approaches are ones that we will further discuss at the National Action Summit on Islamophobia, which I appreciate also had important bipartisan support. From our perspective, these need to be undertaken in order to dismantle the immediate challenges around white supremacist groups in Canada.
First of all, we believe that existing Criminal Code provisions, especially the terror-listing provisions of the ATA and section 70 of the Criminal Code, should be used to dismantle groups like the Three Percenters. Even as this government utilized current legislative options in dismantling white supremacist groups, such as Blood & Honour, Combat 18, the Proud Boys, we believe that the tools already exist in the Criminal Code to list terrorist groups and to disband militias. These provisions need to be used to deal with the other 250-plus white supremacist organizations in Canada.
Section 70 of the Criminal Code, for instance, deals with prohibiting assemblies of persons for the purpose of “training or drilling themselves”, “being trained or drilled to the use of [firearms]” or “practising military exercises”. This could be used to prevent the actions of groups and the mobilization of groups like the Three Percenters. When we're talking about ideologically motivated violent extremism, we need to recognize that there are already existing provisions in the Criminal Code that can be used to dismantle some of these groups.
Secondly, we recommend the addition of new legislative listing provisions to the Criminal Code that specifically list white supremacist groups as white supremacist groups. Groups like the Soldiers of Odin may not meet the high threshold of being a listed terrorist entity and are not a militia, but these groups provide significant threats to Canadian Muslim communities. Like the organization that is planning on hosting a celebration of the London terror attack, there's no reason for these groups to be allowed to continue to exist, congregate, mobilize, plan their hate in Canada.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good morning.
I would first like to acknowledge that I am joining you from Montreal, on the traditional territory of the Mohawk and other Haudenosaunee peoples.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. With me, as you said, are Joëlle Montminy, senior assistant deputy minister, cultural affairs, and Pierre-Marc Perreault, acting director, digital citizen initiative.
Like you and many other Canadians, I am concerned by the disturbing rise and spread of hateful, violent and exploitive content online and on social media.
As a legislator and father of four children, I find some of the content of these platforms to be profoundly inhuman.
I am also deeply troubled by the consequences and the echoes of that content in the real world.
The overall benefits of the digital economy and social media are without question. In fact, I published a book, shortly before I took up politics, wherein I talked about the benefits of the digital economy, of artificial intelligence in particular, but also about some unintended negative consequences.
In Canada, more than 9 out of 10 adults use at least one online platform, and since the beginning of the pandemic, online platforms have played an even more important role in our lives.
We use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to stay connected to our families, friends and colleagues. We use them to work, to conduct business, to reach new markets and audiences, to make our voices and opinions heard, and to engage in necessary and vital democratic debate. However, we have also seen how social media can have negative and very harmful impacts.
On a daily basis, there are Internet users who share damaging content, either to spread hate speech, the sexual exploitation of children, terrorist propaganda, or words meant to incite violence.
This content has led and contributed to violent outbursts such as the attack on the Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City in 2017, and similar attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
Canadians and people all over the world have watched these events and others unfold on the news with shock and fear. We all understand the connections between these events and hateful, harmful online discourse. We worry about our own safety and security online. We worry about what our children and our loved ones will be exposed to.
According to a recent poll by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, an overwhelming 93% of Canadians believe that online hate and racism are a problem, and at least 60% believe that the government has an obligation to prevent the spread of hateful and racist content online.
In addition, the poll revealed that racialized groups in Canada are more than three times more likely to experience racism online than non-racialized Canadians.
Since the beginning of the COVID‑19 pandemic, we have seen a rise in anti-Asian hate speech on the Internet and a steady increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric, further fuelled by recent events.
A June 2020 study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that Canadians use more than 6,600 online services, pages and accounts hosted on various social media platforms to convey ideologies tinged with white supremacism, misogyny or extremism. This type of content wreaks havoc and destroys lives. It is intimidating and undermines constructive exchange. In doing so, it prevents us from having a true democratic debate and undermines free speech.
The facts speak for themselves. We must act, and we must act now. We believe that every person has the right to express themselves and participate in Internet exchanges to the fullest extent possible, without fear and without intimidation or concern for their safety. We believe that the Internet should be an inclusive place where we can safely express ourselves.
