Québec solidaire says the province should follow in New Zealand’s footsteps and create a front-line service to curb cyberviolence and help victims.
The service, which the party says it plans to implement if elected, would receive reports from victims and intervene “directly with perpetrators of violent behaviour.”
The proposal was inspired by New Zealand, which in 2015 passed a law aimed at “deterring, preventing and mitigating harm caused to individuals through digital communications.”
The country now has an agency, NetSafe, dedicated to enforcing the law.
It boasts resolving more than 97 per cent of cyberbullying cases in less than 15 days in its 2024-2025 fiscal year.
According to Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Ruba Ghazal, concrete action must be taken to counter the rise of online hate and the increased presence of misogynistic discourse on the web.
“No one is immune to cyberviolence,” Ghazal said in a statement released Thursday.
“It’s a scourge that affects young people, but also adults, and particularly women, with masculinist discourse coming to us from the United States. We cannot sit idly by.”
Québec solidaire says its government would also create legislation allowing judges to issue orders quickly to stop problematic online behaviour.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
