Meet the Liberals' new 'Online Harms Bill,' likely as insane as the last

"Hello Mr. Trudeau, I bad want money now. Me sick." "Ooh, he card read good."

After years of delay, and perhaps hoping for a ‘dead cat bounce’ in the polls, Trudeau’s unwanted attempts at establishing an “Online Harms Act” are back; the political equivalent of the sunning of one’s perineum while Canada falls to shit, and the Liberal’s ever-expanding bureaucracy jams the gears of all worthwhile human endeavours.

Yes, we’re starting punchy today, because this is all as exhausting as it is predictable.

The broad strokes, so this preamble doesn’t lead to too many readers seeking out MAID:

• Bill C-63, previously vanquished for reasons of “how the hell are they going to enforce something so subjective?” is a beast with three heads; a veritable Cerberus tasked with guarding a slippery slope while government construction crews work to turn it into a double-black-diamond run.

• Head number one is the creation of a sprawling bureaucracy meant to oversee a new enforcement system, and new rules levied upon internet giants.

• Head number two represents a clampdown on ch*ld p*rnography (you never know with internet censors, man), and placing an aggressive duty to investigate and report on the part of social media companies. (A net good, for a change. But…)

• Head number three is where we get into real trouble, with proposed changes to the Canada Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, to seek increased dominion over alleged “hate speech,” with powerful penalties.

Fresh off pretending they were willing to break their unholy alliance with the just-as-fledgling Trudeau Liberals, the NDP is expected to throw its support behind C-63, likely as a concession for being offered peanuts on a pharmacare deal Singh has proudly touted to deafening silence — and increasingly dried-up donations.

So where exactly does this leave us, dear reader? Beyond the obvious — and the expectation of weeks of insufferable, even-worse Liberal comms and PMO-planted op-eds in the Toronto Star and The Hill Times — we have a few points to unpack, including an attempt to not-catastrophize this latest act of attempted Liberal censorship, in an attempt to not sound like a broken record.

Why it may not be entirely insane

For starters, Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair and purveyor of real-live legal expertise and bein’-repeatedly-right-about-previous-censorship-bills such as the first attempts at C-36 and the detestable Bills C-11 and C18, hasn’t yet sounded the air-raid siren.

“This feels like the first Internet regulation bill from this government that is driven primarily by policy rather than implementing the demands of lobby groups or seeking to settle scores with big tech. After the battles over Bills C-11 and C-18, it is difficult to transition to a policy space where experts and stakeholders debate the best policy rather than participating the consultation theatre of the past few years. It notably does not include Bill S-210 style age verification or website blocking. There will need to be adjustments in Bill C-63, particularly efforts to tighten up definitions and ensure effective means to watch the watchers, but perhaps that will come through a genuine welcoming of constructive criticism rather than the discouraging, hostile processes of recent years.”

Such “consultation theatre” has been the Liberal calling card for years. As their time in office grew (too) long, the functioning intellects with ethics fell to the wayside, and with a desperate and destitute NDP eager to prop them up by hanging to their coat-tails, the impetus for any real democratic accountability fell by the wayside; particularly during Covid.

The Liberals are ‘great’ at eventually being dragged before a committee or scrum once a problem has been made untenable (read: every single aspect of Canadian life for those on a household income of less than $250,000, without a fixed-rate mortgage and a family doctor), announcing they will placate the cries of the peasants to create some breathing room from the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and then doing fuck all, before waiting for the next issue to become unavoidable.

And when they do show any initiative, it’s to log-roll on behalf of shared interests, family businesses, powerful lobby groups, or to keep government-funded initiatives alive, who exist to ‘astroturf’ on behalf of government.

Astroturfing: “The practice of publishing opinions or comments on the internet, in the media, etc. that appear to come from ordinary members of the public but actually come from a particular company or political group, as a way to make it seem that a product, policy, opinion, etc. is very popular or has a lot of public support.”

Ex. Subsidized Liberal media; government-funded far-left professional-protest groups like the ‘Canadian Anti-Hate Network,’ and ‘Horizons Ottawa.’

