Stand on Guard with David Krayden - April 17, 2024


Trudeau's Thought Crimes Bill EXPOSED! ｜ Stand on Guard Ep 117


Episode Stats

Length

36 minutes

Words per Minute

147.05206

Word Count

5,330

Sentence Count

313

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Online Harm's Act would make it illegal to promote hatred against an identifiable group based on race, ethnicity, nationality, colour, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. But what does that mean for free speech? And what would it mean for online harms?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 One. Welcome back to another episode of Stand on Guard. I'm your host, David Craydons.
00:00:05.820 My guest today is the founder and president of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, John Carpe.
00:00:14.560 And when we come back momentarily, we're discussing the Online Harms Act.
00:00:21.020 So we are in a very precarious position in this country.
00:00:24.240 We need political change, but we also need to resolve to resist.
00:00:54.240 It was Carpe last Friday, and you delivered a fantastic address to a standing room only church there.
00:01:04.580 And I think everybody left with a sense that at least somebody out there is organizing resistance to Trudeau's Online Harms Bill.
00:01:16.360 And you talked to a lot of people there, a lot of your supporters, and my wife and I are among those supporters, by the way.
00:01:23.340 We've supported the Justice Center for many years, and I think the work you're doing is phenomenal.
00:01:30.420 But did you leave there with a sense that people felt at least there's hope we can do something to stop this odious Online Harms Bill?
00:01:39.380 Well, democracy is a political system that rewards the people who are the most active and the most engaged, and it punishes people who are not active.
00:01:51.860 There's an old French proverb that says, if you don't do politics, then politics will be done unto you.
00:01:57.940 And so we've seen, not only in Canada, but in different countries, when people roll up their sleeves, and when you have strong grassroots support for a candidate or for an idea or on an issue, when people are both active and persistent, so they don't give up and quit after a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, but they're willing to stick with an issue for years, you can see positive change.
00:02:26.020 In Alberta, we used to have this premier by the name of Jason Kenney, and he was replaced by somebody named Daniel Smith, and that was because a lot of Albertans were very upset with Jason over breaking his promises to stop the lockdowns, and he just made things worse and broke his promises and then brought in vaccine passports, etc.
00:02:49.460 And so there are so many examples throughout history and across the world, if people will roll up their sleeves and engage in the political process, engage in the democratic process, then it is possible to bring about change.
00:03:04.940 Well, I certainly think you're right, people can fight back, and if they're mobilized and educated, and I think that's part of the process here that you're fulfilling.
00:03:16.460 But I think Trudeau's unalloyed narcissism is part and product of a bill like this.
00:03:24.460 He really thinks he can get away with this, the taking away our free speech, and without any kind of resistance, and we're supposed to think this is about protecting children, although, as you pointed out the other night, all of these laws are already in place to protect children from child pornography and from revenge porn.
00:03:45.860 And for that matter, hate speech. We've already got laws against hate speech. So what is going on with this? We need to do it again. We need to replicate these laws in this online harms package. What are they up to?
00:04:00.880 Well, currently, we've got section 319 of the criminal code makes it illegal to willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group. And that means a section of the public that can be identified on the basis of race, ancestry, ethnicity, skin color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity.
00:04:29.040 And I might be missing one or two, but it's on these enumerated grounds. So, by the way, it doesn't apply. If you were to willfully promote hatred against bankers, for example, and apologies to any bankers that are listening or watching this.
00:04:45.080 But if you were to say that bankers are a bunch of vile scum and the world would be better without them, or really nasty words like that. Or if you said that, excuse me, if you made hateful comments about people
00:04:58.980 that did not get the COVID injection back in 2021, and if you said that they were racist, extremist, anti-science, misogynist, it wouldn't apply. So section 319 makes it illegal to promote hate willfully against an identifiable group based on those characteristics of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
00:05:23.980 Now, it's hard to measure, but it probably does not have a huge negative impact on free expression because most people are staying clear of breaking that law. And there are four defenses available, the defense of truth, the defense of expressing an opinion based on a religious text, and so on.