Our government is therefore committed to taking concrete steps to address harmful content online, particularly if the content advocates child sexual exploitation, terrorism, violence, hate speech, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
In fact, this is one of the priorities outlined in the mandate letter given to me by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. So we have begun the process to develop legislation that will address the concerns of Canadians.
Over the past few months my office and I have engaged with over 140 stakeholders from both civil society organizations and the digital technology sector regarding this issue. This has included seven round-table discussions. We also spoke with indigenous groups, racialized Canadians, elected provincial officials, municipal officials and our international partners to assess our options and begin to develop a proposed approach.
In addition, given the global nature of the problem, I have hosted a virtual meeting with my counterparts from Australia, Finland, France and Germany—who were part of the multi-stakeholder working group on diversity of content online—to discuss the importance of a healthy digital ecosystem and how to work collectively.
I am also working closely with my colleagues the ministers of Justice, Public Safety, Women and Gender Equality,Diversity and Inclusion and Youthas well asInnovation, Science and Industry to find the best possible solution.
Our collaborative work aims to ensure that Canada's approach is focused on protecting Canadians and continued respect for their rights, including freedom of opinion and expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The goal is to develop a proposal that establishes an appropriate balance between protecting speech and preventing harm.
Let me be clear. Our objective is not to reduce freedom of expression but to increase it for all users, and to ensure that no voices are being suppressed because of harmful content.
We want to build a society where radicalization, hatred, and violence have no place, where everyone is free to express themselves, where exchanges are not divisive, but an opportunity to connect, understand, and help each other. We are continuing our work and hope to act as quickly and effectively as possible. I sincerely hope that I can count on the committee's support and move forward to build a more transparent, accountable and equitable digital world.
I thank you for your attention and will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
View Damien Kurek Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the witnesses appearing before committee. It's certainly very interesting what you have presented, and I've had a chance to look at some of your work.
To Dr. Leuprecht, your research suggests that online bravado appears to be a bad predictor of whether or not somebody will be a violent extremist. I don't think you say no link, just that it's not a good metric to use to predict violence. I ask this question in the context of being an elected official and having an online presence. I certainly have been subject to and seen a lot of very extreme content, some of which was directed at me.
Could you expand on that and talk about whether that's an accurate summary of what your research has concluded?
Christian Leuprecht
View Christian Leuprecht Profile
Christian Leuprecht
2021-05-31 16:17
If you look at the amount of research that Dr. Perry has collected, if there was a connection, let alone a strong connection, between bravado and violence, we would expect to see a lot more violence in Canada than we do. What it suggests is that we need a much more nuanced approach to the issue.
There are four different levels at which we can engage in this. One is a matter of the criminal investigation side for people who engage in this type of conduct, but the other three are conversations we need to have more aggressively.
What are the economic and psychological barriers that as a society we have put in place to prevent people, who engage in bravado and so forth, from moving to action?
What can we do with certain elements of the community, where there are actual small groups and pockets that we can identify, to tell them counter-narratives, to tell them a better story? That's an opportunity, in particular with youth who we know are susceptible to influence.
We also need to turn this around: If there are so relatively few ones but there's this huge number of zeros, what are we actually doing right as a society to make our society resilient, to begin with, from people buying into this proliferation of hate online? This is something that, compared with, for instance, some of our partner countries, Canada has done very well, so we need to focus on the proactive measures that we as a society have in place.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
Thank you very much.
Three minutes is not a lot of time to talk about such important issues, but I have a question to Dr. Leuprecht.
Thank you for your testimony. You had talked about the pyramid. Maybe you could expand on that a little bit. What I've scribbled down is that at the bottom are activists, who are maybe engaged in objectionable behaviour, then radicals, who are engaged in illegal behaviour, and then terrorists.
In an earlier response to Mr. Kurek's question, you said that bravado is not a good predicator, so what is a good predicator of somebody moving from one level to the other in this pyramid?
Christian Leuprecht
View Christian Leuprecht Profile
Christian Leuprecht
2021-05-31 16:27
That is the million-dollar question, and I think we can show that this is really poorly established. The RCMP, when they testified two weeks ago, mentioned 273 cases in 2019 and 2020. How many of those did actually result in actionable charges? There was the Victoria legislature plot there.... I would say that, yes, this is a security intelligence problem, but it turns out that, on the criminal intelligence side, we're not doing that great perhaps a job. We can also infer that it's actually not as big a problem as the resources that we're actually devoting to this particular issue. It is easier for us to capture because we can see it and we have a visceral reaction, most human beings who live in a democracy have a visceral reaction against it, but it remains a phenomenon very much at the margins.
