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Elon Musk says X will disobey Brazil court order to censor accounts, calls on judge to be impeached

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Elon Musk,  Frederic Legrand – COMEO/Shutterstock

From LifeSiteNews

By Andreas Wailzer

Elon Musk stated that his social media platform will likely be forced to shut down operations in Brazil as a result of non-compliance with the court order, but argued that ‘principles matter more than profit.’

Elon Musk has pushed back on demands made in a Brazilian court order to censor certain accounts and called for the impeachment of a leading Supreme Court judge.

On Saturday, April 6, X (formerly known as Twitter) announced that it “has been forced by court decisions to block certain popular accounts in Brazil” under the threat of daily fines if the company fails to comply.

Shortly after the announcement, X owner Elon Musk said that the company would resist these demands, even if it had to shut down its operations in Brazil.

“We are lifting all restrictions,” the billionaire wrote. “This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees, and cut off access to 𝕏 in Brazil.”

“As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.”

In another post on X, Musk announced that his social media platform would publish the demands made by Supreme Court judge and head of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court Alexandre de Moraes. Musk also called for de Moraes to be impeached and referred to him as “Brazil’s Darth Vader.”

“Coming shortly, 𝕏 will publish everything demanded by @Alexandre [de Moraes] and how those requests violate Brazilian law. This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached. Shame @Alexandre, shame.”

A few days prior, journalist Michael Shellenberger published the “Twitter Files Brazil,” which showed how the Deep State, led by de Moraes, had interfered in the 2022 presidential election by pressuring social media platforms to ban accounts that supported sitting president Jair Bolsonaro or questioned the electoral systems.

READ: New ‘Twitter Files’ show how Brazil’s deep state interfered in the 2022 presidential election

On March 30, 2022, the day after de Moraes took office as president of the TSE, the TSE mandated Twitter to, within a week and under the threat of a daily fine of 50,000 BRL (US$ 10,000), supply data on the monthly trend statistics for the hashtags #VotoImpressoNAO (“PrinteVoteNo”) and #VotoDemocraticoAuditavel (“DemocraticAuditableVote”).

In 2022, the court coerced Twitter into censoring several accounts, including two elected House members, for allegedly spreading “disinformation” under the threat of heavy fines. Twitter initially pushed back on these requests and appealed the orders but ended up complying with some of the requests due to the pressure of the heavy penalties.

Under Musk’s leadership, the social media platform appears to reject the censorship demands made by de Moraes and risk the shutdown of the company in Brazil.

“At any moment, Brazil’s Supreme Court could shut off all access to X/Twitter for the people of Brazil,” Shellenberger wrote on April 7 while reporting from Brazil. “It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil is on the brink of dictatorship at the hands of a totalitarian Supreme Court Justice named Alexandre de Moraes.”

“President Lula da Silva is participating in the push toward totalitarianism,” he added. “Since taking office, Lula has massively increased government funding of the mainstream news media, most of which are encouraging increased censorship.”

In response to Musk’s announcement to disobey the court order, Brazil’s Attorney General Jorge Messias demanded “urgent regulations” of social media platforms. According to the Financial Times, Messias said, “It is urgent to regulate social networks.”

“We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities,” he added.

Musk called on users in Brazil to download and use a VPN (virtual private network) to be able to use the social media platform, should the government restrict access to X.

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Overregulation is choking Canadian businesses, says the MEI

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  From the Montreal Economic Institute

The federal government’s growing regulatory burden on businesses is holding Canada back and must be urgently reviewed, argues a new publication from the MEI released this morning.

“Regulation creep is a real thing, and Ottawa has been fuelling it for decades,” says Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the MEI and coauthor of the Viewpoint. “Regulations are passed but rarely reviewed, making it burdensome to run a business, or even too costly to get started.”

Between 2006 and 2021, the number of federal regulatory requirements in Canada rose by 37 per cent, from 234,200 to 320,900. This is estimated to have reduced real GDP growth by 1.7 percentage points, employment growth by 1.3 percentage points, and labour productivity by 0.4 percentage points, according to recent Statistics Canada data.

Small businesses are disproportionately impacted by the proliferation of new regulations.

In 2024, firms with fewer than five employees pay over $10,200 per employee in regulatory and red tape compliance costs, compared to roughly $1,400 per employee for businesses with 100 or more employees, according to data from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Overall, Canadian businesses spend 768 million hours a year on compliance, which is equivalent to almost 394,000 full-time jobs. The costs to the economy in 2024 alone were over $51.5 billion.

It is hardly surprising in this context that entrepreneurship in Canada is on the decline. In the year 2000, 3 out of every 1,000 Canadians started a business. By 2022, that rate had fallen to just 1.3, representing a nearly 57 per cent drop since 2000.

The impact of regulation in particular is real: had Ottawa maintained the number of regulations at 2006 levels, Canada would have seen about 10 per cent more business start-ups in 2021, according to Statistics Canada.

