Justice Minister David Lametti is reminding members of parliament that constitutional rights and freedoms can be limited.
During an appearance before the House of Commons heritage committee during its hearings on internet regulation bill C-10, Lametti emphasized there are “legitimate” ways in which legislation can infringe the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including freedom of expression.
h/t Marvin
On Friday, President Joe Biden took another shot at the First Amendment when he revoked President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting free speech.
h/t Marvin
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is doubling down on his controversial new broadcasting bill at a parliamentary committee hearing, citing a Justice Department analysis to reiterate the legislation would not affect free speech online.
Bill C-10’s amendments regulating social media websites Canadians use don’t pose any charter-related free speech concerns, Canada’s Justice Minister Davidsaid in the second charter review of the bill.
Canadians can choose to watch virtually anything from anywhere in the world online. And they can share virtually any opinion globally through their cellphone. It’s astonishing freedom.
But the federal government sees a problem. Canadians aren’t watching enough of the right stuff and sometimes they say the wrong things. So, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-10 to give the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission more power to oversee what we’re watching and sharing to make sure it conforms to government-approved standards.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) plans to investigate physicians who speak out against government lockdown measures, according to a statement issued Friday.
“The college is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations,” said CPSO’s statement.
Canada’s cultural sector, long a champion of rights and social justice, now finds itself — despite Monday’s government pullback — in the awkward position of having inspired the mugging of free speech and expression on the internet.
Understand one thing: If the Liberals are able to pass Bill C-10 – an update of the Broadcasting Act – Canada will have the most-regulated Internet in the free world.
“The plan is not for us to regulate all of the Internet,” Toronto Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin, told the Commons Heritage committee this week. Dabrusin is parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Heritage, Montreal Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault.
British police are arresting and investigating people over entirely legal speech.
This week police in Uxbridge, Greater London, handcuffed, arrested and detained a 71-year-old grandfather for fear he might have offended someone.
Nah, let’s just regulate the Internet.
As one of Ontario’s hospitals almost runs out of oxygen, and our defence minister announces a review of sexual misconduct in the military, the Liberals have decided that this seems like as good a time as any to fix the Internet.
Or, more specifically, the Broadcasting Act, which is currently before committee; the reforms to the act have been presented as a way to expand things like content requirements and other Canadian norms to digital streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. This is misguided for a host of reasons, but well within the usual bounds of nanny-state nonsense we already generally accept from our government.
The Guilbeault Interview: If Bill C-10 isn’t a fireable offence, this interview should be.
Heritage Minister @s_guilbeault is simply unable to respond coherently to basic questions about his own legislation.https://t.co/R0YYhiBvnS https://t.co/n9oEwbx5kr— Michael Geist (@mgeist) May 1, 2021
Several years ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quipped that he sees Canada as the world’s “first postnational state.” It’s become an iconic catchphrase of his tenure — admired by liberals as a mantra of inclusivity; mocked by conservatives as an admission of the vacuousness of progressivism.
It’s a fine debate to have but, in the context of Trudeau, it’s also fairly pointless, given the prime minister has never shown much interest in actually governing in a postnational way. His is, in fact, a quite explicitly nationalist government that has repeatedly shown itself happy to use the power of the state to push a particular notion of correct patriotic behavior.
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault and the Liberal government’s response to mounting concern over its decision to remove a legal safeguard designed to ensure the CRTC would not regulate user generated content has been denial. The department’s own officials told MPs that all programming on sites like Youtube would be subject to regulation, yet Guilbeault insisted to the House of Commons that user generated content would be excluded from regulation as part of Bill C-10, his Broadcasting Act reform bill.
Liberal government says controversial changes to broadcasting bill will only apply to professional content (ED. Bullshit)
The federal government is facing an uproar over controversial changes to a bill that would bring videos and other content posted to social media sites like YouTube under the purview of the country’s broadcasting regulator.
The changes to Bill C-10 — made at the behest of Liberal MPs on the heritage committee — would allow the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to regulate user-generated content uploaded to social media platforms, much as it regulates radio and TV content now.
The government says the changes apply only to professional content and are necessary to make wildly successful online streaming services and apps contribute to Canadian culture.
Freedom of speech is not the high holy ideal it once was. Freedom of expression, the wider concept, expression as thought, speech, art, performance and protest, is likewise no longer the clear and unchallengeable central core value of our democracies.
A federal bill to combat harmful content and hate speech online is expected to be tabled soon, but free speech advocates are concerned that it may be too restrictive. Critics are also sounding the alarm on amendments to the existing Bill C-10 that seeks to regulate video content on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
The hate speech bill soon to be tabled will create a new regulator with the power to levy fines and require transparency from social media outlets, including about their algorithms. The legislation will also set out a legal framework for prohibiting hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, non-consensual sharing of intimate content, and child sexual exploitative content.
You are everything they hate. You are the Hate Crime.