00:05:48.920 Now, what the Online Harms Act would do, okay, so you've got criminal code hatred is illegal. That's already a crime. But what the Online Harms would do is they would empower the Canadian Human Rights Commission with new powers to prosecute Canadians for non-criminal hate speech.
00:06:13.500 And here, the definition of hate. And here, the definition of hate gets very, very subjective. Because who knows the difference between hate versus dislike or hate versus disdain. And so you're going to get the Canadian Human Rights Commission with, they're going to have bureaucrats that can prosecute.
00:06:34.860 You could be ordered to pay up to $50,000 to the federal government, plus up to $20,000 to the complainant, plus complaints can be anonymous.
00:06:46.140 And so this casts the net a whole lot wider than the law that we have right now, the criminal code prohibition on hate speech, where, by the way, the Crown has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that what you said was hateful, and that you intended to say something hateful, that you did it on purpose, prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:07:09.180 But with the new law, if the Online Harms Act, if Bill C-63 passes, you're going to get the Canadian Human Rights Commission to prosecute for non-criminal hate speech, where you don't get a criminal record, but it's also, it's very subjective.
00:07:25.380 You'll be at the mercy of bureaucrats subjectively deciding what hate means, because it's not at all clear.
00:07:33.840 Now, the bill states, or at least the Attorney General has said, Ava Verrani has said, that this definition of hate will be defined by the Supreme Court.
00:07:48.420 Is this a definition the Supreme Court has already promulgated, or is this going to be a new definition that they promulgate?
00:07:56.380 So the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with a human rights case arising out of Saskatchewan.
00:08:02.340 So this was like a non-criminal human rights prosecution against a fellow by the name of Bill Watcott.
00:08:09.700 Some of the viewers and listeners may have heard the name.
00:08:12.440 He's a socially conservative activist who distributes flyers and pamphlets, which a lot of people find very offensive.
00:08:22.960 It's his choice of words.
00:08:24.240 A lot of people might agree with his viewpoint, but they don't like the way he expresses it.
00:08:27.620 Anyway, he was getting prosecuted for distributing flyers in Saskatchewan that denounced gay sex as sinful and in very polemical, strong language.
00:08:41.400 And so when this ultimately got before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court tried to come up with a definition of non-criminal hate speech.
00:08:52.160 And I actually did a cut and paste of that section of the judgment, and they devoted over 4,000 words to trying to hair split by saying, well, promoting disdain and dislike is okay, but promoting detestation and vilification is not okay.
00:09:12.860 How do you know if what you're saying is going to be okay because it's promoting dislike of a particular group, but it's not crossing the line into disdain and vilification?
00:09:26.480 It's just impossible.
00:09:28.520 And so even after 4,000 words, the Supreme Court did a miserable job and failed to come up with any clarity.
00:09:36.480 And that's not the fault of the Supreme Court.
00:09:38.240 That would be you or I, anybody else, try and write a concise definition of hatred that people can look at and actually know whether they're in line with the law or not.
00:09:49.760 And it's going to be impossible because hate is an emotion.
00:09:52.760 It's very subjective.
00:09:53.660 You could hear something that you think is hateful, and I might say, no, David, that's not hateful.
00:09:57.500 That's just an opinion.
00:09:58.880 And vice versa.
00:09:59.800 I could hear something and go, oh, that's hateful.
00:10:02.340 You could say, no, John, that's not hateful.
00:10:03.940 That's just an opinion.
00:10:04.840 And it's completely subjective.
00:10:07.560 Yeah, and it's a very slippery slope.
00:10:10.100 I mean, I hate to use that phrase because it's overused, but it is.
00:10:15.280 We're going nowhere good with this.
00:10:17.660 I want to show a clip here because I talk to a lot of Americans because of the work I do as a journalist.
00:10:24.240 I do a lot of work south of the border and have over the years.
