(Ottawa) The Bloc Québécois urges the federal government to legislate to eliminate hate speech that abounds on social networks. MPs Andréane Larouche and Martin Champoux joined their voices to that of the filmmakers of the shocking documentary I salute you bitch, Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist.
“On the eve of International Women’s Day, we, the 30,000 signatories of the Stop Cyberviolence petition, call on the government of Justin Trudeau to take responsibility,” said Ms.me Maroist at a press conference Monday in the federal capital.
The petition to which she refers was presented to the National Assembly in December with the support of the three opposition parties. The two directors notably asked the Legault government to table a motion to put pressure on Ottawa so that it legislates to force the platforms to moderate the content published on their sites.
“We demand that the Government of Canada pass legislation to force social networks to remove hateful and criminal content or face a stiff fine,” said Ms.me Maroist.
A similar petition is underway to eventually be tabled in the Federal Parliament. The Liberals had promised during the election campaign to pass, within the first 100 days of their new mandate, a law to combat hate speech online to make social networks responsible for the content they host.
The bill is still being drafted, said Laura Scaffidi, the press secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez. The government held a series of consultations on the subject in 2021. She indicated that it will be different from Bill C-36 tabled on the last day of parliamentary business in June 2021. It had died on the order paper after the outbreak of the election campaign.
“We are also late compared to many European countries and that is why we are urging the government to act,” lamented Bloc Québécois MP Andréanne Larouche.
In their documentary, the two filmmakers denounce the phenomenon of online cyberviolence against women. Many women who participate in public debates are victims of this, but have little recourse. I salute you bitch came out in the middle of the Quebec election campaign last fall during which several elected officials were threatened, such as Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy.
On the federal scene, the security of ex-minister Catherine McKenna had to be enhanced during the 2019 election campaign after she was insulted while she was at the cinema with her children. Last August, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was verbally assaulted by a man who later shared the video on social media.
According to a BBC investigation published on Monday, the social network Twitter is no longer able to protect its users from online harassment, misinformation and sexual exploitation of children since the layoffs carried out by billionaire Elon Musk , which acquired it in October.