To advise the Heritage Minister on regulating Canada’s internet, a panel of experts, most of them academics, has been appointed. One of the government’s internet regulation plans, alongside the online censorship bill, is to create a federal internet censorship agency.
It seems rather problematic to try to counter the threats posed by Russian and China by emulating their behaviour
In 1990, in the early days of the internet, a top-level domain (think .com, .ca, etc.) was created for the Soviet Union. At the time, it was almost inconceivable that the country’s Communist government would ever allow its citizens to gain access to the internet, which was seen as a promising tool to facilitate the free flow of information around the world. Fifteen months later, the U.S.S.R. collapsed, but the question of how authoritarian regimes would continue hiding information from their populations in the digital era continued to vex regimes that relied on censorship, surveillance and misinformation to keep their hold on power.
When I was in Israel a few years ago — during one of their many elections — I saw a bus ad featuring a big portrait of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“SUPPORTING BIBI,” it proclaimed, or words to that effect.
It wasn’t an ad for Netanyahu’s party, Likud, but rather Shas, one of the religious parties on the right.
Go incognito
With Canada under increased scrutiny about its defence spending in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ottawa’s plans to replace outdated radar systems in the north have taken on a new sense of urgency.
Defence Minister Anita Anand has said she will present a “robust package” of reforms to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in a joint effort with the United States.
A major component is expected to be the replacement of the North Warning System — a line of dozens of radar stations scattered throughout Canada’s North that was completed in the 1980s and is long overdue for updating.
Canada is not quite as far ahead on defence spending as NATO predicted last year, according to the latest annual report compiled by NATO’s secretary general.
The report, released Thursday in Brussels by NATO Sec.-Gen. Jens Stoltenberg, shows Canada spent 1.36 per cent of its gross domestic product on the military and new defence hardware in 2021.
That’s a slight dip from the 1.39 per cent of GDP projected for Canada’s defence budget in the western military alliance’s last assessment of member nations, which was published last June.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez shared the news on Wednesday as he announced a newly formed panel of experts who will advise his office as it drafts the new bill.
This week, the Trudeau government unveiled a new set of unrealistic emissions reduction targets, which includes a plan to cut emissions by 40% by the year 2030 and measures targeting Canada’s oil and gas sector. Despite the fact that their climate schemes have failed time and time again, the government is doubling down and making life more expensive for all Canadians.
The creator of the Emergencies Act would not say if its Feb. 14 invocation by the Liberal government was justified to deal with the Freedom Convoy protests and blockades, but he said it is such a “blunt” tool that efforts should be made to avoid using it in similar circumstances in the future.
Perrin Beatty, who created the Act that was adopted in 1988 while serving as defence minister under Brian Mulroney, testified before the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency on March 29.
Amazing as it is, as inflation insidiously crawls across the land, skyrocketing gasoline prices freeze the blood (with a federal carbon tax increase set to hit on April Fool’s Day), as the economy is stifled by debt, supply chains rattle or crumble, and the country crawls out of the devastation of the COVID clampdowns, the Trudeau-Singh coalition government has announced its most determined climate agenda for Canada ever.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate change plan is built around his theory that Canadians most likely to vote Liberal want him to set tough targets for reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions and then fail to meet them.
Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act that serves as the government’s follow-up to Bill C-10, was the subject of debate in the House of Commons yesterday as the legislation slowly makes it way through the legislative process. There are still committee hearings to come, but it is readily apparent that many of the concerns that hamstrung Bill C-10 have returned: virtually limitless jurisdictional, overbroad scope, and harmful discoverability provisions. Further, this bill has attracted mounting criticism from Canadian digital-first creators, who note that one of Canada’s biggest cultural exports could be hurt by the bill leading to millions in lost revenues.
Especially troubling:
“The policy direction has two primary goals. First, it will focus on the importance of consultation and special consideration of the needs of equity-seeking groups. Second, the direction will make clear areas where regulation is needed, as well as areas where flexibility should be exercised.”
Canada is joining the ranks of countries and states planning to ban sales of combustion engine cars. Canada has outlined an Emissions Reduction Plan that will require all new passenger car sales to be zero-emissions models by 2035. The government will gradually ramp up pressure on automakers, requiring “at least” 20 percent zero-emissions sales by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030.
Canada’s self-image is that of a country welcoming to immigrants, where newcomers are tightly woven into the national fabric. But, results of a recent survey suggest that at least some new immigrants are souring on Canada. A Leger poll commissioned by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) found that 30 per cent of new Canadians aged 18 to 34 said they were likely to move to another country within the next two years. Even for new Canadians who are university graduates, the percentage of those saying they wanted to leave was 23 per cent. ICC CEO Daniel Bernhard said that he believes some new immigrants are experiencing a “crisis of confidence” in their new country. Ironically, while 72 per cent of new Canadians thought that Canadians as a whole don’t understand the challenges new immigrants face, only 54 per cent of Canadians shared this opinion.
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault on Tuesday unveiled a $9.1-billion climate change plan he says will achieve Canada’s 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction target, despite the fact it shows the Trudeau Liberals failed to meet their 2020 target.