00:10:27.680 And a lot of American commentators, small-c conservative commentators, are saying, you have got to be kidding about this Online Harms Act.
00:10:36.320 It can't be real.
00:10:37.700 This is a joke, right?
00:10:39.240 This is a parody of Justin Trudeau at its worst, suggesting that we're going to have thought crimes in Canada.
00:10:45.960 And, of course, we'll get to that in a minute because I think your thoughts on that are excellent.
00:10:51.060 But my old friend Steve Forbes is jumping on the bandwagon, and he released this video a couple of days ago, and I think it's excellent.
00:11:00.120 And I'm just going to watch it because he not only brings up the thought crimes aspect, he brings up something interesting about Canada's Charter of Rights, which I'd like you to comment on.
00:11:10.880 Hello, I'm Steve Forbes, and this is What's Ahead, where you get the insights you need to better navigate these turbulent times.
00:11:18.120 Freedom of speech is a bedrock right for Americans.
00:11:21.280 It is guaranteed in the First Amendment of our Constitution.
00:11:24.980 We tend to think other democracies enjoy the same privilege.
00:11:28.800 Think again.
00:11:30.120 The First Amendment is truly unique to us.
00:11:33.640 Just look at our neighbor to the north, Canada.
00:11:36.440 There, free speech is under Cuban-like assault.
00:11:40.220 If the government of leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has its way, not only will your right to write and speak what's on your mind be severely restricted,
00:11:50.100 but also the government can jail you if it suspects you might say something that is unlawful.
00:11:56.080 You heard that right.
00:11:57.580 The mere suspicion that you might mouth or write words or phrases that the government deems to be unlawful is grounds to arrest you.
00:12:06.000 Who could have imagined that what George Orwell labeled thought crimes in his classic novel 1984, about nightmarish life in a totalitarian world, would be pursued by Canada of all places?
00:12:19.180 Ostensibly, Canada protects free speech in what it calls, quote, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, end quote, which is part of the Canadian Constitution.
00:12:29.800 In the Charter, quote, freedom of expression, end quote, is indeed guaranteed.
00:12:35.740 But then comes the killer qualifier, as long as it remains, quote, within reasonable limits, end quote.
00:12:42.500 You could drive a convoy of dump trucks through that loophole, and Canada's national and local governments have done just that.
00:12:51.080 Over the years, people expressing politically incorrect observations have suffered serious legal assaults by government.
00:12:58.540 Trudeau's new bill targets so-called hate speech on the Internet.
00:13:04.080 Anyone could file a complaint against someone or a business.
00:13:07.820 The targeted individual could end up getting hit with house arrest, even if he or she hasn't actually committed a speech crime.
00:13:15.880 But a judge decides there is a likelihood that such a person would do so.
00:13:20.480 But the warning is clear.
00:13:23.600 If Canada can suppress free speech, don't be surprised if more and more entities here in the U.S. try to emulate our neighbor to the north.
00:13:32.720 I'm Steve Forbes. Thanks for listening.
00:13:34.860 Do send in your comments and suggestions.
00:13:37.280 I look forward to being with you soon again.
00:13:40.660 So, Forbes, of course, media mogul, a former Republican presidential candidate.
00:13:48.040 He's saying that this could happen in the U.S. because if it happens in Canada first, it can happen here.
00:13:55.220 But he raises that question about our Charter of Rights and the phrase reasonable doubt.
00:14:01.340 Has this left us in a very precarious position that we can't challenge this Online Harms Act as being unconstitutional?
00:14:11.920 Does that put us in a precarious situation?
00:14:14.380 Well, excellent points.
00:14:17.620 And I have to agree with what Steve Forbes said.
00:14:20.740 One of the provisions that he mentioned was preemptive punishment.
00:14:26.280 So if your neighbor fears that you might commit a speech crime in the future, you would have to appear before a provincial court judge.
00:14:34.300 And if the judge believes your neighbor and fears that you might commit a speech crime, you could be ordered to place under house arrest and wearing an ankle bracelet and observing a curfew.
