National
Trudeau’s online harms bill threatens freedom of expression, constitutional lawyer warns
From LifeSiteNews
The legislation could further regulate the internet in Canada by allowing a new digital safety commission to conduct ‘secret commission hearings’ against those found to have violated the new law.
A top constitutional lawyer warned that the federal government’s Online Harms Act to further regulate the internet will allow a new digital safety commission to conduct “secret commission hearings” against those found to have violated the new law, raising “serious concerns for the freedom of expression” of Canadians online.
Marty Moore, who serves as the litigation director for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms-funded Charter Advocates Canada, told LifeSiteNews on Tuesday that Bill C-63 will allow for the “creation of a new government agency with a broad mandate to promote ‘online safety’ and target ‘harmful content.’”
“The use of the term ‘safety’ is misleading, when the government through Bill C-63 is clearly seeking to censor expression simply based on its content, and not on its actual effect,” he told LifeSiteNews.
Moore noted that the bill will also “open doors for government regulation to target undefined psychological harm.”
The new government bill was introduced Monday by Justice Minister Arif Virani in the House of Commons and passed its first reading.
Bill C-63 will create the Online Harms Act and modify existing laws, amending the Criminal Code as well as the Canadian Human Rights Act, in what the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claim will target certain cases of internet content removal, notably those involving child sexual abuse and pornography.
Details of the new legislation to regulate the internet show the bill could lead to more people jailed for life for “hate crimes” or fined $50,000 and jailed for posts that the government defines as “hate speech” based on gender, race, or other categories.
The bill calls for the creation of a digital safety commission, a digital safety ombudsperson, and the digital safety office.
The ombudsperson and other offices will be charged with dealing with public complaints regarding online content as well as put forth a regulatory function in a five-person panel “appointed by the government.” This panel will monitor internet platform behaviors to hold people “accountable.”
Moore told LifeSiteNews that provincial governments have already “grossly abuse Canadians’ rights and freedoms in the name of preventing harm and ensuring safety (COVID mandates).” He noted that this bill could give the Commission the “potential reach” into “Canadian’s lives” in a “concerning” manner.
He said that while the Commission’s reach is “only vaguely undefined,” it would have the power to regulate anyone who operates a “social media service” that “has a yet-to-be-designated number of users or is “deemed a regulated service by the government without regard to the number of users.”
According to the Trudeau government, Bill C-63 aims to protect kids from online harms and crack down on non-consensual deep-fake pornography involving children and will target seven types of online harms, such as hate speech, terrorist content, incitement to violence, the sharing of non-consensual intimate images, child exploitation, cyberbullying and inciting self-harm.
Virani had many times last year hinted a new Online Harms Act bill would be forthcoming.
Law opens door to secret or ‘ex parte’ warrants, lawyer warns
Moore observed that Bill C-63 also gives the commission the ability to seek secret or “ex parte warrants to enter people’s homes and to impose massive fines.” He told LifeSiteNews this will “likely coerce those operating social media services to exceed the Commission’s requirements of censorship on Canadians’ expression.”
Moore also confirmed that the Trudeau government’s new bill will “allow for” the creation of “secret commission hearings” simply on the basis that the “commission considers secrecy to be ‘in the public interest.’”
Moore told LifeSiteNews that the bill will also allow for the digital safety commission to be made an “order of the Federal Court.” He said this brings about a “serious concern that the commission’s orders, reissued by the Federal Court, could result in people being fined and imprisoned for contempt, pursuant to Federal Courts Rules 98 and 472.”
“While people cannot be imprisoned under section 124 of Bill C-63 for refusing to pay a Commission-imposed fine, it is possible that having a Commission order reissued by the Federal Court could result in imprisonment of a person for refusing to impose government censorship on their social media service,” he said.
Lawyer: Trudeau’s bill will allow for ‘confidential complaints’
As part of Bill C-63, the Trudeau Liberals are looking to increase punishments for existing hate propaganda offenses substantially.
The Online Harms Act will also amend Canada’s Human Rights Act to put back in place a hate speech provision, specifically, Section 13 of the Act, that the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper had repealed in 2013 after it was found to have violated one’s freedom of expression.
The text of the bill, released Monday afternoon, reads that the Canadian Human Rights Act will be amended to add a section “13” to it.
Moore warned that the return of section 13, will allow for “confidential complaints.”
As fines top $50,000 with a $20,000 payment to victims, the new section 13, Moore observed, “will undoubtedly cast a chill on Canadians expression, limiting democratic discourse, the search for truth and normal human expression, including attempts at humour.”
Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre said the federal government is looking for clever ways to enact internet censorship laws.
On Tuesday in the House of Commons, Poilievre came out in opposition to the Online Harms Act, saying enforcing criminal laws rather than censoring opinions is the key to protecting children online.
During a February 21 press conference, Poilievre said, “What does Justin Trudeau mean when he says the word ‘hate speech?’ He means speech he hates.”
Thus far, Poilievre has not commented on the full text of Bill C-63. Many aspects of it come from a lapsed bill from 2021.
In June 2021, then-Justice Minister David Lametti introduced Bill 36, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act and to make related amendments to another Act (hate propaganda, hate crimes and hate speech).” It was blasted as a controversial “hate speech” law that would give police the power to “do something” about online “hate.”
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Jay Goldberg
Losing seats has consequences. Bending the rules after the fact isn’t one of them
Are the present rules in Canada’s Parliament grotesquely unfair? The New Democratic Party wants Canadians to think so.
The NDP suffered a crushing blow in April’s federal election, losing more than two-thirds of its seats and official party status to boot.
Ever since, the party’s leaders have been trying to convince Prime Minister Mark Carney to bend the rules and allow the party to regain what is called official party status.
