Section 319(7) of the bill will redefine “hatred” as an “emotion” of “detestation or vilification,” which she noted is “a vague and subjective test that could capture ordinary debate or criticism.”
Canadian Conservative Party MP Leslyn Lewis blasted a new Liberal “hate crime” bill, calling it a “dangerous” piece of legislation that she says will open the door for authorities to possibly prosecute Canadians’ speech deemed “hateful.”
In an X post on Tuesday, Lewis slammed the Liberal government’s Bill C-9, or the Combating Hate Act, in a scathing post.
Lewis observed that the bill, as written, “expands state power to prosecute speech under unclear rules and with fewer checks on government abuse.”
“Canadians must be alert: broad definitions & weaker Attorney General oversight increases the risk of government abuse,” she warned.
Lewis noted how the bill will change Section 319 of the Criminal Code “in two dangerous ways.”
She then went through a variety of sections in the bill, commenting on her concerns with them.
Lewis noted how Section 319(6) will remove the “Attorney General’s consent, eliminating a safeguard that prevents political or overzealous prosecutions.”
She said Section 319(7) of the bill will redefine “hatred” as an “emotion” of “detestation or vilification,” which she noted is “a vague and subjective test that could capture ordinary debate or criticism.”
As it stands now, Section 319(6) of Canada’s Criminal Code mandates consent of the nation’s attorney general before a person can be hit with a hate crime charge. Lewis warned that Bill C-9 will eliminate this protection.
Bill C-9 was brought forth in the House of Commons on September 19 by Justice Minister Sean Fraser.
The Mark Carney Liberals have boasted that the bill will make it a crime for people to block the entrance to, or intimidate people from attending, a church or other place of worship, a school, or a community centre. The bill would also make it a crime to promote so-called hate symbols and would, in effect, ban the display of certain symbols, such as the Nazi flag.
The Liberal government, since taking power in 2015, has brought forth many new bills that, in effect, censor internet content, as well as go after people’s ability to speak their minds.
For example, Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act, was put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online. The bill died earlier this year after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the 2025 federal election.
While protecting children is indeed a duty of the state, the bill included several measures that targeted vaguely defined “hate speech” infractions involving race, gender, and religion, among other categories. The proposal was thus blasted by many legal experts.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, a recent Trudeau-appointed Canadian senator said that he and other “interested senators” want Carney to revive a controversial Trudeau-era internet censorship bill that lapsed.
Another recent Carney government Bill C-2, which looks to ban cash donations over $10,000, was blasted by a constitutional freedom group as a “step towards tyranny.”
Carney, as reported by LifeSiteNews, vowed to continue in Trudeau’s footsteps, promising even more legislation to crack down on lawful internet content.
He has also said his government plans to launch a “new economy” in Canada that will involve “deepening” ties to the world.
LifeSiteNews reported that former Minister of Environment Steven Guilbeault, known for his radical climate views, will be the person in charge of implementing Bill C-11, a controversial bill passed in 2023 that aims to censor legal internet content in Canada.
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But we don’t need digital IDs for any of those things. The US just stopped illegal migration without digital IDs. Our online activities are more efficient than ever and it’s hard to see how they could get more efficient without sacrificing privacy and safety.
And centralizing data through digital IDs, which could link social media, vaccine, and banking information, in ways that allow government control, would undermine cybersecurity because having separate log-ins for our financial, health, shopping, banking, credit card, and other data makes sure that if one is hacked they aren’t all hacked.
“All your information in one place is a hacker’s dream,” said an Oxford University IT expert. “We already have countless ways we can provide our identity – passports, driving licences, and so on.”
Many Americans likely think that digital IDs are only something people in Britain have to worry about. Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week declared that every working person there must have digital ID, or “BritCard”. The U.S. should never allow such a thing. A digital ID that linked our social media, vaccine records, and bank accounts could allow governments to censor and control the population, violating our free speech and privacy rights.
