New Liberal 'online harms' bill make hate penalty up to life in prison - "“We know that there are powerful organizations and people that may line up against this legislation, people with money and people with influence. My message to these people and these organizations is very simple: it is now the time to work directly with us. Profit cannot be prioritized over safety.”"
Clearly no one profits by opposing "hate".
Liberals feel unsafe when they hear contrary opinions, so good luck
GOLDSTEIN: Online harms bill an assault on free speech, critics say - "The two Canadian civil liberties organizations that convinced a federal court judge the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act violated fundamental rights — which the feds are appealing — are sounding similar alarms about its new online harms bill... The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) say while the proposed legislation contains legitimate measures to protect children from online sexual abuse, cyber-bulling and self-harm, and to combat the spread of so-called “revenge porn,” its provisions to prevent the expression of hate are draconian, vaguely worded and an attack on free speech... “Justice Minister (Arif) Virani has tied these speech restrictions to defensible measures like removing images of child sexual exploitation material and revenge porn,” said CCF executive director Joanna Baron. “But don’t be fooled. Most of the bill is aimed at restricting freedom of expression. This heavy-handed bill needs to be severely pared down to comply with the constitution.” Both the CCLA and CCF warn the bill could lead to life imprisonment for someone convicted of “incitement to genocide” — a vague term only broadly defined in the bill — and up to five years in prison for other vaguely defined hate speech crimes... people and organizations will self-censor themselves because of fear of being prosecuted criminally, or fined civilly, for what is actually legal speech... The CCF warns that the conditions the bill imposes on social media companies to patrol, monitor and flag online material that may be offensive but is not illegal, suggests the government’s real goal is “aimed at encouraging social media companies to censor speech that the government cannot outlaw.”"
Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "The bill would create a new section 13(2) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. It says you’re liable for anything you’ve ever posted (if you have the power to remove it now). Link here:"
Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "It gets worse. The bill creates a pre-crime called “fear of hate crime”. You can be put under house arrest, with an ankle monitor, forced to give blood samples, banned from talking to any person, etc. if someone “fears” you’ll say something hateful."
Justice Minister defends house arrest power for people feared to commit a hate crime in future - The Globe and Mail - "Justice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already... Bill C-63 is designed to curb the proliferation of hate online, but it also establishes a new hate-crime offence, which would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Mr. Virani said the hate-crime offence would only be applied if coupled with another crime and the life sentence would only apply in the most serious of cases – not, for example, for mischief to a garage door... Since it was published on Monday, some lawyers and constitutional experts have raised fears that Bill C-63 could chill free speech. The bill would allow people to file complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission over what they perceive as hate speech online – including, for example, off-colour jokes by comedians. People found guilty of posting hate speech could have to pay victims up to $20,000 in compensation. But experts including internet law professor Michael Geist have said even a threat of a civil complaint – with a lower burden of proof than a court of law – and a fine could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression. Mr. Virani said as Justice Minister he has sworn to uphold the Constitution, which includes freedom of expression."
When precrime and crimethink merge
Dacey Media on X - "Gaslighting: Pro Level "Truly strong leaders don't use police and military to oppress people's voices." - @JustinTrudeau #TrudeauMustGo"
EDITORIAL: Welcome to Trudeau’s cabinet. How do you like your steak? - "the Trudeau cabinet racked up more than $1 million in expenses associated with three retreats held to tackle this country’s affordability crisis. Taxpayers are struggling to pay their rents. Grocery prices are so high, many shoppers take a pass on the meat aisle. Homeowners face the grim reality of renegotiating their mortgages at sky high rates. The Bank of Canada hiked interest rates 10 times between March 2022 and July 2023, largely as a result of Trudeau’s irresponsible and inflationary overspending. As average folk suffer the result of his disastrous policies, ministers jetted off to Vancouver, Hamilton and Charlottetown and racked up bills for steak dinners and breakfast buffets. In Vancouver, the expenses included a $9,225 bill for a private dinner, where cabinet ministers dined on filet mignon, ceviche, salmon and prawn ravioli. There was also a $10,000 charge at Grain Testing Bar at the Hyatt Regency Hotel."
