Juno News - November 04, 2026


Free speech in Canada is DYING… and it’s about to get worse

RCMP to test facial recognition systems using Canadian police booking photos

Episode Stats


Length

31 minutes

Words per minute

186.43

Word count

5,867

Sentence count

280

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Welcome to The Fighter. I am your host here on Juneau News, Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta Director
00:00:11.080 for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We're always fighting for lower taxes, less waste,
00:00:16.620 and more accountable government. And it's that third pillar I want to talk to you about right
00:00:20.820 now. Because if we're always telling people to stand up and be heard, to fight for accountable
00:00:26.380 government to speak up for themselves. Well, we need free expression in order to actually do that.
00:00:33.740 But do we really have free expression here in Canada? I don't know. Every now and then,
00:00:39.260 when people stand up and defend themselves, things can get pretty squirrely with the government
00:00:43.500 pretty darn fast. I'll give you two very recent examples. So, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
00:00:49.580 a few years ago, we discovered buried deep in the back of a government report. It was
00:00:55.820 literally posted on the federal government's website. You might remember this. That report
00:01:00.920 was recommending a brand new big tax on pickup trucks and SUVs. Why? Because according to
00:01:09.740 whatever zealot was writing that report for the federal government, pickup trucks and SUVs are bad.
00:01:15.860 They're also one of the most popular selling vehicles you can imagine here in Canada,
00:01:19.620 and people freely choose to purchase them with their own money.
00:01:24.220 So we sounded the alarm and said,
00:01:26.940 hey, the government's considering this because it was.
00:01:29.280 It was in one of their own reports.
00:01:30.900 A sitting cabinet minister in government at the time
00:01:35.380 called our reporting misinformation and disinformation.
00:01:42.000 That can get pretty nasty pretty fast.
00:01:45.400 And the idea that a sitting cabinet minister would say that
00:01:49.220 about a report coming from an advocacy organization that's been around since 1990
00:01:54.520 about something as calm and pedestrian as a tax on a vehicle?
00:02:00.580 What happens when you start getting into much dicier topics?
00:02:04.120 Are you really going to keep your free expression then?
00:02:08.680 Fast forward a few years, look at what happened in Ottawa
00:02:11.860 when the Trudeau government illegally invoked the Emergencies Act
00:02:16.200 and the Trudeau government then froze people's bank accounts. Now, we've had two layers of court
00:02:23.840 say, uh-uh, you really crossed the line there. You should not have done that, government. Bad,
00:02:29.100 bad, bad. It's now going to be challenged in the Supreme Court because the feds are still fighting
00:02:33.380 it. The reason why that really matters to people like supporters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
00:02:39.080 is if you can't express yourself, if you can't gather peacefully and demand something,
00:02:46.200 without the government freezing your bank accounts,
00:02:50.220 then how on earth are we supposed to even have
00:02:53.140 things like rallies for lower taxes,
00:02:56.000 things like meetings to get accountable government?
00:02:59.260 We hold annual awards ceremonies
00:03:01.980 at the Taxpayers' Federation
00:03:03.480 where you see that golden pig statue behind me,
00:03:05.740 those couple?
00:03:06.620 Yeah, we hold annual awards ceremonies 1.00
00:03:10.000 where we hand out golden pig statues
00:03:12.960 to politicians and bureaucrats
00:03:15.600 who waste your money, often by name. Could that be considered hate speech in the future? Oh, I don't
00:03:22.400 know. Are politicians an identifiable group? Oh, I don't know. Are we going to leave that up to the
00:03:27.180 government to decide? See how slippery this slope is and you don't even need to go far down it?
00:03:32.900 So this is why it's super important that we have groups like the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
00:03:38.600 They do great work. And we've got this group also called the Free Speech Union of Canada.
00:03:46.100 If that name rings a bell, it might be because the Free Speech Union in the UK has been running
00:03:52.900 on all cylinders for years, fighting for free expression over there across the pond. But here
00:03:58.200 in Canada, we have our own chapter. And the Free Speech Union of Canada has got a brand new
00:04:04.280 executive director. What's on the table? What are they fighting for right now? Let's find out.
