Yes, silencing people *is* the point. The moral scolds pushing this are the new manifestation of philistines, Puritans, Victorian church ladies - these schoolmarms are no longer coming from the religious right, but the progressive left. What's worse is that they don't view their quasi-religious ideology as such but merely as basic human decency and affirmation of "human rights". "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. " - CS Lewis
The Liberal Party is obsessed with censorship. This bill must not pass. In all my years, I am turning 74 in a month, there has been no government in Ottawa so utterly preoccupied with directing, controlling and muzzling free speech. These Liberals are not liberals.
I am not especially a Poilievre fan but I am counting on him to stop this authoritarian nonsense. He will get my vote as there really is no other choice.
I mean - that seems pretty innocuous in comparison. It at least makes sense that you don't want kids accessing porn. (Maybe parents should do a better job of knowing what their kids are doing and this wouldn't be such an issue..)
I agree that you don't want kids seeing this stuff but, as Matt Gurney said last week, you don't want to be giving some serious ID to a shady Romanian website. Not exactly something that someone who claims to want a free us from State interference would come up with.
Yeah, I suppose that’s a fair point. I won’t claim to know where those types of sites are operated out of. And I suppose no matter where they are, they’d be a hackers dream for black mail.
But I think it’s worth being clear that Pollievre didnt come up with that bill. And politics is tricky business sometimes I think. Guess time will tell. But I think the only worse option than another Trudeau term would be an ndp government.
Absolutely right and the examples are spot on. It's especially scary given the powers of our Human Rights commissions and the standards for guilt far below those of a court of law. (I recall that Jessica Yaniv who sued the immigrant women who refused to wax "her" balls lost the case not on its merits, which ought to have been obvious, but for being a "vexatious litigant." While still anonymous, Yaniv had had support from leading TRAs including the NDP's Morgane Oger.) This is especially a problem the way words like "hate", "viuolence" and "unsafe" have become unmoored from reality in academic/woke discourse.
don't forget all the fledgling at-home businesses run by immigrant women in BC.. Yaniv got plenty of settlements by this terrified group . By some estimates, he took a salary doing this for 2-3 years
Great article! Spot on the crux of the issue: who defines what "hatred" means? As it stands, this law is a tool to shutdown all criticism of government, especially one of thin skin like our current one.
Self censorship is one of the worst kinds of censorship - and I know because I've been forced to do it. When public opinion shifts like the wind and a reasonable comment can suddenly be presented as a horrible and hateful thing because someone lacks reading comprehension and takes a sentence out of context - that is an issue. Right now, I can sue someone for defamation or slander. But if they claim it's hate speech and then hide behind anonymity, how does someone protect themselves against lies and poor reading comprehension? They don't - they stay quiet. And do like I did for many years - developed safe circles, where everyone knew everyone's mind, and could speak freely when among like-minded people.
Guess what that creates? Bubbles and silos. Which are HORRIBLE for democracy because people start to believe that everyone must share the same beliefs because they are insulated from opposing beliefs in the bubbles they've created (by necessity.)
It sounds like this act is a threat to democracy in ways that the Liberal government is probably to obtuse to figure out.
I actually don’t buy into the dictatorship argument. We still have elections. (Yes people in the east really did vote for liberals. No I don’t for a minute believe our election process is corrupt. Though I am concerned about Chinese interference)
There are a lot of arguments made from people who don’t like policies but use their dislike of policies to say the government is acting like a dictator. Really, the Trudeau government is just far past its best before date and enough people were foolish enough to fall for his lies in the last election and vote for him. (Or to be manipulated by his fear tactics.)
There is much to criticize and much that needs to change - but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that we have a dictatorship because we have no reason to believe that Trudeau won’t hand parliament over to Pollievre when he loses at the next election.
Many, many of us already feel the chill and danger of expressing our thoughts on controversial topics.
It's all very well to preach to have the courage of our convictions but no-one should have to face jail time or fines for merely admitting to sympathy with an unpopular stance/idea/group.
The chilling effect of such legislation, and the absolute certainty that it will be used as a weapon against perfectly normal expressions of political thought demand it not be enacted. The best response to offensive or even hateful speech is more speech contradicting the hateful ideas. This is one area in which our American cousins wit their First Amendment rights provide a model for us in Canada.
It seems the Trudeau government is sorely lacking in knowledge of Canadian history as evidenced in their desire to recreate their own version of Quebec’s notorious “padlock law” which was tossed out by the Supreme Court. This time, they want to apply it to the entire country.
So far it has been mob sanctioned cancel culture. Soon it will be government sanctioned cancel culture. And we are also now treading towards Minority Report territory where the punishment precedes the possibility of the crime.
If this Bill passes in anywhere close to its current form, it's a significant step towards censorship and government imposed right-think. I would expect to be in jail within 5 years.
Canada, at least as it's now governed, seems determined to prove to other countries that "slippery slope" arguments are rooted in something other than paranoia (we're becoming Exhibit A on that front). That the federal government is wasting so much effort in pushing this bill, even as per-capita GDP drops year after year and food bank lines and homeless encampments swell, is telling re: its priorities.