Those Americans should think again. We are rapidly moving to the exact same digital ID surveillance and control system as the British. Real IDs contain embedded microchips that bring us one step closer to digital IDs. State governors are pushing it. Gavin Newsom last year allowed drivers licenses onto Apple and Google wallets. This “mobile drivers license,” or mDL, is a digital ID, and one more link in the chain.
And it is Americans, including Bill Gates and the controlling owner of Oracle, Larry Ellison, who are financing the digital ID push. “ The NHS [National Health Service] in the UK has an incredible amount of population data, but it’s fragmented,” he told Blair in February of this year. “It’s not easily accessible by these AI models. We have to take all of this data we have in our country and move it into a single, if you will, unified data platform… The secret is to get all of that data in one place.”
In September, Ellison made clear that he viewed the power of data centralization in behavior change. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching and recording everything that’s going on.”
Ellison’s Oracle is an AI database cloud computing company and he is its best salesman. Ellison, the second richest man in the world, and owner of CBS and CNN, has “donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute,” reported the New Statesman last week. “Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries.”
TIANJIN, CHINA – JUNE 24: Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair speaks at a session during the 2025 Summer Davos forum at the National Convention and Exhibition Center (Tianjin) on June 24, 2025 in Tianjin, China. The 2025 Summer Davos forum will be held from June 24 to 26 in Tianjin. Also known as the 16th Annual Meeting of New Champions of the World Economic Forum, this year’s Summer Davos forum is themed “Entrepreneurship in the New Era” and is expected to bring together around 1,800 participants from over 90 countries and regions. (Photo by Tong Yu/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
The nightmare scenario for mass, constant spying on citizens is not theoretical. China in 2019 created a social credit system with rewards that include better employment, school admissions, and shorter wait times in hospitals, and punishments including denial of access to public services and social events, denial of train and air tickets, and public shaming.
One study found that at least one-third of total “offenses” were not actually against the law and thus expanded “local government authority into moral and social domains beyond the law,” found researchers.
UK’s Big Brother Watched recently warned that a digital ID system, even if initially limited, could be a gateway to more invasive government surveillance and intrusion.
“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching” — Larry Ellison
Why would any liberal and democratic Western government like Britain want such a thing?
Money is no doubt a big part of it. Oracle and other high tech companies stand to make trillions taking bits of our money here and there for every transaction. Governments like Keir Starmer’s also seem eager to give them billions in contracts to monitor and analyze the population.
We found no evidence Starmer would personally benefit financially from digital IDs, however, and as a political leader, he must consider whether his actions are popular, and digital IDs are not. A YouGov poll released yesterday found UK opinion toward digital IDs was 42 percent in favor and 45 percent against. And given the negative reaction to them online, popular opposition will likely rise.
Tony Blair Institute’s (TBI) polling may have misled Starmer. TBI’s first question primed people to think about how inconvenienced they’ve felt without a digital ID, a blatantly manipulative form of polling.
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 03: Former Executive Chairman of Fox Corp Rupert Murdoch and Oracle co-founder, CTO and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison listen as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on February 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. After signing a series of executive orders and proclamations, Trump spoke to reporters about a range of topics including recent negotiations with Mexico on tariffs. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
No honest pollster seeking to give a client a realistic understanding of how the public thought about digital IDs would have started with that question, because they know the importance of framing.
The second question was equally biased. “Some are suggesting the government should introduce a new app, allowing instant access to a range of public services.” The framing suggests awareness on the part of the pollster that the public had a negative view of “digital ID,” hence the use of the “app” euphemism.
The third question was “Do you think there is digital technology that could help tackle these issues… Processing asylum seekers and managing the UK’s borders.”
One reason to think Starmer relied on the TBI’s biased polling is that Starmer pitched the digital ID as necessary to stop mass migration. “I know working people are worried about the level of illegal migration into this country,” said Starmer. “Digital ID… will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure.”
The notion is absurd. Nations have maintained borders for hundreds of years without the need for digital IDs.
