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Censorship Industrial Complex

Jordan Peterson, Canadian lawyer warn of ‘totalitarian’ impact of Trudeau’s ‘Online Harms’ bill

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“You don’t even know who it is… you can be accused regardless of your intent, regardless of the factual [reality], or [the] reality of your utterance, by people who do not have to identify themselves or take any responsibility whatsoever if their denunciation turns out to be false,”

In a recent podcast episode, well-known Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and Queen’s University law professor Bruce Pardy blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government over Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, a proposed piece of legislation which, if passed, could lead to large fines and even jail time for vaguely defined online “hate speech” infractions.

“Recently, the Trudeau woke mob has managed to extend themselves even further into the legal nether lands with a new bill called C-63, which isn’t law in Canada yet, but is soon likely to be, and it is the most totalitarian Western bill I’ve ever seen by quite a large margin and in multiple dimensions,” said Peterson in a recent Everything You Need to Know video podcast dated April 14, which was posted on his YouTube channel. 

“And that was my conclusion, upon reading it and then my conclusion, upon rereading it and rereading it again, because I like to make sure I have these things right.”  

Joining Peterson was Canadian lawyer Bruce Pardy and podcaster Konstantin Kisin. Pardy serves as executive director of Rights Probe, a law and liberty thinktank, and professor of law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. As for Kisin, he is a Russian-British satirist, social commentator, who serves as co-host of the TRIGGERnometry YouTube show. 

Peterson noted that in his view, Bill C-63 is “designed… to produce a more general regime for online policing.” 

“To me, that’s what it looks like,” he said. 

The trio spent the better part of two hours discussing Bill C-63, which was introduced by Justice Minister Arif Virani in the House of Commons in February and was immediately blasted by constitutional experts as troublesome. 

Among other things, the bill calls for the creation of a Digital Safety Commission, a digital safety ombudsperson, and the Digital Safety Office, all tasked with policing internet content, including already illegal internet content such as child exploitation material.

However, the bill also seeks to police “hate” speech online with broad definitions, severe penalties, and dubious tactics. 

Right at the start of the interview, Peterson noted that when thinking about Bill C-63, he thought of it as a “real masterpiece of right thinking, utopian, resentful foolishness.” 

Due to the fact that the bill allows for accusations to be filed by anyone, and that there is no obligation for the government to reveal the name of the accuser to the accused, Peterson warned that Bill C-63 could see widespread corruption by individuals acting in bad faith.

“You don’t even know who it is… you can be accused regardless of your intent, regardless of the factual [reality], or [the] reality of your utterance, by people who do not have to identify themselves or take any responsibility whatsoever if their denunciation turns out to be false,” he warned.  

Pardy chimed in to say that when it comes to Bill C-63, Canadians “don’t even know what the rules are going to be.” 

“Basically, it just gives the whole control of the thing to our government agency, to the bureaucrats, to do as they think,” he said.  

Regarding Pardy’s remarks, Peterson observed that the Trudeau government is effectively “establishing an entirely new bureaucracy” with an “unspecified range of power with non-specific purview that purports to protect children from online exploitation” but has the possibility of turning itself into an internet “policing state.”

Bill uses protecting kids as ‘cover,’ will have a ‘chilling effect upon speech’ 

Pardy told Peterson that one of the main issues with C-63, in his view, is that it “starts with the cover of protecting children… from online harm,” but that beneath this “great cover” it “enables” a crackdown on the “very idea of free speech.”

Pardy warned that Bill C-63 will see the return of an “old” Human Rights Act provision, titled Section 13, that was repealed by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2013 after it was found to have violated the right to free expression.

“One of the problems with the human rights regime is that complaints can be made very, very easily without a lawyer, without any cost,” said Pardy. “And because the Canadian federal government has jurisdiction over the internet, this section is going to authorize complaints of all kinds to be made against people who are speaking their minds online…” 

Pardy noted that the revival of this type of process will “have a chilling effect upon speech, no question about it,” and it risks ending the “idea of free speech itself.” 

Pardy observed that society already has a mechanism to protect kids, despite modern society’s idea that the “government is responsible for keeping people safe.”