FIRST READING: Again called out as NATO freeloader, Trudeau says 'more to do' - "the Trudeau government has been actively cutting its defence budget even as almost all of its peer countries pursue dramatic increases to military spending as a response to rising global instability. Until at least 2026, the Liberal government has officially planned to decrease the military budget in absolute terms — making it one of the only federal departments that is officially set to become smaller... This is all happening amidst an acute recruitment shortage that is fast making the Canadian Armed Forces unable to complete even basic tasks. The most recent “results report” from the Department of Defence warned that — due to “ongoing personnel shortages” and “inadequate” repair facilities — only 43.8 per cent of the Royal Canadian Air Force fleet was meeting “training and readiness requirements.” In November, Royal Canadian Navy commander Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee even put out an official video saying that the navy was in a “critical state” and “a storm.” While the the Royal Canadian Navy has just accepted delivery of some long-awaited offshore patrol vessels, Topshee said his service was so short of personnel that they could only deploy “one at a time.” Canada’s hemorrhaging military readiness has noticeably impacted its NATO contributions. Just last summer, the RCAF was unable to participate in a major NATO training exercise because it couldn’t spare any aircraft. And while Canada has answered a NATO call to shore up the alliance’s eastern flank against Russia, the Canadian deployment is among the smallest. About 1,000 Canadian soldiers are currently deployed to Latvia as part of deterrence operations in Eastern Europe. While the operation is Canada’s largest overseas deployment, it represents only 25 per cent of the total foreign NATO troops posted to Latvia — and three per cent of the total NATO troops deployed along Russia’s western border in response to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Trudeau’s Poland comments are not the first time his government has made a vague commitment to increase military spending — although prior instances have all failed to alter the status quo."
GUNTER: Trudeau's Alberta trip full of imaginary enemies - "Trudeau came without informing the provincial government. That’s not exactly a legal necessity. This is, after all, his country, too. However, it is considered a courtesy for federal ministers to inform their provincial counterparts in advance. Not telling the UCP government was deliberate. Also, no provincial minister or MLA was invited to the housing announcement. Trudeau’s lone Edmonton Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, was there. So too was his old friend, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who served in Trudeau’s cabinet during its first term. But, despite the fact that both the federal and provincial governments have largely put aside their differences to cooperate on housing affordability, there was no provincial representative in sight. And while the PM had no time for a get-together with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, he and his staff did manage to find time for a 30-minute sit-down with “progressive” Edmonton podcaster, Ryan Jespersen. It was the Jespersen interview that created the greatest anger among Albertans. Trudeau was at one and the same time arrogant, delusional, dismissive and insulting. Time and again his answers betrayed his inner belief that his government’s current unpopularity isn’t its own fault. Poor polling has little to do with Liberal policies – carbon tax, EV mandate, inflation, housing and immigration – and everything to do with how others, notably the opposition Conservatives and online journalists, are being mean to them. In Trudeau’s mind, everything is a “comms” (communications) problem. You can witness that thinking in last summer’s cabinet shuffle, which changed no Liberal policies only the mouthpieces attempting to communicate them to voters. And you can see it with the recent rebranding of the Climate Action Initiative Payment to the Canada Carbon Rebate. Surely the only reason 100% of Canadians aren’t behind the Liberals’ noble scheme is that they were too stupid to recognize what the old name was when they saw it on their bank statements. Then Trudeau turned to insulting the intelligence of Albertans specifically. In a patronizing tone that lasted throughout his Jespersen conversation, Trudeau said Albertans were being fooled by their own government and by online sharpies into disagreeing with his efforts to decarbonize Canada’s economy... Trudeau insisted oil was rapidly becoming an unprofitable commodity, so Albertans’ best chance for a prosperous future was to get behind such grandiose ideas as his net-zero power grid and his belief that pipelines are things of the past. However, the International Energy Agency expects world oil demand to grow by a million barrels a day this year and to continue to grow until at least 2040, perhaps 2050. In the working lifetimes of most Albertans, alternate energies will not provide the employment benefits of good old oil and natural gas. So who truly has Albertans’ best interests at heart? Even while insisting he wasn’t one of the “eastern bastards,” Trudeau told listeners that Albertans were being manipulated by “conspiracy theorists” and pedlars of misinformation. That’s shorthand for “Hey, you hicks. I’m smarter than you.” You need me and my government to guide you and regulate what you see online to keep you from harming yourselves, the planet and democracy. Usually, it’s the people who see invisible plots and imaginary enemies, as Trudeau does, who need the help."
AGAR: Sun setting on imploding federal Liberals - "Abacus Data writes that as of Feb. 25, “it’s been 644 straight days that the Conservatives have led the Liberals in Abacus Data polling.” Importantly, it isn’t just that the lead for the Conservatives has been long — it is wide as well... Seat projections from 338canada.com have the Conservatives winning 210 seats, the Liberals 62 and the NDP 38... There just doesn’t seem to be a glimmer of hope for the Liberals, other than the fact the election is not today and not likely to be before early 2025. That is when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s pensions kicks in and he might abandon his support of the Liberals. What have the Liberals done to attempt to regain our trust and support? Doubled down on increasing the carbon tax. Become the subject of damning investigations into their management of COVID, most noticeably how an $80,000-app – the ArriveCAN app – ballooned to at least $60 million. They also moved to regain our trust by voting not to have an investigation into that issue. Oh, and mandating that all federally regulated offices must provide tampons in the men’s room. That will do it."
