Commentary
It wasn’t so long ago that the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) was encouraging people to give them a call if they thought other people’s opinions constituted “hate.”
Among the examples of hate presented by the EPS was a statement people might make about how people of a specified background tend to be bad drivers. Making public statements of such a nature might certainly be considered inappropriate and offensive, but it is a far cry from the type of language Canada had in mind when it first introduced hate-speech legislation through the Criminal Code in 1970.
People who at the time were struggling with the balance between allowing Nazis to freely express a desire to do physical harm to others and the need for public safety would most certainly not have conceived of a time when comments concerning certain people’s driving habits would be considered a matter for the police.
But, as they say, here we are.
Niagara Regional Police (NRP) recently joined the EPS in their mission to patrol Canadians’ speech by posting on its website and social media the warning that “hate speech is not protected by the Charter of Rights” and encouraging people to “stay calm” and even “call 911” if they encounter speech they find alarming. Expect others to follow.
The NRP’s original post on X appears to have been deleted, but it did prompt this response from Josh Dehaas of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who believes speech is indeed protected under the Charter:
“Another Canadian police force is encouraging people to report non-crime hate incidents (constitutionally-protected expression). Police have no business tracking non-criminal speech. Their job is to keep the peace and enforce laws. Why are we determined to repeat Britain’s mistakes?”
I can’t read Dehaas’s mind but when reading his comments I made the assumption he was referring to laws in the UK that have resulted in thousands of police investigations into people’s social media posts and, dare I say, comments posted digitally on commentary similar to the column you are reading right now.
Which brings us to Bill C-34, the Canadian government’s third kick at an online safety act. Like many other projects of this nature, it is wrapped in the motherhood ambition of child safety.
Policymakers in Canada are happy to turn a blind eye to the exposure of the nation’s youth to the perfidious perils of online gambling, often operated by governments themselves and from which public treasuries benefit. iGaming Ontario recently reported a haul of $2.2 billion, for instance, from its online casino operations. Televised live sports is about the only thing keeping cable TV alive these days. And it is riddled with gambling advertisements and false flag-sponsored “programming” involving broadcasters delving into the details gamblers are looking for as they prepare to put this month’s mortgage payment in the hands of the Buffalo Bills. Regulators such as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, sympathetic as they are to the plight of cable companies, turn a blind eye.
But when it comes to young teens being addicted to TikTok, a vice from which, unlike tobacco, liquor, and gambling, governments do not profit, policymakers are all in.
With that in mind, Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, seems determined to grant Canada’s future Digital Safety Commissioner sweeping powers to regulate not just the age at which people can access social media but also what they can say once on it.
As internet law expert Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa describes it:
“The Digital Safety Commission of Canada will be a super-regulator of the Internet, with greater influence over the daily lives of Canadians than perhaps any other regulator. … The breadth of its influence can’t be overstated,” Geist wrote when the bill was first introduced.
“It will exercise investigative and adjudicative powers, complete with penalties, hearings, and formal, law-enforcement-style investigations. Yet despite all those powers, it will not be bound by the rules of evidence, will be free to conduct its hearings in secret, and, at least in the beginning, will be capable of operating as a one-person body in which the Commission and its Chair are one and the same individual.”
So, even while a Court of King’s Bench judge recently ruled that the University of Lethbridge’s decision to ban defrocked professor Frances Widdowson from its campus for her views was “fundamentally and fatally flawed” for failing to consider her right to free expression, government policy appears to be working towards the same ends as the U of L, except by forcing Meta, Google, etc., to censor speech on its behalf.
The tools may differ, but Canada looks ready to boldly walk down the trail blazed by the British Labour Party and its “Protecting What Matters: Towards A More Confident, Cohesive And Resilient United Kingdom” report. It suggests censoring individuals who “sow division, stir anger against those with religious, political or social views different to theirs, or spread extremist, intolerant beliefs that undermine our shared values.”
And that, as sweet as it sounds, would mean the end of free expression in Canada. Once that is gone, democracy, too, smashes upon the rocks.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