00:04:10.280 Joining me now is Kate Marland. Kate is the new executive director of the Free Speech Union of
00:04:17.400 Canada. I am absolutely delighted to have her on the show. Kate, thank you so much for joining us
00:04:23.000 here on Juno News. Thanks, Chris, for having me. First things first, let's get down to serious
00:04:28.200 business. It's your birthday today. That's correct. Happy birthday. Thank you, Chris.
00:04:34.740 So Kate Marland, she is a really heavy hitter in the free speech world. She's been part of the
00:04:41.760 whole movement to have much smaller government and much freer speech now for years in Canada
00:04:46.360 and frankly, through the Western world. Thank you. And full disclosure, she's a friend of mine. So
00:04:51.640 Kate, I'm so thrilled that you are now heading up the Free Speech Union of Canada. First,
00:04:57.100 let our viewers know, what is the Free Speech Union of Canada? Is it connected to the Free
00:05:03.580 Speech Union in the UK? What sort of stuff do you guys do? So the Free Speech Union of Canada
00:05:09.380 is connected to the Free Speech Union in the UK. So it's part of this umbrella organization that
00:05:14.520 has free speech unions in several countries around the world. So there's not only the Canadian branch,
00:05:19.820 but there is one in Brazil, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The Free Speech
00:05:25.300 Union in the UK came about right around the time of the pandemic and lockdowns as a way to fight
00:05:30.400 back against government overreach in the UK, which I think anyone who's online and has eyes can see
00:05:36.280 how bad it is over there in the UK. So this was sorely needed. They're now up to 40,000 members,
00:05:41.580 which is incredible. And they have dealt with, I think, 6,500 cases since starting. And they receive,
00:05:46.580 you know, hundreds of inquiries every week from people who feel that the government is trying to
00:05:50.160 suppress their right to express themselves. Now, here in Canada, we've been around since the
00:05:54.340 beginning of 2025, formerly under the direction of the incredible hero of freedom, Lisa Bildy.
00:06:01.640 So I'm very honored to take the reins from her. And what we're going to be doing
00:06:04.700 is not only providing some assistance to our members who feel that their right to express
00:06:08.940 themselves as being impeded, but also being a much more strong and aggressive advocate for
00:06:14.660 free speech in Canada, not just as it's defined by our charter, which as we know, is not always
00:06:18.920 worth the paper it's printed on, but generally a culture of free speech to fight back against
00:06:23.500 this censorship that people will often impose on themselves.
00:06:26.740 So I'm going to ask you those devil's advocate questions
00:06:29.900 that we often get in the free speech world.
00:06:32.740 What about hate speech?
00:06:34.540 Why is it that you need to defend free speech when it's sometimes ugly?
00:06:38.900 Can't we all just say nice things all the time?
00:06:41.660 What's the response to them?
00:06:43.940 Well, I think the key thing here, Chris, is that we're always coming from a place
00:06:47.140 of compassion, always from a place of we want to work together and be cooperative.
00:06:51.700 But at the same time, once we start messing around with kind of loosey goosey definitions, especially in legislation of, you know, hate speech, what it means, what are the protected grounds, it really just becomes a slippery slope.
00:07:05.560 And we see that manifest in the current situation here where having people penalized or, you know, feel threatened for not complying with certain people's pronouns or, you know, criticizing gender critical ideology.
00:07:19.720 you see this happening all over the place. And so once we start messing around with this,
00:07:23.620 it really becomes quite hard to get the genie back in the bottle. So that's not to say we can't get
00:07:28.620 the genie back in the bottle and we shouldn't, you know, aggressively advocate against the
00:07:32.540 infringing legislation that has come down on our right to express ourselves in Canada.
00:07:36.920 But, you know, we need to be super clear that, you know, nothing is coming from a hateful place.
