Tag Archives: COVID-19

Rex Murphy on COVID-19: The power to censor speech and other great ideas from our Liberal overlords

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Rex Murphy on COVID-19: The power to censor speech and other great ideas from our Liberal overlords

Let’s tap this serpent of an idea on its little head before its fangs emerge and it develops a real appetite


Rex Murphy

April 17, 2020
7:35 AM EDT

If there is one positive thing that can be said about this terrible plague we’re enduring, it is that now and then, it gives the Trudeau government some really, really great ideas.

Sure it was only a couple of weeks ago that the Liberals came up with the idea that they — a minority in Parliament, remember — should give themselves the power to tax and spend for the next two years, without having to get parliamentary approval. It was a truly brilliant idea, except that it ignored the fact that approving government spending is one of the most important functions of Parliament. Take away its authority over spending and the House of Commons might just as well be any old bingo hall, or with a little imaginative renovation, a one-of-a-kind Costco store.

Now, compliments of Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc, we learned that the Liberal government is contemplating legislation to make it an offence to, as a CBC report put it, “knowingly spread misinformation that could harm people.” In plain language, this government is openly thinking of making itself the official censor of what can and cannot be said about COVID-19. Pure brilliance again, don’t you agree?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, embraces Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc in 2019. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Well, actually, no. Don’t even think of it. Better still, to borrow a phrase from Greta Thunberg: how dare you? There is already a government that has that power, and in some cases brutally exercises it. That is the government of the Communist Party of China.

And what has it done with that power? It barred telling the truth about COVID-19, and instead told lies about it. On the where it happened, when it happened, how it happened and how it spread, the Chinese government confounded, confused and lied about a plague that has now hobbled the whole planet. And China “officially reprimanded” the doctor who initially tried to warn people about the coronavirus, and who, with dread irony, actually died from it. (A postmortem apology followed from the government. That surely helped.) Admire the Chinese government if that’s your thing, but on this subject, it is not an example to be followed.

So, let’s tap this serpent of an idea on its little head before its fangs emerge and it develops a real appetite. The problem with government having control over what is said and written, completely aside from it being the utter contradiction of a liberal democracy, is that governments — especially on a matter such as this pandemic — are simply not competent enough to know what is right and what is wrong.

Legislators in the House of Commons convene to give the government power to inject billions of dollars in emergency cash to help individuals and businesses through the economic crunch caused by the coronavirus disease outbreak, on Parliament Hill, April 11, 2020. Blair Gable/Reuters

What is required for a government to pass a law against misinformation? To begin with, it presumes an infallible authority that’s able to make judgments on what is, or is not, correct information. Even worse, it presumes the government has the ability to make judgments on a matter that, incontestably, is not yet fully understood by anybody.

This virus is new. The investigation of its nature, transmission, the best policies to confront it, the extent of the response to it, even the nature of the response — all of these elements are, at best, in an incomplete and early stage of understanding.

Experts have varying degrees of skill and knowledge. If experts disagree, which happens often, will some of them be silenced? In actuality, a divergence of opinions can be seen as a path to the full truth emerging. But this cannot happen if the government gags those who may seem to be wrong at the present moment.

A man wears a mask as he walks past a mural showing a modified image of the Chinese Communist Party emblem, in Shanghai, on Jan. 28. Aly Song/Reuters

On the purely political front, there are equal objections to giving government censorship powers. Governments take to extensions of their power like bears to honey. The more power they get, the more they believe they alone should exercise it. Power swells the ego. Add more power, and if you follow the analogy, a little balloon soon thinks it’s the Hindenburg. And a government swollen with power does not like other voices.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau barred the leader of the Opposition from joining talks with other opposition leaders because, in Trudeau’s own memorable words, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer “disqualified himself from constructive discussions with his unacceptable speech earlier today.”

Yet it is not for Trudeau, or any other prime minister, to determine what is “acceptable speech” from his constitutionally positioned critic, the leader of the Opposition. Nor is it proper for this minority government, which has had enough struggles of its own over misinformation — on masks, on screening at airports, on our relative security from the pandemic — to decide what the rest of us can, and cannot, say or write about this unique crisis.

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Marni Soupcoff: Don’t make free speech the next COVID-19 victim in Canada

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Marni Soupcoff: Don’t make free speech the next COVID-19 victim in Canada

As we have seen with this pandemic, the government doesn’t – and shouldn’t – have a monopoly on the truth

It’s not difficult to imagine productive things the Canadian government could be doing to respond to a virus that has caused more than 1,000 deaths in the country, infected tens of thousands of Canadians, and shut down the economy.

