If new legislation becomes law in Canada, citizens there could go to jail simply for exercising free speech against leftist dogma on social media platforms.
Sinopsis senior fellow Charles Burton described the “chilling effect” the proposed Canadian Online Harms Act could have on free speech on the Aug. 19 edition of The John Batchelor Show. While the parliamentary bill addresses child pornography and “revenge porn” online, it also requires social media platforms to “actively reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content on their services” and proposes prison sentences of up to life for free speech that subjectively qualifies as “disinformation” or is deemed harmful or hateful. The bill would result in government pressure on Big Tech to censor speech, according to Burton.
Burton told host Batchelor and his co-host — Fox News China expert Gordon Chang — that the bill “would create a new hate crime offense” for speech allegedly motivated by “hatred based on race, ethnic origin, color, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression” with a “maximum penalty of imprisonment for life.”
The Canadian government, continued Burton, “has gone outside of the normal legal channels to allow a timely enforcement through creating something called the Digital Safety Commission and the Digital Safety Ombudsman” for oversight. These Orwellian entities “would have enormous powers to investigate and coerce social media companies to act in a timely fashion to remove materials that this Digital Safety Commission, more or less on its own arbitrary basis, determines is unacceptable” online.
Dan Schneider, VP of MRC Free Speech America, reacted to the ominous report, “Prime Minister Trudeau and his Canadian government are inches away from making everyday speech a major crime if that speech diverges from Trudeau’s belief system. I have not seen this kind of thuggish speech control outside of North Korea and the old Soviet Union.” Schneider continued, “Trudeau is bringing the nightmare of political dissidents in communist countries to a ‘democratic’ Western nation. Democrats in America have toyed with this same idea. But a real possibility is that a Kamala Harris administration could actually extradite US citizens to Canada for any social media posts the Canadian authoritarians determine run counter to Trudeau’s policy goals.”
On the show, Burton cited an example of a narrative in Canada, one without evidence but produced by woke propagandists, that Catholic-government schools for indigenous children were engaging in “genocidal behavior.” He explained why this is illustrative of a harrowing potential effect of the Act:
“So if you challenge this narrative, you could be subject to life imprisonment. And there is further a ‘peace bond’ provision in the bill that if the Digital Safety Commission anticipates that someone might start to foment hatred or other acts unacceptable under this legislation, that they can be constrained about who they may communicate with, where they may go, and even be told that they couldn't drink alcohol or use any form of drugs during the period of this peace bond. And if you violate the peace bond, there's a prison sentence of a year.”
Such legislation “certainly has a very dampening effect on people,” even before it’s passed, Burton added. Canadians, including government officials, are becoming increasingly afraid to exercise free speech, he noted. This is true even though the Canadian Constitution was previously amended with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that, he said, “guarantees freedom of expression and the other freedoms that are very much similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights.”
Suppose, Burton posited, the Digital Safety Commission were to be composed of individuals who claim religious individuals’ objections to LGBTQ ideology are hateful. Could Canadians who affirm biological realities face “very serious consequences under this Act, as I say, up to life imprisonment”? Burton ended. It’s a truly ominous possibility.
In America, Judge Terry Doughty in the Murthy v. Missouri case determined that it is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration unlawfully and unconstitutionally colluded with and coerced Big Tech platforms to censor Biden’s political opponents, violating their constitutionally-protected free speech rights.
In the UK, meanwhile, multiple individuals have been sent to jail for supposedly “hateful” online posts. It seems Canada’s government is aiming for an even more extreme approach than either the UK or U.S., threatening Canadians who dare to have “divergent opinions that the leftists would define as fomenting hatred against certain groups,” as Burton said.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide an equal platform for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