I think we need to remember here and circle back to the issue of the United States. The U.S. is a very polarized society and has always been, and its own political institutions reinforce that. I think we have political institutions that have always forced more of the views into a more moderate and reconciliatory institutional process, so, yes, there will always be some spillover in views from the United States, but by and large, our society has done a better job at moderating those and is helping to reconcile those within our political mainstream.
Martin Geoffroy
View Martin Geoffroy Profile
Martin Geoffroy
2021-05-31 16:53
All right.
Here is an overview. Over the last 10 years, a total of 113 events involving some type of violence occurred, given that we observed a number of categories of violence. Over the last 10 years in Quebec, 22% of right-wing extremist events were violent. Violence has been on the rise since the early 2010s, with the rate increasing sharply in the second half of the decade. The yearly average went from 2.6 violent events between 2010 and 2015 to 19.4 violent events between 2016 and 2020. Therefore, the increase in violence related to far-right groups in Quebec is problematic.
In fact, events involving physical violence jumped dramatically during the second half of the decade. Until 2015, the average number of events involving physical violence was two, but the number rose to nine beginning in 2016. In 2017, we noted 23 violent events, and in 2020, a total of 35 violent events involving far-right groups were noted.
The most violent year of the decade was 2020.
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
With regard to the idea of these individual groups being a danger to society, when I look at your research, the end result is about 20% over 10 years of involvement in some kind of violence, which would be either verbal, physical or online.
How serious is the danger that they pose? There are “threats and hate speech” listed in your categories of violence, also “vandalism”, “mischief”, “physical conflict”, “harassment and bullying”, “attacks and assault” at 6%, and “terrorism” is 1%.
Are they a serious threat and danger to life and limb, or are they at a lower level than that, for the most part?
Martin Geoffroy
View Martin Geoffroy Profile
Martin Geoffroy
2021-05-31 17:19
I'm often told that these groups aren't dangerous because they're small in number and marginal. We often estimate that the far right in Canada amounts to less than 1% of the population. Political parties that have a far-right ideology don't get many votes. The parties will get less than 1% of the vote. They won't succeed in getting members elected to Parliament, for example. Within the population, these groups are extremely marginal.
However, just because they're marginal doesn't mean that they aren't dangerous. For a terrorist attack to occur, all it takes is one person fuelled by extremist ideologies. We saw this in the attack on the Great Mosque of Quebec City. The small groups are dangerous given that it takes only a few individuals for these types of acts to occur. Moreover, an individual becomes dangerous when they're desperate, meaning when they see that their political option has no hope of being democratically recognized or of succeeding. At that point, they may think that violence is the only way to further their cause.
View Damien Kurek Profile
CPC (AB)
It's tough to ask a question after that, but if you could define “violent extremism”, what would that definition be?
Phil Gurski
View Phil Gurski Profile
Phil Gurski
2021-05-31 17:24
Most people will see violent extremism and terrorism as synonymous. I tend to lean in that direction and, to be perfectly honest, Mr. Kurek, I don't have the time to split hairs on whether there's a different between the two. They are virtually synonymous.
Kathy AuCoin
View Kathy AuCoin Profile
Kathy AuCoin
2021-05-25 12:30
Madam Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present our most recent statistics on senior abuse in Canada.
Much of the information I'll be focusing on this afternoon is available in the publication “Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile”. A link to the report and a series of custom tabulations have been provided to the clerk for your reference.
It's important to note that the data from this report highlight those forms of abuse that meet the criminal threshold and that were reported to the police. As a result, it does not provide a complete picture of the overall prevalence of senior abuse as it does not capture emotional, psychological and financial abuse. Also note that Statistics Canada is working towards collecting disaggregated data, that is, by ethnicity, life stages and gender, which will give us a better understanding of which seniors are most at risk of abuse.
