Canada’s Liberal politicians are trying to revive a defeated censorship bill that critics argue threatens free speech.
Justice Minister Sean Fraser told The Canadian Press in June that, in addition to implementing new measures against deepfakes and child exploitation, he and his fellow Liberal members are revisiting online “harms” legislation that previously attracted widespread backlash, as reported by CBC.
The bill would criminalize speech that is arbitrarily deemed harmful, potentially including opinions with which the left-wing government disagrees. The legislation has been criticized for its authoritarian censorship tendencies, which remain a serious problem should the legislation be reintroduced.
Referring to generative AI, Fraser said, “We will have that in mind as we revisit the specifics of online harms legislation. The world changes and governments would be remiss if they didn't recognize that policy needs to shift.”
In a July 4 press statement, The Democracy Fund (TDF) warned that “the previous Bill C-63 sought to implement a regime of mass censorship.” The group’s litigation director added that it is “concerned that the government will try once more to give itself the power to criminalize and punish online speech and debate.”
Likewise, Toronto lawyer and political commentator Ari Goldkind mentioned the bill in a June 29 social media post replying to Piers Morgan’s criticism of the UK jailing a Tory politician’s wife Lucy Connolly and others over social media posts.
“Dear @piersmorgan,” Goldkind wrote. “It is and soon will be worse in Canada. At least Lucy and hundreds of others say something in your country. In Canada they stay extra quiet. While Canada burns. And our ‘Online Harms’ bill soon comes into play to destroy free speech entirely.”
Last year, MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider strongly condemned the bill, saying: “I have not seen this kind of thuggish speech control outside of North Korea and the old Soviet Union.” He added that then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was “bringing the nightmare of political dissidents in communist countries to a ‘democratic’ Western nation. Democrats in America have toyed with this same idea.”
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