In this episode of The Corrie Morgan Show, Corrie talks with John Carpe from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms about Bill C-63, which is out to police our speech, and why we should allow political parties in municipal elections.
00:02:32.820If that's the case, then you guys should have nothing to worry about.
00:02:35.900You'll be re-elected as independent candidates, and the parties will just fade away into the sidelines, right?
00:02:42.140The reality is, countless municipal politicians have been taking advantage of the lack of party politics at the municipal level,
00:02:49.000coupled with the apathy of voters to get elected under false pretenses.
00:02:52.720I mean, we've got no means of vetting through a party nomination process,
00:02:55.820so candidates can disguise themselves as conservative-minded people when they're running for office.
00:03:00.780Of course, once they get elected, they tack hard left,
00:03:03.620and unfortunately the frustrated electorate tends to stay home rather than vote these pretenders out of office.
00:03:09.080Former Calgary Mayor Nahed Nenshi is a prime example of that.
00:03:12.720Municipal politics in Alberta right now are a mess.
00:03:15.740Councils everywhere are fractured at each other's throats, not getting anything done,
00:03:19.620while frustrated voters are trying things such as recall initiatives to get rid of these terrible politicians.
00:03:24.600I mean, look at Chestermere. The province had to actually step in and fire the mayor and council
00:03:28.540because they were too nutty to try and bring to a reasonable state of functional order.
00:03:32.960Would a party system cure all these ills in the municipal system?
00:03:36.360No, of course not. It wouldn't. But it sure would help.
00:03:38.520If candidates have a party allegiance tied to them, voters, people, and general citizens can get a better idea of where that candidate stands ideologically.
00:03:48.020Parties typically have a nomination process before endorsing candidates.
00:03:51.780If there's a contested nomination, we can rest assured that closet socialists are going to be exposed before they hit the ballot in the general election.0.99
00:03:59.160Some of the less than mentally stable contenders for the job could probably be weeded out as well.
00:04:03.560I mean, we get a lot of good candidates running for office, but they lose the elections because
00:04:08.160they don't know how to run in them. And they don't have an organization behind them to help
00:04:12.500them along with it. With parties, candidates have a structure and a potential team to help them
00:04:16.960effectively contest the election. And then costs in campaigning, they can be reduced as candidates
00:04:21.960can share costs from constituency to constituency on things like branding, communications, printing,
00:04:27.820and even sharing campaign office space. With a party apparatus, candidates with limited campaign
00:04:33.300experience can still compete effectively for the role. Parties can also hold candidates accountable
00:04:38.820between elections. That's something we all dearly want. I mean, much like in other levels of
00:04:42.680government, a party can't remove a person from their elected position, nor should they be able
00:04:46.000to, but a party can refuse to endorse that candidate in the next election if the candidate
00:04:50.140deviates too far from the shared principles they said they held with the party. That ability,
00:04:55.100though, does reflect one of the potential downsides of a party system. I mean, to be fair,
00:04:58.520candidates could find themselves more inclined to answer to the party than their constituents,
00:05:01.820and that's not a good thing. It's a risk that should be mitigated through party policies,
00:05:06.660though. When municipal parties are formed, representatives will need to have the leeway
00:05:11.080to be able to represent their needs of the individual constituencies rather than always
00:05:14.480towing a party line. I mean, a suburban councillor, they're going to have different
00:05:18.420policies and priorities and needs than an inner city urban council would, and they should have
00:05:23.680the flexibility to represent those differences. With city and town councils having a small number
00:05:28.760of people within them, these councils. Traditional party politics such as whip votes won't work0.80
00:05:33.400anyway. So those problems though can and would be ironed out with an effective party. We can't
00:05:38.140pretend that parties don't exist in municipal politics already. Alberta unions put together
00:05:42.300a war chest of an estimated 1.7 million dollars and gave it to a political action group called
00:05:47.900Calgary's Future in the last election. Now that group's purpose was to elect a certain slate of
00:05:52.380candidates in the municipal election and lo and behold most of the candidates endorsed by the
00:05:56.060unions won their seats. You know what that's called? A party system. We already have it, guys.
00:06:02.320We'd be better served to make the system official and then make the parties transparent.
00:06:06.560Many of the municipal politicians currently howling and pissing and moaning over the advent
00:06:09.900of a party system in Alberta's municipal elections got elected with union support.
