Juno News - The Trudeau government is trying to legislate cancel culture

00:00:00.000 The Trudeau government is trying to take cancel culture and turn it into federal law.

00:00:04.760 I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:00:12.340 Midnight Madness. As Canadians slept, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc combined to pass Bill C-10.

00:00:19.100 That is how Canadian law professor and the country's foremost expert on law and technology,

00:00:23.660 Dr. Michael Geist, described last Tuesday's shenanigans in the House of Commons

00:00:28.480 that saw the Trudeau government ram through its controversial internet censorship bill.

00:00:34.360 This comes after we saw the government limiting debate, overruling its own committee chair,

00:00:39.080 and using every available procedural maneuver to get the bill passed in the House of Commons,

00:00:44.320 Geist reports. In a nutshell, Bill C-10 attempts to take the government's outdated cultural

00:00:50.080 regulatory mechanism, the CRTC, and awkwardly apply it onto the internet. This will give bureaucrats 0.69

00:00:56.540 and the political operatives who direct them the power to meddle in the content that you see

00:01:01.420 online. The bill seeks to regulate everything from Facebook to Netflix to Google and potentially

00:01:06.720 replace those companies' algorithms with the government-approved ones. This would allow the

00:01:11.660 feds to push content they like and hide content they don't like. This should make all Canadians feel

00:01:16.960 uneasy. The idea of liberal hacks in the Prime Minister's office getting to decide what you see

00:01:22.720 and what you don't puts Canada in uncomfortably close proximity to totalitarian China.

00:01:29.220 Even if you agree with the liberals today, would you trust that power in the hands of conservatives?

00:01:33.940 Or how about the NDP? Given the power to control the information on the internet,

00:01:39.420 should we ever trust a political party with this kind of power? Perhaps the most concerning element

00:01:45.060 of Bill C-10 was an amendment that was removed by the liberals that would have protected user-generated

00:01:50.540 content. In other words, the liberals want to regulate and control what you post on your

00:01:55.980 private Facebook page or your private Twitter account. And it turns out that Bill C-10 was just

00:02:01.940 the tip of the iceberg of the Trudeau government's plans to control what you see and what you say

00:02:07.440 online. Speaking recently at the Banff World Media Festival, Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau hinted that

00:02:15.200 the liberals had something far worse coming. And this is a quote from Gilbeau. He says,

00:02:20.640 now this is going to be controversial. People think that C-10 was controversial. Wait until we table

00:02:26.480 this legislation, he said, doing his very best impression of a Bond villain. Well, lo and behold,

00:02:33.760 less than 24 hours after the liberals ran through Bill C-10, Justice Minister David Lamedi introduced Bill

00:02:40.380 C-36, which is a bill to crack down on so-called hate propaganda, hate crimes, and hate speech

00:02:47.020 online. Lamedi tabled the last-minute bill on Wednesday right before the House of Commons rose

00:02:52.020 for the summer, which among other things will reintroduce hate speech provisions into the

00:02:57.500 Canadian Human Rights Act. It will become illegal if this bill is passed to communicate in a way that

00:03:03.520 is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or a group. Now, when it comes to

00:03:10.960 Bill C-36, I'm going to read from Matthew Lau's piece over in the National Post because he describes

00:03:16.380 it very well. He says, quote, under the hate speech provisions, journalists, bloggers, and social media

00:03:22.580 users, in fact, almost anyone who writes anything on the internet, would be liable if anyone complains

00:03:28.380 that their speech is hateful, to be investigated by bureaucrats for committing human rights violations

00:03:33.500 and forced to pay reparations. All reasonable people can agree, of course, that stirring up

00:03:39.320 hatred against someone or some group of people is very bad. But unfortunately, these sorts of hate

00:03:44.880 speech laws are rife with pitfalls. There is, first of all, the moral hazard problem, similarly to how

00:03:51.400 extravagant government welfare programs discourage people from earnestly searching for jobs.

00:03:55.600 Entitling people to financial reparations if they complain about hate speech creates the possibility

00:04:01.880 that some people will originate complaints even when they are poorly founded, since the complainants

00:04:07.260 do not face any downside financial risk. Now, I'll continue to read from Lau's piece in the National

00:04:13.420 Post. He writes, perhaps to allay concerns about censorship, the government says that speech that

00:04:18.900 expresses dislike or disdain, that discredits, humiliates, hurts, or offends, is not

00:04:25.140 considered hate speech and so would not be illegal. But what is the difference between speech that

00:04:30.700 expresses hatred and speech that merely expresses dislike? In a society governed by laws, people

00:04:36.700 should be able to know whether something is lawful before they do it. With the proposed hate speech

00:04:41.820 law, people instead will find out after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal reaches its decision whether

00:04:47.840 their speech was illegal or not. The process does not inspire confidence, especially since under Section 13,

00:04:53.960 there were secret trials. And until one case in 2009, the tribunal's conviction rate over a period of

00:05:00.320 three decades was 100%. So again, to Lau's point, what constitutes hate speech? What's the difference

00:05:06.960 between speech that expresses dislike, disdain, that discredits, humiliates, hurts, or offend,

00:05:12.220 which the government says is legal, versus hate speech, which the government says is illegal?

00:05:17.660 Make no mistake, Bill C-36 will expand the government's power to crack down on messages and comments

00:05:23.520 they don't like based on their own subjective and ill-defined criteria. First, Trudeau introduced

00:05:29.700 an internet censorship bill to give the feds regulatory power over the internet. Now with this

00:05:35.580 bill, they want to criminalize opinions they don't like. Perhaps worst of all is the mechanism that

00:05:41.420 could be used to pull down content the government doesn't like. Bill C-36 gives the Canadian Human Rights

00:05:47.600 Commission the power to compel citizens to cease online communication or pay a monetary fine.

00:05:54.480 Compelling Canadians to remove content under threat of fine or worse is only part of what the Trudeau

00:05:59.580 government has already told us is their ultimate goal. After Trudeau won a minority election in 2019,

00:06:06.380 his mandate letter written to Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau laid out his top priorities in

00:06:12.120 government. In that letter, Trudeau ordered the government to, quote, create new regulations for

00:06:17.320 social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including

00:06:23.380 hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties, unquote. Removing content the liberals don't

00:06:30.280 like, and in 24 hours no less, erases any possibility for due process or appeal. It allows the government

00:06:37.220 to play judge and jury and to compel technology companies to do their dirty work. Make no mistake,

00:06:44.020 these are censorship laws, and censorship laws have no place in a free and open society.

00:06:50.160 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - June 28, 2021

The Trudeau government is trying to legislate cancel culture

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