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Results: 1 - 52 of 52
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 Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I was invited to talk about our upcoming legislation regarding online harms, which I'm happy to do. If this committee would like to invite me to talk about Bill C-10, I would be happy to appear at another time to do that.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I respectfully disagree with the premise of the question. What we see here in Canada, and frankly, all around the world, is that the tools we have to deal with these harms in the physical world just aren't adapted to deal with them in the virtual world.
Let me give you an example. In 2019, the RCMP saw a 1,106% increase from 2014 of reports regarding child sexual exploitation online. This exploitation disproportionately impacts girls. In 2019, the RCMP found that girls made up 62% of identified Canadian victims depicted in online child sexual exploitation material.
I did say I was hoping to introduce this legislation in January. Unfortunately, the systemic obstruction by the Conservative Party regarding Bill C-10 has prevented me from doing so. However, I am still hoping to table this bill as soon as possible.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Obviously, I'm here to talk about the objective of the legislation. Since it hasn't been tabled, I can't go into detail about it. However, once the legislation has been tabled, I would be happy to come before this committee again and testify as to the details and mechanics of said legislation.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
This is a very good question. My office and my department have spoken as well with victims and victims' organizations. What we want to do with this legislation is to really shift the challenge for victims of having to try to get these images taken down—if we're referring to images that we would find on Pornhub, for example. We're trying to shift the burden of doing this from the individual to the state. It would be up to the Government of Canada, through a regulator, to do that, as it is in other countries, such as Australia, with their e-safety commissioner.
That's the goal we're pursuing with the tabling of this legislation. You are correct; we are also working to ensure that not only are the images taken down but they are removed from websites or associate websites to prevent, for example, the download of such images. They're not going to be downloaded and uploaded and downloaded and uploaded, as we've seen in many cases.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Companies should abide by Canadian laws. Whether they're online companies or physical companies, there should be no distinction. As I said earlier, the challenge we face now is that the tools we have to deal with these online harms just aren't adapted to the virtual world.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As I said, we have been hard at work for more than a year to prepare this legislation. We've held consultations with, as I said, in my case, more than 140 organizations. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice also held some consultations on some of the more legal aspects of the legislation and issues pertaining to the Criminal Code.
It is a complex issue. There are only a handful of countries in the world that have introduced legislation to do that, namely France and Germany; I spoke earlier about Australia, and the United Kingdom tabled a white paper on this just this past December. I was on the phone recently with the heritage minister in the U.K. to discuss that.
It is a complex issue, but nonetheless an issue we want to tackle. You referred to the 24-hour takedown notion, which is, in fact, in the mandate letter the Prime Minister gave to me at the beginning of the mandate. It's a more novel element; very few countries are doing that. The Australians are just introducing this in their legislation. We want to ensure that we find this right balance, and that's what we're working towards. It is still my intention to introduce the legislation in the very near future, but let me give you, perhaps, one other example of how online hate affects Canadians, and more specifically, indigenous people in this country.
I want to give you two quick examples, if I may. In 2018, two women in Flin Flon, Manitoba were charged with uttering threats and inciting hatred after posting a photo of a vandalized car, saying that indigenous people would be killed and calling for a “shoot an Indian day”. In 2020, two known nationalist groups called the Proud Boys and the Sons of Odin used social media to threaten and attack members of the Wet'suwet'en community during the pipeline protest. In fact, data from Statistics Canada show that police-reported hate crimes against indigenous people are on the rise. Between 2016 and 2018, incidents targeting first nations, Métis and Inuit communities rose by 17% during those two years alone.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
This is really an important point. There are some people out there—a minority, clearly—who would advocate that we shouldn't intervene and that there should be no laws whatsoever regarding the Internet in any way. What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. Well, it's clearly not the case.
In June 2020, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published a report on right-wing extremism in Canada, as I said earlier, identifying more than 6,000 right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts. Since 2014, Canadians—inspired in whole or in part by extreme views they've gathered online—have killed 21 people in this country and wounded 41. This idea that this stays on the Internet is simply false.
