Juno News - July 16, 2021


Government says unrestricted online speech ＂undermines democracy＂


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

153.69173

Word Count

689

Sentence Count

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 it's been nearly a month since the liberal government introduced bill c36 a bill that
00:00:10.140 would amend the criminal code and the canadian human rights act to allow the government to
00:00:14.980 prosecute people for thought crimes and so-called hate speech even though we already have a
00:00:20.320 definition of hate speech with a very high threshold in the criminal code almost a month
00:00:25.460 and there has been no outrage from civil society no outrage from the mainstream media no outrage from
00:00:31.740 the conservative opposition it seems like the liberals think there's going to be no pushback
00:00:36.880 and so far they are correct now it's worth noting this was introduced just before the house of
00:00:43.100 commons rose for the summer so if there is as everyone suspects there will be a summer or fall
00:00:48.560 election this bill will die but it means the liberals are planning to run on it they think
00:00:53.640 it is going to be a popular idea for them to tell canadians they plan to go after online hate
00:00:59.620 a briefing note that shows how the government's been discussing this internally might give us a
00:01:05.340 little bit of a glimpse into how they intend to do this black locks reporter unearthed a june briefing
00:01:11.600 note that was basically used to tell the government what it needed to know to sell this bill it reads
00:01:17.580 social media platforms such as facebook or twitter are increasingly central to participation in
00:01:23.180 democratic cultural and public life however social media platforms can also be used to threaten
00:01:29.560 intimidate bully and harass people or used to promote racist anti-semitic islamophobic misogynistic
00:01:36.620 and homophobic views that target communities put people's safety at risk and undermine canada's
00:01:42.980 social cohesion or democracy no one likes hateful content no one likes hateful rhetoric the question is
00:01:50.660 whether the government is the vehicle best suited to deal with it but the way they lump in at the
00:01:57.120 end there two different criteria undermining social cohesion and undermining democracy well these are
00:02:05.140 things that are not part of the online hate speech bill as it was initially presented by minister
00:02:10.180 stephen gilbault and justice minister david lametti undermining social cohesion that's not the role of
00:02:16.260 government to counteract that's the role of people in society to deal with but by saying this undermines
00:02:23.540 canadian democracy what the government is in effect saying is that free speech undermines canadian
00:02:29.460 democracy that social media people being able to speak their minds undermines canadian democracy and by
00:02:36.340 saying this what the liberals are effectively telling canadians is that the only way to protect democracy
00:02:44.820 is to go after online speech they're moving the goalposts and trying to neutralize anyone being
00:02:51.460 able to claim that there is a constitutional issue at stake because they say oh no no the content that
00:02:56.580 we're going after is undemocratic it's anti-democratic the only way we can safeguard democracy
00:03:02.980 is by censoring the internet this may be perhaps why stephen gilbault was very transparent about bill c36
00:03:10.260 saying that if people thought c10 was controversial just wait until they got a look at c36 but it's
00:03:17.300 been disheartening that despite calls from a small number of free speech advocates and i count myself
00:03:22.740 in that category the backlash to this has been virtually non-existent the liberal government thinks
00:03:29.300 it is best suited to decide who can post what online and unlike bill c10 where the liberals try to
00:03:36.340 have all of these different debates about who it actually affects c36 affects every single facet of
00:03:43.540 online content social media personal websites blog posts news websites user comment sections
00:03:50.980 even mass emails forwards that someone might share private communication could be prosecuted
00:03:57.780 under the return of section 13 of the canadian human rights act there is no respect for free speech
00:04:03.780 in bill c36 but moreover it hasn't even triggered a surge in people standing up for free speech in
00:04:10.340 response to it are canadians that resign to accept that government is just going to go after online
00:04:15.780 content it's not something that i'm prepared to accept and nor should you for true north i'm andrew latin