00:06:14.220They know full well they likely couldn't win re-election if they had to wear their union
00:06:18.000allegiance on their sleeves while competing for the job against other candidates running
00:06:22.080under a party banner. Their interest isn't that of Albertans, their interest is in themselves.
00:06:27.720People often ask, why does Alberta vote conservatively, federally, and provincially,
00:06:30.940yet elects far-left politicians at the municipal level? Well, the main reason is the lack of parties
00:06:35.060at the municipal level. Leftists know they can't win through openly campaigning on their ideology,
00:06:39.260so they've gravitated to the level of politics where they can hide their leanings, and it's been
00:06:43.100an effective tactic on their part. And again, if it's true that Albertans truly don't want party
00:06:47.960politics in municipal elections, then these municipal politicians currently in power have
00:06:51.560nothing to worry about. Few would vote for those ghastly party-endorsed politicians anyways, right?
00:06:57.760So why are you guys so worried? It's the fact that these clowns are that worried. It tells me
00:07:02.080exactly why we need those parties in municipal politics so much. I'm looking forward to seeing
00:07:07.040them coming along. All right, enough out of me. Let's see what else is going on out in the world.
00:07:11.740Check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor. Where are you, Dave? You should be there any moment now,
00:07:17.540and we'll talk about what's happening in the newsroom. Hey, Dave, how's it going?
00:07:19.600Yeah, here I am, Corey. You enjoying the first full day of spring?
00:07:23.280No. Sucks. It's cold. It's snowy. I don't like it.
00:07:26.240It's going to get worse going down to like minus 17.
00:11:37.040So, again, yeah, lots breaking, lots going on as Dave laid out.
00:11:40.580This is what I like to remind everybody, the reason we can do this,
00:11:44.960the reason we can keep Dave employed myself and all the rest of us here is because you guys have
00:11:50.480subscribed. So subscribe guys, Western standard online or western standard dot news slash
00:11:55.900subscription. And, uh, for nine 99 a month, you can get full access past the paywall and it helps
00:12:02.660support us, keeps us independent. We aren't taking tax dollars. We won't take tax dollars.
00:12:07.080And that way we answer to you. So, uh, if you've subscribed already, thank you very much guys. And
00:12:13.340if you haven't yet, come on, get on there and encourage some other people to do it. I mean,
00:12:17.340come on, the state of legacy media is terrible and we do need to fix it up. And again, congratulations,
00:12:24.160Mike and Media, 60 years. I mean, really, we don't see enough of that these days of people
00:12:27.600making it that long. Jane and I got married later in life. So, I mean, if we make it to 60, boy,
00:12:32.300I'm going to be really old by the time we get there. We can hope for the best, but I don't
00:12:36.340think I'll make that landmark. All right, let's see. I see, I see, I see, I see, I see Mr. Carpe
00:12:43.940in the waiting room already, and I sure really do want to have this conversation. So if he's ready
00:12:47.980to roll, let's pull John in here and have a talk about C63. So this is John Carpe of the Justice
00:12:54.920Center for Constitutional Freedom. So hi, John, how are you doing? I'm well, Corey. How are you?
00:12:59.600Very good. Thanks. Aside from, you know, whining about the weather.
00:13:01.980the farmers need the moisture i i pray for the farmers yeah look even the snowfall apparently
00:13:09.560uh one centimeter of snow translates into uh only one millimeter of rain so they need lots
00:13:16.140more moisture to have a good crop this year yeah but i'm still going to complain about it okay
00:13:21.500it is a good thing so uh something else we can certainly complain about though c63 boy that's
00:13:27.940monster that's been dropped on us. I guess kind of try and explain a little about what this bill
00:13:34.140is and what's behind it. Well, it was introduced in late February. It brings back the powers to
00:13:41.980the Canadian Human Rights Commission to prosecute people over non-criminal hate speech. And hate
00:13:50.100is subjective. It's defined subjectively by, you know, whatever bureaucrats in charge of the
00:13:57.780prosecution. And it also adds a new section to the criminal code of Canada, whereby a person
00:14:04.920can be ordered to wear an ankle bracelet and observe a curfew and live under house arrest,
00:14:13.380give up their legally owned, legally acquired firearms, et cetera, based on somebody saying
00:14:21.520that they fear that that person is going to commit a hate speech crime, and then you would
00:14:29.580be hauled before a provincial court judge. And if the judge believes that there's reasonable
00:14:35.020grounds for that fear, again, we're talking about not something you're doing, but a speech crime
00:14:39.620that you have not even committed, but that you might commit. And if the judge feels that you
00:14:45.140might commit, violate the criminal code, hate speech provisions, all of those restrictions
