Read This Post Before It Gets Censored

North Korean-style censorship is here:

The Canadian Senate on Thursday voted to pass online censorship Bill C-11, sending the controversial piece of legislation back to the House of Commons and one step closer to becoming law.

 

Let's be very clear about the TRUE reason for Bill C-11:

Now, the slogging process of this censorship bill and what it means from now on:

When pressed on concerns from the production sector about a provision in the bill that treats Canadian and foreign streamers differently (a provision that is largely driven by Canada’s trade obligations), he suggested that the industry should be happy that it is getting something and later implausibly hinted that he could direct the CRTC to address the issue (he plainly cannot use a policy directive to violate CUSMA). When the user content regulations concerns were raised, he went back to denying what the former CRTC chair, multiple independent senators, and thousands of creators have concluded, namely that prior to the Senate amendment the bill would open the door to regulating user content.

But worse than the tired talking points, the Rodriguez interview was simply dripping with hypocrisy: 

• How else to explain how a minister could congratulate Senators for an extensive study of a bill that brought out over a hundred witnesses, including indigenous voices who were excluded in the House, but then promise to reject anything that improves the bill? 
• How else to explain claims of openness to change, but then likely reject the work of independent Senators who crafted compromise language consistent with the minister’s own stated objectives? 
• How else to explain his insistence that he supports creators when his office has intimidated indigenous creators and the concerns of thousands are summarily dismissed as misinformation? 
• How else to explain the determination to ignore the words of Senator David Adams Richards, an acclaimed author appointed to the Senate by his own government? 
• How else to explain that if he is correct that Bill C-11 does not include user content regulation, then the Simons/Miville-Duchêne amendment does not change anything and it should fall into his category of amendments with zero impact and receive approval?

Bill C-11 now heads back to the House of Commons, where Canadians will await the government’s response to the changes. If it follows through on Rodriguez’s statement that any changes that have an impact on the bill will be rejected and the NDP or Bloc support the approach, it will be up to the Senate to stand its ground and reaffirm the changes it just overwhelmingly supported. For the Senate to simply accept a blanket rejection would be to admit that genuine efforts to improve legislation are just theatre, leaving stakeholders and Senators looking like chumps in the face of government gaslighting with little interest in good governance and improving its demonstrably flawed legislation.

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Rodriguez said Thursday that the Liberal government would not accept all of the Senate’s recommendations, but he didn’t say which ones he disagrees with.

“We’ll see when the bill comes back. There are amendments that have zero impact on the bill. And others that do, and those, we will not accept them,” the minister said Thursday during a Canadian Media Producers Association panel.

The Senate also removed a clause in the bill that Sen. Paula Simons described as giving “extraordinary new powers to the government to make political decisions about things.”

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A cabinet bill to regulate YouTube is an Orwellian attempt to have Canadian creators comply with government-approved messaging, a Liberal-appointed Senator said yesterday. “In Germany it was called the Ministry of National Enlightenment,” said Senator David Richards, a novelist and screenwriter: ‘I don’t know who would be able to tell me what Canadian content is but it won’t be the Minister of Heritage.’

 

This David Richards:

Senator David Adams Richards tears apart Bill C-11, warning against censorship and government dictating what counts as Canadian culture. Powerful speech from one of Canada’s most acclaimed authors, having won Governor General’s Award for fiction and non-fiction and Giller Prize. pic.twitter.com/eU2BYWpeZs

— Michael Geist (@mgeist) January 31, 2023

 

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Let one also take the time to point out the Charter - the execrable document penned by Justin's dad - is not the First Amendment nor is it the Magna Carta.

It is a document of arbitrary rules and regulations that can be suspended at any time and have no real bearing in Quebec.

We are governed not by administrators or term-locked bureaucrats who understand that they cannot get away with infringing on the rights of others. We live under a boot, mollified by (at least for now) Netflix. 

When the government finally falls (as all governments do), what will the people say about granting so dictatorial a group of oligarchs the power to do what it pleased?

Shrugging shoulders, I guess.