Notwithstanding that, we haven't waited until the introduction of this legislation. For two years now, we have been funding an initiative called the digital citizenship initiative, whereby we're working with victims groups and with academics around the country to increase the level of online literacy for Canadians, to help them detect false news and to help them recognize hate speech and extremist groups online.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau. Good morning. I wish you a good Monday as well.
I am as disappointed as you are to see the lack of ambition of some of the other parties in the House with respect to the passage of Bill C‑10. However, we are not here to talk about that.
Canada is among the lead countries in addressing this issue. The countries I named earlier, which can be counted on the fingers of one hand, are among the only ones that are currently taking action.
It was at Canada's initiative that a coalition of countries was created that are committed to working together, not only on the issue of hate speech and other online harm, but also on cultural issues. Several countries are very interested in what we are doing with Bill C‑10 and with respect to media compensation. This sort of informal coalition of countries is working collaboratively at Canada's initiative. In a few weeks, an announcement will be made about this joint international work.
Of course, a country like ours needs to have legislation that addresses the issue of online harm. However, this is indeed a global problem, and it needs to be addressed on a global level. That's why we formed this coalition of countries. Right now, there are only five of us, but I suspect that before long, many more people will be around the table.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
That's an excellent question.
I would like to clarify something first. Regarding online cultural content issues, which are addressed in Bill C‑10, obviously some political parties have decided to join the big companies like Google and YouTube rather than support our artists. As for media compensation, Facebook reacted very strongly in Australia.
As for online harm and hate speech, several social media platforms have publicly called for government intervention, perhaps because they feel they are losing control of the situation. I'm not saying that they all have. I've personally met with most of these large platforms that have a presence in Canada. They obviously won't agree with everything that's going to be in the legislation—I've never seen a company agree with all of it. They do agree that more and more governments need to step in on this issue to help them.
Let me come back to the argument about the dark web. It's somewhat like saying that we should not put criminal sanctions in the laws, and eliminate them all instead, otherwise people will hide to commit their crimes. It may happen, but that's no reason to do nothing.
Honestly, the percentage of people who have the technical skills to access the dark web is very small. So we need to put the necessary laws in place. We won't solve everything, but with these laws we will solve a lot of the problem.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
If I understood your question correctly, I think you're referring to the issue of personal data online, a topic that I'm very interested in and which was actually part of the last book I wrote.
Of course, I am not sponsoring this bill, but I would be happy to discuss it with you at other times, Ms. Gaudreau.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As you know, there is confidentiality around cabinet discussions, so I'm not at liberty to disclose this information.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Again, as I said to your colleague earlier, I am here to discuss the objectives of the legislation. In terms of the details of the legislation, that's not possible until the bill is tabled, but I would be happy to come back and testify at the committee.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Bill C-10, as I've said a number of times, is about cultural content. It's about ensuring that the web giants pay their fair share, and that our artists are fairly compensated for their—
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
It's not about content. BillC-10 is not about content moderation, which is also something I've said a number of times in the past.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As you are well aware, they are criminal acts according to the Canadian Criminal Code, yes.
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 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 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 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 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—
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I have not personally, but the department and people on my team have, so yes, we have, but it's not something that can be solved overnight. It's a complex issue. As we're seeing all around the world, countries are struggling with this.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I would be happy to provide the committee with....
I can't see the image of the member, but maybe I should proceed anyway, Mr. Chair.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'd be happy to provide the committee with the list of organizations and people we've met—we being the government—on this issue over the last year and some months.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you for the question.
I find your question very cynical, as your party consistently opposes the passage of Bill C‑10, which is not about content moderation, but rather about web giants contributing to our cultural sector's artists and musicians.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'm sorry. Are you turning it back to Mr. Gourde or to me, Mr. Chair?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Once again, your party opposes the passage of Bill C‑10, which has nothing to do with content moderation, while the hate speech and online harm bill specifically addresses the issue of content moderation.
Yet you say you oppose content moderation. You and many of your colleagues say that the government wants to take away your freedom of expression. The exploitation of persons bill will ensure...
