The Candice Malcolm Show - 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.

00:00:04.820 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:12.400 Midnight madness. As Canadians slept, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc combined to pass Bill C-10.

00:00:19.180 That is how Canadian law professor and the country's foremost expert on law and technology,

00:00:23.720 Dr. Michael Geist, described last Tuesday's shenanigans in the House of Commons

00:00:28.520 that saw the Trudeau government ram through its controversial internet censorship bill.

00:00:34.400 This comes after we saw the government limiting debate, overruling its own committee chair,

00:00:39.140 and using every available procedural maneuver to get the bill passed in the House of Commons,

00:00:44.380 Geist reports. In a nutshell, Bill C-10 attempts to take the government's outdated cultural

00:00:50.120 regulatory mechanism, the CRTC, and awkwardly apply it onto the internet. This will give bureaucrats 0.69

00:00:56.580 and the political operatives who direct them the power to meddle in the content that you see

00:01:01.460 online. The bill seeks to regulate everything from Facebook to Netflix to Google and potentially

00:01:06.780 replace those companies' algorithms with the government-approved ones. This would allow the

00:01:11.720 feds to push content they like and hide content they don't like. This should make all Canadians

00:01:16.620 feel uneasy. The idea of liberal hacks in the Prime Minister's office getting to decide what you see

00:01:22.760 and what you don't puts Canada in uncomfortably close proximity to totalitarian China.

00:01:29.260 Even if you agree with the liberals today, would you trust that power in the hands of conservatives?

00:01:34.000 Or how about the NDP? Given the power to control the information on the internet,

00:01:39.460 should we ever trust a political party with this kind of power? Perhaps the most concerning element

00:01:45.100 of Bill C-10 was an amendment that was removed by the liberals that would have protected user-generated

00:01:50.600 content. In other words, the liberals want to regulate and control what you post on your private Facebook

00:01:56.840 page or your private Twitter account. And it turns out that Bill C-10 was just the tip of the iceberg

00:02:03.100 of the Trudeau government's plans to control what you see and what you say online. Speaking recently at

00:02:10.340 the Banff World Media Festival, Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau hinted that the liberals had something

00:02:16.220 far worse coming. And this is a quote from Gilbeau. He says,

00:02:20.820 Now this is going to be controversial. People think that C-10 was controversial.

00:02:25.300 Wait until we table this legislation,

00:02:28.540 he said, doing his very best impression of a Bond villain.

00:02:32.740 Well, lo and behold, less than 24 hours after the liberals ran through

00:02:36.400 Bill C-10, Justice Minister David Lamedi introduced Bill

00:02:40.420 C-36, which is a bill to crack down on so-called hate propaganda, hate crimes, and hate speech

00:02:47.060 online. Lamedi tabled the last minute bill on Wednesday, right before the House of Commons

00:02:51.820 rose for the summer, which among other things will reintroduce hate speech provisions into the

00:02:57.540 Canadian Human Rights Act. It will become illegal if this bill is passed to communicate in a way that

00:03:03.580 quote, is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or a group.

00:03:10.160 Now, when it comes to Bill C-36, I'm going to read from Matthew Lau's piece over in the National

00:03:15.020 Post because he describes it very well. He says, quote,

00:03:18.860 Under the hate speech provisions, journalists, bloggers, and social media users, in fact,

00:03:23.820 almost anyone who writes anything on the internet, would be liable if anyone complains that their

00:03:28.860 speech is hateful. To be investigated by bureaucrats for committing human rights violations,

00:03:33.580 and forced to pay reparations. All reasonable people can agree, of course,

00:03:38.940 that stirring up hatred against someone or some group of people is very bad. But unfortunately,

00:03:44.200 these sorts of hate speech laws are rife with pitfalls. There is, first of all,

00:03:48.700 the moral hazard problem, similarly to how extravagant government welfare programs discourage

00:03:53.800 people from earnestly searching for jobs. Entitling people to financial reparations if they complain

00:03:59.640 about hate speech creates the possibility that some people will originate complaints even when

00:04:05.080 they are poorly founded, since the complainants do not face any downside financial risk.

00:04:10.540 Now, I'll continue to read from Lau's piece in the National Post. He writes,

00:04:14.380 Perhaps to allay concerns about censorship, the government says that speech that expresses

00:04:19.420 dislike or disdain, that discredits, humiliates, hurts, or offends, is not considered hate speech,

00:04:26.560 and so would not be illegal. But what is the difference between speech that expresses hatred

00:04:31.500 and speech that merely expresses dislike? In a society governed by laws, people should be able to know

00:04:37.640 whether something is lawful before they do it. With the proposed hate speech law, people instead will find out

00:04:43.840 after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal reaches its decision whether their speech was illegal or not.

00:04:49.860 The process does not inspire confidence, especially since under Section 13, there were secret trials,

00:04:55.840 and until one case in 2009, the tribunal's conviction rate over a period of three decades was 100%.

00:05:02.700 So again, to Lau's point, what constitutes hate speech? What's the difference between speech that

00:05:07.960 expresses dislike, disdain, that discredits, humiliates, hurts, or offend, which the government

00:05:12.900 says is legal, versus hate speech, which the government says is illegal? Make no mistake,

00:05:19.040 Bill C-36 will expand the government's power to crack down on messages and comments they don't like,

00:05:24.500 based on their own subjective and ill-defined criteria. First, Trudeau introduced an internet

00:05:30.340 censorship bill to give the feds regulatory power over the internet. Now with this bill, they want to

00:05:36.680 criminalize opinions they don't like. Perhaps worst of all is the mechanism that could be used to pull

00:05:42.600 down content the government doesn't like. Bill C-36 gives the Canadian Human Rights Commission the power

00:05:48.720 to compel citizens to cease online communication or pay a monetary fine. Compelling Canadians to remove

00:05:56.060 content under threat of fine or worse is only part of what the Trudeau government has already told us

00:06:01.240 is their ultimate goal. After Trudeau won a minority election in 2019, his mandate letter written to

00:06:08.040 Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau laid out his top priorities in government. In that letter, Trudeau

00:06:13.900 ordered the government to, quote, create new regulations for social media platforms, starting

00:06:19.160 with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face

00:06:26.640 significant penalties, unquote. Removing content the liberals don't like, and in 24 hours no less,

00:06:32.760 erases any possibility for due process or appeal. It allows the government to play judge and jury and

00:06:39.060 to compel technology companies to do their dirty work. Make no mistake, these are censorship laws,

00:06:45.920 and censorship laws have no place in a free and open society. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is the Candace

00:06:51.820 Welcome Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - June 28, 2021

The Trudeau government is trying to legislate cancel culture

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