“That’s ignoring the best mechanism we already have to keep children safe, which is their parents, right. It’s assuming that this is what this state is for if you went up to somebody on the street, anybody at random,” he said.  

“We’ve lost the proposition that we’ve made a choice to have this large overwhelming government tell us what to do in place of all of the other things we used to have.” 

Speaking further, Pardy observed that what laws like Bill C-63, and many other laws already passed by the Trudeau Liberals such as Bill C-16, are attempting to do, is change the way people perceive how laws should be enforced. 

“The ethos of managerialism has supplanted the rule of law as the basic idea instead of the rule of law,” said the law professor. 

“We have rule by law now, which means that the law is nothing more than a tool for the government to use to create a law on a whim,” he continued, adding that this is “not the way the Western legal system used to work.” 

Criminalizing ‘hateful’ speech is ‘troublesome’ if bureaucrats decide what is ‘hateful’ 

In a recent opinion piece critical of Bill C-63, law professor Dr. Michael Geist said that the text of the bill is “unmistakable” in how it will affect Canadians’ online freedoms. 

Geist noted that the new bill will allow a new digital safety commission to conduct “secret commission hearings” against those found to have violated the law. 

“The poorly conceived Digital Safety Commission lacks even basic rules of evidence, can conduct secret hearings, and has been granted an astonishing array of powers with limited oversight. This isn’t a fabrication,” Geist wrote. 

He observed specifically how Section 87 of the bill “literally” says “the Commission is not bound by any legal or technical rules of evidence.” 

Peterson noted that giving “hate speech” such prominence and such a broad definition is “troublesome” as it will be up to bureaucrats to decide what is “hateful.”  

“The whole notion of hateful speech, that’s troublesome. One, for me, because there’s an obvious element of subjective judgment in it,” he said, questioning who gets to decide what is “hateful” and on what “grounds” do they have the authority to make such a judgement.

Peterson warned that if Canada decides to “open the door” of tasking bureaucrats with determining what is or isn’t “hateful” speech, and if it blocks transparency on who is making accusations of hate, it “leads us to anonymous denunciation,” which he sees as dangerous because it fails to hold complainants accountable.

To make his point, Peterson said that “everybody, including every school child who’s like older than three, and maybe even three,” understands that there’s almost “nothing worse than a snitch, and all children are wise enough to know that.” 

“Even if you are being bullied at school, let’s say, it has to get pretty damn brutal and bad before going to report it to the authorities is acceptable or justifiable,” he said. 

“Now you know you can debate about the conditions under which that should or shouldn’t occur. My point is that even kids know that.” 

Geist has noted that when it comes to Bill C-63, the “most obvious solution” to amend the bill “is to cut out the Criminal Code and Human Rights Act provisions, which have nothing to do with establishing internet platform liability for online harms.” 

Giving historcal examples for why Bill C-63 worries him, Peterson explained that “we certainly know from places like the Soviet Union, just exactly what happens, or East Germany, what happens when one-third of the citizens, which was the case in East Germany, become government informers.” 

“…Trust is gone. The worst people have the upper hand. It’s a complete catastrophe… Now in Bill C-63, you have a concatenation of these problems… now you know hate speech is going to be constrained and it can be identified by anonymous informants,” forecasted the psychologist.

Indeed, it is not just Peterson, Pardy and Geist who are warning of Bill C-63, but major law groups as well.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) has said Bill C-63 is “the most serious threat to free expression in Canada in generations. This terrible federal legislation, Bill C -63, would empower the Canadian Human Rights Commission to prosecute Canadians over non-criminal hate speech.” 

JCCF president John Carpay recently hand-delivered a petition with 55,000-plus signatures to Canada’s Minister of Justice and all MPs, urging them to reconsider their sponsoring of the law. 

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Is free speech over in the UK? Government censorship reaches frightening new levels

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Instead of changing policies which threaten the collapse of Western civilization, the liberal-global governments prefer to make public opposition to their politics a crime.

The UK’s crackdown on free speech continues, with two online platforms withdrawing over censorship concerns – whilst liberal-critical speakers are banned from entering Britain, and even arrested on arrival.

Following the introduction of laws which could see online platforms fined millions of pounds, free speech social media company Gab and video sharing platform Bitchute have withdrawn their services from UK users.