00:14:45.620 And if you don't agree to abide by those conditions, you could spend up to two years in jail.
00:14:50.260 All of that without having committed any crime whatsoever, but preemptive punishment.
00:14:55.580 So we might get into that more later.
00:14:58.040 But I just want to say what Steve Forbes said is correct.
00:15:01.020 Under Bill C-63, you could end up in prison without having committed a crime.
00:15:06.560 It is possible under this legislation.
00:15:08.620 Now, section one of the charter says that governments can, so governments would be the federal government, provincial governments in Canada, can violate your charter rights and freedoms if they show demonstrably with persuasive evidence that the freedom violating law is a reasonable limit that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
00:15:39.600 So I'll give you a concrete example.
00:15:41.940 Okay, so we've got this hate speech, criminal code prohibition against hate speech.
00:15:47.420 That was challenged by Jim Keekstra, who was a public school, high school teacher in Alberta in a small town called Ekville.
00:15:56.740 And in his social studies class, and maybe other classes too, I don't know, but in his social studies class,
00:16:02.060 he said that there is a worldwide conspiracy of Jews that are causing wars, causing conflicts, making trouble, very anti-Semitic stuff.
00:16:15.960 And he was charged with willfully promoting hatred.
00:16:19.620 And he challenged the law as invalid.
00:16:23.880 And he almost won.
00:16:25.560 The Supreme Court of Canada split four to three.
00:16:28.060 And there were four out of seven justices sitting on that case.
00:16:32.800 Four out of seven said that the criminal code prohibition on hate speech did violate our freedom of expression.
00:16:41.120 I think that's pretty obvious.
00:16:42.880 Nobody disagrees with that, right?
00:16:44.720 If the criminal code says you can go to jail for saying certain things, that's obviously it's a restriction on your free expression.
00:16:53.420 But they upheld it as demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
00:16:59.000 It was a reasonable limit.
00:17:00.280 It had defenses in there.
00:17:01.940 You could defend yourself on the basis of truth.
00:17:04.760 There was a religious defense that if you were articulating an opinion based on a religious text.
00:17:11.680 And so, but three out of seven said, no, they would have struck it down as an unreasonable limit and not justified.
00:17:18.120 So this is, if the Online Harms Act passes into law, it could certainly be challenged by citizens and it would be possible to get a court to strike down parts of the Online Harms Act or all of it as an unreasonable limit.
00:17:38.280 So that door is open.
00:17:40.160 How would the courts rule?
00:17:41.360 Well, well, I'm not in the business of making predictions, but the court could go either way on this quite easily and could uphold legislation like that.
00:17:54.520 Possibly the court could strike it down, but that's hypothetical.
00:17:57.140 Well, I think Steve latched on to the thought crimes component of this legislation, which I think most people that I've spoken to are most alarmed by.
00:18:10.360 That it's not just hate speech, it's hate thought or what the government or your neighbor down the street thinks you might be thinking.
00:18:20.120 I find that frightening, that we could come to that kind of juncture in this country that used to believe in free speech and is now literally echoing the darkest chapters of George Orwell's 1984.
00:18:40.520 Do you find that frightening?
00:18:42.860 Well, it's frightening.
00:18:43.440 The opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre quipped the other day, he says, does Justin Trudeau view George Orwell's book titled 1984?
00:18:55.280 Does he view 1984 as a warning or as an instruction manual was the question that was asked.
00:19:01.560 But if the justice minister, Arif Varani, was a third person on the show, if we were having a three-way discussion,
00:19:10.120 he would say, well, you know, you're getting upset over nothing because a judge would only order house arrest and curfew and ankle bracelet
00:19:19.420 if the judge believed that there were actual reasonable grounds to support your neighbor's belief or your neighbor's fear.
00:19:28.420 So it's not a slam dunk.
00:19:30.040 He would say this is not a slam dunk.