00:07:42.560 But once we start saying things like hate speech, you know, it's just red flags abound. Because if
00:07:47.720 you look at our neighbors down in America, and you know, they might not be our bestest of friends
00:07:51.080 right now, but they have something called the First Amendment. And it's super clear for all
00:07:54.980 of us up here in Canada to understand that we don't. We have a qualified right to free expression,
00:08:00.480 which is allowed to be overthrown by the government. And we've seen the government
00:08:05.800 exercise their power to constrain our expression time and again. So how can we trust them to not
00:08:10.640 do that? As you know, Chris, the government does not always have our best interest at heart.
00:08:14.280 So true. I'm going to rewind it back to January, February of 2022. And we have now seen, of course, in retrospect, there's been two different court rulings saying that the government was wrong and illegal to invoke the Emergencies Act, especially when it came to freezing people's bank accounts.
00:08:37.240 So two different layers of court have said, uh-uh, the Trudeau government really overstepped it
00:08:41.720 there. I'll give you another example that's a little bit more, I would say, pedestrian,
00:08:46.160 where the Canadian Constitution Foundation successfully, if I recall correctly,
00:08:51.720 fought for a man's right for free expression in Canada. He had an F Trudeau flag out in front of
00:08:57.680 his house. And as Christine Van Gein so demurely put it, a sentiment shared by many at the time.
00:09:04.520 And I think I'm right in that they won that court case.
00:09:08.380 So it can be that simple of a free expression.
00:09:12.020 Can you quickly, sorry to put you on the spot, but can you tease out the difference between
00:09:17.780 the amendment in the United States where it's free speech and what we have up here,
00:09:23.340 which is free expression with conditions?
00:09:26.800 What's the difference there?
00:09:28.620 So in America, your right under the First Amendment is to speak freely, whatever it is,
00:09:34.700 with no constraint by government. Now, there have been various attempts to constrain that right.
00:09:40.280 You know, different administrations have tried to kind of mess around with that. But generally
00:09:44.700 speaking, you operate from a place of I am a citizen of the United States. I can say what I
00:09:49.900 want. I can fly, you know, my afternoon flag or whoever it is. And that is my right. Up here in
00:09:55.960 Canada, all your right to free expression under section two of the charter is under the auspices
00:10:02.780 of section one of the charter, which says that the government can constrain any of these rights
00:10:07.980 if it is for a reasonable purpose, which is pretty broad and has been interpreted in a myriad of
00:10:15.000 ways. And it's just kind of an extremely concerning thing. So every citizen of Canada,
00:10:20.940 every person here has to be extremely concerned when they're speaking, offering an opinion,
00:10:25.960 protesting, flying whatever flag they might want to fly, that the government might come and say,
00:10:31.820 hey, that's actually, you know, that's a symbol of hate or, you know, we don't like this. This
00:10:35.980 is threatening the peace. They have, you know, any laundry list of reasons that they can infringe
00:10:40.880 on your right to freely express yourself. So it's really, you know, an unfortunate situation that we
00:10:45.640 have to come at this from a place of, you know, almost exercising caution anytime we try and
00:10:49.820 express ourselves because you never know what the government's going to do. Yeah, great points. I
00:10:54.800 wanted to dive into some specific things that you guys are fighting. First off, before I get to the
00:11:00.500 social media ban for younger people, I remember that there's different attempts by the same
00:11:07.540 liberal version of this federal government of constraining what you can see, hear, and share
00:11:12.160 online. But then there was also this murky thing they were thinking of setting up where it would
00:11:18.180 be dealing with hate speech, misinformation, disinformation. They were planning on setting
00:11:24.540 up like an entire sub ministry to deal with this. People would have been able to phone
00:11:30.080 in anonymously and get a complaint through. I didn't ask you about this beforehand. So
00:11:36.200 I'm sorry if I'm just surprising you with this. Is that still in the works? Are they
00:11:39.900 still trying to set up that sub ministry? To my understanding, I'm not quite sure what
00:11:45.880 the status of it that is to be honest i do they are you know full steam ahead with this digital
00:11:51.000 safety commission aspect and i am sure that they've been cooking up all sorts of insane things
00:11:55.840 all summer chris especially with mark carney saying he's going to do this alliance with the
00:12:00.080 eu as we all know the eu has some of the most draconian free speech controlling legislation
00:12:05.680 and stuff just like this where they're talking about you know we're going to monitor what's
00:12:09.980 misinformation disinformation so i'm sure he's taken a lot of bad inspiration from his summer
00:12:14.980 travels abroad and he's going to bring that back and we'll see when this house returns in just a
