In this episode, Peter Menzies talks about how Liberals have tried to take control of the internet and control what Canadians can and can t do online, and how the CRTC has tried to get involved in the process.
00:01:45.400I think the difference between one of the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals is that liberals have a great deal of faith in government as a force for good and believe that when they do something because they did it, it must be good.
00:01:59.780Whereas conservatives have a more what I would call Jeffersonian approach that government should only do what only government can do, and it should focus on doing that well and generally have a more laissez-faire approach to the world.
00:02:12.580They will regulate things, of course, you know, age restrictions for things like pornography and that sort of stuff.
00:02:20.460They're in favor of, but they do not get into the realm of what you may say and what you may not say to the extent that the liberals instincts lead them there.
00:02:32.020So there was a suite of bills that the liberals brought in to control the Internet, control what Canadians can do and say and read.
00:02:42.580internet there's bill 11 bill 18 and bill c63 they 63 didn't go through but
00:02:49.620peter can you explain to us how the liberals used those three bills or intended to use them
00:02:58.500in order to control the internet sure well i mean part of the instinct goes back i can remember a
00:03:02.660few years ago heidi fry who was uh head of the heritage committee um in parliament but she said
00:03:10.820a few years ago have you seen the internet oh my god people can say anything on there
00:03:15.700right and and so it sort of goes holy people can say anything well i mean isn't that what we were
00:03:22.340isn't that what our democracy is supposed to be about exactly the the whole foundation and hetty1.00
00:03:26.900fry was an ndp uh no liberal cabinet cabinet minister yeah you know she's been for years
00:03:33.220she's in her 80s now but she has yeah i think she's most famous for talking about how
00:03:37.860how, as we speak, they are burning crosses in Prince George, and overstatements like that.
00:05:00.420So far, it has excluded podcasts, but it'll get into that eventually.
00:05:04.760just because that's the way regulatory creep works.
00:05:08.320But that sort of set the stage for managing how you consume content on the internet.
00:05:16.780It gets very complicated, so I won't go into all that.
00:05:19.420And then the Online News Act was about setting up a regime that would fund,
00:05:27.460provide either through the government's actions or through its own resources, funding for media.
00:05:33.380And that involved media then being approved by a government appointed committee.
00:05:40.400And then the last one was Bill C-63, which died on the order paper when Justin Trudeau left, and that was called the Online Harms Act.
00:05:50.980And the most dangerous part about that was adding new powers or reinstating old powers to the Canadian Human Rights Commission so that you and I could complain about each other anytime we wanted.
00:06:03.800Well, yes, that was an incredible intrusion into free speech rights.
00:06:10.400The idea, as I recall, the legislation that was dropped was that an individual who didn't like what I was saying or didn't like what you were saying could say, you know, on the basis of what Mr. Menzies has said in the past, I think he's likely to say something hateful in the future.
00:07:10.660It's one thing because our hate speech legislation came in to stop people from standing up on a podium with a megaphone or any other electronic means of communication and saying,
00:07:20.740tonight, I think people should pick up baseball bats and attack Presbyterians or any other1.00
00:07:27.640specific group that they wanted to, that that was hate speech that was likely, that was intended
00:07:33.780to provoke violence against an identifiable group. And we're a long way from that when we get into,
00:07:43.720I think you might say something that might hurt somebody's feelings. Therefore, we will make sure
00:07:50.580you don't have access to any public forum.
00:07:53.300Well, now, for the sake of the anxious viewer,
00:07:54.940let's just re-emphasize that legislation did not go through.
00:07:58.760It died on the order paper when the parliament was brought
00:08:12.340You think this is going to come back, Peter?
00:08:13.920Well, I think it'll come back certainly in some shape or form
00:08:16.100because some of the groups pushing for it originally,
00:08:18.900The original online harms graph, the factors within the Jewish community were pushing for protection from things that could be said against them.
00:08:35.160They should have pushed a little harder, Peter, by the sound of things.
00:08:37.420Well, and the Islamic factors within the Muslim community were pushing for it too because Islam was being criticized online and they were opposed to that.
00:08:47.660And I think as we've seen with the government's decision to, even without consulting parliament, recognize the state of Palestine, that is a significant voting bloc that's being catered to and shifting Western political dynamics in, I want to say, unforeseen ways, but they were foreseen but ignored.
00:09:15.740So let's see. So what we have is a government that, unlike the one that preceded it, which tended to just leave people to keep the law, but think what they want, read what they want, talk what they want, you've got now a government, and we've had a government for 10 years, that cares very deeply that you think the way they think you should think.
00:09:39.660yes the rest of you i think justin trudeau expressed it very well when he referred to
00:09:44.760people with unacceptable views so i think that might include you from time to time too
00:09:50.040but uh heaven forbid but but but but this whole idea of getting into the the this approved and
00:09:57.960disapproved the state i mean these are things that churches did right that that uh you know
00:10:03.480no, that is apostate, that is blasphemy, that is this, you know, those sorts of controls.
00:10:10.200These were not things that liberal democracies engaged in, and yet they just keep going that way.