Passing a law dictating what people can and cannot say about SARS-CoV-2 is not one of those things.

The government could be using its power to secure personal protective equipment for health-care workers, facilitate an increase in testing capacity, and clear regulatory red tape that stands in the way of efficient vaccine research.

There is no question these steps could be helpful, and they are just three examples of many. Then, why oh why are federal politicians instead using their time to make plans to censor online expression about a pandemic that could use more creative ideas, not fewer.

Why are federal politicians using their time to make plans to censor online expression?

A sample of what Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc has to say on the matter of criminalizing the online spread of ideas the government deems dangerously untrue: “This is not a question of freedom of speech. This is a question of people who are actually actively working to spread disinformation, whether it’s through troll bot farms, whether (it’s) state operators or whether it’s really conspiracy theorist cranks who seem to get their kicks out of creating havoc.”

Realizing that the people running the country believe that freedom of speech doesn’t apply — even as a consideration — in cases where they don’t like the speech in question … well, it’s scary, especially in the middle of a frightening crisis that makes government power grabs seem deceptively innocuous.

It sounds great to crack down on dangerous “cranks” pushing “disinformation.” Until you realize that a couple of months ago, anyone who was suggesting COVID-19 could and would spread through community transmission here — a notion Canadian public health leaders were scoffing at — would have been considered such a “crank.” Just a couple of weeks ago, anyone stating that wearing a mask in public was useful in stopping the spread of COVID-19 would also have been deemed a crackpot by the feds’ standards. Thankfully Mr. LeBlanc hadn’t yet come up with a law that would have shut them up.

Dominic LeBlanc is embraced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after being sworn in as President of the Privy Council in Ottawa on Nov. 20, 2019. Blair Gable/Reuters

As we have seen with this pandemic, the government doesn’t have a monopoly on the truth — it’s barely competent enough to recognize the truth when the truth is hitting it on the head. Do you really want that entity to have the power to decide which ideas about COVID-19 are valid and may be voiced and which ones are wrong and must be punished?

It’s not necessary to imagine, in the abstract, what sort of damage this kind of censorship would do. The scenario has already played out in China.

In December 2019, ophthalmologist Li Wenliang tried to sound the alarm in China about a mysterious new virus that was causing SARS-like symptoms. Within days, he was picked up by police and reprimanded for “making false comments on the Internet.” He died of COVID-19 six weeks later.

The scenario has already played out in China

A recent report by researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy showed that a day after Chinese doctors issued their warning about the illness, China’s most widely used social media app, WeChat, quickly blacklisted related terms, including “SARS outbreak in Wuhan” and “Unknown Wuhan pneumonia.” (WeChat doesn’t have a lot of competition since the Chinese government blocks access to Facebook and Twitter.)

While the deadly disease was spreading through China’s Hubei province, WeChat was censoring instructions and advice about wearing face masks and washing hands — information that would have saved lives but was deemed fake news by Chinese authorities at the time.

Doubtless it is obvious that this is an example Canada should not follow. One man’s whistleblower is another man’s havoc-wreaking conspiracy theorist. Allowing one of those men to impose criminal penalties on the other is a damaging way to deal with the difference.

A lone person walks past closed businesses in Toronto’s Kensington Market on April 15, 2020. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

It is true that there are scammers out there taking advantage of the fear generated by the pandemic, trying to make a buck by posing as people or institutions they aren’t.

But it is also true that there are already laws on the books to punish and prevent this foul flavour of fraud.

Don’t add on a new law that will leave skeptics — a group that has grown in number as the government’s flubbed response to COVID-19 has become evident — even more distrustful of government than they already are.

This is a matter of free speech. And during a pandemic, free speech and the unimpeded flow of information can mean the difference between life and death.

Let’s hope the federal government finds safer ways to keep itself busy.

• Email: soupcoff@gmail.com | Twitter:

As civil liberties erode, Canada must not allow COVID-19 outbreak to infect the rule of law

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Skip to Main ContentCBCMenu COVID-19: What you need to know

As civil liberties erode, Canada must not allow COVID-19 outbreak to infect the rule of law

Government can suppress civil liberties in the name of protecting them, but how far will it go?

