Roundup: Making up censorship claims

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Facing pressure for dismissing the Online Harms bill before he had even seen it, Pierre Poilievre put out a statement yesterday that said that things like child sexual exploitation or “revenge porn” should be criminal matters, and that police should be involved and not a new “bureaucratic” agency. It’s a facile answer that betrays the lack of resources that law enforcement devotes to these matters, or the fact that when it comes to harassment or hate, many police bodies have a tendency not to believe victims, especially if they are women.

But then Poilievre went one step further, saying “We do not believe that the government should be banning opinions that contradict the Prime Minister’s radical ideology.” I’m not sure where exactly in the bill he sees anything about banning opinions, because he made that part up. More to the point, the provisions in the bill around hate speech quite literally follow the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Whatcott, and codifies them, which means the standard is exposing someone to “vilification or detestation” if they are a member of a group that is a prohibited grounds for discrimination. That means that it goes beyond “opinion” one doesn’t like. The minister confirmed that “awful but lawful” content will not be touched, because the standard in the bill is hate speech as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada. And it would seem to me that if the standard of “hate speech is bad” is “radical ideology” in your mind, well then, you are probably telling on yourself.

Speaking of Poilievre making things up, he spent the afternoon loudly proclaiming that the RCMP sent him a letter saying they were investigating ArriveCan. Then he posted the letter on Twitter. The letter doesn’t say they are investigating. It literally says they are assessing all available information. That is not an investigation. That’s deciding if they want to investigate. The fact that he released the letter that doesn’t say they are investigating, and says that it proves they are investigating, feels like a big test of the cognitive dissonance he expects in his followers, which is just one more reason why our democracy is in serious trouble.

Ukraine Dispatch:

As Ukrainian forces withdrew from two more villages near Avdiivka, one of which Russia has claimed the capture of, there are concerns that Russia is stepping up influence operations to scupper international support. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has landed in Saudi Arabia for meetings related to his peace plan and a push to get prisoners and deportees released from Russia. In Europe, NATO countries have been backing away from statements that French president Emmanuel Macron made about not excluding any options to avert a Russian victory in Ukraine, which were presumed to mean western troops. (Macron said this was about creating “strategic ambiguity.”)

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland announced that the merger threshold for competition review will stay frozen, and that $123 million will go toward home building innovation.
  • Marc Miller says that Quebec seems to want to negotiate in public around the issue of asylum seekers rather than in a responsible manner.
  • Miller is also pushing back at Ontario’s claims that they weren’t warned about the international student cap, and is warning of future action if provinces don’t step up.
  • The programme to bring over the families of Sudanese Canadians affected by the war has opened, and there are complaints as to how bureaucratic the process is.
  • The RCMP Commissioner says that there is no evidence that personal or operational data was stolen during the recent cyber-attack.
  • ArriveCan allegations have raised questions about one of the firms contracted, which claims to be Indigenous-owned but may simply be a front for other firms.
  • Civil service unions want more compensation for continued Phoenix pay system problems, as the government searches to replace it.
  • Here is a look at some of the needs around Indigenous housing, where the funds have been slow to roll out as the by-Indigenous-for-Indigenous process happens.
  • The Conservatives refuse to say if they would uphold the security agreement that Canada signed with Ukraine over the weekend (and naturally just recited slogans).
  • The Conservatives voted in support of the bill to ban replacement workers (in federally-regulated sectors) at Second Reading.
  • Paul Wells laments his inability to get answers from the government over things they have either crowed about or promised on multiple occasions.
  • My column looks at the motion to extend sittings, and why the unspoken threat in there is around the availability of interpreters, and how that shifts the dynamics.

Odds and Ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Making up censorship claims”

  1. “Paul Wells laments his inability tp get answers” — he gave them 5 hours to respond before his deadline. Doesn’t a deadline suggest that the response is of no use afterwards? Seems the PMO wasn’t the only one playing silly games.

  2. Re Paul Wells letter, surely I’m not the only one who noticed the rather off-putting tone of the letter? “I’m giddy with optimism”… As someone who spends hours on such letters to regulate tone, I was really surprised. I’d be inclined myself to put it on the slow pile. I’m curious if that’s typical of the way journalists seek information in writing.

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