Also note that I'll be referring to the most recent police data, which is from 2019. The 2020 data will be released at the end of July. This information will be critical to our understanding of the impact of COVID restrictions on seniors and whether or not they were more at risk of being a victim.
In 2019, there were more than 14,000 senior victims of police-reported violence in Canada. By senior victims, I mean those individuals who are 65 years of age and older. Of these victims, 55% were men, while 45% were women. This translates into a rate of 227 seniors per 100,000.
Since 2014, there has been a steady increase in police-reported violence perpetrated against seniors. Specifically, we've noted a 29% increase in victimization rates between 2014 and 2019. Over the same time period, the rate of violence increased more for senior women than for senior men. We also noted that there were increases in violence against other age groups—that is, people between 0 and 17, or 18 to 64—but it was only an increase of 16%.
Based on the police data, the highest rates of senior victimization were noted in the three territories, as well as Manitoba and New Brunswick, while Nova Scotia reported the lowest.
According to the 2016 census, 7% of all seniors lived in shared dwellings such as senior resident nursing homes. From police-reported data, we were able to get a glimpse of the violence committed against seniors in these environments. In 2019, just over one in 10 senior victims of police-reported violence were residing in a nursing or retirement home at the time of the incident. Two-thirds of these victims were senior women. Most of these seniors who experienced violence experienced physical assault, while one in seven were sexually assaulted.
Within the nursing and retirement home environment, the perpetrators of this violence were most often seniors themselves. They were a casual acquaintance of the victim, a neighbour within the retirement home or.... We can't tell from the data whether these individuals were suffering from some sort of cognitive impairment or dementia, which could have explained the reason for the violence. Further to that, the police-reported data noted very few cases where the perpetrator of the violence was a staff member of the residence.
Another source of data for senior abuse is the general social survey on victimization, which measures three types of violence—sexual assault, robbery and physical assault—as well as five forms of non-violent crime. These data are critical to our understanding as they capture victimization whether it was reported to the police or not.
According to the 2019 GSS, one in 10 seniors self-reported being a victim of household or violent crime in the previous 12 months and 84,000 seniors were victims of a violent crime. Through the GSS, we are also able to capture experiences of emotional and financial abuse of older adults by a family member or caregiver. Recent results found that approximately 2% of seniors reported experiencing financial or emotional abuse over the past five years. Finally, the GSS also noted that 14% of seniors experienced fraud over the previous five years.
There are challenges in collecting data on elder and senior abuse. Specifically, to obtain robust data, there must be an agreed-upon definition of “senior”, an agreed-upon definition of “abuse” and a sound method on how to capture this information from those living in an institution.
Thank you to the chair and members for their attention this afternoon.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-05-12 17:06
Yes, it does. Thank you.
It's illuminating, and it makes sense, then, that the definition also has been adapted to move away from what could be perceived to be partisan or political definitions. Also, I think it's instructive that there probably is a thread of these actors through ideologically motivated violent extremism, as well as religious and politically motivated violent extremism, if I've got you right.
I wonder if you're able to give us a sense of what the attacks were that caused the deaths of the 21 individuals, as cited in the 2020 report. I'm not sure what can be discussed in terms of investigations or which agencies might be involved to some degree—probably all—but can you give Canadians a sense of exactly what caused those deaths and which attacks they were?
Timothy Hahlweg
View Timothy Hahlweg Profile
Timothy Hahlweg
2021-05-12 17:07
I absolutely can.
Starting in 2014, we have the Moncton shooting perpetrated by Justin Bourque. In that shooting, three were killed and two were wounded. In 2015, we have the Halifax mall plot. That plot was disrupted and there were no casualties. In 2016, we have the Edmonton stomping attack. One individual was killed. In 2017, we have the Alexandre Bissonnette attack on the Quebec City mosque. Six individuals were killed and 19 were wounded in that attack.
In 2018, we have the Toronto van attack by Alek Minassian. Ten people were killed and 16 were wounded in that attack. In 2019, we have the Sudbury knife attack, and two people were wounded in that attack. Finally, in 2020, we have the Toronto spa attack, where one person was killed and one person was wounded.
I think I've covered that. If I've missed anything in that depiction, I will defer to my colleagues in the RCMP.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-05-12 17:08
Thank you.
Can you give us a sense of how many plots were foiled last year that would have been planned ideologically motivated extremist acts?
