Even in mul­ti­cul­tural Canada, from time to time ex­trem­ist white su­premacy views dis­turb the so­cial cli­mate of the coun­try, es­pe­cially tar­get­ing Sikhs, Mus­lims, Jews and oth­ers.  WSO tes­ti­fies be­fore the Jus­tice Com­mit­tee of the House of Com­mons of Canada urg­ing gov­ern­men­tal in­ter­ven­tion when things go out of hand.

Tak­ing their role se­ri­ously as the watch­dog and cham­pion of Sikh rights as well as mi­nor­ity rights and rec­og­niz­ing that en­gag­ing with the gov­ern­ment can be key to achieve the de­sired re­sults, the World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada Pres­i­dent, Mukhbir Singh tes­ti­fied yes­ter­day be­fore the House of Com­mons Jus­tice Com­mit­tee on the is­sue of on­line hate and called upon the gov­ern­ment to play its role in coun­ter­ing its pro­lif­er­a­tion.

Since the last few years, the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada and other or­ga­ni­za­tions have been urg­ing the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment to frame a strat­egy to counter on­line ha­tred which is as­sum­ing gi­gan­tic pro­por­tions world­wide. Canada has wit­nessed a steep rise in po­lice-re­ported hate crimes.

In his tes­ti­mony, Mukhbir Singh ac­knowl­edged that “un­for­tu­nately, in­stances of ha­tred and vi­o­lence are not new for the Sikh com­mu­nity… mi­nor­ity sta­tus com­bined with an out­ward iden­tity which is in­tended to stand out has of­ten made Sikhs a tar­get by those mo­ti­vated by hate and in­tol­er­ance.”

Mukhbir Singh made ref­er­ence to the ar­rest last week of an in­di­vid­ual for ‘pub­lic in­cite­ment of ha­tred’ fol­low­ing a Face­book com­ment in re­sponse to a news story about the record-break­ing num­ber of peo­ple who at­tended the Sur­rey Vaisakhi pa­rade. The in­di­vid­ual who was charged had com­mented that the fail­ure to place a pres­sure cooker bomb at the pa­rade was a “lost op­por­tu­nity”.

The vast and un­par­al­leled reach of In­ter­net has brought in its wake a new rigour of un­lim­ited free­dom and the need for ser­vice providers and gov­ern­men­tal au­thor­i­ties to re­strict the reach and con­tent from time to time.  In its sub­mis­sions, the WSO rec­og­nized that all in­di­vid­u­als have the right to ex­er­cise their free­dom of ex­pres­sion, how­ever in in­stances where ex­pres­sion may be used to threaten the most mar­gin­al­ized mem­bers of our so­ci­ety, namely women, youth and mi­nori­ties, ac­tion must be taken.

“The pro­lif­er­a­tion of on­line hate and the link to ac­tual at­tacks is wor­ri­some and Canada must act to counter this threat with a mean­ing­ful and ef­fec­tive strat­egy. “

Mukhbir Singh, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada

Mukhbir Singh said, “The pro­lif­er­a­tion of on­line hate and the link to ac­tual at­tacks is wor­ri­some and Canada must act to counter this threat with a mean­ing­ful and ef­fec­tive strat­egy.  We hope that through co­op­er­a­tion with so­cial me­dia providers and gov­ern­ment agen­cies as well as in­creased di­a­logue and en­gage­ment, the dan­ger on­line hate poses to vul­ner­a­ble groups can be mit­i­gated.”

Canada has to act on its com­mit­ment on the sub­ject made to the world com­mu­nity. On 5 April, Ralph Goodale –the Cana­dian Min­is­ter for Pub­lic Safety, sub­mit­ted to the G7 In­te­rior Min­is­ters Meet­ing in Paris that, “First, ob­vi­ously im­pacted by the hor­rific re­cent at­tacks on vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple at prayer in Mosques in New Zealand, the G7 are very alert, col­lec­tively and in­di­vid­u­ally, to the threats posed by ul­tra right-wing, neo-Nazi, white su­prema­cist vi­o­lent ex­trem­ism.  What­ever its source or ori­en­ta­tion, ex­trem­ism and hate lead­ing to vi­o­lence threat­ens our safety and se­cu­rity, and we must take it all se­ri­ously.”

He fur­ther added, “Surely that is the painful mes­sage from Christchurch – and ear­lier from Pitts­burgh, and in Canada from Yonge Street in Toronto and Ste Foy, Que­bec, and from Monc­ton, May­erthorpe, Daw­son Col­lege and Ecole Poly­tech­nique.  In each of these tragedies, de­praved ex­trem­ism and hate snuffed out in­no­cent lives.” It is in­deed time to fol­low up on this promise for one and all, as he fur­ther said in the G7 sub­mis­sion, “Canada will con­tinue to work with its al­lies to en­sure our safety and pro­tect our rights.”

The World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion Pro­posal on on­line hate to Jus­tice Com­mit­tee, House of Com­mons of Canada

WSO pro­posed that:

• The gov­ern­ment of Canada must con­sult with com­mu­nity stake­hold­ers as well as so­cial me­dia providers re­spond to the threat of on­line.
• The es­tab­lish­ment of uni­form, na­tional guide­lines and stan­dards for the col­lec­tion and han­dling of hate crime and hate in­ci­dent data in Canada.
• Penal­ties should be im­posed on com­pa­nies which fail to prop­erly ap­ply laws re­gard­ing the re­moval of hate­ful con­tent.
• Train­ing and sup­port to law en­force­ment, provin­cial at­tor­ney gen­er­als and pros­e­cu­tors to use the tools avail­able to them un­der the Crim­i­nal Code such as Sec­tion 320.1. This sec­tion has not been used very of­ten to date.
• Pro­mo­tion of di­a­logue and en­gage­ment be­tween com­mu­ni­ties. Of­ten hate is borne out of ig­no­rance or mis­un­der­stand­ing and this may be pre­vented through com­mu­nity en­gage­ment and out­reach.
• The gov­ern­ment must en­gage with com­mu­nity or­ga­ni­za­tions to hear their con­cerns about what they are see­ing on the ground. [/​alert]