00:19:31.740 It's not like your neighbor files a complaint and the next thing you know, you're placed under house arrest
00:19:36.840 because the neighbor would have to have well-founded grounds, would have to have a good reason for fearing that you're about to commit a hate crime.
00:19:47.540 And if the and there's a good chance that your neighbor would fail to persuade the judge and then you would be on your way.
00:19:54.940 Now, I would respond to the justice minister and say, well, you might be right.
00:19:59.840 Maybe 90% or maybe 99% of these complaints will get dismissed.
00:20:06.060 But the process is the punishment.
00:20:09.640 And this is something that we have to take into account.
00:20:12.040 So a lot of Canadians, if the Online Harms Act, if C63 passes, they're not going to necessarily be afraid of being placed under house arrest
00:20:21.060 because, you know, the chance of that's pretty slim.
00:20:24.000 But there's a far bigger chance that you're going to be, you have to appear before a judge
00:20:29.940 and hopefully persuade the judge that you're not going to commit a speech crime.
00:20:36.000 And it's that fear, people don't, and it's the same with the human rights complaints.
00:20:39.240 You're going to have a lot of frivolous human rights complaints.
00:20:42.580 When Scotland passed hate speech legislation just a few weeks ago, on the first day they were flooded with,
00:20:49.500 I don't know what the number was, 5,000.
00:20:51.120 And there were so many complaints that it's going to be hard to get through it.
00:20:55.420 So same thing with the Online Harms Act.
00:20:58.220 If the Canadian Human Rights Commission gets the new powers to prosecute non-criminal hate speech,
00:21:05.400 if they get flooded with 10,000, 20,000 complaints, they might get so bogged down that,
00:21:11.060 so it's not, it's not the high risk of being ordered to pay $50,000 to the federal government
00:21:20.360 and being, and on top of that, $20,000 to a complainant.
00:21:23.660 It's not the risk of having to pay $70,000 that's frightening.
00:21:27.860 It's the risk of getting prosecuted that if you don't watch what you say,
00:21:32.240 you're going to get a letter in the mail or a letter by email saying, you know,
00:21:35.640 dear Mr. Creighton, you know, it's been reported to us that you said such and such on this date,
00:21:42.060 this time, this forum, this venue, this podcast, or, you know, on your website,
00:21:46.880 it's been reported to us.
00:21:48.640 And we believe that you've violated the human rights legislation.
00:21:54.440 And so disciplinary, sorry, prosecution has been commenced.
00:21:59.720 You're entitled to retain counsel if you wish.
00:22:03.040 Nobody wants to get that kind of a letter.
00:22:05.500 So that's the chilling effect.
00:22:07.720 If this passes, it's going to have a huge chilling effect on expression in Canada
00:22:13.440 because people fear the process, even if the risk of the punishment might be small.
00:22:17.820 Well, when I first read through this bill, my first impulse was to say this is a mechanism for self-censorship
00:22:28.520 because they create this whole layer of bureaucracy, this agency that's going to be overseeing hate speech.
00:22:36.100 And they've created this online censorship czar.
00:22:39.540 That's what I'm calling this person.
00:22:40.960 They call it an ombudsperson that's going to be overseeing all of this.
00:22:45.220 And the object of this, of course, is to threaten people to say,
00:22:49.500 just a minute, you've posted something or your broadcast might be deemed hate speech.
00:22:55.960 Why don't you moderate your approach?
00:22:57.940 Why don't you change it?
00:22:59.160 Why don't you take it down?
00:23:00.920 And that'll be the end of your problems.
00:23:03.500 So therefore, I go back and say, well, do I really want legal entanglements over this program?
00:23:08.720 Maybe I'll just take it down or maybe I'll change what I said.
00:23:11.980 And there's a chill factor here that is enormous, even if it never gets to court,
00:23:18.180 even if it never is a case of being charged.
00:23:22.340 I'm self-censoring myself now because I'm worried about a judge coming to me.
00:23:26.960 I'm worried about the thought police at my door.
