“Minority Report”: The Sequel. A warning to the Canadian Church

From the Frontier Centre for Pubic Policy

In the 2002 futuristic movie, “Minority Report,” viewers are introduced to a ground-breaking technology that allows law enforcement to preview a crime before it is committed. Then this determination becomes the basis for the arrest and the sentencing of the “pre-crime” perpetrator.

In a case of life imitating art, on February 26, the Canadian government tabled legislation containing provisions that are eerily like the plot imagined in Tom Cruise’s blockbuster.

The proposed legislation should be of great concern to churches and pastors who may face unprecedented legal exposure if it is passed.

Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, seeks to “promote online safety.” The Act endeavours, in part, to protect children from online sexual exploitation and requires the mandatory reporting of online child pornography by internet providers. So far, so good.

But the proverbial devil is lurking in the details of the provisions pertaining to online hate speech, which are simply breathtaking.

The Act represents what many consider to be the most dangerous assault on free speech this country has ever seen, prompting Canadian novelist, Margaret Atwood, to refer to the proposed legislation as “Orwellian.”

This bill would not only have a glacial effect on free speech, but it would also trigger an open season on religious organizations that do not align with mainstream dogma.

Here are some of the reasons behind this apocalyptic assessment of this piece of legislation.

The bill defines hate speech as speech that “is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

This definition is so vague, ambiguous, and far reaching that it could apply to any opinion that diverges from the government-sanctioned media narrative.

The responsibility of judging complaints would be lodged with the Human Rights Commission. This fact alone is deeply worrisome, as the threshold for deciding guilt is much lower in the Human Rights Tribunal than in a criminal court, where a person must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Plaintiffs could file their complaints anonymously without incurring any legal costs. Defendants, on the other hand, would be bound to retain legal counsel at considerable expense to them.

Should they win their case, the plaintiffs stand to be awarded up to $20,000. The defendants could be imposed an additional fine of up to $50,000. Should a legal violation be considered to have been motivated by hate, the defendants could also face life imprisonment!

The incontrovertible proof that Bill C-63 is not about protecting children but strangling free speech resides in what is now ironically referred to as the “Minority Report” provision.

As unhinged as it sounds, the legislation states that if a member of the public has grounds to believe that someone is likely to engage in hateful speech, that person can appeal to a provincial judge who may then subject the defendant to house arrest and other restrictions.

Human nature being what it is, there is no telling the number of people who will be incentivized to file complaints knowing they have much to gain and nothing to lose.

Conservative churches would become instant targets in the tsunami of human rights violation initiatives that the proposed legislation would trigger.

In response, churches may decide to play it safe by restricting their services to in-person participation or by self-censuring.

While either choice would no doubt be welcome by a government that wants to silence those who hold “unacceptable views,” to quote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, such restrictions would no doubt prove to be detrimental to the churches and the common good.

The proposed legislation is not about protecting children. It’s about unleashing the mob against those who would oppose an agenda that is already proving to be an existential threat to liberal society.

Bill C-63 is currently at the nexus of the fight to preserve our most fundamental freedoms, Canadian democracy, and the well-being of future generations.

Churches have a window of opportunity to voice their opposition to this appalling piece of legislation.

What can be done?

First, be informed. Videos posted by the Canadian Constitution Foundation are a great place to start.

Second, promote congregational awareness. Church leaders can no longer pretend that such issues are beyond the scope of their pulpit. To denounce injustice is indeed part and parcel of the church’s prophetic mandate.

Third, church members should contact their member of parliament to express their opposition to Bill C-63.

Canadian churches have historically chosen to remain on the far edges of the culture war currently raging in the Western world. But if Bill C-63 receives royal assent, these same churches may soon unwittingly find themselves in the middle of the very battlefield they so vigorously sought to avoid.

Pierre Gilbert is Associate Professor Emeritus at Canadian Mennonite University.

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov exposes crackdown on digital privacy in Tucker Carlson interview

Published on June 11, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Robert Jones

Durov, who was detained in France in 2024, believes governments are seeking to dismantle personal freedoms.