00:12:19.180 couple weeks. I'm glad you're our watchdog. People just for people thinking that taxpayers
00:12:24.400 federation overreacting, we're not. We were told a few years ago by a cabinet minister out loud
00:12:29.560 that us talking about their planned or their attempted plan to tax pickup trucks and SUVs
00:12:35.760 was misinformation and disinformation. It was not. It was in their own federal government reports. So
00:12:41.300 anytime a minister of the crown of the state starts talking like that, that can get pretty
00:12:46.560 gnarly pretty fast. Okay, let's dig into a couple of campaigns that you guys are working on directly
00:12:51.060 here. First up, what's the current status of, okay, kid, you're under the age of, I think, 16,
00:12:57.420 no more social media for you, or you're going to have to prove your identity. What's happening
00:13:02.400 with that? So it is currently waiting to have its second reading in the house. So we won't have an
00:13:07.820 update on when that's going to be until the house returns and you know i think it's going to be a
00:13:12.000 week now real soon yeah real soon can't wait count out we're we got our eyes on you um so so it's
00:13:19.280 waiting for the second reading and after that it has to go through committee um then to the senate
00:13:23.760 so we still have a lot of time here to sound the alarm on this as you know many of us are
00:13:28.380 um i think the real interesting thing will be to see um when it comes to age verification for
00:13:36.000 accessing online online platforms we're seeing a pivot from those on the right of the stance that
00:13:42.080 the conservative party took two years ago which was very much in favor of this type of uh framework
00:13:46.880 to access like online pornography sites so i think we're gonna have to see for those of us who might
00:13:52.720 identify as you know a right winger and a bit opposed to this liberal government um it's gonna
00:13:57.200 have to be more than just you know waving the freedom flag when it comes to this because it's
00:14:01.280 it's such an easy tee up for the Liberal government to say we are protecting kids and seeing the
00:14:06.260 settlement come out of the US against Meta with all the state general attorneys acknowledging that
00:14:12.300 there are very real harms from these platforms it's going to be interesting to see how that
00:14:15.840 impacts the discussion going forward but I just I think we're going to need to come up with some
00:14:20.560 really rock-solid arguments as to why this is you know really quite harmful and we need to fight
00:14:25.240 back against it because they're having the same fight in the UK right now and I can tell you it's
00:14:29.520 really hard sell to say oh well we should you know there's a reason why we shouldn't let these kids
00:14:35.120 on these platforms um or that we should fight back against this legislation because it you know at the
00:14:41.280 end of the day if it's about protecting kids the people who are fighting for the kids are usually
00:14:44.800 the more sympathetic actors so we need to really back on this yeah and let's just unpack that a
00:14:50.320 little bit more um people who you and i have in common as friends they have legitimate concerns
00:14:56.480 about young people getting stuck in these online rabbit holes that are bad for them getting stuck
00:15:02.640 in these weird message boards whatever you want to call it and they're concerned about it hurting
00:15:08.000 them so where they're either being exposed to imagery that's bad for them or being convinced
00:15:12.320 to do things that are harmful to themselves like I get it like I get it however from a free speech
00:15:21.360 standpoint i'm concerned about the unintended consequences so you know air quotes um if we all
00:15:31.680 so in order to prove that you're over the age of 18 what are you gonna have to do
00:15:36.400 probably take a selfie and upload your id right yeah so then doesn't that then create an entire
00:15:44.880 online framework of digital id isn't that what the concern is here from a freedom standpoint
00:15:51.360 Yes, exactly. So one of the interesting things that came out from this META settlement in the
00:15:56.880 US was the ways that META itself was going to go about age verification, one of which I believe was
00:16:03.280 that they were just going to ascertain based off of your activity, whether you were over the age,
00:16:09.520 the acceptable age or not, which I think is interesting, you know, to the extent to which
00:16:14.720 these sites are already surveilling us to such a high degree, I think is an interesting piece
00:16:19.440 of this discussion um and one that kind of renders a little bit difficult to make the argument that
00:16:25.040 oh well we need to preserve our freedom because we're already you know giving so much of our data
00:16:28.880 to these sites but i think the the key thing that we need to talk about when it comes to this bill
00:16:33.760 c-34 is the creation of this digital safety commission which is essentially you know just
00:16:37.920 more unelected bureaucrats that are be giving going to be given wide discretionary power to
00:16:43.200 do all sorts of stuff that we want to do like enforce you know the policing of hateful content
00:16:48.880 And as we know, Chris, the definition of hateful content is extremely wide ranging.
