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).
Hey Canada wake up! Chinese military troop exercises on your soil not doing it?