Timothy Hahlweg
View Timothy Hahlweg Profile
Timothy Hahlweg
2021-05-12 17:08
Unfortunately, given the nature of this call, I won't be able to get into the specifics of those investigative activities, specifically on the foiled plots. Some of those investigations are still ongoing.
I can assure you that your colleagues in NSICOP and the service meet regularly to discuss those classified discussions.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-05-12 17:09
Can you give us a general sense in terms of scale or scope? Dozens or hundreds or thousands...?
Timothy Hahlweg
View Timothy Hahlweg Profile
Timothy Hahlweg
2021-05-12 17:09
I can say generally that because we take the threat activity very seriously and we have a lot of assets at play in the organization.... We have regions across the country, as you know, and we have stations abroad. All these employees of our organization are working in concert with their law enforcement partners and other members in the S and I community to identify and disrupt this activity.
You will know that we have a threat reduction mandate as well in the service, so we actively take measures to try to disrupt plots. Given the fact that the activity has increased, our disruption activity, in correlation, has increased as well.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for being with us here today and enlightening us on this very important topic.
I'm just going to follow the previous line of questioning with Mr. Hahlweg, if you don't mind.
There's been quite a bit of talk today about the three different categories of motivation for violent extremism. I wonder how important it is to define those different categories. For example, one of the witnesses mentioned the 21 deaths that occurred at the hands of ideologically motivated extreme actors, one of them being the Quebec mosque shooting. I would have thought that maybe that falls within the religiously motivated.
How important is it, Mr. Hahlweg, to get those categorizations right? How is that a tool for CSIS to keep Canadians safe and for prosecutions?
Timothy Hahlweg
View Timothy Hahlweg Profile
Timothy Hahlweg
2021-05-12 17:30
I think it's an outstanding question. Thank you.
The way we look at this is from a service lens. I can articulate that the mosque shooting.... We look at things that trigger our act. In section 2 of our act, paragraph (c) is what defines whether or not we get involved from a service perspective—the serious acts of violence. Whether that falls into the RMVE space, the religiously motivated, or the IMVE space, that is actually where we mobilize and prioritize our investigative activity from an internal perspective. It is the trigger of our paragraph 2(c) threshold in our mandate that dictates whether or not we're going to go into that space.
I think it is very important to really articulate—and it's why we chose to do so in 2019 in the IMVE space—the complexity of this investigation so that we can actively portray what is going on and can actively decide when our threshold and our mandate is triggered. Otherwise, that deconfliction with the RCMP and others in the community is crucial. At the end of the day, we're all looking to prevent threats of violence.
View Kristina Michaud Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We understand that religiously motivated violent extremism that relies on social networks is an extremely modern threat, and it becomes difficult to legislate against it. As you were saying, Mr. Duheme, people will likely find a way around these new laws, quickly rendering them obsolete.
You are probably all aware of the Christchurch massacre, which the Prime Minister of New Zealand called an act intended to be broadcast on the Internet. As a result of this event, Australia passed the Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Act 2019, which amends the Australian Criminal Code by adding as an offence the act of hosting or disseminating violent content on social networks or on any sites.
In your opinion, should Canada adopt similar legislation?
Michael Duheme
View Michael Duheme Profile
Michael Duheme
2021-05-12 18:09
I'm going to ask Mr. Rochon to talk about what's being done right now and the issue you raised.
Dominic Rochon
View Dominic Rochon Profile
Dominic Rochon
2021-05-12 18:09
Thank you.
As it happens, I don't feel like continuing to pass the torch.
However, I'm wondering whether Jill Wherrett might want to step in from a Public Safety perspective, in terms of Canada's participation in the Christchurch call. We certainly have been supportive, standing shoulder to shoulder with our New Zealand colleagues. There's a two-year anniversary event coming up later this week.
Jill, would you care to weigh in on Madame Michaud's question?
Jill Wherrett
View Jill Wherrett Profile
Jill Wherrett
2021-05-12 18:10
Thank you.
Thank you for the question.
I won't comment on government policy in terms of legislation, but I would say that, as my colleagues have described, there really are a variety of tools that can be brought to bear, whether they're legislative tools, working with civil society organizations or voluntary work that can be done between governments and social media platforms and the digital industry. That's certainly a big focus, in fact, of the Christchurch call that my colleague was just speaking about, where there's a series of commitments for governments, commitments for technology companies and shared commitments.