It's not enough to attempt to legislate out of existence Canadians that don't live the right way, it now won't be satisfied until we all behave the right way. Who was demanding this? Where were these urgent, deafening calls for online censorship coming from? I didn't hear them. If only as much thought and effort was put towards economic growth and general prosperity in this country.
While I agree with another commenter that the 'dictator' word is tossed around too much these days, there's no denying that Trudeau and a select few of his ministers have autocratic tendencies - it's on display for all to see as they ram home draconian legislation no one asked for.
Canadians got a serious dose of self (or group) censorship during the heady days of the pandemic.
Remember the first instincts of the Liberal government when the risk of a global pandemic first became public knowledge? Anyone who questioned government motives regarding the Chinese angle of the story was buried under a pail of racist cold water. This stifled a genuine and badly needed discussion about air travel and travel restrictions that should happen in a mature society.
So, things started out bad and tapered off. Anyone waving scientific data around that ran counter to the “official narrative” and especially information that denounced the “following the science” crowd was ostracized. Ostracized by the government(s) and their agencies and the media. The media could always be relied upon to parrot the official line and find a talking head to ridicule anyone who bucked the storyline.
I can't believe how many people have forgotten that, at the start of the pandemic, Trudeau tried to give himself free reign for 18 months (or was it 2 years?)
We have been heading towards an Orwellian system for at least the last ten years with little negative reaction from Canadians. Few of us are prepared to speak up when we were told we were racist by our Prim Minister, we don't say anything when the Freedom rally supporters have their accounts frozen nor when a fire bomb is hurled at a symnagogue and we have a hard time speaking out about 'from the river to the sea' protests that target obvious Jewish neighbourhoods or buildings. We have been cowed by the woke agenda that divides people in to victims (most every group) and victimizer (mostly the white population). We sit while a small minority argue that parents don't have a right to know if their child identifies as (pick a gender). As soon as anyone stands up and questions any of the above he/she is immediately labelled as a biggot, a racist, a transfobe, a misoginist, a deplorable and so on.
One of these days the silent majority is going to stand up and start demanding a stop to all this regulation and 'othering'. Will this legislation be the catalyst?
Yes, silencing people *is* the point. The moral scolds pushing this are the new manifestation of philistines, Puritans, Victorian church ladies - these schoolmarms are no longer coming from the religious right, but the progressive left. What's worse is that they don't view their quasi-religious ideology as such but merely as basic human decency and affirmation of "human rights". "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. " - CS Lewis
The Liberal Party is obsessed with censorship. This bill must not pass. In all my years, I am turning 74 in a month, there has been no government in Ottawa so utterly preoccupied with directing, controlling and muzzling free speech. These Liberals are not liberals.
I am not especially a Poilievre fan but I am counting on him to stop this authoritarian nonsense. He will get my vote as there really is no other choice.
PP doesn't want you to be able to watch porn without putting in your driver's license or some kind of ID. Sadly, I don't trust any of these guys.
I mean - that seems pretty innocuous in comparison. It at least makes sense that you don't want kids accessing porn. (Maybe parents should do a better job of knowing what their kids are doing and this wouldn't be such an issue..)
I agree that you don't want kids seeing this stuff but, as Matt Gurney said last week, you don't want to be giving some serious ID to a shady Romanian website. Not exactly something that someone who claims to want a free us from State interference would come up with.
Yeah, I suppose that’s a fair point. I won’t claim to know where those types of sites are operated out of. And I suppose no matter where they are, they’d be a hackers dream for black mail.
But I think it’s worth being clear that Pollievre didnt come up with that bill. And politics is tricky business sometimes I think. Guess time will tell. But I think the only worse option than another Trudeau term would be an ndp government.
I understand he clarified that and is no longer calling for such.
Absolutely right and the examples are spot on. It's especially scary given the powers of our Human Rights commissions and the standards for guilt far below those of a court of law. (I recall that Jessica Yaniv who sued the immigrant women who refused to wax "her" balls lost the case not on its merits, which ought to have been obvious, but for being a "vexatious litigant." While still anonymous, Yaniv had had support from leading TRAs including the NDP's Morgane Oger.) This is especially a problem the way words like "hate", "viuolence" and "unsafe" have become unmoored from reality in academic/woke discourse.
don't forget all the fledgling at-home businesses run by immigrant women in BC.. Yaniv got plenty of settlements by this terrified group . By some estimates, he took a salary doing this for 2-3 years
Great article! Spot on the crux of the issue: who defines what "hatred" means? As it stands, this law is a tool to shutdown all criticism of government, especially one of thin skin like our current one.
Four legs good.
Two legs bad.
Am I in trouble yet?
