Bill C-9 is a bill that would make it easier to prosecute people for hate speech online, and it would also make it much easier to get rid of the requirement for the Attorney General to give consent for hate crimes. Conservative MP Roman Baber has been leading the charge against the bill, and has been doing a great job ranting about it.
00:03:17.320So effectively what this is is before, in order to be able to charge a hate offense,
00:03:40.420you had to get the Attorney General sign-off because even though I disagree with these hate upgrades being present
00:03:48.440because we should just be charging all criminals harshly no matter what the motivation is behind your crime,
00:03:53.960unless it leads to another crime that you are attempting to commit to,
00:03:58.060even if they are to exist, they should be used sparingly, extremely sparingly,
00:04:04.180and that's why they used to need Attorney General consent,
00:04:06.700but now prosecutors can just throw in extra hate charge upgrades whenever they want.
00:04:10.940Bill C-9 removes the requirement of the Attorney General's consent for the allaying of hate speech offenses.
00:04:19.560Are you concerned that politically motivated crowns or police may initiate prosecutions that aren't appropriate?
00:04:25.940And specifically, to go further, that vexatious litigants may litigate private prosecutions for hate speech
00:04:34.060and appeal decisions that try to end or block such prosecutions?
00:04:39.880So I am concerned, and I have expressed that concern for over 30 years,
00:04:44.300that the Attorney General's consent is a safeguard against the frivolous and vexatious use of these sensitive sections of the criminal code.
00:04:52.960That's why I've proposed either the retention of the Attorney General's consent,
00:04:57.420notwithstanding the difficulties at times in getting that consent or getting that consent in a timely way,
00:05:04.040or as an acceptable alternative, that the consent be retained for privately initiated investigations,
00:05:11.700because that's the real danger, the privately laid charges.
00:05:15.620Because if you're not aware, there is the ability as a member of the public
00:05:20.260to file a private prosecution against somebody that you believe has committed a crime.
00:05:25.920Now, we actually did do this in British Columbia with the 1BC party that I work for,
00:05:31.640where our leader, MLA Dallas Brody, filed a private prosecution against Charlotte Cates for terrorism,
00:05:38.780because Charlotte Cates runs the listed terrorist organization Samadun,
00:05:43.100which is a money laundering front for terrorist organizations around the world.
00:05:46.180They promote terrorism. They try and counsel people on how to commit terrorist acts.
00:05:51.480And because the Attorney General of the province, Nikki Sharma, the BCNDP Attorney General,
00:05:56.060is so useless and has not filed a charge yet, that we filed it ourselves.
00:06:01.420But imagine if some random activist, so we charged a serious offense that requires a lot of evidence,
00:06:07.740and we have the evidence, the evidence exists out there, everyone can easily find it,
00:06:11.700that this person should be charged under some terrorism-related offenses.
00:06:17.000But what happens if it's just something that's hyper-subjective?
00:06:20.760Like, this person's been hateful to me. I feel targeted.
00:06:24.620Well, that's pretty dangerous that activists could effectively go around trying to shut down their political opposition
00:06:30.780by just imagining things that they said that were hateful,
00:06:33.760or this person said something to me in a hallway, or I was offended by this tweet,
00:06:37.440they're dog-whistling, and suddenly you have seven pending charges from a bunch of random idiots
00:06:43.220who have no public accountability at all.
00:06:46.400But now, let's move on to the next part of the thread.
00:06:50.180Again, shout-out to Roman Baber. This is just really, really well put together.