00:23:29.420 I'm worried about being arrested for something I put on perhaps six months ago or a year ago
00:23:35.540 that I put up as a broadcast or something I said in a column 15 years ago.
00:23:41.640 And believe me, there's probably things that I said 15 years ago that today might be adjudicated
00:23:47.500 as hate speech, although I would strongly deny that and fight against that definition.
00:23:53.620 But I find it's worrisome that the government now expects us to essentially self-censor our speech.
00:24:01.480 I find this to be, we have libel chill.
00:24:04.660 This is now hate speech chill.
00:24:07.840 Well, libel chill, at least, is between private actors amongst private actors.
00:24:14.240 And so people are entitled to a good reputation.
00:24:17.780 So if you said, I'm just going to pick a name, Ralph Smith, my apology to any Ralph Smiths out there.
00:24:25.320 If you said, well, Ralph Smith is a crook, he's dishonest, he's treacherous in business,
00:24:32.240 he cheats people out of money, whatever, stuff like that.
00:24:35.660 Ralph Smith is entitled to a good reputation.
00:24:38.060 So he could sue you.
00:24:39.480 But that's a private action between two individuals.
00:24:41.960 And it doesn't touch on your political viewpoints about what you might think about a politician,
00:24:48.720 what you might think about a government policy, what you might think about a controversial topic.
00:24:53.800 Like you take this whole transgenderism stuff that's being pushed on kids.
00:24:58.560 That's a hot potato.
00:25:02.940 Or you've got immigration, you've got Aboriginal policy, you've got criminal justice issues, etc.
00:25:08.740 So the defamation law is a bit of a chill to make you think twice before you say something really nasty about your neighbour.
00:25:17.360 Because your neighbour could sue you if it's defamatory and if it's false.
00:25:21.720 That's fairly limited.
00:25:23.060 It just means you've got to watch out.
00:25:24.300 If you're saying something specific about another human being, you better make sure it's true.
00:25:29.540 Otherwise, you better exercise caution.
00:25:31.420 So you don't just run around saying that somebody is dishonest or a crook or a thief or whatever.
00:25:36.300 But the Online Harms Act, as you pointed out, Dave, is it's going to get a lot of social media platforms to remove content
00:25:48.060 because they want to avoid these hefty draconian penalties that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and penalties.
00:25:57.040 And the way that's going to be done is if Bill C-63, if the Online Harms Act passes,
00:26:03.860 the federal cabinet will get new censorship powers to create censorship rules about what cannot be said
00:26:12.740 and also what must be said.
00:26:14.800 You can say that as well.
00:26:15.660 And those, like all cabinet orders, regulations, they are passed, they are deliberated in secret by the federal cabinet.
00:26:27.880 And you find out about it once it's proclaimed into force.
00:26:30.740 You don't find out about it ahead of time.
00:26:32.880 They are not approved by parliament.
00:26:36.140 They're not debated in parliament.
00:26:37.540 Parliament does not vote on them.
00:26:38.720 So the passing regulations is done in secret by the federal cabinet.
00:26:45.300 And so the Online Harms Act gives the current and future federal cabinets this new power.
00:26:51.840 And then we're going to have this Digital Safety Commission.
00:26:54.980 Watch out for safety because during the French Revolution, during the reign of terror, 1793,
00:26:59.840 it was the Committee of Public Safety that chopped off the heads of over 16,000 Frenchmen.
00:27:06.080 And so safety is dangerous.
00:27:08.760 Just be careful.
00:27:09.920 So we're going to have a Digital Safety Commission with bureaucrats to monitor the social media websites
00:27:16.360 to see if they're complying with the federal cabinet regulations.
00:27:20.720 And you're going to see a ton of self-censorship there where it won't be the government.
00:27:25.240 It'll be the social media platforms that are going to like remove, remove, remove, remove, remove all kinds of content
00:27:31.300 because they don't want to be slapped with massive fines.
00:27:34.340 Well, the Trudeau government has already hired more civil servants, more government employees
00:27:42.380 than all previous governments in the past.
