Prosecuting Thought Crimes
Episode Stats
Words per minute
169.32475
Harmful content
Misogyny
4
sentences flagged
Hate speech
17
sentences flagged
Summary
Coming up, Conservative silence on what should be the hill to die on, free speech, and why celebrating Canada Day is now a subversive act. The Andrew Lawton Show starts on Tuesday, June 29th, 2021.
Transcript
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, conservative silence on what should be the hill to die on, free speech,
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and why celebrating Canada Day is now a subversive act.
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show on Tuesday, June 29th, 2021.
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Listen, we are going to be talking about, as I promised last week, C-36 a great deal.
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I would actually say it is the worst bill that the Justin Trudeau government has put forward
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because it goes after what I believe wholeheartedly is the mother of all freedoms, freedom of speech.
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This is the online hate bill that would restore Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act,
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that would essentially outlaw communicating what the government says is hate speech online,
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if that goes against one of the designated protected groups under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
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And it also has criminal provisions as well, like the imposition of a peace bond on people
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who are likely to commit an offense in the eyes of a provincial court judge.
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I'm going to talk about that later on in the show,
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but I want to talk about the political stakes of this right now,
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because it has been six days, six days, and believe me when I say I've been counting,
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It was on the final day of the parliamentary session,
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which, as I said last week, is evidence of something very concerning,
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which is that the Liberals, if all of the election rumors that an election is coming this summer are true,
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Because by tabling a bill when Parliament's rising,
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you don't even have time to do second reading, committee, third reading, to send it to the Senate.
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You're really just doing it because you want to have it on the record.
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they're saying that if there's a summer election,
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vote for us so we can finish the job we started.
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As opposed to burying it at the beginning so everyone's forgotten about it,
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the Liberals think that banning online speech is a winnable proposition.
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And if the last six days is any indication, they may be right.
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The Conservative Party of Canada has been effectively silent since this bill was put forward.
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I say effectively because there was one statement from one member of Parliament.
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Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole has said in the time since this was tabled,
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not a single word in public, so far as I can tell, about C-36.
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I pointed this out in a column when it was five days past.
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And I said, listen, five days since this was tabled,
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And the point that I raised is that this is the hill to die on.
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A Conservative Party that does not stand up for free speech
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It's one thing to say, yeah, we want to lower your taxes a bit.
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if you're not there on the issues that matter, who really cares?
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So Aaron O'Toole and his caucus will probably vote against this if and when it comes to it.
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The issue is that they should be shouting from the rooftops that this bill is bad
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Especially after the last couple of months has seen the Liberals try to impose Bill C-10,
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which does sweeping regulations to bring the internet and internet content providers
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And the Conservatives have been very solid on C-10.
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They've been talking about how C-10 will allow the government to control the internet and censor content.
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So you may wonder, why is it they are not prepared to do the same for C-36?
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They know that most Canadians don't know the difference between a C-10 and a C-36 and a Section 13,
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so they don't want to start muddling it by talking about another bill.
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The other possibility is that the Conservatives are scared.
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It is a bill that talks about the Canadian Radio Television Telecommunications Commission.
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It is a bill that is as dry as it gets with significant implications.
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But the subject matter of the bill is completely banal.
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So when the Conservatives talk about free speech in the abstract, it's very safe.
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They can just say, oh yeah, they're trying to regulate what you post online.
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C-36 is different because C-36 goes after a very specific type of speech.
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And most Canadians would say, oh, I like free speech, but oh, I don't like hate speech.
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I don't like people smearing others based on their race, religion, sexual orientation.
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I don't like, in a civil society, people being hateful, people being rude.
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The issue is I also don't like government being the arbiter of what people can say when
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we have a civil society to mete out responses and remedies to unkind and uncivil things.
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That's the whole point of a community and a society.
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So my issue here is that the government is redefining speech it does not like.
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This means, however, that if the conservatives stand up against this, if the conservatives
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say, no, no, no, we support free speech, they will have to defend demonstrably unpopular
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And this is the issue is that when you're defending free speech in the abstract, it's easy.
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When you're defending it in very specific circumstances, it's incredibly difficult.
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I was talking a few years ago on my former radio show about Holocaust denial, which is
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probably one of the easiest examples to use when you're talking about free speech.
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I am very much pro-commemoration and remembrance of the Holocaust.
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I do not believe Holocaust denial should be censored.
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And I had said in a discussion at one point, I said, yeah, if some university student group
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wants to debate whether the Holocaust happened, they should be allowed to do it.
