Rubin Friedman

I think he’s dealt with a broad range of social policy issues from family and community, to violence, to immigration and citizenship, and he’s had a long and active involvement in human rights and race relations.

I’m looking forward to hearing, as we all are, what Mr. Friedman has to say. He has a background in linguistics and speech pathology and is very interested in the aspect of the technology that brings into our homes some of the things that we would prefer to see disappear.

Mr. Friedman.

Mr. Rubin Friedman (Director, Government Relations, B’nai Brith Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair.

It’s good to be able to address this committee on this important topic, which I think should form the subject of some kind of follow-up by the committee. Let me explain.

First of all, we’re dealing with the notion of the propagation of hate propaganda. This is something that has been of concern to the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada for many years. In many ways, the Internet is simply another technology, another means for spreading a message that has been spread before by other methods. In some ways, many of the challenges we face with the Internet we have already faced in the past and still face with other kinds of technology.

In order to give you an idea of the problem, I have here three publications that have come into the country and that have been classified by Revenue Canada as hate propaganda. We don’t have a clear idea of the size of this flow, but obviously there are many documents that flow over the border from the United States. It would be impossible for Revenue Canada to monitor the flow of every document over the border. With the Internet, they would have to monitor the flow of electrons over the border, which gives you an idea of the size of the challenge.

Hate propaganda has as its goal to promote the perspective on a group of individuals as being not human, inferior, and the proper object of hatred of a society. That is its intent and its purpose. People who are promoting hatred will use whatever means is available to them to do that. It’s one of the difficulties in predicting what form hate propaganda will take, because individuals are free to tell lies or promote hatred about any particular aspect they wish. [Technical Difficulty - Editor]

The Chair: Please go ahead.

Mr. Friedman: I won’t repeat what I’ve said so far, but basically our concern is the spread of hate propaganda over the Internet in the same way that we’ve always had a concern about the spread of hate propaganda through other means. We see that the response to hate propaganda on the Internet is similar to the response we’ve developed in other cases; namely, public education, an awareness of what exists; monitoring; community action; and cooperation between a broad range of individuals and organizations to monitor and counter the hatred that’s on the Internet. We’ve cooperated on a number of occasions with Ken McVay and with other groups in dealing with individuals and groups on the Internet.

The other avenue to pursue is public education. We see a real need in terms of public education not only about hatred but about the Internet. We feel that many people become very concerned about hatred on the Internet, which is justifiable, but perhaps are not familiar enough with the technology or what appears there in order to develop in their own minds a sense that they know how to deal with it or that others are dealing with it.

The Internet is international. Therefore, one of the things we strongly support is the development of international cooperation. I am avoiding the use of international treaties because I think we’re very far from the notion of treaties for the reason that was mentioned before, that countries have very different approaches as to what constitutes objectionable material. Therefore, we’re some distance away. On the other hand, it is the only way that this issue can be dealt with in the long term. Therefore, it is important and essential to begin talking about it now. The fact that countries have different approaches should not discourage us from undertaking these discussions even if it takes 10 or 15 or 20 years. Otherwise we’d have to simply assume that it would be impossible for countries to agree on this issue and perhaps logically on anything else. I don’t see that as a fruitful approach to take.

Finally, we think there is currently no need for new legislation in Canada. Canada has a well-developed body of legislation to deal with hate propaganda in the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Customs Act, the Immigration Act and in the Criminal Code, sections 318 to 320 in particular. These sections define how Canadians view the promotion of hate literature. They establish a balance between the protection of the rights of individuals and the need for society to protect itself against the destroying force of hate propaganda, the force that divides people from each other.

So I think Canadian courts and Canadian law have done fairly well in defining what we value in Canada. I think it’s such an extraordinary piece of legislation that we should promote this approach internationally, because it deals exactly with the conundrum of squaring the circle of individual rights and the rights of society and of minority groups to be protected from hatred. It’s precisely for this reason that I think Canada should promote this vision not only at home but abroad.

At home I think this committee might want to look at the kinds of public education efforts and partnerships that the federal government would have a role in supporting, either through departmental efforts, through the Commissioner of Human Rights, or other mechanisms. I think that is the main substance of what I have to say.

The Chair: Thank you very much.