00:27:47.240 And this is another excuse to start hiring bureaucrats.
00:27:52.080 If we have this Digital Safety Commission and this online safety czar, this is going to be another layer of bureaucracy
00:28:00.120 that's going to be set loose on us if we don't have enough government in this country.
00:28:05.940 We're already inundated with bureaucracy.
00:28:09.460 And Trudeau just feeds off of it.
00:28:11.260 So when I hear Pierre Polyev talk about common sense approaches and talk about cutting the size of government and regulations,
00:28:19.880 I'm relieved because I hope he's serious.
00:28:23.580 But you mentioned the words he spoke the other day at the Canada Strong and Free Conference.
00:28:30.340 And I was heartened by this.
00:28:32.380 And I'm just going to play that now.
00:28:36.660 Well, I am very excited about what today offers.
00:28:41.620 And I'm going to a meeting tonight with the Justice Foundation that is centered upon the Online Harms Act
00:28:47.900 because we need to hear more about this.
00:28:49.760 But I want you guys to hear this fantastic quote from Conservative leader Pierre Polyev,
00:28:56.920 who was at the Canada Strong and Free Convention today.
00:29:00.300 That's the old Manning Centre Conference.
00:29:03.260 And unfortunately, I'm not there today.
00:29:06.380 This would have been unimaginable eight years ago.
00:29:12.340 Unimaginable.
00:29:13.280 It would have been unimaginable eight years ago before Justin Trudeau
00:29:17.540 to think that not only would he pass a law to control what you can see and say on the Internet,
00:29:25.660 but he would then put forward another law which could put you under house arrest or a peace bond
00:29:34.900 under suspicion of something unacceptable you might say in the future.
00:29:43.100 You know, this guy, if he had read 1984, he would have thought it was an instruction manual
00:29:49.420 and not a warning.
00:29:55.260 So, yes, excellent words.
00:29:58.600 I was so happy to hear him say that.
00:30:01.420 I have been on his back lately to say more about this bill,
00:30:07.420 to do something productive about it,
00:30:10.780 to ensure Canadians he's opposed to it,
00:30:14.380 that they're going to try to stop it in the next 18 months
00:30:19.100 and they would repeal it if it is passed.
00:30:23.020 He's said similar things about Bills C-11 and C-18.
00:30:27.400 He has not said enough about this.
00:30:29.320 So I was relieved to hear him speak this way last week
00:30:32.720 because, frankly, I am disappointed in the response,
00:30:37.940 not just from the Conservative Party,
00:30:39.860 but from journalists out there who have said very little.
00:30:46.280 And a lot of my old friends in the mainstream media where I used to work
00:30:50.620 are saying very little.
00:30:53.540 Once again, very afraid to rock the boat to upset Justin Trudeau,
00:30:57.720 who's subsidizing so much of the legacy media.
00:31:00.580 And I'm expecting better because this goes to the very heart of free speech,
00:31:07.200 which is what journalism is all about.
00:31:09.140 We need the freedom to report the truth.
00:31:12.180 We need the freedom to offend people occasionally.
00:31:15.220 The truth offends.
00:31:16.860 The truth is not always something that's going to mollify everybody.
00:31:21.300 And, my God, if we'd use offense as our yardstick as to what we can say,
00:31:26.920 very little would have been done in history.
00:31:30.940 There's a lot of offending actions in history.
00:31:32.840 Well, absolutely.
00:31:34.180 You look at William Wilberforce and the fight against slavery,
00:31:38.740 and today in Canada and most other countries,
00:31:43.860 presumably the whole idea of slavery is anathema,
00:31:48.480 and you get close to 100% of the population is against it.
00:31:52.160 You have to remember that 300 years ago, it was the opposite.
00:32:00.860 Slavery had been accepted in every country, every civilization.
00:32:07.060 On every continent, there was slavery or some form of servitude.
00:32:13.280 Okay, there's different kinds of slavery,
00:32:14.820 but you might have serfdom in Russia.