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As quickly as possible. I can already tell you that your party will oppose that bill as well. Your party...
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I want to start by saying that the Internet and the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet existed before 2015. Your party was in power for 10 years. On the one hand, you did nothing about this issue, despite the existence of this phenomenon.
On the other hand, the sooner your party stops its systematic obstruction of Bill C‑10, the sooner...
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
We want to do several things. As stated in my mandate letter, the bill will make it possible to remove all illegal content within 24 hours, thereby forcing companies to do so. Companies currently aren't doing this. The bill will also help implement an effective and user‑friendly content moderation system. Platforms will be subject to greater transparency obligations with respect to reporting online harms, such as child sexual exploitation, to law enforcement.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
There are many elements in what you said.
First, I think one of the purposes of the legislation is to ensure more transparency on the part of the platforms in terms of their guidelines and practices regarding content moderation, because right now it's very uneven. Some companies have better content moderation practices than others, and some have very little. You're right—they are not transparent.
Some may have rejoiced in the decision of this platform or that platform to ban this user or another user, but under which criteria? Why them and not someone else? This is clearly something we want to tackle. Frankly, there is an issue where we see the very business model of some of the platforms being about creating controversy and nourishing hate speech and intolerance, because it creates more traffic on their platform. Therefore, they can sell more publicity and make more money.
As part of the legislation that will be tabled, this is also something that we as a legislator will need to address.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
The first part of your question is a very interesting one, because what we are, in fact, seeing is that these companies—many of these companies, perhaps not all of them—are using different loopholes around the world to try to get away from having to obey national laws, whether it's in Canada, Australia, Germany, Finland, France or the United Kingdom. What we want to do with the legislation will ensure that whether or not a company is Canadian, or based in Canada, or registered in Canada, or its websites are housed in Canada, if it broadcasts images and videos in Canada then the law will apply to it.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If I may specify, it is 11:50 and I must remind you and all members that I have a hard stop a few minutes before 12, as I must be present in the House of Commons at 12 o'clock sharp for a debate. Thank you for your understanding.
I'll respond in 15 seconds.
These are the five categories of harms that we want to address in this bill: child sexual exploitation, incitement to violence, incitement to terrorism, non‑consensual sharing of intimate content and hate speech.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As I said earlier, the body of tools that we have to deal with this issue.... In the physical world, it's very simple. I think you and I can agree on that. It's not so simple to deal with these criminal offences in the virtual world—
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I think I understand your point, and I would like to respond that it's not just about the regulator. It's going to be about an entire new ecosystem to help us deal with these harms online in a way that we can't right now. The regulator is but one component of that. It's not the entirety of the system we want to propose.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Well, as stated in my mandate letter, once an illegal publication is flagged, companies will have 24 hours to take it down. Instead of the victims having to try to deal with these companies, it's going to be the Government of Canada that's going to work to ensure that they remove that. If they don't, then there will be consequences for these companies.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I think you're asking me if we have a magic wand to prevent crime. We don't, and I believe no government—
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
We will as well, by investing in more education so Canadians better understand these issues regarding the harms that these publications can have online. We will work to ensure that once posted they're removed as quickly as possible.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
That's not what I said. Earlier, I spoke about the digital citizen initiative, which our government has been funding for the last two years to work with victims' organizations, academic groups and non-governmental organizations on these very issues.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Again, I'm happy to discuss the objectives of the legislation with you. I would be happy to come back to discuss the details of the legislation once it is tabled.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'm happy to repeat, but that's the answer I gave to your colleague, Madame Gaudreau.
The purpose of the legislation is that whether the company is Canadian, its servers are in Canada, its headquarters are in Canada or it's registered in Canada or elsewhere, if it's broadcasting images or videos in Canada, then the legislation will apply to that company.
Mr. Chair and Madam Clerk, I am being told that I must connect to the House of Commons debate five minutes before noon, which would have been a minute ago, I suppose. I'm in your hands, but I must get ready for another debate in the House of Commons.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
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