'Full-blown assault' on free expression: Inside the comprehensive Liberal bill to regulate the internet (Canada)

After more than 25 years of Canadian governments pursuing a hands-off approach to the online world, the government of Justin Trudeau is now pushing Bill C-10, a law that would see Canadians subjected to the most regulated internet in the free world.

Although pitched as a way to expand Canadian content provisions to the online sphere, the powers of Bill C-10 have expanded considerably in committee, including a provision introduced last week that could conceivably allow the federal government to order the deletion of any Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Twitter upload made by a Canadian. In comments this week, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh indicated his party was open to providing the votes needed to pass C-10, seeing the bill as a means to combat online hate.

The current state of the Canadian internet is far from a wild west: even an anonymous post can get you sued or imprisoned if it’s defamatory, infringes on copyright, violates Canadian hate speech laws or transmits illegal content such as child pornography. But Bill C-10 proposes to subject whole realms of the Canadian online world to content oversight from broadcast regulators, including podcasts, online videos and even the website on which you are currently reading this story.

Former CRTC commissioner Peter Menzies said in an interview that Bill C-10 “doesn’t just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a full-blown assault upon it and, through it, the foundations of democracy.”

Below, a look at what is fast becoming one of the most comprehensive peacetime attempts to redefine free expression in Canada.

Not that new, we’ve been working on this East Germany project for quite some time. Things are only slightly worse now under China-admiring Justin Trudeau than they were under the faux-libertarian Stephen Harper who revealed a hidden liking for meddling in free speech if it happened to involve criticism of Himself.

That takes us back to 2006 when the internet was relatively young. We haven’t had a very good track record on free speech and it’s because the Charter of Rights has wording that allows courts to minimize individual freedoms at the expense of any perceived greater good such as freedom from taking offense or having hurt feelings. Court cases have shown this on a number of occasions with only weak push back from the libertarian side of the legal complexity (although to be fair, some balance has been restored).

The situation “up here” is a bit different from “down there” because of the different wording of the First Amendment when compared to the Charter, but otherwise, it is essentially the same, you are free to voice any opinion so long as that doesn’t create harm. The “shouting fire in a crowded theater” paradigm is applicable in both cases.

And in reality, if lawfare is designed to punish unacceptable speech, then guarantees of freedom of speech mean little, if people are either intimidated into silence or punished disproportionately after the fact without any direct reference to free speech issues (as seems to be the case for various Trump associates).

If they ever write history books about this era, they will be sure to note that Canada, among the Western Civilization nations, fell first, thanks to the public being well trained in submission and dependence on government.

The books will note that the Canadians willingly submitted to increasingly overpowering usurpation of power by her imperial Majesty, Justin Trudeau.

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