As Reclaim the Net, a UK-based online freedom campaign group, said on March 28:

“The British government has begun aggressively extending its censorship regime beyond its borders, invoking the sweeping powers granted by the Online Safety Act 2023 to demand compliance from foreign-based platforms.”

Bitchute withdrew its services from UK users “over online censorship laws,” as the Free Speech Union reported on April 10. Gab’s statement, published on its UK domain, said the company was acting to protect British users from being jailed for posting on its platform:

After receiving yet another demand from the UK’s speech police, Ofcom, Gab has made the decision to block the entire United Kingdom from accessing our website.

This latest email from Ofcom ordered us to disclose information about our users and operations. We know where this leads: compelled censorship and British citizens thrown in jail for ‘hate speech.’ We refuse to comply with this tyranny.

The UK government claims its laws support “online safety” – but as Reclaim the Net explains, “critics argue … the term … is being used as a smokescreen for state-sanctioned thought control.”

The future of information in Britain looks bleak, as one UK commentator said, promising a “TV version” of the internet – sterilized by UK government media watchdog Ofcom:

“Unless the White House really forces Britain to do it, Ofcom will not be abolished, because the mainstream parties approve of it and no party that doesn’t will be allowed anywhere near power.”

Millennial Woes concludes that there is likely a “hit list” of further online platforms to be taken down in order, beginning with video outlets Odysee and Rumble, the messenger service Telegram, then the free speech publisher Substack – and on to Elon Musk’s X.

“If allowed to continue in its current mode, Ofcom will take down the platforms it wants to, then tame the others by hook or by crook. The Internet in Britain will be a homogenised, redacted farce – a pathetic ‘TV version’ of what people in more civilised countries have.”

Cambridge professor arrested

The charge of “state-sanctioned thought control” is reinforced by the arrest – on Good Friday –-of a Palestinian Christian and Cambridge University professor at London’s Heathrow Airport. The reason for Professor Makram Khoury-Machool’s detention was that he has spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza, as reports from the UK said.

 

“Keir Starmer’s long and intensifying war on pro-Palestine, anti-genocide speech through the misuse of the Terrorism Act … has continued to escalate,” noted UK outlet Skwawkbox, which covers stories such as this – neglected by the mainstream press “because it doesn’t fit their agenda.”

Professor Khoury, whose speech was criminalized under anti-terror laws, had in the past co-founded an anti-extremism institute in 2016 at Cambridge University.

British left-populist George Galloway responded on X (formerly Twitter), saying the arrest of this “gentle, devout moderate academic father” suggests that the “government has declared war on its own citizens, that liberty is dead in this land, and that Britain is no longer a safe country.”

Galloway’s warning of “It can happen to you. And it will” came a day after reports that a French philosopher noted for his outspoken criticism of mass migration had been banned from entering the UK.

French anti-migration speaker banned

Renaud Camus is the author of The Great Replacement – coining a term now used to describe the liberal-global policy of the replacement of Western populations via mass immigration.

The “great replacement” is routinely “debunked” by the ruling elite as a “conspiracy theory.” As Camus once said to Britain’s Matt Goodwin, “How can it be debunked when it is evident in every street?”

 

He was due to speak at a “remigration conference” in England on April 26. Organized by the nationalist Homeland Party, it is dedicated to the discussion of policies similar to those now being enacted by the Trump administration.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Camus was denied entry to the UK by government order.

In an email seen by The Telegraph, the Home Office informed Mr Camus that he had been denied the electronic travel authorisation (ETA) needed to enter Britain.

‘Your presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good,’ the email read.

The Telegraph reports that Mr Camus, “who is gay and has advocated for non-violence,” supplied one convincing explanation for his treatment:

[He] told The Telegraph that ‘of all the European governments guilty’ of allowing unchecked migration, ‘the British government is one of the guiltiest’.

‘No wonder it does not want me to speak,’ Mr Camus added.

The fact the British government is banning speakers who promote policies now being enacted with widespread support in the United States has not only provoked criticism – it may derail UK/U.S. trade negotiations.

