“We are worried: we are witnessing a decline in women’s rights. Today, cyberviolence is reaching unprecedented levels and all the studies show it: women are the first target. »
It is with these words that Guylaine Maroist, co-director of the shocking documentary I salute you bitchshowed up Monday in Ottawa, alongside two Bloc MPs, to ask the Trudeau government to move forward with its bill to counter online hate.
As International Women’s Day approaches, Wednesday, March 8, Bloc Quebecois Andréanne Larouche reminded us that female parliamentarians are particularly targeted by online hate. “It goes as far as death threats which have an impact on their mental health. They feel threatened and, obviously, that discourages a lot of women as well from wanting to continue running in politics,” she said.
Freedom of expression and democracy
Along the same lines, Guylaine Maroist argued that these are questions of freedom of expression and, ultimately, of democratic representation.
“In fear of being attacked, more and more women are self-censoring, keeping silent and giving up their right to speak. »
“Their fear is more than legitimate, but when women withdraw from journalism, from politics, when they leave the public arena, we are witnessing a frightening setback in women’s rights. We have to face the facts, the stakes are democratic. »
Virulent misogyny
Mme Maroist did not try to sweeten the pill by describing the situation.
“A more virulent misogyny than ever invades the screens: harassment, denigration, lynching, sextortion, dissemination of intimate photographs, rape threats, death threats. These serious acts, which affect thousands of women and girls in Canada, remain, in the vast majority of cases, unpunished,” she lamented.
And this is where Ottawa must act, since “the giants of the Web close their eyes and reap profits generated by the proliferation of hatred”.
It is strong from the petition “Stop cyberviolence”, which has amassed nearly 30,000 signatures, that Mme Maroist, on behalf of all signatories, calls on Justin Trudeau to stop tweeting and taking action. “What are you going to do to protect the women?” How many attackers are going to take action before you do? Women’s freedom of expression and safety are under threat. »
Fines of 50 million
The petition calls for the adoption of a strong law forcing the giants of the Web and their social networks to remove hateful and criminal content under penalty of heavy fines of up to 50 million dollars, an amount modeled on that imposed in Germany.
Canada is also “behind many other countries,” argued MP Larouche.
His colleague Martin Champoux recalled that “this bill has been in the small boxes for years. It is time for it to come out, it is time for it to be tabled and for us to be able to debate it. It’s going to be a long debate because I think it’s going to touch a lot of sensibilities.
There is no doubt that this is a complex issue for a minority government to tackle. Even if such a bill will most likely be supported by the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party, Justin Trudeau knows that it will be quite different for the Conservative Party. For elected Conservatives, paradoxically, any government intervention on online content is an attack on freedom of expression, the very freedom that women want to protect by freeing themselves from the threat that hangs over each of their interventions.