The Trudeau government is trying to legislate cancel culture
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Summary
The Trudeau government is trying to take Canadian culture and turn it into federal law. As Canadians slept, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc combined to pass Bill C-10. This will give bureaucrats and political operatives the power to meddle in the content you see online. And it s just the tip of the iceberg of the Trudeau government s plans to control what you see and what you say online.
Transcript
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The Trudeau government is trying to take cancel culture and turn it into federal law.
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I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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Midnight madness. As Canadians slept, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc combined to pass Bill C-10.
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That is how Canadian law professor and the country's foremost expert on law and technology,
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Dr. Michael Geist, described last Tuesday's shenanigans in the House of Commons
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that saw the Trudeau government ram through its controversial internet censorship bill.
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This comes after we saw the government limiting debate, overruling its own committee chair,
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and using every available procedural maneuver to get the bill passed in the House of Commons,
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Geist reports. In a nutshell, Bill C-10 attempts to take the government's outdated cultural
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regulatory mechanism, the CRTC, and awkwardly apply it onto the internet. This will give bureaucrats
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and the political operatives who direct them the power to meddle in the content that you see
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online. The bill seeks to regulate everything from Facebook to Netflix to Google and potentially
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replace those companies' algorithms with the government-approved ones. This would allow the
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feds to push content they like and hide content they don't like. This should make all Canadians
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feel uneasy. The idea of liberal hacks in the Prime Minister's office getting to decide what you see
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and what you don't puts Canada in uncomfortably close proximity to totalitarian China.
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Even if you agree with the liberals today, would you trust that power in the hands of conservatives?
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Or how about the NDP? Given the power to control the information on the internet,
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should we ever trust a political party with this kind of power? Perhaps the most concerning element
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of Bill C-10 was an amendment that was removed by the liberals that would have protected user-generated
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content. In other words, the liberals want to regulate and control what you post on your private Facebook
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page or your private Twitter account. And it turns out that Bill C-10 was just the tip of the iceberg
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of the Trudeau government's plans to control what you see and what you say online. Speaking recently at
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the Banff World Media Festival, Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau hinted that the liberals had something
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far worse coming. And this is a quote from Gilbeau. He says,
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Now this is going to be controversial. People think that C-10 was controversial.
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he said, doing his very best impression of a Bond villain.
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Well, lo and behold, less than 24 hours after the liberals ran through
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Bill C-10, Justice Minister David Lamedi introduced Bill
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C-36, which is a bill to crack down on so-called hate propaganda, hate crimes, and hate speech
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online. Lamedi tabled the last minute bill on Wednesday, right before the House of Commons
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rose for the summer, which among other things will reintroduce hate speech provisions into the
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Canadian Human Rights Act. It will become illegal if this bill is passed to communicate in a way that
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quote, is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or a group.
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Now, when it comes to Bill C-36, I'm going to read from Matthew Lau's piece over in the National
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Post because he describes it very well. He says, quote,
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Under the hate speech provisions, journalists, bloggers, and social media users, in fact,
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almost anyone who writes anything on the internet, would be liable if anyone complains that their
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speech is hateful. To be investigated by bureaucrats for committing human rights violations,
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and forced to pay reparations. All reasonable people can agree, of course,
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that stirring up hatred against someone or some group of people is very bad. But unfortunately,
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these sorts of hate speech laws are rife with pitfalls. There is, first of all,
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the moral hazard problem, similarly to how extravagant government welfare programs discourage
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people from earnestly searching for jobs. Entitling people to financial reparations if they complain
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about hate speech creates the possibility that some people will originate complaints even when
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they are poorly founded, since the complainants do not face any downside financial risk.
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Now, I'll continue to read from Lau's piece in the National Post. He writes,
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Perhaps to allay concerns about censorship, the government says that speech that expresses
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dislike or disdain, that discredits, humiliates, hurts, or offends, is not considered hate speech,
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and so would not be illegal. But what is the difference between speech that expresses hatred
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and speech that merely expresses dislike? In a society governed by laws, people should be able to know
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whether something is lawful before they do it. With the proposed hate speech law, people instead will find out
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after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal reaches its decision whether their speech was illegal or not.
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The process does not inspire confidence, especially since under Section 13, there were secret trials,
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and until one case in 2009, the tribunal's conviction rate over a period of three decades was 100%.
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So again, to Lau's point, what constitutes hate speech? What's the difference between speech that
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expresses dislike, disdain, that discredits, humiliates, hurts, or offend, which the government
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says is legal, versus hate speech, which the government says is illegal? Make no mistake,
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Bill C-36 will expand the government's power to crack down on messages and comments they don't like,
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based on their own subjective and ill-defined criteria. First, Trudeau introduced an internet
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censorship bill to give the feds regulatory power over the internet. Now with this bill, they want to
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criminalize opinions they don't like. Perhaps worst of all is the mechanism that could be used to pull
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down content the government doesn't like. Bill C-36 gives the Canadian Human Rights Commission the power
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to compel citizens to cease online communication or pay a monetary fine. Compelling Canadians to remove
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content under threat of fine or worse is only part of what the Trudeau government has already told us
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is their ultimate goal. After Trudeau won a minority election in 2019, his mandate letter written to
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Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau laid out his top priorities in government. In that letter, Trudeau
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ordered the government to, quote, create new regulations for social media platforms, starting
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with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face
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significant penalties, unquote. Removing content the liberals don't like, and in 24 hours no less,
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erases any possibility for due process or appeal. It allows the government to play judge and jury and
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to compel technology companies to do their dirty work. Make no mistake, these are censorship laws,
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and censorship laws have no place in a free and open society. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is the Candace