Senate committee calls for national strategy on cyberbullying

OTTAWA – A Senate committee has released a set of recommendations for establishing a national strategy on cyberbullying, which follows some high-profile suicides of young people in recent years after enduring harassment over the Internet.

The Senate’s standing committee on human rights is calling on the federal government to work with provincial and territorial governments on a co-ordinated campaign against cyberbullying. It says such an initiative would be in accordance with Canada’s obligations under the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires that governments take all reasonable measures possible to protect children from mental and physical violence.

Such an effort, the report says, should be developed in consultation with children, promote awareness of cyberbullying and the programs available to children and parents, ensure programs are available in every region of the country, and develop consistent messaging on cyberbullying and other inappropriate use of information technology.

The committee recommended that education about human rights and “digital citizenship” be a key part of such a strategy, as well as an emphasis on “restorative justice,” which is about focusing on the needs of the victim and offender in a given situation, as opposed to a preoccupation with punishment.

The report also recommends the federal government look at ways to work with “industry stakeholders” in order to monitor and remove material that would be deemed as cyberbullying.

The Senate commit also recommended research be undertaken to better understand cyberbullying and the social and emotional effects information technology has on the development of young people.

These recommendations come following the high-profile suicides of young people who were cyberbullied, including 15-year old Amanda Todd of Port Coquitlam, B.C., in October of this year, and Ottawa’s Jamie Hubley, of the same age, about a year before that.

In a guide for youth the committee released in conjunction with its recommendations, it included a statement from a student named Mariel Calvo from Springbank Middle School in Calgary that said: “The biggest difference between being bullied while in the classroom or playground, and being cyberbullied is that we can be targets of cyberbullying 24/7, and that makes you feel as if there is no safe place. Whenever you are at school or home, everywhere you go, you can be a target of this.”