Committee
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 1 - 15 of 2299
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 Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Rose Kalemba contacted our committee and asked us to fight for her. At age 14, she was kidnapped, brutally tortured and sexually assaulted, and her videos were posted on Pornhub, downloaded and promoted.
In your view—and I just have to be blunt here because we've talked about some really difficult stuff at our committee so I hope you don't find me being too blunt—would you believe that the posting of those videos represents criminal acts?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As you are well aware, they are criminal acts according to the Canadian Criminal Code, yes.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Good, because it has sections 162, 163 and 164, and yet those laws are not being applied.
I need to know why we need a regulator to oversee something that's already under the Criminal Code. The promotion of these videos, according to law, is a criminal act, so why don't we just apply the law?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As I said earlier, the challenge that we in Canada, and countries all around the world, are facing is that the tools that we have to deal with these issues in the physical world just aren't adapted to the virtual world. This is why Australia created a new regulatory body to deal with that, and it is why a number of countries either have created or are in the process of creating new regulations, new regulators, or both, to deal with this. It's because the tools we have just aren't adaptable.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Are you saying we simply don't need to use the Criminal Code? What surprises me is that internal documents from the RCMP's December 12 briefing note on Pornhub pointed out that your office is going to be taking the lead.
According to those documents, they are not going after Pornhub, so did cabinet tell the RCMP to stand down while you developed this regulator? Why is it that the RCMP are under the impression that you're the lead on this, and that the Canadian laws that exist are not going to be applied?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I respectfully disagree with the premise of your question. As I stated earlier, the legislation will address five categories of online harms, which are already criminal according to Canadian law, and which are already criminal activities under the Canadian Criminal Code.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
I get that. I guess my concern is that you haven't actually come up with legislation. You don't know when this regulator's going to appear, and the RCMP internal notes say your office is taking the lead.
We have survivors who suffered serious crimes and abuse. We have the Criminal Code. I'm wanting to know why your government is saying that it will be the regulator that handles that, as opposed to telling the RCMP and the justice minister to do their job.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I think you're misunderstanding what we're trying to do.
There are many reasons we need to create a regulator. One—
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
I don't have a problem with the regulator. What I have a problem with is the fact that we actually have criminal laws in place, and it seems that the RCMP has decided that Pornhub doesn't have to actually follow the law—there's voluntary compliance; your Attorney General says he's not even sure if they're a Montreal company; you're telling us there's going to be some kind of regulator, but you don't have one....
I just have to be honest. Having the minister of culture and communications handle a file about horrific sexual assault videos to me is like asking the minister of transportation to look after human trafficking.
Why is it that the laws of the land are just not being applied? You can go and get a regulator, but why are the laws not being applied?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Your analogy would be correct if I were the only one doing this. I'm not.
As I stated in my remarks initially, I am working with the Minister of Public Safety, with the Minister of Justice and with a number of other colleagues. This is a whole-of-government approach. It's not—
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
I know, and they say you're the lead on this. They defer to you.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
We don't have a regulator. We don't have any action. Again, what do I tell the survivors who are being told, sorry, not much is going to happen but maybe a regulator, and maybe there will be a new CRTC for porn? How long are they going to have to wait before they actually see something?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
This was in my mandate letter when I was nominated as the Minister of Canadian Heritage. We started right away, despite the most important pandemic we've seen in the last 100 years, doing public consultations, doing the work. Some people may like—
Results: 1 - 15 of 2299 | Page: 1 of 154

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
>
>|
Show both languages
Refine Your Search
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data