From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

“The minister could order this dissident’s internet and phone services be cut off and require that decision remain secret”

Free speech advocates have warned that the Liberals’ cybersecurity bill would allow them to block any individual’s internet access by secret order.

During an October 30 Public Safety committee meeting in the House of Commons, Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) counsel Josh Dehaas called for Liberals to rewrite Bill C-8, which would allow the government to secretly cut off Canadians access to the internet to mediate “any threat” to the telecommunications system.

“It is dangerous to civil liberties to allow the minister the power to cut off individual Canadians without proper due process and keep that secret,” Dehaas testified.

“Consider for example a protestor who the minister believes ‘may’ engage in a distributed denial of service attack, which is a common form of civil disobedience employed by political activists,” he warned.

“The minister could order this dissident’s internet and phone services be cut off and require that decision remain secret,” Dehaas continued, adding that the legislation does not require the government to obtain a warrant.

In response, Liberal MP Marianne Dandurand claimed that the legislation is aimed to protect the government form cyberattacks, not to limit freedom of speech. However, Dehaas pointed out that the vague phrasing of the legislation allows Liberals to censor Canadians to counter “any threat” to the telecommunications system.

Bill C-8, which is now in its second reading in the House of Commons, was introduced in June by Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree and contains a provision in which the federal government could stop “any specified person” from accessing the internet.

The federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney claims that the bill is a way to stop “unprecedented cyber-threats.”

The bill, as written, claims that the government would need the power to cut someone off from the internet, as it could be “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption, or degradation.”

Many Canadians, including Conservative MPs and freedom groups, have condemned the legislation, along with several other new Liberal bills which aim to censor internet content as well as go after people’s ability to speak their minds.

“Experts and civil society have warned that the legislation would confer ministerial powers that could be used to deliberately or inadvertently compromise the security of encryption standards within telecommunications networks that people, governments, and businesses across Canada rely upon, every day,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote in a recent press release.

Similarly, Canada’s own intelligence commissioner has warned that the bill, if passed as is, could potentially be unconstitutional, as it would allow for warrantless seizure of a person’s sensitive information.

From the Brownstone Institute

 Roger Bate 

Cigarettes kill nearly half a million Americans each year. Everyone knows it, including the Food and Drug Administration. Yet while the most lethal nicotine product remains on sale in every gas station, the FDA continues to block or delay far safer alternatives.

Nicotine pouches—small, smokeless packets tucked under the lip—deliver nicotine without burning tobacco. They eliminate the tar, carbon monoxide, and carcinogens that make cigarettes so deadly. The logic of harm reduction couldn’t be clearer: if smokers can get nicotine without smoke, millions of lives could be saved.

Sweden has already proven the point. Through widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches, the country has cut daily smoking to about 5 percent, the lowest rate in Europe. Lung-cancer deaths are less than half the continental average. This “Swedish Experience” shows that when adults are given safer options, they switch voluntarily—no prohibition required.

In the United States, however, the FDA’s tobacco division has turned this logic on its head. Since Congress gave it sweeping authority in 2009, the agency has demanded that every new product undergo a Premarket Tobacco Product Application, or PMTA, proving it is “appropriate for the protection of public health.” That sounds reasonable until you see how the process works.

Manufacturers must spend millions on speculative modeling about how their products might affect every segment of society—smokers, nonsmokers, youth, and future generations—before they can even reach the market. Unsurprisingly, almost all PMTAs have been denied or shelved. Reduced-risk products sit in limbo while Marlboros and Newports remain untouched.

Only this January did the agency relent slightly, authorizing 20 ZYN nicotine-pouch products made by Swedish Match, now owned by Philip Morris. The FDA admitted the obvious: “The data show that these specific products are appropriate for the protection of public health.” The toxic-chemical levels were far lower than in cigarettes, and adult smokers were more likely to switch than teens were to start.

The decision should have been a turning point. Instead, it exposed the double standard. Other pouch makers—especially smaller firms from Sweden and the US, such as NOAT—remain locked out of the legal market even when their products meet the same technical standards.

The FDA’s inaction has created a black market dominated by unregulated imports, many from China. According to my own research, roughly 85 percent of pouches now sold in convenience stores are technically illegal.

The agency claims that this heavy-handed approach protects kids. But youth pouch use in the US remains very low—about 1.5 percent of high-school students according to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey—while nearly 30 million American adults still smoke. Denying safer products to millions of addicted adults because a tiny fraction of teens might experiment is the opposite of public-health logic.

There’s a better path. The FDA should base its decisions on science, not fear. If a product dramatically reduces exposure to harmful chemicals, meets strict packaging and marketing standards, and enforces Tobacco 21 age verification, it should be allowed on the market. Population-level effects can be monitored afterward through real-world data on switching and youth use. That’s how drug and vaccine regulation already works.

Sweden’s evidence shows the results of a pragmatic approach: a near-smoke-free society achieved through consumer choice, not coercion. The FDA’s own approval of ZYN proves that such products can meet its legal standard for protecting public health. The next step is consistency—apply the same rules to everyone.

Combustion, not nicotine, is the killer. Until the FDA acts on that simple truth, it will keep protecting the cigarette industry it was supposed to regulate.

Author

Roger Bate

Roger Bate is a Brownstone Fellow, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics (Jan 2023-present), Board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (September 2000-present), and Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (January 2000-present).