GUNTER: MP works overtime to expose truth of ArriveCAN scandal - "Thank God Edmonton West Conservative MP Kelly McCauley knows a thing or two about parliamentary rules. His knowledge (and some quick thinking) may yet help Canadians get to the bottom of the ArriveCAN scandal. For months now, the Liberals and their toadies in the New Democratic Party have been using procedural trickery to shut down committee investigations into how development of the ArriveCAN app during the pandemic resulted in obscene cost overruns. The simple smartphone app should have cost between $80,000 and $200,000 but ended up costing taxpayers closer to $60 million. How did that happen and who benefitted? While no one has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, it is hard to fathom how any project, even one from a federal government as notoriously wasteful as the current one, could go off the rails that much with someone pocketing a little loose change. Since last fall, the Liberals have been doing their level best to keep a lid on this scandal. Last October, Calgary Midnapore Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie insisted there was credible evidence that “identity theft, forged resumés, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price-fixing and collusion” were rampant within the ArriveCAN project. Yet she accused the Liberals of using their control of parliamentary committees to keep opposition MPs from hearing testimony by whistleblowers and by the senior civil servants in charge. Early this year, the Liberals tried to vote down an investigation by the federal auditor general. When that attempt failed, just before the auditor general released her scathing report earlier this month, the Liberals (with their buddies in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois) voted to shut down a committee investigation into the scandal. Their excuse? A “scary” report from Canada Border Services Agency investigator, Michel Lafleur. The three parties voting to obstruct the committee’s work lamely explained they didn’t want parliamentary hearings to jeopardize possible criminal investigations by the RCMP, which Liberal MP Charles Sousa later admitted “may or may not be” occurring. That’s how not committed the Liberals are to finding the truth... Since the auditor’s report, the Liberals have filibustered committee attempts to call the two principles of GS Strategies to testify."
RCMP never tried to interview Justin Trudeau as part of SNC-Lavalin scandal probe, ethics committee told - "The RCMP did not interview Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before concluding that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate a criminal offence in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, top officials confirmed in a House of Commons committee hearing on Tuesday. In fact, the federal police interviewed only four individuals, one of whom was former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, and they did not even attempt to get Trudeau’s testimony... “In my over 30 years of experience as a defence counsel and a Crown attorney, I have never heard of any investigation where there wasn’t any attempt — whether they agree to interview or not — to interview the person of interest,” said Conservative MP Larry Brock. RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme and Sergeant Frédéric Pincince, who oversaw the investigation into SNC-Lavalin, were supposed to testify last October but the Liberals shut down the meeting because, they claimed, their appearance was confirmed at the last minute... Records made public last fall by Democracy Watch show the RCMP mostly relied on public claims made by the actors involved in the SNC-Lavalin affair to come to their conclusions and did not even apply to obtain a search warrant to access confidential cabinet documents... NDP MP Matthew Green also expressed concern about the two-year span between the time the decision was made to not pursue criminal charges and when it was shared with the main people involved, calling it “highly problematic given the timing of the politics at that time.”... Democracy Watch’s co-founder, Duff Conacher, criticized Duheme and Pincince’s testimony, saying that their failure to provide answers to many key questions shows “that the RCMP is a lapdog that rolled over” for Trudeau “by doing a very weak investigation” into SNC-Lavalin."
Mark Goldberg on X - "Ottawa to create regulator to hold online platforms accountable for harmful content: sources | @CBCNews @NaamaWeingarten @Travisdhanraj https://t.co/cICBxBTk5Z New regulator will be separate from the #CRTC #cdnpoli #cdntech"
Jonathan Kay on X - "If there’s a single person reading this who trusts the current Canadian government to decide what online content should be banned on the basis that it causes “harm,” I’d love to know. (I’m guessing the Libs’ first targets will be anyone who “deadnames” genderwang celebs)"
CBC lawsuit against Conservatives cost $400K, but cost was shielded from Parliament for years - "CBC’s failed lawsuit against the Conservative party during the 2019 election cost nearly $400,000 — but that information was kept from Parliament for nearly three years. Now, Don Plett, the Conservative leader in the Senate, is raising concerns about transparency in the federal government after his office was forced to file an access-to-information request to obtain an answer to his questions on the cost of the lawsuit submitted in the upper chamber in 2021. “The Trudeau government has just given up on its promise of openness and accountability,” Plett told the National Post. “In this specific situation, we had to go around roadblocks that were set by the government to get an answer to my questions three years ago.” “Somebody needs to be held accountable for this because we have the right to have these answers,” he added... The CBC launched a lawsuit against the Conservative party in the final days before the 2019 election, accusing the party of copyright infringement for its unauthorized use of its broadcast footage in a political attack ad on its website and on social media. The Federal Court ultimately dismissed the lawsuit, arguing that there was no evidence that the segments used for partisan purposes “reflected adversely on the broadcaster.”... Sen. Plett said he has a list of longstanding questions, some of which were submitted in 2020, that remain unanswered and is wondering if the government is deliberately avoiding them. Among them are queries regarding the cost of Rideau Hall renovations ordered by former governor general Julie Payette, contracts given to external consultants in relation to the COVID-19 response programs and workplace harassment complaints across the government. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledged last week to fix the access to information system, speed up response times and release more information to favour transparency."