One of the elements—and something that we've been working on here—is that there's the legislative aspect, but there's also the crisis protocols that can be put into place, so that when there are streaming activities happening, as in the case of Christchurch, we can mobilize quickly to work with companies to make sure that content is no longer disseminated. That's another tool that we can use. Legislation, I think, is one part of the picture.
View Scott Reid Profile
CPC (ON)
I have only 30 seconds, and I have one last question for Mr. Pappier.
There's a higher level of violence against indigenous human rights defenders than other defenders. I'm wondering what the reason is for that. Is it because they're less visible? Is it because they're in rural areas, where it's harder to keep track of abuses? Is it because the public tolerates it more? What's the reason for that group of people being particularly subject—
View Rhéal Fortin Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm going to continue along the same lines.
Ms. Morency, here's what I understand from your remarks. First, a report will be prepared between now and late 2022, including statistics on physical violence against and financial abuse of seniors. Certain current statutory provisions may be reviewed in light of those figures.
In the meantime, am I to understand from your testimony that you think elder abuse cases have increased over the past 5 or 10 years?
Carole Morency
View Carole Morency Profile
Carole Morency
2021-05-06 11:58
That is my understanding from that report as well. The “Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2019” did conclude that there has been an increase in the level of violence against seniors, including in the family violence context. Absolutely, we do need better, broader and disaggregated data, and that's part of what we're going to work towards to help us be in a position to better collect that data through Statistics Canada.
In the meantime, there is some data that shows what you've just noted.
View Joël Lightbound Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today.
Mr. McGuinty, thank you for joining us. One thing that stands out in your report is the changing nature of the terrorist threat in Canada. You spoke of the growing threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism in Canada. You specifically referred to the rather disturbing 320% increase in incidents related to this type of extremism from 2013 to 2018. That's not counting the tragedies in Christchurch, El Paso and Germany, which are linked to ideologically motivated violent extremism.
At the same time, you said in your report that this type of extremism differs from the extremism inspired by ideologies such as that of Daesh or al-Qaida. The extremism is less tied to one group and less centralized. It often involves constellations of dispersed actors.
This is a new threat. The threat is organized differently from the somewhat more traditional threats that we've seen in recent decades. What challenges does this present to our intelligence agencies in Canada and to our allies?
How are our agencies adapting to this threat, which you describe as growing?
View David McGuinty Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you for the question, Mr. Lightbound.
In the report, we tried to clearly convey what we heard from the security and intelligence community on this issue.
What surprised us the most in 2020 was the increase in the activities of ideologically motivated violent extremists, or IMVEs. The dynamics behind these activities don't seem to be slowing down. On the contrary, they seem to be moving faster and faster and involving more and more groups and participants.
We know that extremist dialogue isn't necessarily criminal. However, we also know that Canada has an increasingly broad base for recruitment. Extremists can look for more and more people who are susceptible to possible radicalization.
Our security and intelligence services are concerned about the situation in the field and about the increase in activity. We've seen it abroad, such as in New Zealand. Several of the incidents brought up in paragraph 35 occurred in Texas and in Germany, in two instances. There's also the issue of involuntary celibate groups.
These extremists are also posing a growing threat. We know that it's increasingly overlapping with other IMVE-type extremism. Of course, we saw a van attack in April 2018. We saw a stabbing in June 2019 in Sudbury. We saw another stabbing in Toronto by an individual motivated by the incel ideology in February 2020.
This is perhaps the most striking thing about this review for us, Mr. Chair, in terms of monitoring the trend. Mr. Lightbound rightly points out that it's a surprise to our security and intelligence community, but they are very much seized with this based on what we've seen and the information we've obtained.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
I think that's a very big surprise to all Canadians. It certainly is to me. I had not expected that, so thank you for bringing that to our attention.
The report makes reference to a couple of incidents in other countries like New Zealand, with the Christchurch shooting, and the copycat shooting in El Paso. I think there might have been one or two in Europe as well.
Are there any indications of that type of event happening in Canada? I know there's reference also to the three incel-motivated attacks in Canada. Are there any others that we should know about?