As of today, a party in the House of Commons needs at least 12 seats to qualify as an official party. The NDP’s interim leader, Don Davies, wants to see Carney lower the threshold so the NDP’s seven-member caucus can qualify.
“If he wants this Parliament to work and he wants to do anything progressive, he’s going to have to reach out to New Democrats,” said Davies. “It’s up to the Liberals.”
“Reaching out” means more than just a phone call. For Davies, it means granting the NDP official party status, which comes with millions of dollars of operational funding, paid for by taxpayers, as well as the right to participate as a party in Question Period and sit on parliamentary committees.
Changing the rules simply because the NDP failed to connect with voters last spring would be an insult to Canadian taxpayers.
But Davies’ plea does raise some questions. Why is the number 12? Why not 10, or 20 for that matter? And is the 12-seat threshold high by national standards?
The Westminster system of government, which Canada adheres to, is clear about many things. For example, in order to form a majority government, a party needs to hold at least 50 per cent plus one of the seats in the legislative chamber.
But in Canada, the threshold to qualify for official party status is all over the map. In the House of Commons, it is 12. In the Senate, it is nine. And in provincial legislatures across the country, it ranges from one seat in Prince Edward Island to two in British Columbia to five in New Brunswick and 10 per cent of the total seats in Ontario.
The federal NDP may have a point that the 12-seat threshold at the federal level is an arbitrary number. But does it fall outside the national range? Is it at the upper end of the spectrum, and thus perhaps genuinely unfair?
At the lowest end of the range among Canada’s provinces is British Columbia. In that province, a party needs to hold just two of 93 seats in the legislature, or 2.15 per cent, to gain official party status. At the upper end of the range is New Brunswick. In that province, a party needs to hold five of 49 seats, or 10.2 per cent, to gain official party status.
At the federal level, the NDP holds just two per cent of the seats in the House of Commons.
That means that even if British Columbia’s rules, the most liberal in the country, were applied at the federal level, the NDP would not qualify for official party status.
In other words, not only would today’s federal NDP fail to qualify for official party status in British Columbia, but it would also fail to qualify for official party status in province after province across the country.
Relatively speaking, the current House of Commons rules, which require a party to hold 12 seats, or 3.5 per cent of the total seats in the chamber, to gain official party status, are at the liberal end of the spectrum.
So the NDP’s argument does not stand up to the facts. Across the country, based on the size of its caucus, the NDP would not qualify as an official party. The present rules in the House of Commons are well within the normal bounds of rules in legislatures from coast to coast.
Canadian taxpayers should not be on the hook just because the NDP did not receive more support at the polls.
Jay Goldberg is a fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
At a time when healthcare, housing, and transit are collapsing, the premier’s focus tells you everything you need to know
Ontario is in the middle of a housing crisis, a healthcare collapse, gridlocked cities, and a cost-of-living squeeze that’s eating people alive. And Doug Ford’s big move? Threatening to pull Crown Royal whisky from LCBO shelves.
Kelsi Sheren is a reader-supported publication.
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This isn’t satire I can assure you. This is very real.
According to multiple outlets, Ford says he “can’t wait” to follow through on removing Crown Royal to “send a message.” A message to who, exactly? And about what? Because it’s hard to explain to a nurse working double shifts, a young family priced out of housing, or a senior waiting months for care why their premier is fixated on a liquor brand.
This is what out of touch really looks like. People aren’t asking for symbolism. They’re asking for solutions. Ontario residents are watching emergency rooms close overnight. Rent climb faster than wages. Transit grind to a halt. Homeless encampments become permanent fixtures in cities that used to feel livable.
And instead of addressing any of that with urgency or focus, Doug Ford is busy performing cultural theatrics with whiskey bottles. That’s not leadership, which is pretty clear. Its nothing more than another pathetic distraction.
It feels like the kind of move you make when you don’t have answers left, so you create noise instead. No one actually thinks removing Crown Royal from LCBO shelves is going to improve life in Ontario. Not even the people defending it.
This isn’t about public safety. It isn’t about affordability. It isn’t about health or infrastructure. It’s a headline grab. A gesture. Something to point at while real problems continue to rot underneath.
And the thing is, Ontarian’s aren’t stupid. They can tell when their government is playing dress-up instead of doing the job even if they won’t say it out loud.
Ontario doesn’t need any more messages, it needs someone who is competent. Doug Ford says this move is about “sending a message.” But Ontarians have already received plenty of messages from his government.
The message that healthcare workers are expendable. The message that housing affordability isn’t urgent. The message that congestion and gridlock are just things people should accept.
The message that optics matter more than outcomes.
If the government really wanted to send a message and cared to help, it would start with a serious, enforceable housing plan, emergency healthcare staffing solutions, transit timelines that mean something and accountability for ballooning costs and shrinking services.
Instead, we’re talking about Crown Royal like it matters. This is nothing more than what happens when leadership runs dry and has no where else to turn. When politicians stop solving problems, they start staging performances.
They pick safe targets. Harmless symbols. Things that won’t actually change anything but will dominate a news cycle. And they hope the public is too tired or distracted to notice the absence of real work.
But people notice. They notice when their lives get harder while government priorities get dumber. They notice when energy is spent on nonsense while essentials fall apart.
Ontario doesn’t have a Crown Royal problem. It has a leadership problem and always have since Doug Ford took office.
A premier focused on whiskey shelves while the province fractures at the seams isn’t “sending a message.” He’s broadcasting how disconnected his government has become from reality. If this is what passes for focus at Queen’s Park right now, Ontarians have every right to ask what else is being ignored while the cameras are pointed at the liquor aisle.
Because this province deserves better than distractions.
KELSI SHEREN
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