Roundup: Taking Atwood’s unfounded concerns too seriously

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I am starting to think that the Globe and Mail has a secret penchant for humiliating Margaret Atwood while pretending to substantiate her concerns about legislation. They did it with Bill C-11 on online streaming, where Atwood read a bunch of utter nonsense on the internet, some of it by a fellow CanLit author who is currently a crank in the Senate, and she got concerned about bureaucrats telling people what to write. It was utterly ridiculous, but what did the Globe do? Write up her concerns as though she knew what she was talking about, including the part where she admitted she hadn’t really read the bill.

And now they’re doing it again—same journalist, in fact—about the Online Harms bill. Atwood again read some stupid things online, this time from the right-wing press in the UK, and is again worried about “Orwellian” consequences because of “vague laws” and “no oversight.” And hey, the Globe insists that because she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, she’s an expert in Orwellian dystopias. But again, Atwood is operating on a bunch of bad information and false assumptions, and the story in the Globe doesn’t actually do the job of fact-checking any of this, it just lets her run free with this thought and spinning it out into the worst possible scenario, which if you know anything about the bill or have spoken to the experts who aren’t concern trolling (and yes, there are several), you would know that most of this is bunk.

The biggest thing that Atwood misses and the Globe story ignores entirely is that the hate speech provisions codify the Supreme Court of Canada’s standard set out in the Whatcott decision, which means that for it to qualify, it needs to rise to the level of vilification and detestation, and it sets out what that means, which includes dehumanising language, and demands for killing or exile. That’s an extremely high bar, and if you’re a government, you can’t go around punishing your enemies or censoring speech you don’t like with that particular bar codified in the gods damned bill. I really wish people would actually pay attention to that fact when they go off half-cocked on this bill, and that journalists interviewing or writing about the topic would actually mention that fact, because it’s really gods damned important. Meanwhile, maybe the Globe should lay off on talking to Atwood about her concerns until they’re certain that she has a) read the legislation, and b) understood it. Honestly.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 15 out of 25 drones launched toward Odesa, while a Russian missile destroyed a grain silo in the Dnipro region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that their frontline situation is the best it’s been in three months as they have improved their strategic position. Here is a deeper look at the Ukrainians’ retreat from Avdiivka, as ammunition was low and one of their commanders disappeared. UNESCO says that Ukraine will need more than a billion dollars to rebuild its scientific infrastructure that has been damaged or destroyed in the war.

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland met with BC Premier David Eby to talk housing.
  • Mélanie Joly is pledging $1 million to help Israeli victims of sexual violence during the October 7th attacks by Hamas.
  • The elver fishery has been shut down this year because of poaching, and arrests have been made.
  • Documents show that the government explored raising the immigration level to one million per year, but didn’t go ahead with it.
  • The federal victims of crime ombudsman is investigating how the justice system treats victims of sexual assault (which should be fairly obvious).
  • Canadians in Gaza are feeling “duped” by promises to help get their families out, as they resort to bribes to cross the border and await visas while in Egypt.
  • A Ukrainian monument to those who fought in the SS Waffen division has been removed from a cemetery in Oakville, but questions are whether it will reappear.
  • The King’s Commonwealth Day message can be found here.
  • The public safety committee agreed to a single meeting on the issue of prisoner transfers from high to medium security (and the Conservatives cry foul yet again).
  • Liberal MP Tony Van Bynen has declared that he won’t run again.
  • School nutrition programmes in Ontario are calling for more provincial funding as they have to stretch their insufficient resources (and this is a provincial issue).
  • Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi has joined the Alberta NDP leadership race.
  • BC’s public safety minister says that there is no widespread diversion of safe-supply drugs after a briefing from RCMP.
  • Patricia Treble goes into the issue of the Princess Kate photoshopped image.
  • Paul Wells listens to what Liberals are telling themselves in the current moment, and offers a few thoughts as to things they should perhaps be doing instead.

Odds and Ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at the weaponization of committees for point scoring, such as with the Winnipeg Lab document issue at ethics committee.

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One thought on “Roundup: Taking Atwood’s unfounded concerns too seriously”

  1. Which Senator is a ‘crank’, as you refer to them? Is it David Adams Richards? What’s he said or done that makes him a crank?

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