Simone Smith
“It is clear from recent statements by the Prime Minister and the Heritage Minister that the federal government wants to increase control and penalties for speech content that is not approved by the ideologies in the Liberal Party. Unsurprisingly, the purpose of Bill C-19 is not to increase freedom of thought belief, opinion, and expansion (section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) but to further restrict it.” Jay Cameron (Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms)
Here in Canada, we have a wonderful heritage that recognizes basic fundamental human rights and freedoms: freedom of thought, expression, belief, religion, freedom of association and assembly, freedom of the press, the right to life and liberty. They are values that are at the core of our free society – values that many before us have fought and died for.
There has been a lot happening behind closed doors during this pandemic. Covid-19 has served as a blinding blanket to what is in store for Canadians. Last November, Mr Steven Guilbeault tabled Bill C-10, “An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act…” This rather innocuous-sounding proposal contains some sweeping, radical changes. It places the entirety of the Canadian internet under the bureaucratic auspices of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission). It will give CRTC regulatory control over the internet’s content for diversity, prioritizing “Canadians from racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages.”
Apparently, a lot of reasonable people think there needs to be a measure of government intervention to restrict online hate speech and to make online messages uniform so that they are in line with various ideas of public policy. The same issue is here that is with who established what was essential during the lockdown. They say that it is to prevent hate speech, but what else will they be censoring with Bill C-10?
Mr Guilbeault defends his agenda by saying that Canadians feel online hate speech is a problem. He presented recent surveys that he claims share thoughts from Canadians who are demanding government intervention. Again the question has to be asked, how do Canadians define hate speech? Are we all talking about the same thing?
Some Canadians are going to see this as another attack against our rights and freedoms; readers, what do you think?
Please send a message to your MP today, and share your thoughts.
https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/action-alert-emails?vvsrc=%2fcampaigns%2f83962%2frespond
