[It’s a small victory and buys us time. Parliament is so clogged with backlog, two months of filibuster because the Liberals won’t turn over all the documents Parliament ordered in regards to the Green Technology Fund scandal, and, of course, the crisis Canada faces because President Trump may impose tariffs because of our lax border and thriving fentanyl industry, that virtually nothing is getting done as we hurtle to a federal election which can’t come soon enough. So, the Trudeau government in splitting the noxious “Online Harms” Act, Bill C-63 into two: The first bill will deal with ponderous new bodies to harass Internet Service Providers to restrict kiddie porn, revenge pron, etc., which are already restricted.. The projected cost of this new censorship apparatus is estimate to be $200-million and it may take many months to train staff. It is this bill which will have have priority.
The more police state provisions — life in prison for “hate motivated” crimes, life in prison for advocating genocide, prior restraint a judge can order if convinced a person May commit a “hate crime”, the return of Sec. 13 and the tyranny of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, where there can be anonymous complainants and astronomical fines — will be put into another Bill which has lesser priority.
The usual proponents of censorship aren’t happy. The Jewish lobby, primarily the old Canadian Jewish Congress, has been the prime instigator, beginning in the 1930s of anti-free speech laws. It’s successor is angry. “The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs expressed concern about what it said appeared to be the government backing away from the part of the bill meant to address rising acts of antisemitism. At a time of widespread antisemitism, we are very disappointed that the Liberal government is, in effect, dropping the parts of the bill which could have had an impact on the spread of Jew-hatred online,” said Richard Marceau, vice-president of external affairs and general counsel. “It is time for the government to commit to fighting antisemitism concretely.” (National Post, December 5, 2024) “Anti-Semitism” is serious criticism of Jews or the State of Israel.
An the other side of the infernal quarrel in the Middle East also is unhappy. “”A spokeswoman for the National Council of Canadian Muslims says in a statement the organization “has been in favour of hate crime reform and balanced online harms legislation that respects civil liberties.” “We are committed to working with all parties to make sure that things move forward positively, but we are seeing more and more examples of how hate crime legislation and the Criminal Code in relation to hate isn’t being appropriately applied,” wrote Fatema Abdalla.” — Paul Fromm]
Trudeau Liberals blink on censorship bill — but the fight isn’t over!
The Liberals say they’re still committed to bringing in the worst parts of the ‘online harms bill’, but now they’ve split the legislation in two parts. It’s a win for freedom of speech and the over 75,000 Canadians who have signed our Stop The Censorship petition. But the fight isn’t over yet.
Ezra Levant | December 04, 2024 | News Analysis
Breaking news: the Trudeau Liberals blinked on their censorship law, Bill C-63. They haven’t cancelled it. But they’ve decided to split it into two parts. They’re proceeding quickly on the first part, which includes things like banning revenge porn and sex trafficking.
(By the way, revenge porn was already banned by Stephen Harper 10 years ago, and child porn was banned decades ago — those were obviously added to the censorship bill as a distraction from their real purpose.)
But they say they’re going to split off the censorship provisions and go slower on those.
This is a win for freedom of speech — and the 75,267 Canadians who have signed our petition.
PETITION: Stop the Censorship!
76,108 signatures
Goal: 100,000 signatures
Please sign this petition to demand that Justin Trudeau repeal all of his censorship legislation, including his latest “Online Harms Act.”
But as you can see in the video here, the Liberals still say they’re committed to bringing in those censorship provisions. So this could be a trick, to make us lower our guard.
I have personally heard C-63 referred to by several journalists as the “kill Rebel” bill. Of course it is: because we’re one of the few news outlets that doesn’t take money from Trudeau, so we’re one of the few news outlets that can’t be controlled by Trudeau.
If Trudeau can’t use the carrot with us, he’ll use the stick: censorship.
Even though he’s hated by his own party, Trudeau has the votes to smash this through Parliament. He supports this censorship, and he has a deep, personal hatred for Rebel News. You’ve seen his bodyguards beat up our reporter David Menzies; and Chrystia Freeland’s bodyguards beat up David, too. If they’ll commit an assault against our reporters — breaking the law — they’d obviously think nothing of changing the law to get us, either.
And both Jagmeet Singh’s NDP and the separatist Bloc Québécois have said they support the censorship provisions, too. That’s enough to ram this through.
I’m glad Trudeau blinked today. But it’s nothing more than a blink. If we’re to take the Liberals at their word, they still intend to pass this law — just under a different name.
C-63 will create three new different censorship agencies in Canada. It would give the Canadian Human Rights Commission the power to investigate anyone in Canada for anything they post online — or have ever posted online in the past. It would set up $20,000 bounties for anyone who makes a complaint that’s successful; it would give the courts the power to make hate speech “restraining orders”, to stop people from saying things even before they do, even putting them under house arrest.
It’s the most draconian censorship bill ever seen in Canada.
Our motto is “telling the other side of the story”. But you can’t do that if the government tells you that you can’t even say something. We constantly challenge government censorship, and we’ve had to spend more than $500,000 this year alone on free speech lawyers.
The fact that Trudeau says he’s going to split the bill in two doesn’t mean he’s done with it. Until this bill is dead, it’s still alive. Don’t let your guard down. We won’t.
We have sued Trudeau to stop his censorship more than any other news organization. We’ve hired free speech lawyers to fight against censorship in the B.C. Supreme Court, Alberta Court of King’s Bench, the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Ontario Superior Court. We are even seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada itself.