Tucker Carlson has interviewed Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who remains under judicial restrictions in France nearly a year after a surprise arrest left him in solitary confinement for four days — without contact with his family, legal clarity, or access to his phone.

Durov, a Russian-born tech executive now based in Dubai, had arrived in Paris for a short tourist visit. Upon landing, he was arrested and accused of complicity in crimes committed by Telegram users — despite no evidence of personal wrongdoing and no prior contact from French authorities on the matter.

In the interview, Durov said Telegram has always complied with valid legal requests for IP addresses and other data, but that France never submitted any such requests — unlike other EU states.

Telegram has surpassed a billion users and over $500 million in profit without selling user data, and has notably refused to create government “backdoors” to its encryption. That refusal, Durov believes, may have triggered the incident.

READ: Arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov signals an increasing threat to digital freedom

French prosecutors issued public statements, an unusual move, at the time of his arrest, fueling speculation that the move was meant to send a message.

At present, Durov remains under “judicial supervision,” which limits his movement and business operations.

Carlson noted the irony of Durov’s situating by calling to mind that he was not arrested by Russian President Vladimir Putin but rather a Western democracy.

Former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has said that Durov should have stayed in Russia, and that he was mistaken in thinking that he would not have to cooperate with foreign security services.

“In the US,” he commented, “you have a process that allows the government to actually force any engineer in any tech company to implement a backdoor and not tell anyone about it.”

READ: Does anyone believe Emmanuel Macron’s claim that Pavel Durov’s arrest was not political?

Durov also pointed to a recent French bill — which was ultimately defeated in the National Assembly — that would have required platforms to break encryptions on demand. A similar EU proposal is now under discussion, he noted.

Despite the persecution, Durov remains committed to Telegram’s model. “We monetize in ways that are consistent with our values,” he told Carlson. “We monetized without violating privacy.”

There is no clear timeline for a resolution of Durov’s case, which has raised serious questions about digital privacy, online freedom, and the limits of compliance for tech companies in the 21st century.

Censorship Industrial Complex

Alberta senator wants to revive lapsed Trudeau internet censorship bill

Published on June 9, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Senator Kristopher Wells and other senators are ‘interested’ in reviving the controversial Online Harms Act legislation that was abandoned after the election call.

A recent Trudeau-appointed Canadian senator said that he and other “interested senators” want the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney to revive a controversial Trudeau-era internet censorship bill that lapsed.

Kristopher Wells, appointed by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year as a senator from Alberta, made the comments about reviving an internet censorship bill recently in the Senate.

“In the last Parliament, the government proposed important changes to the Criminal Code of Canada designed to strengthen penalties for hate crime offences,” he said of Bill C-63 that lapsed earlier this year after the federal election was called.

Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act, was put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online.

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.

The Online Harms Act would have in essence censored legal internet content that the government thought “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group.” It would be up to the Canadian Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints.

Wells said that “Bill C-63 did not come to a vote in the other place and in the dying days of the last Parliament the government signaled it would be prioritizing other aspects of the bill.”

“I believe Canada must get tougher on hate and send a clear and unequivocal message that hate and extremism will never be tolerated in this country no matter who it targets,” he said.

Carney, as reported by LifeSiteNews, vowed to continue in Trudeau’s footsteps, promising even more legislation to crack down on lawful internet content.

Wells asked if the current Carney government remains “committed to tabling legislation that will amend the Criminal Code as proposed in the previous Bill C-63 and will it commit to working with interested senators and community stakeholders to make the changes needed to ensure this important legislation is passed?”

Seasoned Senator Marc Gold replied that he is not in “a position to speculate” on whether a new bill would be brought forward.

Before Bill C-63, a similar law, Bill C-36, lapsed in 2021 due to that year’s general election.

As noted by LifeSiteNews, Wells has in the past advocated for closing Christian schools that refuse to violate their religious principles by accepting so-called Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs and spearheaded so-called “conversion therapy bans.”

Other internet censorship bills that have become law have yet to be fully implemented.

Last month, 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.