00:14:52.420being put under house arrest, etc. can be placed on a person. And if the person doesn't agree with
00:14:58.700those conditions and abide by them, that person can face up to two years in jail. So this is very
00:15:04.320Orwellian to have a new provision in the criminal code where you can be punished
00:15:09.580for a crime that you might commit in future. Well, yeah. And I mean, there's a few things
00:15:15.380we could cover on this bill, and that's probably the most odious of them all, but
00:15:19.060it just seems so beyond the pale. I mean, I imagine the second, if that bill passed as it is,
00:15:26.160and if somebody was essentially restrained on a potential thought crime, lawyers such as yourself
00:15:34.500and others would be in there within seconds to challenge that in the courts. I mean,
00:15:38.260would a judge hold that up? It just seems that they've crossed the line too far for even the
00:15:42.680most liberal of judges to support. Well, it's the fear factor. And the online harms bill,
00:15:48.360if passed in its current form, or even if passed with some of the worst provisions removed,
00:15:55.660it's going to get most Canadians to self-censor. You and I and a number of other people would
00:16:01.520probably just continue on our merry way and speak our minds. But for a lot of other people,
00:16:05.980if the public advocacy is not your your full-time job a lot of other canadians will fear getting
00:16:11.600even an anonymous complaint is allowed under the online harms act so that you don't have a right
00:16:19.300to face your accuser or question your accuser or have your lawyer ask questions of your accuser
00:16:24.920or even know who your accuser is that's a provision allowing for anonymous complaints
00:16:30.580So you could have somebody in Vancouver that sees something online posted by a woman in Nova Scotia who is making some disparaging remarks about a mosque in Toronto.
00:16:41.800And even if the members of that mosque in Toronto are not offended by the comment, this complaint could go ahead anonymously against this woman in Nova Scotia.
00:16:50.120And then she's at the mercy of a human rights commission that's going to decide subjectively whether or not she said something hateful.
00:16:58.700And if convicted, she could be ordered to pay up to $50,000 to the federal government.
00:17:05.080And in addition to that, pay up to $20,000 to the members of the mosque in Toronto.
00:17:16.260It's even worse than what we had previously with the Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
00:17:24.640Well, it's good. I was going to bring up Section 13.
00:17:26.980And yes, it was like the commissions overstepped so grossly, so badly about 10, 15 years ago that, you know, Prime Minister of the time, Harper, later on was able to get Section 13 out of there, which was just too broad.
00:17:41.100And people were getting abused by these commissions.
00:17:43.040I mean, you don't have, as you said, the remedies that you would in a regular courtroom.
00:17:46.560These things were turning into kangaroo courts.
00:17:48.100I mean, the former owner of the original Western Standard, Ezra Levant, had published those cartoons in it and was brought before the Human Rights Commission.
00:17:56.780no criminal charges, just these commissions. And this bill looks like it's going to empower
00:18:01.640these commissions back to where they were and maybe even further. So as you said, it'll be
00:18:06.620chilling and we should all be very worried. Well, it's important for people to contact
00:18:10.840their member of parliament. You could argue that it's even more important if your member of
00:18:16.480parliament is liberal or NDP, because they've got the majority to get this through. But contrary to
00:18:22.140what some people think uh mps do listen if they get a lot of phone calls and a lot of emails on
00:18:28.380an issue and they're worried about their re-election it's gonna uh make make for some
00:18:33.820changes within those two parties uh because they do have the majority in the house uh the other
00:18:38.720thing we're doing to fight back is we have an online petition which as of right now has just
00:18:44.020shy of 50 000 signatures we're going to look for another 50 000 signatures in the weeks ahead and
00:18:50.980those will be delivered to the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa in April so people can find us
00:18:56.300at www.jccf.ca and please sign the petition. The other really worrisome thing is that this
00:19:08.100legislation gives powers to the federal cabinet to create censorship regulations that will apply to
00:19:15.900all social media services in Canada. And then there will be the creation of a digital safety
00:19:23.380commission. Watch out for things that have the word safety in them. During the French Revolution,
00:19:28.200it was the Committee for Public Safety that chopped off the heads of thousands of people.
00:19:33.980So we're going to have a digital safety commission to enforce those regulations. And those regulations
00:19:40.000will be made in secret by the federal cabinet without any input from Parliament.