Joseph Arvay, David Wu · for CBC News Opinion · Posted: Mar 26, 2020 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: March 26

Measures taken by the federal, provincial and municipal governments to try and stop COVID-19 from spreading have some asking where the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms stands in light of this pandemic. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

This column is an opinion by Joseph Arvay QC and David Wu, lawyers at Arvay Finlay LLP in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C. For more information about CBC’s Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

When the lock-downs started occurring in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei, China, quarantining more than 50 million people, many observers in Western countries thought it impossible for such Draconian measures to be implemented in the democratic West.

Only an authoritarian government could implement such liberty-infringing measures, right?

Yet the premier of Nova Scotia announced strict legal measures Sunday to enforce isolation and social distancing, measures that include fines and even potential imprisonment. He said, “a failure to follow public guidelines to limit the spread of COVID-19 puts our civil liberties at risk.”

That statement might have struck some as counter-intuitive or something of an oxymoron. We usually see our civil liberties as being a bulwark against state action that seeks to deprive us of our rights and freedoms, such as the right to liberty, and the freedoms to assemble in public places and associate with our friends, families and colleagues. And yet here was a provincial premier claiming that these new laws — laws that would do just that — are in effect civil libertarian measures.

Similar measures to counter COVID-19’s transmission are now in place or expected at all levels of government in Canada: federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal.

Provinces, cities crack down on social distancing rules

  • 8 days ago
  • 1:59

Provincial and local governments are cracking down on people who are not following social distancing or quarantine rules to try to prevent further spread of COVID-19. 1:59

This raises legitimate legal questions – how far can the state go to erode our civil liberties in the name of protecting them? And where does the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,which applies to federal, provincial and municipal laws, stand in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic?

A declaration of a local, provincial, or federal emergency does not in and of itself suspend the operation of the Charter. Our fundamental Charter rights currently remain in place, and all laws and government actions aimed at tackling the pandemic still need to be compliant with the Charter.

We have no doubt that the measures taken so far by governments – from orders in some provinces to close all non-essential businesses, to the bylaw amendments in some cities to increase fines to up to $50,000 for breaches of emergency orders – are compliant with the Charter, because none of our rights and freedoms are absolute. All can be infringed by laws that “are demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

These various measures would strike most people as proportionate to achieve the pressing and compelling state objectives of protecting our citizens from a deadly virus. Rights and liberties must sometimes make way in the pursuit of other legitimate societal objectives, like public health.

And such rights and liberties can themselves sometimes be in conflict (for example, one’s right to liberty and association versus another’s right to life and security of the person in the current pandemic).

‘Enough is enough,’ Trudeau toughens talk on isolation

  • 8 days ago
  • 1:58

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau toughened his language around self-isolation and social distancing while considering implementing the Emergencies Act. 1:58

How much further might the government go?

There is now much talk of social unrest. Scuffles have broken out in grocery stores that ran short of items, and on March 19 the London Daily Telegraph reported that, “Food retailers have warned that riots and civil disobedience could break out within weeks if production is unable to keep up with demand.” Meanwhile, gun and ammunition sales in Canada are rising significantly.

Desperate people sometimes take desperate measures. If the COVID-19 pandemic worsens and poses an even greater threat to our society, we can expect government measures increasingly to infringe on our civil liberties if needed to deal with unrest.

Is a total lock-down in our future? Unrestricted state spying or surveillance? Suspension of habeas corpus? Martial law?

It seems safe to say that Canadians are in uncharted territory, and that includes our governments.

Ontario closes all non-essential services to slow COVID-19 spread

  • 8 days ago
  • 1:51

Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered all non-essential stores and services to close at the end of Tuesday, to slow the spread of COVID-19. 1:51

Undoubtedly the state will be accused by some of doing too much, and by others of doing too little. Both sides could potentially rely on the Charterto bolster their position.

But the reality is that the Charterwill not hamstring unprecedented government measures that are designed to tackle an unprecedented crisis, as long as such measures can be justified.

What the Chartermandates is proportionality and balance. Particular care needs to be taken not to worsen the already precarious situation of our homeless, prisoners, those seeking refugee status, sex workers, drug addicts and other vulnerable and marginalized communities.

These are, no doubt, very fearful times. But what we hope is not in the cards is a government invoking the “Notwithstanding clause” in section 33 of the Charter. That would mean that there are no restrictions on those governments that decide to enact laws that abolish our legal rights and fundamental freedoms.