00:10:16.400And it's actually very frightening to see because you realize how authoritarianism grows, right?
00:10:24.980When people who seem like nice people, who say they're doing this to keep us safe, it's always about safety, right?
00:10:31.200So it's about your safety, your emotional safety.
00:10:34.380One thing about physical safety, that's an entirely different thing.
00:10:37.640But if it's about your emotional safety, so you might say something that just, you know, triggers me or makes me go, oh, my God, oh, my God.
00:10:46.020I mean, I don't feel safe, you know, in this.
00:10:48.340And that's what happened with the evangelical singer last week.
00:10:52.980People were saying, wow, I don't know that people going to his concert.
00:10:56.500I know that what sort of people would be going to his concert?
00:13:39.680They do, and that's the sort of, you know, if you point to something like that when it first occurs, people will say, well, that's a little kooky.
00:14:04.900Some people will agree with, obviously, following social media.
00:14:09.060lots of people agreed with it. There was a rush of people agreeing with it. Many of us disagreed
00:14:15.700with it because we're hung up on this old-fashioned idea that you are going to be offended in life,
00:14:24.020right? There were, as mom used to say, sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never
00:14:28.980hurt you, the sort of thing, that you got to suck it up, buttercup, and get through life.
00:14:32.980And that is true tolerance. I'm sure this singer and I could sit down and talk for quite a while and I would leave in disagreement with him. Or there could be others that do. But he has a right to hold views that some people find offensive, provided he's not calling for harm to be done to anybody.
00:14:59.740But this liberal definition seems to be that holding the view is itself harmful, right?
00:15:08.380Just if you hold a view that is unfashionable or old-fashioned or not liberal or not within their very narrow, I think that's called the Overton window of acceptable views.
00:15:23.340And that's what you see the CBC generally present.
00:15:26.820And that window is getting narrower and narrower and narrower.
00:15:30.340So people who hold views that even five, six, ten years ago were perfectly mainstream are now out of the mainstream.
00:15:39.920And that applies social pressure and eventually legislative and regulatory pressure on your behavior.
00:15:46.660so this is starting to sound a lot like the kind of society that the soviet union
00:15:55.460established for its own citizens back in well i guess they got 1917 but they got control around
00:16:02.260by 1921 and that's what they started doing and you see that with every authoritarian regime that
00:16:08.260you've seen in the last hundred years and probably if you were a historian and you wanted to go
00:16:12.660Go further back, you would see it with the French Revolution and the English Revolution.
00:16:18.560You know, the round heads are not particularly tolerant of dissenting religious views.
00:16:22.940But this is what we're talking about, is a secular religion that this government holds to and is trying to force fit upon an entire country.
00:16:33.920Pretty much. I mean, I used to think it was just used for their political opponents, right?
00:16:37.980The old practice of demonizing your political opponents, which both parties have always historically tried to use.
00:16:45.060But it's spilled out of Parliament and into the streets so that we are now pointing at each other or given the power to.
00:16:52.760I mean, as you know, I worked for Harper for six years.
00:16:56.020Well, I don't recall us in that period of time having these kinds of mind control programs.
00:17:02.620In fact, they would have been anathema to Mr. Harper.
00:17:06.520But, you know, there wasn't even anything being quietly done by the sneaky operatives.
00:17:13.180What's the difference between the conservative way of thinking and the liberal way of thinking?
00:17:17.960Well, I think the difference, I mean, I'll use one case to sort of illustrate a point.
00:17:23.060There was the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.
00:17:26.440This was when I was at the CRTC, which is the sort of proxy for the CRTC content control, you know, like swear words and that sort of stuff that you're not supposed to say.
00:17:38.780And they banned, based on the complaint of one woman in Newfoundland, the Dire Straits song, Money for Nothing, was banned because it uses an old-fashioned reference to gay men that was the same word the English used to refer to a cigarette.
00:18:02.840And this caused this woman offence.1.00
00:18:07.680So the playing of that song was banned.
00:18:11.540So what happened in that case was with some encouragement,
00:18:19.260the CRTC suggested that the Broadcast Standard Council review its decision,
00:18:26.580that this was sort of an extreme move to do that.
00:18:31.400Now, I think Dire Straits themselves re-recorded the song to use a different word or something like that, but that was, that to me illustrated the instincts of that government, which was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, right?
00:18:43.840Like, you know, sure, people shouldn't gratuitously offend each other.
00:18:48.020Like, we, I think everybody agrees with that, that you shouldn't, but you are free to do it.
00:18:53.780Good. The state will not intervene and ban you or ban your music or that sort of stuff.
00:19:02.380And that's, like I said, entirely different.
00:19:05.000Whereas the liberals assume that state intervention is always useful.
00:20:07.080but I'm more free than I am within the sort of social...
00:20:10.640You don't have an employer to cut you off in the past.
00:20:13.100That's right. If I were to just pull you out a little more, Peter, and you say what you really think, we could probably get a human mind story going there.
00:20:21.500I'm just saying it. But there's corporate pressure because a lot of companies have this sort of stuff and people will turn somebody in.