Liberals silencing your online freedoms

Dangerous. Draconian. One of the worst things to happen to free speech in our history

Bill C-10 is a blatant attack against our Charter Rights, full stop.

What began as a mediocre attempt at legislation to level the playing field between Internet streaming giants and traditional Canadian broadcasters, is now a piece of legislation to limit Canadians freedom of expression on the Internet.

This legislation is the government opening the door to state regulation of the Internet. It gives the government the power to censor any website, block any video or podcast by the decree of the Minister.

The Liberals want to control what you can watch on YouTube, Netflix or on Twitter. And if it is content they do not agree with or does not align with Liberal virtue, the Prime Minister is giving himself the authority to have it removed.

Increasing state control of information and conversation is regressive, not progressive. This is another impermissible attempt by the Liberals to target the freedoms of individual internet users in Canada.

The former commissioner of the CRTC said: “This is a full blown assault on free expression and the foundations of our democracy”.

Maybe we should not be surprised. We all remember how the Prime Minister professes admiration for China’s basic dictatorship.

Is anyone asking why C-10 now? During a pandemic and in a possible election year?

The government does enough of a job of undermining any trust in public institutions. When it botches the rollout of the vaccine to the provinces and introduces random restrictions like hotel quarantines, we cannot have in an honest democracy legislation like this to silence the critics who share the truth of their failures.

Transparency will cease to exist, and those who fight for the truth to be revealed will be silenced through online censorship.

In contrast, Conservatives proposed to protect individual users and smaller players in the market by exempting streaming services and social media users with lower revenues. The Liberals rejected this common-sense compromise.

Clearly, this is a move to silence Canadians’ free speech and freedom of expression. Conservatives will not support this. We want all Canadians to be the voice of defending our free speech.