View David McGuinty Profile
Lib. (ON)
Any event that we were able to present to Canadians, Mr. Van Popta, for the period that we were reviewing, we have presented.
Anne Kelly
View Anne Kelly Profile
Anne Kelly
2021-01-25 15:35
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm joined today by Alain Tousignant, senior deputy commissioner.
I'd like to begin by extending, once again, my heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and communities affected by this terrible tragedy. No one wants to see this type of tragedy occur. I'm deeply saddened that it happened.
Public safety is our priority. It must be at the core of everything that we do and it must guide every decision that we make. We take this responsibility very seriously when it comes to supervising approximately 9,400 federal offenders in communities across the country, including 2,000 offenders in Quebec.
As I told the committee last year—I don't want to undermine in any way the seriousness of this tragic incident— it's extremely rare that an offender on day parole commits a violence offence of this nature. However, when it does happen, getting to the bottom of what happened is our top priority, as is the case here.
I would like to thank the board of investigation for contributing their expertise, objectivity and hard work to this process, especially during this public health pandemic. We have closely examined all of the board's findings and accept their five recommendations. We have developed an action plan to implement them in their entirety.
As I committed at my last appearance on this issue, we have provided this committee and the public with the board of investigation report, along with a summary of the findings as well as a management action plan detailing our concrete actions.
I first want to say that the community supervision strategy in this case was completely inappropriate. I want to be clear. The Correctional Service of Canada doesn't condone offenders seeking sexual services. In my 37 years with the service, I can firmly attest to the fact that this isn't something that we, as an organization, endorse in how we manage offenders. I've made this clear throughout my organization.
Immediately following the tragic incident, I ordered a nation-wide review of all community supervision strategies to ensure that they're sound, appropriate and consistent with the policies and that they serve to protect public safety.
In terms of community supervision, Quebec has had a direct supervision model for over 40 years, through which, under contract, community partners play an important role in the successful rehabilitation of offenders. They provide accommodation and support to offenders, while a small number of them, including Maison Painchaud, also directly supervise approximately 155 offenders on conditional release in the community.
We are taking steps to move to a single community supervision model for federal offenders in Canada. By March 31, 2021, the Maison Painchaud community residential facility will no longer supervise federal offenders. Although offenders will continue to be housed at the facility, CSC will take over all aspects of supervision for federal offenders in the community.
We will also review our other community residential facility contracts in Quebec, with a goal of returning all direct supervision responsibilities for federal offenders to CSC. As with Maison Painchaud, these community residential facilities will continue to house offenders.
Building safer communities is a complex process, and CSC cannot and does not work in isolation. While direct supervision responsibilities for federal offenders in Quebec will be returned to CSC, as is the case in the rest of the country, our community partners will continue to provide the services and support to offenders and their families that are a vital part of an offender's safe reintegration.
Our other key actions include strengthening our information collection procedures and policies. The Correctional Service of Canada is revising its policy to clearly specify the types of documents required for offenders with a history of serious offences. We're also putting in place a formal monitoring mechanism to check at regular intervals whether the requested documents have been obtained and to ensure a follow-up, if required.
In addition, the service's community supervision policy is being reviewed. A template is being developed to guide the re-assessment of an offender's risk. The tool will list specific elements, including collateral contacts, that must be discussed during case conferences involving parole officers and their supervisors.
The service will also be implementing new training on intimate partner violence. This training will complement existing training on spousal assault risk assessment and will be required for all parole officers and their supervisors to help them assess and manage the offenders' risk.
I know this case has had a profound impact on our employees, especially those in Quebec. These situations are extremely rare, in large part because of the work our employees and our community partners do, day in, day out, to supervise offenders in the community. That being said, something went tragically wrong in this case, and we owe it to Canadians to follow due process and properly examine the circumstances specific to the employees directly involved in the supervision and oversight of this case. The disciplinary process will help determine if any additional accountability measures are required.
As commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, I am resolute in my commitment to working closely with our employees, community partners and unions to implement all of the recommendations as presented to us. I believe doing so will lead to important changes in how we supervise offenders and deliver on our mandate to keep our communities safe.
In closing, I would once again like to express my sympathies to the family and friends of Marylène Lévesque.
Thank you.
Results: 1 - 38 of 38

Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data