00:16:54.340 It could involve even this conversation we're having right now by certain standards.
00:16:57.500 So that's a real concern.
00:16:59.600 Sure.
00:16:59.860 No, I've been literally called a monster for wanting to get rid of the carbon tax, like
00:17:03.320 by a professional on the air.
00:17:05.240 So yeah, it can get quickly slippery on this slope, which is why the Canadian Taxpayers
00:17:11.740 Federation, like, thank you for fighting for free speech.
00:17:14.680 because if we set up this big digital ID thing, here, put it this way. Do you really want your
00:17:21.720 driver's license and exactly who you are uploaded, you know, through YouTube and you're watching
00:17:27.740 videos on, I don't know, how they're planning on banning the sale of gas and diesel powered
00:17:33.340 vehicles someday in the future, carbon taxes, gun rights, defunding the media. That's all pretty
00:17:40.820 flag wavy stuff for the freedom side of things. And if the government slash state can just monitor
00:17:47.380 and run down a list, a handy dandy list of everybody's real identity and IDs,
00:17:52.500 then what happens next time when we're all protesting something like this
00:17:55.860 and they want to start freezing us out? Yeah, you and I are both in prison, Chris.
00:18:00.820 We'll be bunk mates. I call that bunk. Yeah, that'll be nice.
00:18:04.740 Like, okay, so that is really important. So that's a second reading. And it's something
00:18:09.620 I would encourage people to watch because, again, as a mother of teenagers, I get it, okay? But
00:18:17.780 we should probably figure out a different way of doing this on making sure our kids are not stuck
00:18:22.900 in online rabbit holes instead of A, just leaving the problem up to the government to solve because
00:18:28.100 B, they won't do it right and they're going to blow your money like crazy on this. The last thing
00:18:34.900 we need is another wing of this bureaucratic oak tree. Okay. Let's shift over to... I was seeing
00:18:42.420 on your website that you guys are trying to put up a fight against human rights tribunals in Canada.
