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Toews urges pursuit of threats

OTTAWA, Ont. — Public Safety Minister Vic Toews acknowledges Parliament’s hands may be tied when it comes to dealing with online videos attacking him.

OTTAWA, Ont. — Public Safety Minister Vic Toews acknowledges Parliament’s hands may be tied when it comes to dealing with online videos attacking him.

But he urged MPs not to give up their pursuit of the issue, saying threats against them in the age of the Internet need to be examined.

Toews appeared before a House of Commons committee Tuesday examining whether his privilege as an MP was breached when online videos disclosed details of his personal life and called for his resignation.

The videos followed the introduction of an online surveillance bill that critics say gives authorities too much power to snoop into people’s online lives.

MPs are struggling with what exactly they should study, especially since they’re not sure they can track down the source of the videos, attributed to the activist group Anonymous.

At an earlier meeting, the clerk of the Commons suggested to MPs that attempting to hunt down the group may be a waste of time, given the fact it operates anonymously.

But Toews says they shouldn’t give up.

“I would hate to think that this committee would simply say this task seems so intimidating and so overwhelming that I don’t think there is anything we can do, let’s just call it a day,” he said.

“Let’s hear from the experts. ... At the end of the day, if all of the experts say nothing can be done, perhaps then we have our answer.”

Toews said that as a public figure, he expects his personal and political life to be under a microscope.

But he says the videos raise the broader question of protecting MPs from threats in the age of the Internet.

“The whole relationship of the responsibility of a member, the duties of a member and the utilization of the Internet in this type of fashion, I don’t think has ever been explored or discussed,” Toews said.

“I’m not in a position to be able to say this is what you should or should not do but very generally: is there any way that MPs can be protected from these type of threats and are there any steps that the House of Commons can take to better protect its members?”

But New Democrat MP Chris Charlton noted that the videos themselves weren’t a breach of security, as they were posted the public site YouTube.

“This wasn’t a hacking job, there was no breach of computer security here on the Hill,” she said.

“And so for the kinds of issues that I think we’re looking at here, remedies probably lie within the Criminal Code, perhaps with laws with respect to defamation.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the videos remained on YouTube and appear not to have been flagged as inappropriate, which would trigger the site to review them and possibly remove them if they violated any guidelines.

A spokesman for Toews said that because the issue has been referred to the RCMP, it wouldn’t be appropriate for him or his staff to contact YouTube.

An expert in parliamentary affairs who also testified Tuesday told MPs they needed to take the threats in context.

Queen’s University Prof. Ned Franks reminded MPs that the videos were posted after Toews rose in the Commons to suggest that people who weren’t in support of the new bill were on the side of child pornographers.

“The tone at the top as shown in the words and behaviours of MPs affects public respect for and trust in their Parliament and parliamentarians,” Franks told the committee.

“And in my view, I regret to say, the tone of the top has not been entirely high in this issue.

When pressed later as to whether he was suggesting the videos were justified, Franks demurred, saying only that he was there to talk about how to handle finding a breach of privilege.

He said there’s a fine line between something being offensive and actually causing harm, and it’s the latter that’s required in a case of privilege.