00:32:17.080 But amongst the indigenous peoples, North and South America,
00:32:23.680 amongst the African peoples, the Arabs, all across the world,
00:32:27.920 the Romans, of course, the Greeks, you had some form of slavery.
00:32:33.980 And it was considered to be normal.
00:32:35.340 It was not considered to be morally objectionable.
00:32:38.640 And so you had these people who were deemed to be crazy, kooky,
00:32:44.920 and a little bit evil too.
00:32:46.940 William Wilberforce and a bunch of Quakers in Britain
00:32:50.100 started on this project of getting rid of,
00:32:54.480 first they got rid of the slave trade that was taking place with the ships,
00:32:59.520 capturing the blacks in Africa, shipping them across the Atlantic,
00:33:03.360 and then taking to the Caribbean, and then taking cotton and tobacco and rum
00:33:09.520 from the Caribbean back to Britain and so on.
00:33:11.940 They got rid of the slave trade.
00:33:13.440 That took 25 years of lobbying,
00:33:15.480 and then another 25 years thereafter to get rid of slavery itself.
00:33:19.260 But it was an uphill battle.
00:33:21.180 And the same could go for women's right to vote.
00:33:25.060 That was considered to be completely nuts.
00:33:26.980 The same on abortion, and that debate is not settled.
00:33:32.660 Gay marriage, you name it.
00:33:34.900 On all of these issues, if we don't have a right to offend,
00:33:40.580 if a right to not be offended cannot coexist with free speech.
00:33:45.200 Yes, I would agree completely.
00:33:48.060 And that's a large job ahead.
00:33:50.620 I believe we have to fight this vigorously.
00:33:52.560 Are you doing more town hall meetings like the one you did here in Ottawa last week?
00:33:58.200 Yes, next week I will be doing one in Vancouver and one in Langley, British Columbia.
00:34:03.860 And I anticipate doing more of them in the weeks ahead.
00:34:08.520 And when I was in Ottawa last week, we met briefly in person.
00:34:13.520 On Wednesday, April the 10th, I delivered 55,500 signatures of people who have signed the petition against the Online Harms Act.
00:34:25.260 If anybody is hearing this or viewing this, you could go to www.jccf.ca,
00:34:31.920 so Justice Center Constitutional Freedoms, jccf.ca.
00:34:35.680 Sign the petition.
00:34:36.720 We want to deliver another batch.
00:34:38.720 And we're just going to keep on fighting away.
00:34:44.060 And you might get changes to the bill before it's passed.
00:34:49.100 But if not, then we keep on fighting for its repeal.
00:34:54.580 Perseverance is the key.
00:34:56.740 Quitters never win and winners never quit.
00:34:59.440 And so you have to be persevering over the course of months and years if you want to achieve what your goals are.
00:35:06.600 Well, on that line, I guess we'll get you out of here.
00:35:10.800 Thank you so much for appearing today and for the work you've done, not only on this issue,
00:35:15.760 but so many other issues that are fundamental, I believe, to Canadian freedom.
00:35:20.940 And you're so right that the process is the punishment.
00:35:24.660 Even if this thing doesn't put people in jail, it's going to be such a nuisance factor,
00:35:30.440 being hauled in front of human rights rights people, being subject to penalties, financial and otherwise, constant threats.
00:35:40.060 And I think what you're doing is going to help reverse this.
00:35:43.800 But we've got to energize Canada.
00:35:45.720 Stay in touch.
00:35:46.580 And if there's anything we can do here and for the organs that I write for,
00:35:51.720 I tell you, they're dedicated to stopping this legislation because they know it's tantamount to ending free speech in Canada and a free press.
00:36:02.920 And without either of those, we're not a democracy.
00:36:05.960 We're not a democracy.
00:36:07.160 So thanks so much for joining me today, John.
00:36:09.600 And stay in touch.
00:36:11.040 And keep up the fight.
00:36:12.920 Have a great rest of the day.
00:36:14.360 Thank you.