If passed into law, the Liberal government’s controversial Bill-C10 would be more than just a violation of Canadian’s rights to free expression, it would be a full-on assault, explains Brian Lee Crowley in this video for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
At issue is the attempt from Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault to regulate content, words and ideas on the internet that people, including politicians find “hurtful” — a distinction goes far beyond the reasonable grounds of limiting hate speech, which is already illegal.
Imposing overly broad regulatory authority means online content would be held to the same strict standards as regular broadcasters, Crowley explains, giving government bureaucrats the ability to take down pages and entire sites that do not conform to the guidelines of the state. This attempt to “preserve democracy” is too easily manipulated and will actually undermine crucial democratic principles, he argues.
Crowley also details the practical challenges of implementing such a plan:
“The government seems to believe that the public sector can manage online behaviour more effectively than is already being done by the private social media platforms who would fall under the laws control. Facebook and Twitter deal with millions of complaints daily, hundreds of millions annually.”
Watch the full video here:
