Trudeau's plan to censor Internet “hate speech” just started a trade war
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
153.79732
Summary
Justin Trudeau's to-do list for Stephen Gilbeau, the anti-Trump environmental extremist, includes a call for more censorship of the internet, which is illegal under the USMCA, the new trade deal with the United States.
Transcript
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Hi Rebels, today I take you through a mandate letter that's a to-do list given from Justin
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Trudeau to his heritage minister, Stephen Gilbeau. And high up on that to-do list is a call for more
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censorship of the internet. Now that's a bad idea, but it's actually illegal to under the USMCA.
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That's the NAFTA deal. I'll take you through the law. Hey, before I do, let me invite you to become
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a premium subscriber. It's eight bucks a month. You get the video version of this podcast,
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plus two other shows a week, Sheila Gunn-Reed's show and David Menzies' show.
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You can sign up at premium.rebelnews.com. Okay, here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, Justin Trudeau announces his plans to censor the internet. And he probably doesn't
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know it, but he's just started a trade war. It's December 16th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Last week, Justin Trudeau published the mandate letters for his cabinet ministers. Those are
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basically their to-do lists. It's giving them their marching orders. Now, most of these documents,
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since they're released publicly, read like liberal campaign pamphlets. Vague, self-congratulatory
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talking points that are obviously just propaganda. But there are some actual real things in there,
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and today I want to focus on the mandate letter for one cabinet minister, the heritage minister.
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His name is Stephen Gilbeau, and he's an environmental extremist. He used to run a far-left
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anti-oil sands lobby group called Equiterre. He sort of styled himself as the David Suzuki of Quebec.
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I think Trudeau showed a little bit of restraint by not appointing him as environment minister,
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and judging by the literally hundreds of anti-Trump tweets that Gilbeau has written over the past few
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years, there are hundreds. Let's hope Trudeau keeps Gilbeau far away from the United States
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and their diplomats. I mean, there's so many of them calling Trump racist, calling Trump sexist,
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calling Trump a criminal, lusting for Trump to be impeached. This is being said by a Canadian cabinet
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minister. Had a conservative candidate said anything like that about, I don't know, Barack Obama when
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he was president, the media would have made it a national and international scandal. But the media
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party agrees with Gilbeau on Trump, so they didn't cover it. And if they did, they'd probably say it
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was a sign of his good judgment. Anyways, here's my news today. If you look at Gilbeau's mandate letter
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as heritage minister, it's absolutely 100% guaranteed to put this anti-American, anti-Trump extremist
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on a collision course with the United States, because it absolutely 100% guaranteed violates the
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new USMCA, the renegotiated version of NAFTA that looks like it'll soon be ratified. Here, take a look.
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Here's what most of it is, the unreadable grade school level baffle gab that was probably written
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by Trudeau himself. It starts this way. Dear Mr. Gilbeau, thank you for agreeing to serve Canadians
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as Minister of Canadian Heritage. On election day, Canadians chose to continue moving forward
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from coast to coast to coast. People chose to invest in their families and communities,
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create good middle-class jobs, and fight climate change while keeping our economy strong and growing.
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Believe me, it goes on like that. But let me skip past the boilerplate. Do you see these little
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bullet points, these point form items? Those are the official government priorities for the
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heritage minister. Stephen Gilbeau, the Trump hater, that's his to-do list. There are 23 of those to-do
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list items. The top one is this. Work with all cultural and creative sectors on the successful
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delivery of initiatives and new funding announced in previous budgets. Now, that's not really a thing.
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It just means, hey, we've promised to give away corporate welfare, including, by the way,
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$1.5 billion to the CBC and $600 million to the newspaper bailout. So the actual number one top
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priority that Trudeau wants Gilbeau to do is to pay off the media and the celebrities. That's number one.
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I'm not even sure if that needed to be said. It's so obvious for a liberal. And believe me,
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every can-con charity case, every loser at the CBC who can't cut it in the private sector,
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every failing newspaper boss who wants a bailout, oh, they would remind Gilbeau to deliver the funding.
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Pretty sure Gilbeau didn't need Trudeau to remind him. But look at the second point out of the 23.
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This is the second priority. Create new regulations for social media platforms,
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starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech,
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within 24 hours or face significant penalties. This should include other online harms such as
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radicalization, incitement to violence, exploitation of children, or creation or distribution of terrorist
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propaganda. Now, we already have criminal code provisions against distributing terrorist propaganda.
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For example, after 9-11, Canada's criminal code was beefed up with lots of new anti-terrorism laws.
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Anyone who promotes a terrorist group, who assists a terrorist group, even who plans to go overseas to
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join terrorist groups, that's all a crime now. Has been for almost 20 years. You don't actually have
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to prove that a terrorist killed someone in Iraq or anything like that. They just have to
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try to go there or give some sort of help. That's how easy it is to prosecute an ISIS terrorist,
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certainly those who have come back to Canada. And yet Trudeau hasn't prosecuted a single one.
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The opposite, actually. He says we have to listen to their wisdom.