Given how badly the Starmer government’s digital ID roll out appears to have backfired, why did Starmer and Blair push it?
LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 26: Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the 2025 Global Progress Action Summit on September 26, 2025 in London, England. The invitation-only summit, co-hosted by Labour Together, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action), and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) brings together center-left leaders, policymakers, and strategists from over 40 countries to discuss, “national security, growth that works for working people, migration in an age of global movement, and building fair societies based on solidarity and reciprocity.” (Photo by Niklas Halle’n – WPA Pool / Getty Images)
One possibility is that they really believe in the mission of improving people’s lives. That is already how they justify it. Said Starmer, “it will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly – rather than hunting around for an old utility bill.”
But it is hard to believe Starmer and Blair really viewed the difficulty of finding where you left your utility bill as a high-priority social problem.
It appears more likely that they are hiding their reasons and that the real motivation is the same as the Chinese government: to control the population.
Gates last year released a Netflix documentary calling for sweeping AI-powered censorship of people he disagrees with on vaccines and other issues.
The Starmer government’s digital IDs should be a wake-up call to all of us. For years, various people have been raising concerns about digital IDs but free speech and privacy advocates have clearly not done enough to stop them. That needs to change.
The good news is that the backlash to the digital IDs appears strong and growing. And anyone can see that, when they spoke, Blair was taking instructions from Ellison. “You can pipe this data from these three thousand separate data sources into a single unified database,” said Ellison, “and that’s what we need to do.”
The episode should wake us up to the continuing threat of total surveillance and censorship. Powerful high-tech elites see dollar signs in controlling our data — and our behavior.
As such, this episode has motivated my colleagues and me to do more on this issue, including making grants to people doing investigative reporting, research, documentary filmmaking, policy development and policy advocacy on digital IDs. Please email [email protected] to get involved, and consider making a tax-deductible donation.
And if you’re not already a subscriber, please subscribe now to support our award-winning investigative journalism, which is essential to revealing the truth about censorship and digital IDs…
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The initial assurance came in a letter dated September 23, 2025, addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.
In that communication, YouTube acknowledged its past enforcement actions, which included terminating channels over election-related and COVID-19 content under policies that have since changed. The company claimed that its current guidelines permit more room for such topics and asserted:
“Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”
The same day, YouTube posted a message on X describing a “limited pilot project” that would provide “a pathway back to YouTube for some terminated creators to set up a new channel.”
However, the platform immediately added that this option would only apply to a “subset” of creators.
The vagueness of the commitment raised suspicion, which intensified when two prominent figures, Infowars founder Alex Jones and “America First” host Nick Fuentes, launched new channels that were almost immediately taken down.
On September 25, YouTube confirmed in a follow-up post that the pilot program wasn’t active yet and reiterated that users previously banned under its policies would have their new channels removed.
This abrupt reversal drew widespread condemnation. Either YouTube is committed to backtracking on its mistakes or it’s not.
YouTube’s September 25 post was heavily ratioed, with users blasting the company for promoting a free speech revival while simultaneously doubling down on removals.
The disconnect between the public promise and its execution fueled accusations of insincerity.
While YouTube didn’t ban Jones and Fuentes under the now-defunct COVID or election integrity policies: Jones was booted in 2018 over what the platform labeled “hate speech,” and Fuentes was removed in 2020 for alleged violations of the same hate speech rule, many argue that the company’s overall stance still undermines the broader principle of open discourse.
By dragging out the reinstatement process and narrowing eligibility through an undefined pilot, YouTube is being accused of turning its supposed “commitment to free expression” into a hollow gesture.
The promise to Congress now appears to be less a genuine policy shift and more a tightly controlled PR maneuver.
Despite YouTube’s attempts to frame its evolving guidelines as a win for free speech, actions speak louder. Blocking even the chance to return, particularly after stating that creators could rejoin, reveals just how selective the platform remains in determining who gets to speak and who doesn’t.