Self censorship is one of the worst kinds of censorship - and I know because I've been forced to do it. When public opinion shifts like the wind and a reasonable comment can suddenly be presented as a horrible and hateful thing because someone lacks reading comprehension and takes a sentence out of context - that is an issue. Right now, I can sue someone for defamation or slander. But if they claim it's hate speech and then hide behind anonymity, how does someone protect themselves against lies and poor reading comprehension? They don't - they stay quiet. And do like I did for many years - developed safe circles, where everyone knew everyone's mind, and could speak freely when among like-minded people.
Guess what that creates? Bubbles and silos. Which are HORRIBLE for democracy because people start to believe that everyone must share the same beliefs because they are insulated from opposing beliefs in the bubbles they've created (by necessity.)
It sounds like this act is a threat to democracy in ways that the Liberal government is probably to obtuse to figure out.
I actually don’t buy into the dictatorship argument. We still have elections. (Yes people in the east really did vote for liberals. No I don’t for a minute believe our election process is corrupt. Though I am concerned about Chinese interference)
There are a lot of arguments made from people who don’t like policies but use their dislike of policies to say the government is acting like a dictator. Really, the Trudeau government is just far past its best before date and enough people were foolish enough to fall for his lies in the last election and vote for him. (Or to be manipulated by his fear tactics.)
There is much to criticize and much that needs to change - but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that we have a dictatorship because we have no reason to believe that Trudeau won’t hand parliament over to Pollievre when he loses at the next election.
Thankyou, Josh, for this article.
Many, many of us already feel the chill and danger of expressing our thoughts on controversial topics.
It's all very well to preach to have the courage of our convictions but no-one should have to face jail time or fines for merely admitting to sympathy with an unpopular stance/idea/group.
The chilling effect of such legislation, and the absolute certainty that it will be used as a weapon against perfectly normal expressions of political thought demand it not be enacted. The best response to offensive or even hateful speech is more speech contradicting the hateful ideas. This is one area in which our American cousins wit their First Amendment rights provide a model for us in Canada.
There goes the Enlightenment.
It seems the Trudeau government is sorely lacking in knowledge of Canadian history as evidenced in their desire to recreate their own version of Quebec’s notorious “padlock law” which was tossed out by the Supreme Court. This time, they want to apply it to the entire country.
So far it has been mob sanctioned cancel culture. Soon it will be government sanctioned cancel culture. And we are also now treading towards Minority Report territory where the punishment precedes the possibility of the crime.
Someone should explain to Trudeau that Orwell wrote 1984 to serve as a warning, not a how-to guide.
If this Bill passes in anywhere close to its current form, it's a significant step towards censorship and government imposed right-think. I would expect to be in jail within 5 years.
Canada, at least as it's now governed, seems determined to prove to other countries that "slippery slope" arguments are rooted in something other than paranoia (we're becoming Exhibit A on that front). That the federal government is wasting so much effort in pushing this bill, even as per-capita GDP drops year after year and food bank lines and homeless encampments swell, is telling re: its priorities.
It's not enough to attempt to legislate out of existence Canadians that don't live the right way, it now won't be satisfied until we all behave the right way. Who was demanding this? Where were these urgent, deafening calls for online censorship coming from? I didn't hear them. If only as much thought and effort was put towards economic growth and general prosperity in this country.
While I agree with another commenter that the 'dictator' word is tossed around too much these days, there's no denying that Trudeau and a select few of his ministers have autocratic tendencies - it's on display for all to see as they ram home draconian legislation no one asked for.
Canadians got a serious dose of self (or group) censorship during the heady days of the pandemic.
Remember the first instincts of the Liberal government when the risk of a global pandemic first became public knowledge? Anyone who questioned government motives regarding the Chinese angle of the story was buried under a pail of racist cold water. This stifled a genuine and badly needed discussion about air travel and travel restrictions that should happen in a mature society.
So, things started out bad and tapered off. Anyone waving scientific data around that ran counter to the “official narrative” and especially information that denounced the “following the science” crowd was ostracized. Ostracized by the government(s) and their agencies and the media. The media could always be relied upon to parrot the official line and find a talking head to ridicule anyone who bucked the storyline.
I can't believe how many people have forgotten that, at the start of the pandemic, Trudeau tried to give himself free reign for 18 months (or was it 2 years?)
Ya, that was a stinky power grab that even the NDP couldn’t handle.
We have been heading towards an Orwellian system for at least the last ten years with little negative reaction from Canadians. Few of us are prepared to speak up when we were told we were racist by our Prim Minister, we don't say anything when the Freedom rally supporters have their accounts frozen nor when a fire bomb is hurled at a symnagogue and we have a hard time speaking out about 'from the river to the sea' protests that target obvious Jewish neighbourhoods or buildings. We have been cowed by the woke agenda that divides people in to victims (most every group) and victimizer (mostly the white population). We sit while a small minority argue that parents don't have a right to know if their child identifies as (pick a gender). As soon as anyone stands up and questions any of the above he/she is immediately labelled as a biggot, a racist, a transfobe, a misoginist, a deplorable and so on.
One of these days the silent majority is going to stand up and start demanding a stop to all this regulation and 'othering'. Will this legislation be the catalyst?