Trudeau gov’t set to introduce another internet regulation bill this week
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop more online censorship laws
OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is introducing its “online harms” legislation this week, spurring fears that this may mean the revival of parts of a lapsed bill from 2021 which looked to target free speech by banning certain legal internet content.
The new bill, by Liberal Justice Minister Arif Virani, was posted on the House of Commons notice paper for February 26, 2024, and will soon be read in Parliament.
The Online Harms Act will modify existing laws, amending the Criminal Code as well as the Canadian Human Rights Act, in what the Trudeau Liberals claim will target certain cases of internet content removal, notably those involving child sexual abuse and pornography.
The new bill will also create an ombudsperson who will be charged with dealing with public complaints regarding online content, as well as put forth a regulatory function that will be charged with monitoring internet platform behaviors.
While the Trudeau government claims the bill is being created to protect kids, Conservative Party of Canada head Pierre Poilievre said that the federal government is looking for clever ways to enact internet censorship laws.
During a February 21 press conference, Poilievre said that Trudeau is looking to, in effect, criminalize speech he does not like.
“What does Justin Trudeau mean when he says the word ‘hate speech?’ He means speech he hates,” said Poilievre.
Virani had many times last year hinted that a new Online Harms Act bill would be forthcoming in 2024.
Of important note is that the new Online Harms Act looks to amend Canada’s Human Rights Act, to put back in place a hate speech provision, specifically, Section 13 of the Act, which the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper had repealed in 2013.
Many fear that the new bill will be similar to the failed June 2021 bill introduced by then-Justice Minister David Lametti. Lametti had introduced Bill 36, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act and to make related amendments to another Act (hate propaganda, hate crimes and hate speech),” which was blasted as a controversial “hate speech” law that would give police the power to “do something” about online “hate.”
It was feared that if passed, it would target bloggers and social media users for speaking their minds.
Bill C-36 included text to amend Canada’s Criminal Code and Human Rights Act to define “hatred” as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than dislike or disdain (haine).”
If passed, the bill would have theoretically allow a tribunal to judge anyone who has a complaint of online “hate” leveled against them, even if he has not committed a crime. If found guilty, the person would have been in violation of the new law and could have faced fines of up to $70,000 as well as house arrest.
Two other Trudeau bills dealing with freedom as it relates to the internet have become law, the first being Bill C-11, or the Online Streaming Act, which mandates that Canada’s broadcast regulator the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) oversee regulating online content on platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure that such platforms are promoting content in accordance with a variety of its guidelines.
Trudeau’s other internet censorship law, the Online News Act, was passed by the Senate in June of last year.
The Online News Act mandated that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has blocked all access to news content in Canada.
Critics of Trudeau’s recent laws, such as tech mogul Elon Musk, have said it shows that “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada.”
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop more online censorship laws
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trudeau-govt-set-to-introduce-another-internet-regulation-bill-this-week/?utm_source=digest-canadian-2024-02-28&utm_medium=email
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