00:19:46.520Yeah, this stuff is just going down the realm of crazy train. And this bill, I looked at it,
00:19:50.820I mean, it has hundreds of pages. Unfortunately, it's like an omnibus piece. It's got a lot
00:19:54.500packed in there, most of it bad. Another part that I saw was some of the penalties they're
00:20:00.480proposing are, again, just beyond the pale. This bill outright prescribes as much as a life
00:20:06.040sentence, which we can't even get from murderers quite often in this country, but a life sentence
00:20:10.720if somebody promotes genocide. And we're in the midst of a discussion of, I mean, some people say
00:20:16.500that if you say that Israel has the right to defend itself, you're supporting genocide. Or
00:20:21.100if you deny that there's bodies buried in Kamloops, you support genocide. So by theory,
00:20:27.400you're putting yourself at risk of a life sentence. Again, isn't this the sort of thing
00:20:31.080that most judges would say, look, we can't apply a sentence this heavy on such a relatively minor
00:20:37.920offense, if indeed it's an offense. Well, currently the criminal code provides for a maximum penalty
00:20:44.300of five years in jail for publicly advocating for genocide. So they want to increase that from a
00:20:51.300five-year maximum to life in prison as the maximum. Consider the fact that currently the criminal code
00:20:58.520for sexually assaulting a minor under the age of 16, the maximum penalty is 14 years in prison.
00:21:06.720So it seems like the federal cabinet thinks that advocating for genocide,
00:21:12.440warranting potentially life imprisonment is worse than raping a child, which would get you a maximum
00:21:19.100of 14 years in prison. I mean, the priorities are just skewed. And something else they did
00:21:25.060politically, though, I mean, when I and I noticed they put it at the top of the bill, when I started
00:21:29.240reading the bill, at first, it didn't seem quite so bad. Okay, they're talking about bringing in
00:21:33.540some more stuff to go after people who were hosting child porn. Okay, everybody's disgusted
00:21:37.740with that. I can support going after those perverts. And further, you know, going, but the
00:21:42.900problem is, once you get past that, that's where they drop all of the rest of the garbage into this
00:21:47.600bill. Do you think maybe it's possible to, you know, clip off the first few pages of this bill
00:21:52.460and pass it and then just get rid of all the rest? Well, the things that the Online Harms Act
00:21:58.720claims to address are already criminal. So for example, posting revenge porn online is currently
00:22:06.660already a criminal code offense. Posting an intimate image of somebody without their consent
00:22:12.400is a criminal offense. The willful promotion of hatred is a criminal offense. Advocating for
00:22:18.780genocide is a criminal offense. Advocating for violence or terrorism or the violent overthrow
00:22:24.320of the government of Canada is already a criminal offense. Encouraging anybody to violate the
00:22:32.920criminal code is already a criminal offense in and of itself. If I tell you, Corey, you should
00:22:38.240go shoplifting tomorrow, and if I was serious about it, I've already committed a crime.
00:22:42.700So this is just adding on a thick layer of vague human rights laws to further chill speech when the problems, which are real, are already being addressed by the Criminal Code of Canada.
00:22:58.840Yeah, well, and it takes away from people committing real crimes.
00:23:01.740I mean, if we're using our resources, going after some ding-dong who posted something offensive on social media somewhere.1.00
00:23:07.480Meanwhile, we do have some people that might be standing on a street corner, you know, trying to scream and gather people to assault or harm an identifiable group.
00:23:16.120I mean, we only have so many resources to track them down.
00:23:18.140I mean, there are real crimes out there, but, you know, we're spreading this so thin, going after anybody and everybody who says something online, we're going to run out of resources to get the real criminals.
00:23:26.220Yeah, this builds on the prior bills, Bill C11 and C18. And it's a gradual government takeover
00:23:34.140of the internet. And it's a step by step by step. This online harms bill, in my view,
00:23:40.840it's not just a step in the wrong direction. It's a great leap in the wrong direction. And
00:23:46.660it's going to do more to harm our freedom of expression than the prior bills, C11 and C18,
00:23:53.860which are a little bit more subtle and indirect, but they're also a threat to our free expression.
00:24:00.620Well, so this bill has been tabled. Now, there are some people saying, though, I mean, the way
00:24:04.760the government works and how fast it works is the chances of this bill getting all three readings
00:24:08.580and then royal assent and through the Senate by the time the next election's held are pretty slim.