That, in our opinion, would be an unnecessary overreaction and a dangerous one.

Let’s not give the COVID-19 virus that power. It is causing enough havoc; let it not infect the rule of law.

About the Author

Joseph Arvay

Joseph Arvay QC is a lawyer at Arvay Finlay LLP in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C.CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices|About CBC News

  • 5 days ago
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A ‘dramatic increase’ in coronavirus deaths could make Prime Minister invoke rules to track cellphone data

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A ‘dramatic increase’ in coronavirus deaths could make Prime Minister invoke rules to track cellphone data

Shruti ShekarTelecom & Tech ReporterYahoo Finance CanadaMarch 26, 2020

El primer ministro canadiense, Justin Trudeau, se dirige a canadienses sobre la pandemia de COVID-19 desde Rideau Cottaga en Ottawa, Canadá, el jueves 26 de marzo de 2020. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press vía AP)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

In an effort to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Quarantine Act requiring those returning from abroad to self-isolate. Ontario’s former information and privacy commissioner says if deaths increase exponentially the government could enact measures to track cellphone data to further limit the spread. 

“Let’s say the number of COVID-19 [deaths] in Toronto or Ontario tripled. Maybe they would use that as the excuse or a reason needed to invoke it,” Ann Cavoukian said in an interview. 

“I don’t know because I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want my mind to go there. But I would think a dramatic increase would possibly get them doing that.”

As of March 26, there are a total of 13 deaths reported in Ontario that are related to the coronavirus; there are 35 deaths in the country.  

During a press conference on March 25, Trudeau indicated that the government was “not taking measures” like collecting anonymous cellphone data to track the spread of the virus. 

“We recognize in an emergency situation we need to take certain steps that wouldn’t be taken in a non-emergency situation, but that is not something we are looking at now,” Trudeau said. “But all options are on the table to do what is necessary to keep Canadians safe.”

Cavoukian said that Trudeau said nothing was off the table because he is aware of these rules. 

“There are, unfortunately, privacy laws that can be invoked by the government that will enable them to engage in behaviours that wouldn’t be permitted under the [privacy] act. All privacy acts have these kinds of emergency measures, they’re supposed to be a last resort,” she said. 

“They’re supposed to be time-limited, clear sunset clauses, full transparency associated with what the government is doing.”

Cavoukian said that she didn’t think we were at that point yet for the prime minister to invoke rules and said “we should never get to that point.”

“When you are collecting all the personal information of citizens that just encroaches upon their freedom without privacy,” she said. 

Toronto Mayor John Tory initially said the city was collecting anonymous location data already, as first reported by The Logic, but later retracted his statements. A spokesperson clarified in an email that Toronto was not collecting any data. 

Bell, Telus, Rogers, and Shaw Communications’ Freedom Mobile confirmed in emailed statements that they have not been approached by the City of Toronto to gather cellphone data. 

Jesse Hirsh, president of Metaviews, said in an interview that these measures should have already been invoked. 

“I’m surprised that they have not already collected anonymized location

[data]

because given that both the federal government and the provincial government over the last few days have been escalating language around voluntary self-isolation, this would be one way to verify and find evidence instead of the government guessing,” he said. 

“I’d rather the government instead of guessing that people are or are not complying. I’d rather that they have accurate evidence.”

He added that collecting this data raises privacy concerns but they’re “minor privacy concerns” as this data is helpful in terms of informing public health policy. 

Hirsh noted that if the government drafted policy they would be able to work with the Privacy Commissioner to ensure the protection of the data and how it would be used. 

“We can have our cake and eat it too,” he said. “The expertise exists within the federal government.”

Stephanie Carvin, a security expert and assistant professor at Carleton University, doesn’t think these measures will be taken any time soon and most likely would be taken at a later date when things have restored back to normalcy. 

“You would almost want to implement something like this if the situation improved and we had an open society again,” she said.

“Let’s say if you were able to flatten that curve and then over a period of 18 months, you’re waiting, and all of a sudden there are flare-ups in the country and you want to contain it. That’s when something more targeted might be useful.”

Carvin indicated that even if the government were to take these measures it would require a lot of moving parts and individuals to get on board to make it happen. 

“People think that there’s some kind of switch we can flick, and it’s not that easy,” she said.

She also added that even if the government were able to track the data, they would have to be explicit in terms of what they were collecting and how it was to be used. 

“It’s just not clear to me, how that would be done, by who, under what circumstances,” she said.