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I think it's now that in Syria and Iraq, they've been declared defeated. There is a question of them
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coming back to this country. And you can't possibly monitor all of them, can you?
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Yes, we have security agencies that are engaged on this file very much. But there's also a lot of
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community outreach going on. We know that actually someone who has engaged and turned away from that
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hateful ideology can be an extraordinarily powerful voice.
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Got it. So we have all of these criminal code provisions against terrorists that have never been used.
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And dozens of terrorists have actually come back to Canada, including an al-Qaeda terrorist named
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Omar Khadr that Trudeau gave 10.5 million of our dollars to and a public apology. So he won't use the criminal code,
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but he now thinks Facebook and YouTube and Twitter have to deal with the problem he won't.
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You know, it was actually Trudeau's own CBC state broadcaster that had a propaganda moment for
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Cotter. Look at them giving a champagne and disco festive welcome, a standing ovation to the terrorists.
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Look at that. That was on the CBC. So gross. But YouTube and social media is apparently the problem for
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Trudeau. My point on the real crimes, the terrorism, the child pornography, the incitement of violence,
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that's already covered by the criminal code. Trudeau and his prosecutors just choose not to enforce
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those criminal code provisions. But what about the first part there? Create new regulations for
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social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content,
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including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties.
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So that's not for crimes. I mean, hate speech is not a crime. There is a provision in our criminal code
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called public incitement of hatred. But that has to lead to a breach of the peace. It has to actually
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incite something or likely to cause a breach of the peace. There's another provision for willful
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promotion of hatred. But it's a very specific crime with a very specific meaning and with specific
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defenses. Look at the defenses. For example, you're not guilty of what you say is true or if it's part
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of a bona fide religious debate or a debate about a public issue. And finally, it's such a rare and
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careful prosecution, this hate propaganda, that the attorney general himself has to personally sign off
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on any prosecutions because the law recognizes how dangerous it is to put a man's opinions on trial.
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So I say again, all of the crimes that Trudeau wants to tackle, they're in the criminal code now.
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If the government really wants to prosecute someone for hate speech, they have to prove a lot of things
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beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant has all sorts of legal offenses, and none of that happens
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without the decision of the attorney general, it's so rare and it ought to be. But now Trudeau wants
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hate speech, which he's not defining, but it's obviously different than what's in the criminal code.
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Trudeau wants hate speech to be adjudicated within 24 hours by companies? What? Yeah, let me read this a
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third time. Create new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all
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platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties.
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So it's not a new rule that targets a thought criminal himself. It's a new rule that targets
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social media companies. So this would not throw a hater in jail or anything. It just roughs up companies,
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and it requires those companies to remove illegal content within 24 hours. But how would they
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possibly know if something is illegal within 24 hours? I showed you a few of the elements required
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to prove that something is illegal under our criminal code hate speech provisions. You can't have a trial
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in 24 hours. That's not a trial. Even in places with sham trials, with show trials like China or North
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Korea, they at least take a few days. Imagine some complaint is made, I don't know, at midnight on a
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Saturday night. And then maybe some intern at Twitter reads that complaint on Sunday morning,
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and now they have to take it down, I guess by that night, or they'll face significant penalties.
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But who would say, who would determine that any content was illegal? No court would. Judges
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don't usually work on Saturday nights, nor do most lawyers. So it wouldn't be illegal in any judicial
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sense. It would just be an accusation, an allegation. This mandate letter from Trudeau to Gilboa requires
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that justice be meted out within hours. But that's not a thing. Not in a free country anyway. So
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that imaginary Twitter intern on Sunday morning, well, he'd probably take down everything and
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anything, wouldn't he? Because if he kept something up that Trudeau or Gilboa didn't like,
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his company could be on the hook for millions of dollars. Why risk it? Because who would be the
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judge? Well, there wouldn't be a judge. There would just be an accusation. See, in a real court
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under that section 319 of our criminal code, if you're charged, you would know the case against
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you. You'd know all the facts. You would know who your accusers were. You could mount a defense. You
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could hire a lawyer. You could make the case. You could have an appeal if you lost. I don't like
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censorship laws, but section 319 at least has some procedure there. But a 24-hour window for
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justice? That's not justice. And massive fines for the companies? Not even for the alleged thought
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criminal himself, but for the platforms they're on. It shows that this isn't actually about justice.
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It's just about bossing around the companies to turn them into censors for Trudeau. I really
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think Trudeau has been listening to Angela Merkel too much.
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The proteins that have been encouraging and all of the who pitifulth TagLet p Taperts
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I want to tell you that I've been to Germany several times.
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But I get the willies when a German chancellor starts pounding the table
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and shouting about punishing people for having the wrong opinions.
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Now, Trudeau's mandate letters only came out last week.
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I haven't heard the Conservative Party's response to it yet.
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They have a good egg as heritage critic, Stephen Blaney.
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Now, in the last parliament, Stephanie Cousy just nodded along happily
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with all the censorship ideas put forward by the liberals.