The MEI researcher proposes a practical way to reevaluate the necessity of these regulations, applying a model based on the Chrétien government’s 1995 Program Review.

In the 1990s, the federal government launched a review process aimed at reducing federal spending. Over the course of two years, it successfully eliminated $12 billion in federal spending, a reduction of 9.7 per cent, and restored fiscal balance.

A similar approach applied to regulations could help identify rules that are outdated, duplicative, or unjustified.

The publication outlines six key questions to evaluate existing or proposed regulations:

  1. What is the purpose of the regulation?
  2. Does it serve the public interest?
  3. What is the role of the federal government and is its intervention necessary?
  4. What is the expected economic cost of the regulation?
  5. Is there a less costly or intrusive way to solve the problem the regulation seeks to address?
  6. Is there a net benefit?

According to OECD projections, Canada is expected to experience the lowest GDP per capita growth among advanced economies through 2060.

“Canada has just lived through a decade marked by weak growth, stagnant wages, and declining prosperity,” says Ms. Wittevrongel. “If policymakers are serious about reversing this trend, they must start by asking whether existing regulations are doing more harm than good.”

The MEI Viewpoint is available here.

* * *

The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

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Canada urgently needs a watchdog for government waste

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This article supplied by Troy Media.

Troy Media By Ian Madsen

From overstaffed departments to subsidy giveaways, Canadians are paying a high price for government excess

Canada’s federal spending is growing, deficits are mounting, and waste is going unchecked. As governments look for ways to control costs, some experts say Canada needs a dedicated agency to root out inefficiency—before it’s too late

Not all the Trump administration’s policies are dubious. One is very good, in theory at least: the Department of Government Efficiency. While that
term could be an oxymoron, like ‘political wisdom,’ if DOGE proves useful, a Canadian version might be, too.

DOGE aims to identify wasteful, duplicative, unnecessary or destructive government programs and replace outdated data systems. It also seeks to
lower overall costs and ensure mechanisms are in place to evaluate proposed programs for effectiveness and value for money. This can, and often does, involve eliminating departments and, eventually, thousands of jobs. Some new roles within DOGE may need to become permanent.

The goal in the U.S. is to reduce annual operating costs and ensure government spending grows more slowly than revenues. Washington’s spending has exploded in recent years. The U.S. federal deficit now exceeds six per cent of gross domestic product. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the cost of servicing that debt is rising at an unsustainable rate.

Canada’s latest budget deficit of $61.9 billion in fiscal 2023-24 amounts to about two per cent of GDP—less alarming than our neighbour’s situation, but still significant. It adds to the federal debt of $1.236 trillion, about 41 per cent of our estimated $3 trillion GDP. Ottawa’s public accounts show expenses at 17.8 per cent of GDP, up from about 14 per cent just eight years ago. Interest on the growing debt accounted for 9.1 per cent of
revenues in the most recent fiscal year, up from five per cent just two years ago.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) consistently highlights dubious spending, outright waste and extravagant programs: “$30 billion in subsidies to multinational corporations like Honda, Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt. Federal corporate subsidies totalled $11.2 billion in 2022 alone. Shutting down the federal government’s seven regional development agencies would save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion annually.”

The CTF also noted that Ottawa hired 108,000 additional staff over the past eight years, at an average annual cost of more than $125,000 each. Hiring based on population growth alone would have added just 35,500 staff, saving about $9 billion annually. The scale of waste is staggering. Canada Post, the CBC and Via Rail collectively lose more than $5 billion a year. For reference, $1 billion could buy Toyota RAV4s for over 25,600 families.

Ottawa also duplicates functions handled by provincial governments, often stepping into areas of constitutional provincial jurisdiction. Shifting federal programs in health, education, environment and welfare to the provinces could save many more billions annually. Poor infrastructure decisions have also cost Canadians dearly—most notably the $33.4 billion blown on what should have been a relatively simple expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Better project management and staffing could have prevented that disaster. Federal IT systems are another money pit, as shown by the $4-billion Phoenix payroll debacle. Then there’s the Green Slush Fund, which misallocated nearly $900 million.

Even more worrying, the rapidly expanding Old Age Supplement and Guaranteed Income Security programs are unfunded, unlike the Canada Pension Plan. Their combined cost is already roughly equal to the federal deficit and could soon become unmanageable.

Canada is sleepwalking toward financial ruin. A Canadian version of DOGE—Canada Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Team, or CAETT—is urgently needed. The Office of the Auditor General does an admirable job identifying waste and poor performance, but it’s not proactive and lacks enforcement powers. At present, there is no mechanism in place to evaluate or eliminate ineffective programs. CAETT could fill that gap and help secure a prosperous future for Canadians.

Ian Madsen is a senior policy analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

The views, opinions, and positions expressed by our columnists and contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of our publication.

© Troy Media

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.

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