Poilievre: Conservatives to Oppose Incoming Online Harms Bill

February 21, 2024 TruthUSA

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre stated that his party will resist an upcoming government bill that aims to address “online harms” because it will result in the criminalization of any speech disliked by the prime minister.

Mr. Poilievre responded to questions from journalists, saying, “Yes. We will oppose Justin Trudeau’s latest attack on freedom of expression.”

“What does Justin Trudeau mean when he says the word ‘hate speech?’ He means speech he hates,” added the Tory leader during a Feb. 21 press conference in Kitchener, Ont.

Mr. Poilievre mentioned the prime minister’s criticism of Muslim parents opposed to the teaching of gender ideology in schools.

The Conservatives have been outspoken in their opposition to previous major pieces of legislation meant to shape the information environment, such as Bill C-11 and Bill C-18. Tories have called Bill C-11 a “censorship law.”

Although C-11 does give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission additional powers to regulate online content, the online harms legislation may take government supervision further.

Bill Targets ‘Misinformation’

The previous attempt of the Liberal government to curtail online harms, Bill C-36, fell through in 2021 when Parliament was dissolved for the launch of the election.

For the crafting of the new legislation, the government hired a panel of experts who held rounds of discussions on different themes, such as “misinformation and disinformation” and private messaging.

A previous analysis by The Epoch Times found the chosen experts largely share the government’s ideology on different issues such as previous support for COVID-19 measures, advocating for more vaccine mandates, labeling alternative viewpoints “conspiracies,” and criticizing winter 2022’s freedom-themed protests.

Discussions captured by Heritage Canada and published online suggest “many experts” advocated for the new censorship law to cover private messaging. “Excluding these types of communications would leave a lot of harmful content on the table,” they reportedly said, in reference to terrorist content or child pornography.

While addressing online harms to children is said to be a key aim of the legislation, only one of the 12 experts hired by the government was specialized in that field.

Meanwhile, a current bill debated in the House of Commons to make it mandatory for porn websites to verify the age of users is moving forward without Liberal support. Liberals say Bill S-210 doesn’t do enough to protect children and that their online harms legislation will be focused on that.

Another key initial motivation for the Liberal government to pass online harm legislation was the desire to stamp out what it calls “disinformation and misinformation.”

“The internet has allowed for more mis- and disinformation, more polarization than ever before, and we’re much more likely to be exposed to and hurt by unacceptable hateful content,” then-Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said in March 2022 when announcing his expert panel.

A few months later, the experts reportedly said in discussions that “disinformation” is “one of the most pressing and harmful forms of malicious behavior online.” Nevertheless, they warned that it’s a complicated phenomena to define and that the government should not be the arbiter of truth.

The experts discussed the failed attempt of the Biden Administration to establish its Disinformation Governance Board in the spring of 2022. “Government-created definitions of disinformation cannot withstand public scrutiny,” they said.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.

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