Never forget what this is really about:
Federal internet censors should target hurtful words against politicians, says Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. The Minister added pending regulations may include an internet kill switch to block websites deemed hurtful, but called it a “nuclear” option: “News regulations for online platforms are needed.”
The silencing of everything else -
(Sidebar: make no mistake - that WILL happen.)
- is simply icing on the cake:
Yet, while Hajdu seems to be a garden variety incompetent individual in a position that simply exceeds her abilities, Guilbeault’s perceived incompetence and inability is really about being unable to admit what Bill C-10 is all about.
It is not that Guilbeault did not have any answers, its that he didn’t have any answers that could be revealed to the public.
Notice how he trips up repeatedly when asked – if the exemption for individual user posts was not important or needed as Guilbeault claimed – why was it included in the first place, and why did he even use it as a selling point originally to dispel concern?
The answer – if Guilbeault was being honest – is that he has been playing a game of bait-and-switch with the legislation in order to try and fool people.
Remember, when this was first revealed, Guilbeault and the Liberals backtracked, denied they would be using government power to regulate individual users and content outside the social networks.
The outrage died down for a while.
Then, they introduced the legislation, with many realizing that there would in fact be state-regulation and control over nearly all internet content – including individual user content.
So, they included an exemption, which of course caused the outrage to die down.
Then, they took that exemption out, leading to a new cycle of outrage.
Expect to see some sort of 'concession' or an empty gesture that makes it appears the Liberals are listening to the outrage, while still pushing forward with C-10 and giving the government massive power over the internet and our free expression on it.
What matters is not each individual move, but the direction of those moves.
**
Only a PM and a bunch that carry the delusion they are all-wise and ever-right, that they alone and only they, should have rule and command over the thoughts and opinions of a whole nation, could have conceived Bill C-10. Could have put their lawyers to work composing it, then waltzed into Parliament to put it on the Order paper in the first place.
What 21st-century government, aware of speech and thought control in the great and cruel totalitarian governments of the past century, and their cruel brethren of the 21st — Communist China, sinister North Korea, Iran — every tyranny or dictatorship on the globe — would wish to ape and mirror the central characteristic of all such regimes?
All of them ruled and rule today by censorship, monitoring citizens’ thoughts and writing, even private conversation. Speech controls breed a nation of spies.
Bill C-10 may be a kitten-mischief compared with the hideous savageries of full-blown tyrannies. But great oaks out of little acorns grow. Beware the seedlings of thought and speech control. Which is another way of saying do not let governments even toy with the fundamentals of democratic understanding and the absolutes of democratic practice.
**
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday lost NDP support to speed a YouTube censorship bill through the minority Parliament. New Democrats on the Commons heritage committee said they must determine if the bill violates the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms: “It’s important for people to have dissent.”
Yes, about that precious document:
Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Charter”) is known as the “notwithstanding clause” and the “override clause.” It allows governments to suspend the rights in section 2 and sections 7 to 15 of the Charter for consecutive five-year periods.
**
What's Canadian content?
— pierrepoilievre (@PierrePoilievre) May 4, 2021
When CBC endlessly regurgitates CNN stories about American politics, the authorities say it's "Canadian content".
But when your local community group posts about something important happening in your Canadian neighbourhood, that's not Canadian content
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FACT: If you define "Canadian content" as "any content created by any Canadian", there is 1000s of times more of it on social media than on state-licensed broadcasters.
— pierrepoilievre (@PierrePoilievre) May 4, 2021
But the gov says it is not truly "Canadian content" unless a state-sanctioned body stamps a maple leaf on it
Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
(Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, John Stuart Mill)
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