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That got picked up by some left-wing smear hatchet machine as Andrew Lawton thinks the Holocaust
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As Andrew Lawton thinks the Holocaust should be debated.
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When I said, no, the belief in free speech does not mean the endorsement of individual
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And this used to be something that people could take for granted.
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So when Aaron O'Toole and the conservatives say, we support free speech, the liberals are
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going to say, oh, that means you support this claim of this group being like this, or this
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claim of contempt for that group, or whatever the case may be.
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And you may say, okay, well, you're proving the point.
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That's why the conservatives are not wanting to do it.
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Well, let me take a step back further and say, I don't care.
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When you decide that something is the hill to die on, it means you have to stand up there
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and take the slings and arrows that come from speaking out on that issue.
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Because there are some issues that nothing really matters without them.
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So the conservatives need to be shouting from the rooftops that C-36 is bad, especially
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conservative members of parliament who were there from 2011 to 2015, those four years of
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Stephen Harbour's majority in which section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was repealed
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thanks to a private member's bill by Brian Storseth.
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Any MP who was there in 2012 when that was passed, the repeal went into force in 2013.
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Anyone who was there should be loudly speaking up against it.
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I want to read, if I can here, a statement that was sent out by the justice critic for
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And when I say statement, this was not proactively sent out.
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This was not issued in the same way that the conservatives put out statements on things
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they want to draw attention to, like the Wee scandal or vaccine procurement.
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No, this was something that a media outlet asked for and they provided.
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Once again, we see all Canadians can expect from the Trudeau Liberals are photo ops and
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The fact this bill was brought forward in the last minutes before parliament ends for the
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summer shows this liberal government is only interested in political posturing ahead of
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the next election, not rooting out hate speech.
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Conservatives condemn all hate speech and speech that incites violence, but this bill will
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not target hate speech, just ensure bureaucrats in Ottawa are bogged down with frivolous complaints
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The minister responsible for the first censorship bill and the Trudeau Liberals are empowering
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a bureaucracy to subjectively restrict the rights of Canadians.
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He doesn't talk at all about free speech in this statement, not a single reference to
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And a couple of the issues that he brings up are a bit weird.
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You're concerned about the bureaucrats workload, about bureaucrats being bogged down with tweets.
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In fact, I think if bureaucrats are being bogged down with some things and they're not
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doing other things, that seems like it might be a win-win.
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It also talks about political posturing and that it might not go far enough, that it's
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This is not a bad bill because it's ineffective.
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It's not a bad bill because it's going to be taxing on bureaucrats.
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It's a bad bill because the design of it and the function of it will be of censorship.
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That is the focus, the goal, and the effect of the bill.
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In constitutional law, they call it the pith and substance.
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The pith and substance of this bill is a bill that limits free speech beyond the existing
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And I've seen a few people defend this by saying that, well, you know what, currently the government
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doesn't have the means to tackle online speech.
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Anything that is illegal offline is illegal online.
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So you don't need a new law if it's an enforcement issue.
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They are going after very directly a limiting of the bounds of discourse.
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You do not need speech protections for speech that everyone agrees with.
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You need speech protections for speech that you revile.
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So if you read through C36, you can see that the government is trying to legislate an emotion.
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And yes, they are trying to legislate against thought crimes, both through the Canadian Human
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Rights Commission, and also through the criminal code, as we'll talk about in a few moments
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time with Ezra Levant, who knows full well the power of human rights commissions and this
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human rights regime that is underscoring the so-called prosecutions of hate speech.
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So we have a government that wants to prosecute Canadians for thought crimes.
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We have a process that will very much be weaponized by critics.
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I have no doubt that there will be groups and activists that just non-stop file complaints
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against people they don't like, against bloggers, podcasters, against Twitter accounts.
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They will just do this non-stop because this was already happening to some extent when Section
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So all of this is to say that this needs to be the bill that every politician stands up and
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The fact that none are in a substantive way is very concerning for Canada and very concerning
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for any Canadians who value free speech, a group that I fear is dwindling in number.
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And I did mention this when I talked about this on Thursday's show last week, that some people
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might not have been around or aware of the fight that was taking place on this about a decade
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And by the way, it wasn't just the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
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It was other provinces commissions as well that were having this moment in the early
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And they eventually poked the wrong bears by going after people like Mark Stein and Ezra
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And I want to just show you what happens in these sorts of prosecutions.
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Before I introduce my next guest, I want you to take a look at this video clip from one
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And I always, in an investigation interview, I always ask people, even though they've been
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as thorough as you have, in summary fashion, what was your intent and purpose of your article
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with the cartoon illustrations published on February 27, 2006?