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And it hasn't been a peep from the so-called free speech groups in Canada
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like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association or Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
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or Pen Canada or Amnesty International or Canadian Association of Journalists
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Because they all know it's not going to be leftists who are censored under this mandate letter.
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And leftists being censored is the only censorship they really oppose.
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So I'm pretty sure this would proceed if its only opponents were the Canadian media
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and the Canadian Conservative Party and Canadian Civil Liberties groups.
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I'm pretty sure this would be a done deal, even though Trudeau only has a minority government.
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Really, no one's going to push back against this.
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Except, who owns these social media platforms that Trudeau is targeting?
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They're called Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Snapchat.
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And Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau and the Mexican president just spent a year
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renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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And it looks like it's finally moving towards ratification.
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Now, we know that Trudeau doesn't really read briefing notes.
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He prefers comic books, especially if they're about him.
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That's actually what he told the ethics commissioner.
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It was part of his excuse for taking an illegal free vacation from the Aga Khan,
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who had a lot of business dealings with Canada.
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Trudeau argued that he couldn't have been corrupted because he never gets into any details on any file.
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So he couldn't have been bribed because he didn't even know what the Aga Khan would be talking about.
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But maybe someone in the prime minister's office,
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maybe Christia Freeland, who has been given the role of super minister
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Because here's what section 19.17 of the USMCA trade treaty says.
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And it's simple enough that even Trudeau could understand it with a little bit of help.
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Here, I'll read it slowly for Trudeau's benefit.
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No party shall adopt or maintain measures that treat a supplier or user of an interactive computer service
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as an information content provider in determining liability for harms
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related to information stored, processed, transmitted, distributed, or made available by the service,
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except to the extent the supplier or user has, in whole or in part, created or developed the information.
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Okay, maybe I can understand why Trudeau didn't get it.
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When it says no party shall adopt a measure, they mean no country can pass a rule.
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So Canada cannot treat an interactive computer service,
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they can't treat a service like that as an information content provider.
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It's like a community bandstand that anyone can play on.
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So under the treaty, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat,
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they're not the creators of the words on the platform.
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So they can't be held liable for harms related to anything that's published on their platforms
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unless they actually wrote the words themselves, the companies.
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So, for example, this treaty gives immunity to Google for anything Google links to.
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Google didn't write everything on the Internet.
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I mean, every day, over a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube.
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Making that company liable for content they didn't actually create
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would be like making, I don't know, phone companies responsible for what strangers say
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when they talk in a phone booth or on a cell phone.
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Now, I think in some cases, YouTube and Facebook and Twitter
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and other social media companies do get involved in determining what content is published.
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In particular, they throttle conservative sites and they boost liberal sites and they say so.
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But putting that exception aside and getting back to Trudeau's mandate letter to Guilbaume,
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the government of Canada is stripping American Internet companies of all of their immunity.
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Let me read Trudeau's mandate letter one last time.
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Create new regulations for social media platforms,
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starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content,
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including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties.
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No, you can't hold Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat liable
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You can't blame the phone company for words someone else says on the phone to you.
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Now, Mexico negotiated a three-year exemption from that part of the treaty.
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I guess there's still censors down there, a little bit heavy-handed, like Angela Merkel, I guess.
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A lot of third-world countries still have that authoritarian instinct.
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So Trump is giving Mexico three years to fix that.
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But even then, it's clear that what Mexico is most concerned about is keeping their laws that,
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protect against online sex trafficking, sexual exploitation of children, and prostitution.
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So Mexico has a three-year exemption, which they wanted to fight pedophiles.
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Trudeau wants an exemption to fight conservative critics,
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except that he forgot to negotiate for it, like the Mexicans negotiated for their exemption.
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And Chrystia Freeland's crack team of negotiators apparently forgot, too.
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Now, in some ways, I bet these American tech companies would love to censor anyone that Trudeau
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They're not obeying direct orders from Trudeau or Catherine McKenna or Gerald Butts,
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who obviously spend their time searching for mean things that people say about them on Twitter.
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I mean, we've seen what Catherine McKenna says and does after a few drinks at the bar.
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So imagine she's out drinking one night and gets upset about some tweet,
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gets really mad about some comment someone makes online,
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and she phones in a bunch of angry requests to Twitter on a Saturday night complaining against hate speech.
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But now, if the companies don't jump and censor within 24 hours,
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they'll have to pay millions of dollars in fines.
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I mean, Canada's media party is fine with this.
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Canada's conservative opposition is probably fine with this.
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Canada's civil liberties groups are absolutely fine with this.
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I'm going to guess they're not fine with some second-rate Canadian politicians
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and all because Trudeau and his team have such a thin skin,
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and they couldn't even be bothered to actually read their own free trade treaty.
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Well, the other day we told you that a national survey
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commissioned by the gay rights group called GLAAD
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found that the number of millennials in America
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And my thesis is that it is the extreme trans agenda
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anyone who has, for example, competed in women's sports,
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the generation of growing support for gay rights
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going right up to the superintendent of schools