00:18:48.980 That might sound a little weird to people when you first hear that. So can you just explain
00:18:53.380 what a human rights tribunal is and then go from there? So the human rights tribunals are the
00:18:59.780 the administrative bodies that are tasked with adjudicating matters that fall with under the
00:19:05.700 human rights codes of the respective provinces so again these are not you know it's not a
00:19:11.140 a judicial system per se it's not part of our normal court system it's a separate system
00:19:15.620 and they are tasked with just kind of you know going through these human rights complaints and
00:19:20.100 adjudicating on those as they so choose um the the reason that we are putting this forward it might
00:19:25.780 seem quite radical to some of the listeners of this show, and also to, you know, just the average
00:19:30.700 person, it's because as people who fight for freedom, who fight for free speech in an incredibly
00:19:36.140 unfriendly environment, I mean, my colleagues over in the UK say this all the time, that free speech
00:19:41.000 is on life support. And I would say that is really the case here. Our strategy cannot be only reactive,
00:19:47.020 it must be primarily offensive. So it's not just about reacting. And I mean, part of the job of
00:19:52.840 being in opposition to a government that wants to limit our speech is to react to the incredibly
00:19:58.140 horrible ideas that they propose. But hand in hand with that is we must propose ideas that we think
00:20:04.420 can actually be on the offensive and craft the vision of the country we want to live in. And when
00:20:09.860 we have these human rights tribunals, like for example, the BC Human Rights Tribunal ruling just
00:20:14.760 last week that a doctor who refused to administer a Lupron injection to a 14-year-old, and Lupron is
00:20:22.100 a puberty blocker. He refused to administer the injection on the basis of his freedom of religion,
00:20:27.720 freedom of conscience, but also his discomfort with administering a medical treatment that he
00:20:32.820 was not familiar with. He's been fined $20,000 and not for, you know, an abdication of his duty
00:20:38.940 as a doctor, but for injury to feelings and dignity. So we have these human rights tribunals
00:20:44.460 that are increasingly activists putting forward, you know, these primarily left-wing ideologies
00:20:50.980 and kind of making that into law with the full force of the backing of the law to find these
00:20:54.760 people into oblivion. And so we just don't see a situation in which we need to have these
00:21:00.000 organizations. And to your point, Chris, these are huge uses of taxpayer dollars. Do we need
00:21:05.700 to have these activists kind of pushing their left-wing ideology down our throats and also 0.96
00:21:11.120 paying for it? Great questions. Great questions. For people who are new to the movement, this has
00:21:17.300 been going on for so long. Issues with things like these quasi-judicial boards that aren't
00:21:23.740 elected. It's really hard to make them transparent. I remember when I was working for Sun News Network,
00:21:29.620 it was something, I can't even remember what the issue was, but it was so pedestrian. And this
00:21:34.200 family had gotten choked up with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Tribunal, and it was so hard to even
00:21:39.860 get documents and data out of them. So the issue of accountable government here is really at risk,
00:21:45.460 because how can they be accountable to you if they're not being transparent?
00:21:50.280 So, and I'll also remind people that a lot of people's first introduction to a guy named Ezra
00:21:55.820 Levant was way back in 2008, 2007, 2008, when he was the publisher of the Western Standard magazine.
00:22:02.480 It was physically a print magazine back then. And he was getting in trouble with the Alberta
00:22:08.060 Human Rights Tribunal for publishing cartoons. Again, such an issue of free speech and free
00:22:13.960 expression. And that was in Alberta. That was in Alberta. And it was like 18, 19 years ago.
00:22:19.820 So this fight has been going on for so long. Kate, I've only got you for another minute here.
00:22:24.900 And I sincerely appreciate your time and your work. Are we, we see video, I see weird videos
00:22:31.820 coming out of the UK sometimes when I'm trying to get some stuff done. And I don't know if they're
00:22:36.140 real. I don't know what the issues are, but it literally looks like British police door knocking
00:22:41.960 people for like Facebook posts and online comments and that sort of stuff. Is that really
00:22:48.540 happening over there? And can you see that happening here if we don't change direction?
00:22:56.120 Well, I mean, the unfortunate thing, Chris, is that we did see this happen here just last week
00:23:00.100 in Surrey. We had the RCMP knocking on the door of this woman who had posted some, you know,
00:23:04.940 objectionable content online. And I'm not familiar with the entirety of what she had said exactly.
00:23:10.180 so I don't know how much of that was you know criminal in nature okay but some of her comments
00:23:14.700 were most certainly you know could be just anyone uh just kind of an innocuous comment online and so
00:23:20.640 we I saw that happen here and I was like alarm bells going off because it is true I mean you
00:23:25.400 know everything online can be you know doctored and whatever but what I hear from my colleagues
00:23:29.860 at the free speech union in the UK is that this is actually very real people are getting arrested
00:23:34.920 over Facebook posts and tweets. The free speech union in the UK has defended a lot of these
00:23:40.800 people. I think most famously the comedian Graham Linehan, who was arrested at Heathrow for some
00:23:45.680 tweets he had made, I think critiquing mass immigration. So it's happening all the time
00:23:50.940 over there. I think it's only a matter of time. There are sometimes kind of a bit of a bellwether
00:23:54.660 for where we're at here in Canada. And I mean, sometimes helpful to them, we are a bit of a
00:24:00.100 bellwether for what is coming down the pipes for them. So we have a bit of a symbiotic relationship
00:24:04.280 in terms of government overreach.