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Under Section 3.1a, it talks about intention, purpose.
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Is it, you'd like to get some background or does this determine anything?
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If we publish what we publish, the words in the picture speak for themselves.
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Are you saying that one answer is wrong and one answer is right?
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Well, will a certain answer, is a certain answer contrary to law?
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So, if I were to say, hypothetically, that the purpose was to instill hatred, incite hatred,
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and cause offense, are you saying that's an acceptable answer?
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I'd have to look at it in the context of all the information and determine if it was indeed.
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I think you know that the answer here, that that answer would be illegal.
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But, again, I look at it, this kind of Section 3 case takes a lot of analysis.
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We published those cartoons for the intention and purpose
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of exercising our inalienable rights as free-born Albertans
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to publish whatever the hell we want, no matter what the hell you think.
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That was, of course, our friend Ezra Levant being grilled by an investigator
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with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, Shirlene McGovern,
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as to what his intent was in choosing to publish, at the time in the Western Standard,
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Because this is exactly what human rights regulations and regimes do
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when they start tackling free speech, delving into your thinking
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behind doing certain things, which all should be protected under free speech.
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Fast forward to 13 years, we have Ezra Levant, rebel commander himself
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Ezra, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
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I'm afraid the law, under which I was prosecuted over a dozen years ago,
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and actually it's coming back sort of weaponized.
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You know those killer bees and then there's Africanized killer bees
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This isn't just like Section 13 I was grilled under.
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This is like a killer bee version of that that is much worse
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Yeah, and I want to talk first off because a lot of people have looked at this
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and said, okay, well, you know, Mark Stein and Maclean's were prosecuted
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and this is of course the Canadian Human Rights Commission
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first off, the provinces tend to follow the lead of the federal government
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but also they're all part of this one major regime
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which is a regime that decides the speech that is uttered by individual people,
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by media platforms, now by bloggers and people on social media.
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It's all part of the same overarching discourse.
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Yeah, well, I'm afraid that the pendulum is swinging against free speech.
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because of the overreach by the Alberta Human Rights Commission
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in the video you showed there and their attack on Mark Stein.
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But that was more than, that was about a decade ago.
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And since that time, cancel culture, woke racial identity politics
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And so it's coming back and it will be used vigorously
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That video you just showed, I was filming, that was actually at my law firm's office.
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We had the right to film that interrogation, to talk about the accuser against me
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who was a radical imam born in Pakistan, came to Canada,
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didn't accept our ideas of the separation of mosque and state, etc.
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Because under Bill C-36, the Human Rights Commission has the right to ban anyone
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from knowing who the accuser is, who the complainant is.
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but no one else in the media, in the public would be able to know.
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We have secret complainants and now secret witnesses.
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So it's not just the same censorship as before.
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It's the same censorship, but they want to ensure that no one will ever be able to fight back.
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whether it's a, oh, I don't know, a disgruntled ex-employee,
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a disgruntled ex-wife or ex-husband or ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend,
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a rival, or I think the most likely scenario in Canada,
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one of the Liberal government's paid aggressor groups,
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like the laughably named Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
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They just got a quarter million dollar grant from Stephen Gilbeau
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to go out and hunt and complain against conservative opponents of Justin Trudeau.
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They literally got a quarter million dollar budget
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to hunt down Trudeau's enemies online and complain against them.
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Well, who do you think is going to be the number one customer
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of this hate speech provision, but we'll never know.
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because this body, the Canadian Human Rights Commission,
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It's not supposed to have an independent prosecution arm.
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almost all of the complaints were filed by one single person.
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And we just know that there will be activists whose full-time job
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is finding this Twitter account they don't like,
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and just filing in a systematic way these complaints.
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not only can the complainants be a group or a corporation
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and by the way, we don't do that for any other kind of law.
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and you still have to take a stand, say your name,
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is one of the cornerstones of the rule of law in Canada.
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Yeah, otherwise, how do you know what the angle is?
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So, not only are you allowed to be a secret complainant
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And under C36, not only do you get up to 20 grand,
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but the person who made the offensive Facebook post
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if you haul someone before the commission and win.
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You go to the Human Rights Commission in secret.
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Obviously, you're not going to be cross-examined on it
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Well, why wouldn't people make a living out of this?
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but it is nowhere near the worst part of the bill.
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It does reintroduce the counterfeit right not to be offended.
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like you publish something likely to cause hurt feelings.
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to have a bunch of conditions put on their life.
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but it only applies for biased crimes and hate crimes.
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Yeah, this is the Minority Report peace bond
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for a crime that someone may commit in the future.