The CBC, etc.

In the case of Bill C-18, for example, which ended up as an unmitigated disaster for online news providers, the Liberals sought to shake-down Meta, Google, and others over the right to share increasingly unpopular legacy Canadian media online (on behalf of the Canadian media lobby, of course). That resulted in the majority of legacy and even independent media being blocked on Facebook and Instagram, there have been to date thousands of media layoffs, and only a partial victory was secured in the form of shaking down Google for $100 million: a small price to pay for a decimated industry.

If this isn’t that, that’s uniquely not-terrible for a group polling lower than a prostate exam, but it’s in those proposed changes to the Canada Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, and the potential for flagging anything or anyone for “hate speech,” that the likelihood for lobby-group monkey-business remains alive and well — with downright chilling ramifications.

Why it’s probably insane

Canada doesn’t need more regulators. She desperately needs less. (Yes, I assumed her gender.)

Canada doesn’t need the batshit speech-tightening provisions seen in the United Kingdom or Ireland. (“Oy, bruv, do you have your allowed to criticize the government license?”)

And she certainly cannot afford to further deputize Ontario’s increasingly well-furbished industry of pretend-liberators, whose “terminal boredom at the End of History” leads to increasingly mawkish displays of mental illness, and inappropriate behaviour (and influence) towards children.

Arif Virani, Trudeau’s latest flunky for an Attorney General, after the principled Jody Wilson-Raybould was cast out for having, well, principles, has yet to fill 75 (!) judicial vacancies, which is leading to further murder and chaos in our streets, but he’s expected to handle the expanded power of a digital ‘safety’ commissioner?

In place of digital anarchy, we’re supposed to be thankful for life under a surveillance state?

And what of due process for those flagged for whatever the present-day interpretation of “hate speech” happens to be? Should Canadians not be concerned that Liberal dogmas change by the day? What was progressive and accepting not five years ago has already become verboten. The same group that can’t tell you what a woman is, who are sprinting to the far-left at a break-neck pace leaving classical liberals and moderates in the dust, get to play judge, jury, and executioner with an already-absurd human rights tribunal system? Even when the punishment can include LIFE IN PRISON?

Make no mistake, while perhaps not the entire aim of the act, the ability to call Rebel News, or True North, or Twitter rabble-rousers, or even Substack purveyors before these kangaroo courts appears to be an indulgence (and abuse) this government is hoping to have two years to enjoy, in the hopes disincentivizing enough dissent that at the very least they can prevent the “far-right” from securing a presently-projected supermajority.

And for their supporters and partners, we’re looking at the political equivalent of Bart Simpson being handed a stack of cue cards and being shoved out on stage while applying for the position of Mr. Burns’ heir.

The Liberal-funded far-left will absolutely be emboldened to initiate contact here; to seek damages and “money now.”

“Ezra Levant: bad. Money, us. Need pay for SSRIs and treatment for toxoplasmosis.”

Would my recent video spot at the NCC constitute “hate speech” for criticizing the obvious failures of so-called safe supply, and Liberal policies of catch and release? After all, repeat offenders and the violent schizophrenics destroying our towns and cities (who need mandatory treatment, not enablement), now appear to be a protected class according to those sprinting to the far-left.

This isn’t a disaster — yet. But it’s close.

Bill C-36 is not something we needed, wherein the role of good parenting, and enforcing existing laws, would have been sufficient. And therein lies the point. Governments at the ideological end of their history — their very utility — who find themselves beset by indulgences, can never give, and only take.

At a time when days are deliberately darkened by mass immigration, a government drug supply, and a justice system bastardized to showcase compassion to the infinite degree in place of keeping families safe, this is what the sheltered would prefer to focus on: “Online Harm.” And much as the internet is not real life, these are not real priorities.

So what can I do?

Vote Conservative. Even if you don’t really want to. Especially if it’s your first time.

It’s no perfect fix, but it’s the one we’ve got. Particularly, it’s who we’ve got: mainly, each other.

It’s increasingly clear that in the eyes of the Liberal government, the real “Online Harms” were the friends we made along the way.