Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani said Friday he is open to amending the government’s long-awaited legislation aimed at protecting Canadians from online harm, but the Opposition Conservatives say the Liberals should move faster by modernizing existing laws.
Villani defended the Online Harms Act on the House floor on Friday for the first time since introducing the bill in February.
Since then, legal and privacy experts and civil society advocates have expressed concern about the potential for restricting free speech.
The bill would impose tougher penalties on hate-related crimes. It would allow punishment of up to life in prison for those who advocate genocide and give judges the power to restrict a person’s actions if there is evidence that they may be committing a hate crime.
The bill also establishes new ways for Canadians to file human rights complaints related to hate speech.
“Canadians should not have their protected speech rights stifled or restricted in order to stay safe online,” said Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner.
Villani defended the measures by stressing that online hate has “real-world consequences” but said he was also open to suggestions from opposition parties.
Some advocates have suggested the government should split the controversial changes to the Criminal Code and Human Rights Act into separate bills and ensure that the Online Harms Act only deals with online content – an idea rejected by Villani.
“I want to be very clear about the Online Harms Act and what it will not do,” he said in a speech on Friday.
“This does not undermine free speech; it strengthens it by making it safe for everyone to take part in online debate.”
The government plans to achieve this by requiring companies to submit safety plans to a new Digital Safety Commission outlining how they will mitigate the risk of exposing users to seven types of dangerous content.
These include child sexual abuse imagery, intimate images shared without consent, and material that can be used to bully children or encourage self-harm.
The commission can act on complaints and impose heavy fines on platforms that don’t comply.
“For too long, the profits of the platforms have been put above the safety of their users,” Villani said.
“Self-regulation has failed to keep children safe. Tragic stories have become all too common.”
The minister cited the story of Amanda Todd, a 15-year-old from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, who committed suicide in 2012 after being harassed and bullied by online predators in the Netherlands.
Rempel Garner said it’s important Canadians are protected from online harms like “deep fakes” generated by artificial intelligence, and she blamed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for inaction after nearly a decade in power.
She suggested the Liberals could move faster by expanding and updating the country’s existing laws and regulations to ensure they apply to the dangers of the digital world.
“The important thing is that we can come to an agreement here on a simple modernization issue that updates the law now,” Rempel Garner said.
For example, she said lawmakers could easily legislate to create digital restraining orders for victims of online harassment.
In addition to setting up a new Digital Safety Commission, the government also plans to create a new Digital Safety Authority and a Canadian Digital Safety Ombudsman where users and victims can raise concerns.
Rempel Garner said she has asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the costs of setting up a new bureaucracy.
She called the bill “completely flawed” and said it “should be scrapped.”
Meanwhile, New Democratic Party MP Peter Julian criticised the government for being slow to introduce the bill in the first place, when it was first promised years ago.
He was concerned that there was no mention of transparency about the algorithms the companies use, which he said could leave users more vulnerable to online hate and other dangers.