00:24:06.880 But I think that we can't,
00:24:08.120 we will see this come here, Chris.
00:24:09.480 It's only a matter of time.
00:24:10.880 We're starting to see it. 0.76
00:24:12.240 And if this next Bill C-34 passes,
00:24:15.020 it's only going to get worse.
00:24:16.080 And we have this Digital Safety Commission policing,
00:24:18.700 you know, what is hateful content online
00:24:20.940 and misinformation.
00:24:21.920 It's just, it's only a matter of time.
00:24:23.640 So we just need to do what we can to fight back
00:24:26.340 and be really, you know, unapologetic
00:24:28.980 in our defense of our free speech.
00:24:31.240 I'll leave folks with this.
00:24:32.780 Last I was checking into it, the whole, okay, who decides what is misinformation and disinformation, even separating it from hate speech.
00:24:42.160 From what I can tell, it looks like the Kearney government wants the CBC to be the eggheads in the room deciding what's misinformation and disinformation, which is crazy.
00:24:52.540 The idea of having a $1.4 billion per year state broadcaster deciding what is misinformation and disinformation, folks, if that's the case, we're in trouble.
00:25:02.780 like, we're in trouble. How long do you think you're going to be able to hear conversations
00:25:06.720 like this and even feistier ones like that? Before I let you go, Kate, I can, I can hear
00:25:12.660 some of our viewers that are concerned about maybe their own safety. God forbid they're
00:25:17.620 worried about that. Can you, can you explain what you're fighting for free speech or free
00:25:23.500 expression versus what's in the criminal code of like uttering a threat or like inciting
00:25:29.620 violence people often refer to it as you can't yell fire in a crowded theater um is is there a
00:25:36.180 do you guys draw a distinction there when you're looking at the issues of free expression in
00:25:39.940 canada like for example um this is all theoretical that i'm speaking here say you know i hate you 0.60
00:25:47.060 know goblins like as a race and we're all going to eradicate them starting next tuesday that's
00:25:53.940 usually not an okay thing to do because it's an identifiable group you've got a plan you've got
00:25:58.660 a date etc that's already in the criminal code that is as far as i'm understanding separate from
00:26:05.060 this weird murky stuff in the human rights tribunals and within free expression am i correct
00:26:11.700 there yes so to to everyone in canada if you are online and you start you know getting a little bit
00:26:18.980 riled up and start you know saying things like i want to kill the prime minister on twitter
00:26:23.140 uh don't say that don't say that you can't and honestly and you you hate to have to say this but
00:26:29.060 i would always err on the side of caution because we don't know how they are going to enforce these
00:26:33.300 extremely murky things so even when it comes to such stuff as you know saying that um you know
00:26:39.060 you are against a certain group of people or a certain faith all of these things could be
00:26:45.780 considered you know like an actual crime under this kind of like incitement to violence so i
00:26:50.580 would always err on the side of caution when it comes to that but when it comes to you know
00:26:54.580 gathering to discuss you know different criticisms of the government i think a great example of this
00:26:59.380 is the dominion society that had their conference a couple weekends back to much uproar hamilton
00:27:04.340 police tried to shut them down that is obviously and we came out in in defense of them we said no
00:27:08.660 crimes have been committed here to our knowledge they are not a known terror group uh so there's
00:27:13.780 no reason that the police or or anyone should really be saying you know you guys don't have
00:27:19.060 the right to gather here and that that's the kind of thing you know however objectionable it may be
00:27:23.620 that is right of a free canadian to gather and hear ideas and that's the entire point of having
00:27:28.420 free speech is you might hear ideas you're offended by it's not our responsibility to defend you from
00:27:33.220 being offended at all at great lengths it is our responsibility to defend your right to express
00:27:38.260 yourself and ideally we will have some disagreement i find a good rule of thumb when i'm dealing with