00:24:13.420And we shouldn't have to rely on this thing dying on the order paper, but if the government's in a
00:24:18.480hurry, they can get this thing through fast if they want to, right? Well, you and I have seen
00:24:22.040this many times both both provincially and federally when a government is hell-bent on
00:24:27.520getting a certain bill through they will bang bang bang first reading second reading third reading
00:24:32.760and they will use their majority to uh cut off uh debate they will use their majority to see to it
00:24:40.520that that there is not a parliamentary hearings which is normal with with many many bills uh you've
00:24:47.480got an all-party committee of MPs that reflects the composition of the House of Commons, and you
00:24:54.340have witnesses, you have testimony, and you have, you know, the way it should be, a very thoughtful
00:24:59.180process with plenty of opportunity for public participation. Hopefully, the government will
00:25:05.100allow that, but if they choose not to, they could rush this through in 48 to 72 hours if they wanted
00:25:11.620to. So it's really crucial for people to contact their MP immediately by phone or email, uh, sign
00:25:18.160the petition and spread the word. Yeah. Well, and, and, uh, you know, this sort of thing, I mean,
00:25:24.780I can already see how they're politically framing it. I mean, in putting the anti-child porn stuff
00:25:29.620at the top, as soon as anybody comes out in opposition to this bill, they're going to turn
00:25:32.680around and say, well, you support the publishing of images of minors online, you know, a pornographic
00:25:37.880images. How dare you, you vile person. But I think the electorate maybe is finally starting
00:25:42.720to see through this crap, aren't they? Well, I hope so. The other thing that's
00:25:47.040already criminal is threats and intimidation. So part of what they bring forward is we have to
00:25:53.180prevent nasty people on the internet from bullying children or from encouraging children to self-harm.
00:26:01.720that too is already covered by existing laws and the other thing the bill completely forgets about
00:26:08.680is that that a big part of the solution to children getting harmed online is for parents
00:26:13.220to ensure that their kids are not glued to a computer screen or an iphone or a smartphone
00:26:19.820whatever it's up to parents to make sure that to protect their children by not giving their
00:26:25.460children unlimited and unsupervised access to the internet and social media. And that's a huge part
00:26:31.940of the solution. But the government likes to pretend that, you know, parents are not big
00:26:37.660players. So it's up to the government to be the big parent to look after these things, when really
00:26:43.260the first part and the major part of the solution to protecting children from online harm lies with
00:26:49.500the parents. I'm not saying we shouldn't also have appropriate criminal code provisions as we do,
00:26:55.460but the big thing is for parents to assume responsibility for what their kids are seeing
00:27:01.180online. Yeah I mean I don't this is a government that can't even get their own payroll system right
00:27:06.980I don't want to entrust them with the ability or the task of raising our children they'll only
00:27:12.760make a mess of it if anything they should be empowering parents and encouraging parents to
00:27:16.020get in more involved in their children's you know growth and development I mean it's a tough task
00:27:21.300going to a lot of opinions and that this just gets all the more intrusive. And when you take
00:27:26.420responsibility away from others, it'll probably just make the problem worse. That's what's likely
00:27:30.980to happen. Well, I guess before I let you go, so you're doing a petition with the JCCF. Are you,
00:27:37.060have you guys, I guess you can't really challenge a bill that hasn't even been passed yet, but
00:27:40.820have you got other actions planned aside from that? Or for now you're advocating kind of,
00:27:45.160and just gathering the steam that hopefully you can shut this down in its tracks. But I imagine
00:27:50.000And if the bill goes through, then you'll get to work on other things too.
00:27:53.360Well, we will be, our team of lawyers and paralegals, as well as communication staff,
00:27:58.040we will be submitting at least one brief, possibly more to the MPs outlining very specifically
00:28:04.720why this legislation is harmful and how it unjustifiably violates the Canadian Charter
00:28:13.500And yes, we are looking at, once it's proclaimed into force, we would look for the weakest, the worst provisions, particularly the one about preemptive punishment of people who have committed no crime.
00:28:28.860That is one that we would seriously consider taking to court immediately, even before the harm comes from it.
00:28:40.180Great. Well, I guess before I let you go, then, you know, I know you guys do a lot more.
00:28:44.540You've had a lot of actions over the years and you've done a lot of great things with your organization, with the, you know, standing up for our constitutional freedoms, as is in the name of your organization.
00:28:53.040So where can people find it to take part in the petition or donate?
00:28:58.100I see one of our commenters saying he's a monthly donor for you guys and a lot of people really appreciate your work.
00:29:03.120Well, we do rely entirely on voluntary donations from Canadians.