CBC media bias is a myth
Access-to-information has suffered 'steady decline' under Trudeau: watchdog - "The federal government’s key transparency provision has steadily eroded to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose, says information commissioner Caroline Maynard... The commissioner, who took office five years ago, said money to bolster the system has evaporated, commitments to transparency have vanished from ministerial mandate letters and it’s clear that improving transparency is not a priority for the government. “Over the course of my time as commissioner, I have observed the steady decline of the access-to-information system to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose.”"
Trudeau’s attack on BCE shows dangerous political landscape for corporate Canada - "The PM declared it a “garbage decision” and even went as far as to suggest BCE was complicit in the erosion of Canada’s democracy. It was an over-the-top reaction. But it represents an alarming trend in Ottawa. Politicians are eagerly targeting vilifying and scapegoating Canada’s largest firms as if they are pariahs. At a time when the investment climate remains incredibly challenging, it is a dispiriting development in C-suites across the country. Take Trudeau’s assertions against BCE. If radio channels are so fundamental to our democracy, why is the federal government largely ignoring them in its own ad spending? Last year the feds spent about the same amount on LinkedIn ($2.4 million) as they did for ads on all of Canada’s struggling radio stations ($2.7 million). Should we really be outraged that a private company is choosing not to operate loss-making media assets that the government isn’t advertising on? To be sure, Trudeau couldn’t have been happy that BCE blamed Liberal policy for the layoffs. This would have put any government on the defensive. Yet the Canadian government did change the competitive landscape last year to favour third-party resellers of BCE’s internet network. The move happened midway through BCE’s record-setting investment push that has totalled $18 billion over four years. BCE ramped up capital spending on the premise the favourable regulatory regime—which had been in place only since 2021—would continue. Perhaps the company’s biggest mistake was to assume the investment environment wouldn’t keep changing. The pricing regime for third-party internet service providers has switched three times since 2019. Executives at BCE hold a fiduciary duty to spend shareholder money wisely, like every publicly traded company. Whether politicians like it or not, that’s just how things work. This imperative becomes even greater in times when the cost of capital is rising like it is now... In its 2023 financials released on February 8, BCE reported interest payments had jumped by about $300 million over the last year. This is about what BCE expects to generate in savings from the cost cuts. This sort of context appears to be lost in political circles... Canada’s oil and gas sector—by far the country’s largest export earning industry—is under constant attack The most recent development is a private member’s bill from the NDP’s Charlie Angus that would ban advertisement by the sector like restrictions for tobacco companies. Trudeau’s environment minister Steven Guilbeault put out a statement saying the government welcomed the bill. Canada’s banks are paying not one but two special taxes—a legacy of the last election when they became targets. Canada’s grocery chains, which employ more than 400,000 retail workers, are being blamed for surging food prices. Late last year executives were summoned to Ottawa to find ways to fix the problem. Summoning CEOs to Ottawa is a thing politicians like to do to show gravity. Suncor CEO Rich Kruger was brought to Ottawa late last year to explain comments he had made to investors about putting less of an emphasis on the oil giant’s longer-term energy transition. In his testimony, Kruger had this to say: “I think one of the challenges we face here, and have faced here for some time now, is a bit of the unpredictability and uncertainty, which then, quite frankly, scares away capital.”... In its decision, the company said that it wants to put less money into assets that are exposed to the whims of politicians. Or more precisely: “It’s about reducing our dependence on overly regulated businesses,” Bibic said on his earnings call to analysts. Trudeau’s reaction simply validates that strategy."
After more than a year of foot-dragging, the Trudeau government has finally appointed an ethics commissioner - "Anyone who follows Canadian politics knows that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (and his ministers) have found themselves on the wrong side of the ethics rules several times during his tenure. In fact, the two previous commissioners both concluded the prime minister had breached the rules on separate occasions—once over his vacation at the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas and then again over influencing then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould over SNC-Lavalin. Recent questions about a Jamaican vacation gifted to him by a friend have also raised eyebrows. The findings of commissioners do not seem to be discouraging our politicians from behaving badly. Regardless of party, naming and shaming does not appear to be working... despite the CIEC’s “independent” role and its relationship to Parliament, the appointment process has tended to be openly partisan"