Days ago, Vice President JD Vance warned UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Britain will get no deal with the U.S. over tariffs if its “hate speech” laws remain in place.

“Sir Keir Starmer must embrace Donald Trump’s agenda by repealing hate speech laws in order to get a trade deal over the line, a Washington source has told The Independent.”

A “Washington source” told the UK-based Independent, “No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that.”

Vance has been a stern critic of British and European moves towards increasing censorship and the suppression of freedom of opinion, describing it in his February Munich speech as a “threat” to democracy “from within” Western Europe – and one which is led by its liberal-globalist governments.

Vance is reportedly “obsessed by the fall of Western civilisation,” The Independent’s Washington source explained. It is clear that Vance believes that this fall is very much a threat created by the political decisions of governments like Starmer’s.

The use of “hate speech” and “anti-terrorism” laws in these cases shows how the UK state-sanctioned suppression of speech affects anyone – from the left, right, or from the Christian faith – who criticizes the policies of the government.

These are not fringe extremist views, but those held by increasing numbers of ordinary people in Britain and throughout the Western world. Instead of changing policies which threaten the collapse of Western civilization, the liberal-global governments prefer to make public opposition to their politics a crime.

In the case of the British state, its hardline stance to defend its idea of democracy from free speech is now threatening its economic future. The politics and laws celebrated as the guarantee of safety increasingly resemble a form of extremism which will not tolerate debate.

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‘Great Reset’ champion Klaus Schwab resigns from WEF

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Schwab’s World Economic Forum became a globalist hub for population control, radical climate agenda, and transhuman ideology under his decades-long leadership.

Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum and the face of the NGO’s elitist annual get-together in Davos, Switzerland, has resigned as chair of WEF. 

Over the decades, but especially over the past several years, the WEF’s Davos annual symposium has become a lightning rod for conservative criticism due to the agendas being pushed there by the elites. As the Associated Press noted: 

Widely regarded as a cheerleader for globalization, the WEF’s Davos gathering has in recent years drawn criticism from opponents on both left and right as an elitist talking shop detached from lives of ordinary people. 

While WEF itself had no formal power, the annual Davos meeting brought together many of the world’s wealthiest and most influential figures, contributing to Schwab’s personal worth and influence.

Schwab’s resignation on April 20 was announced by the Geneva-based WEF on April 21, but did not indicate why the 88-year-old was resigning. “Following my recent announcement, and as I enter my 88th year, I have decided to step down from the position of Chair and as a member of the Board of Trustees, with immediate effect,” Schwab said in a brief statement. He gave no indication of what he plans to do next. 

Schwab founded the World Economic Forum – originally the European Management Forum – in 1971, and its initial mission was to assist European business leaders in competing with American business and to learn from U.S. models and innovation. However, the mission soon expanded to the development of a global economic agenda.  

Schwab detailed his own agenda in several books, including The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), in which he described the rise of a new industrial era in which technologies such artificial intelligence, gene editing, and advanced robotics would blur the lines between the digital, physical, and biological worlds. Schwab wrote: 

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society …

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. It is already changing our health and leading to a “quantified” self, and sooner than we think it may lead to human augmentation.

How? Microchips implanted into humans, for one. Schwab was a tech optimist who appeared to heartily welcome transhumanism; in a 2016 interview with France 24 discussing his book, he stated:  

And then you have the microchip, which will be implanted, probably within the next ten years, first to open your car, your home, or to do your passport, your payments, and then it will be in your body to monitor your health.

In 2020, mere months into the pandemic, Schwab published COVID-19: The Great Reset, in which he detailed his view of the opportunity presented by the growing global crisis. According to Schwab, the crisis was an opportunity for a global reset that included “stakeholder capitalism,” in which corporations could integrate social and environmental goals into their operations, especially working toward “net-zero emissions” and a massive transition to green energy, and “harnessing” the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including artificial intelligence and automation. 

Much of Schwab’s personal wealth came from running the World Economic Forum; as chairman, he earned an annual salary of 1 million Swiss francs (approximately $1 million USD), and the WEF was supported financially through membership fees from over 1,000 companies worldwide as well as significant contributions from organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Vice Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is now serving as interim chairman until his replacement has been selected. 

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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