00:27:44.500 you know, relatives and stuff who are saying, yeah, but I don't like this. Okay, here's a good
00:27:48.780 exercise. Put the shoe on the other foot. Okay, just picture yourself putting the shoe on the 0.99
00:27:54.400 other foot. For example, I'm sure the Canadian communist groups get together and they all,
00:28:00.680 you know, plan on seizing private property and outlawing, you know, firearms and outlawing
00:28:05.460 private vehicles and making us all, you know, work at a government cafeteria. That is all
00:28:10.340 extremely offensive to me. I would never try to shut down their right to express themselves
00:28:16.740 or gather. Like, go for it. I'm not going to, you know, shut down your merch counter or say that
00:28:22.580 you can't go do that. I completely disagree with you. But you need to be able to express these
00:28:28.020 ideas. And here is an extra trick. If you really don't like what a group is saying, you should
00:28:33.220 probably let them keep saying it because then they're on the record and it's all sunshine and
00:28:39.060 and disinfectant and stuff, right? Exactly, Chris. That is the perfect way to sum it up. But we want
00:28:44.640 these people to be saying out loud what it is that they're doing because once everything goes
00:28:48.880 underground, that's when it gets real shifty and dangerous. So, you know, I mean, I'm not going to
00:28:54.440 host these events at my house for these people I object with maybe, but I will always defend until
00:28:58.880 my last eye and breath their right to do so. Awesome. Okay, Kate, how do people get in touch
00:29:03.360 with you? How do they follow the free speech union here in Canada and the great work that you're
00:29:07.180 doing. So you can find our website. It's fsucanada.ca. You'll find all the information
00:29:12.060 about our petition to abolish human rights tribunals and how to get in contact with us,
00:29:16.500 how to become a member. We're currently just rebooting the website. So if you head there
00:29:20.380 right now, you might not find the membership link, but please do sign up for our newsletter.
00:29:23.940 We are on Substack. We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and we're hoping to do just more events
00:29:30.700 this fall. We'll be running across Canada doing campus stuff. So we'll try and be everywhere
00:29:36.560 fighting for your right to freely speak. Awesome. Kate Marlin, fighter for free speech and birthday
00:29:41.920 girl. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Chris. Isn't she amazing? Okay, folks,
00:29:47.360 keep in mind, like I said, Kate's a real person. She's heading up a real group, Free Speech Union
00:29:52.560 of Canada. They even have a really cool logo. It's like a fist in the air with a pencil.
00:29:58.000 Because of course, it's your right to express yourself, right? Both verbally and in print.
00:30:02.320 So it's all part of the same ecosystem, folks. If you want smaller, more accountable government,
00:30:08.400 and if you want them to quit wasting your money in record fashion, if you want them to stop policing
00:30:14.640 what you can see, hear, share, and think online, get involved with some of these groups. Like Kate
00:30:21.360 said, sign up for the newsletter, sign up for these petitions, become part of the army for smaller,
00:30:27.760 more accountable government. And it's all part of the same movement. And again, keep in mind,
00:30:34.880 even if you're not into the more cultural stuff, say that you want, for example, to get rid of
00:30:39.680 carbon taxes. It was only like yesterday that people were getting pilloried. We were being
00:30:45.400 called, you know, climate deniers and monsters and blah out loud publicly in the media. And being
00:30:52.260 said that I was even accused of spreading hate for just saying I wanted to get rid of the carbon
00:30:56.240 tax, and then the Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney went and done it. So this is the whole
00:31:01.080 murky issue in the slippery slope issue of free speech, and that's why it's so important that we
00:31:05.720 have groups like the Free Speech Union to fight for stuff like that. Thank you so much for watching
00:31:10.940 the show. Let me know in the comments what you thought about this guest, what you thought about
00:31:14.960 this issue, and most importantly, share this show, this Juno News show, with people who need to know.
00:31:26.240 You