Thank you.

I want to start by thanking the committee for the opportunity to speak today. It is certainly a privilege that I never thought would be afforded to me as a former extremist. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

I would like to provide a bit more context about who I am and how my views about online hate have been informed.

In the early nineties, I was a member of and spokesperson for the extremist group the Heritage Front, which at the time was the largest hate group in Canada. They acted as an umbrella organization for the racist right at the time. They brought in the Church of the Creator and the KKK, among other organizations. Most troubling, they were trying to do what the so-called alt-right is trying to do today, which is to make inroads into the mainstream and to try to have a veneer of legitimacy on top of the hatred.

I should add that Wolfgang Droege, who was the leader of the Heritage Front, was convicted of many offences prior to starting the organization, including air piracy, the attempt to overthrow a friendly nation and drug offences, which I believe included possession. He managed to influence people, despite this veneer of wanting to be more mainstream and trying to make connections with the Reform Party. His followers committed a wide array of offences of their own, which included hate crimes offences, assault, and targeted and unrelenting harassment of anti-racists.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to leave that terrible world of hatred behind. Since 1995, I've been working with non-profits, educators and law enforcement to raise awareness about the dangers of hate groups. I'm currently on the advisory boards for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and Parents for Peace, which is an American organization that provides support for families of radicalized individuals.

Back in the nineties, when I was an extremist myself, I quite literally communicated hate by telephone. Also, prior to leaving, I helped prepare materials for the Internet. They were back-issue articles from the Heritage Front's magazine and they ended up posted on what would become Freedom-Site, which was one of Canada's first white supremacist websites. That website, which was run by Mark Lemire, in 2006 was found to contain material that violated section 13 of the Human Rights Act.

I feel fortunate that I never personally got in trouble with the law, but I do realize that it was a very real possibility. I understand that a sample size of one has limited value, but I should say that section 13 did moderate my behaviour. When I was working on the hotline, I was very aware of the fact that friends who were working on hotlines very similar to the Heritage Front hotlines were facing charges under section 13, and it made me more careful. I did not engage in or indulge the unrestrained hatred that I certainly felt inside. I do understand, with the benefit of hindsight, that what I was communicating was still hateful, but it was definitely not as hateful as it would have been in the absence of such legislation.

The methods that are used today to communicate hatred are definitely more sophisticated and exceptionally more accessible than what we had available to us in the nineties. As an analog kid, I have to say that it frightens me that young people today could have their life trajectories altered by watching one YouTube video or interacting with one Twitter account or one Reddit account.

Racist extremists have always networked with like-minded individuals across borders in other countries, but we now have an environment where the transmission of hate knows no borders or language barriers—or even time differences, frankly.

To fully understand what is at stake, I think it's imperative to consider not just the words and images that are put in front of you but the emotions that created those words. Hatred is intoxicating, it's all-consuming and, in my opinion, it's a contagion that when embraced crowds out not only other moderating emotions but also any sense of reason and connection to one's fellow human beings.

I want to read a quote from R. v. Keegstra from the Supreme Court in 1990. Hatred is:

emotion of an intense and extreme nature that is clearly associated with vilification and detestation...

Hatred...against identifiable groups...thrives on insensitivity, bigotry and destruction of both the target group and of the values of our society. Hatred...is...an emotion that, if exercised against members of an identifiable group, implies that those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill-treatment on the basis of group affiliation.

...hate propaganda legislation and trials are a means by which the values beneficial to a free and democratic society can be publicized.

With more people being exposed to hateful ideas and emotions than ever before through social media and online content, and with the very troubling rise of hate-motivated crime in Canada, I'm quite heartened that the government is revisiting the inclusion of incitement of hatred in either the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Criminal Code.

The introduction of Canada's digital charter shows promise in developing a thoughtful and measured template for how Canadians can expect to be treated as digital innovation continues to expand. However, I wish to challenge the committee to consider that the government's responsibility to Canadians should not end with the adoption of these measures. Unless effective and ongoing training is provided to everyone responsible for implementing these laws, including judges, Crown prosecutors and police, victims will continue to feel that they are not heard and that justice remains elusive.

As an example, just last week I heard from a member of my local community who wanted to report anti-Semitic graffiti that they found. The responding officer was not at all sympathetic, and because the swastika that was found was misshapen, he wrote it off as a collection of L's. That is not a responsible response to the community.

Speaking as a former extremist and as a woman and a mother who is raising a child in an interfaith Jewish-Christian family, I think Canadians urgently need you to respond boldly and to lead us into an era in which we can expect that our children will be treated with respect and dignity, both online and in the real world. I think we also have a responsibility to the international community to do what we can to limit hatred that may impact identifiable groups in other nations because, as I said, borders mean nothing in the digital world. It is unfortunately no accident that the Christchurch shooter had Alexandre Bissonnette's name on one of his weapons.

The endgame of hatred is always violence and death, and that game starts with incitement, words and images that we find on the Internet.

The introduction of legislation to address the early stages in the progression of hate is both right and necessary. Canada's values of peace, diversity and inclusion are being eroded by the unrelenting promotion and communication of hate online. It is time, if not past time, to send a strong message to racist extremists that their hatred and targeting of identifiable groups is not just unacceptable but unlawful.

As I stated earlier, I have experienced first-hand the moderating effects of such laws and regulations. I think it's time that we do the right thing to rein extremists in before anyone gets hurt or loses their life.

I would add, if I have a moment, very briefly in response to what the earlier speakers had mentioned, that when it comes to reporting online hate, I think platforms need to have more transparency when they respond to people. I have experienced myself being targeted as a former extremist online and receiving hatred, and when I report it, if I get any response back at all, it is, “We have found that they did not violate terms of service” or “We have found that they have violated terms of service”, but there's no additional information to say in what ways they've precisely violated terms of service. There is no mention of what measures have been taken, whether the account has been suspended or whether that suspension is temporary or permanent. I think online platforms owe it to the people who are victims to have more transparency in what they are doing and in saying whether this account is going to be monitored, going forward, for any additional infractions.

Thank you very much for your time today.

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