I want to like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Online Harms Act.
Children are ostensibly its biggest beneficiaries. Bill C-63 aims to shield minors from easy access to graphic pornography, online predators, and other forms of exploitation. Given that Canada gave the world Pornhub — the world’s largest adult site, which, in recent years, has been exposed as “profiting from rape, child abuse, [and] sex trafficking” — it’s high time the country took action. (RELATED: More Women Are Watching Porn Than Ever Before)
And it finally has — more than three years after the Pornhub revelations were splashed across the front page of the New York Times. Why did Trudeau wait so long? After all, he was reelected in 2021 on the back of a promise to “introduce new online harms legislation within the first 100 days” of taking office.
But the more important question for Trudeau is: Why mingle sorely needed safeguards for kids with reams of Kafkaesque claptrap about hate speech?
Bill C-63 is far more than most Canadians bargained for. According to the National Post, the bill will amend the nation’s Criminal Code and Human Rights Act, “creat[ing] a new standalone hate crime offence that would allow penalties up to life imprisonment to deter hateful conduct, as well as rais[ing] the maximum punishments for hate propaganda offences from five years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide.”
Variations of the word “hatred” appear dozens of times in the proposed legislation — a term it defines as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike.” Anyone found guilty of using “the Internet or any other means of telecommunication” to foment hatred is liable for tens of thousands of dollars in fines and prison time.
But that’s not even the worst part. Bill C-63 creates a de facto thought crime or “pre-crime” (think Minority Report) that it dubs “fear of hate propaganda offence or hate crime.” Under this provision — and I had to read it twice to believe it — defendants are subject to measures like “house arrest,” “ankle monitor[s],” and compulsory blood samples if their accuser “fears” they may post “hate propaganda” or commit a “hate crime.”
In Canada’s brave new world, you don’t even have to be guilty of a crime to be tried as a criminal. Any member of the public is allowed to file a complaint against another. And no judge or jury is necessary for the ordeal: Everything will be looked after by the quasi-judicial Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is conveniently staffed by appointees of the ruling government — in other words, Trudeau’s Liberals.
The person who submits the complaint does not have to be the one whose feelings were hurt. In fact, this person doesn’t even have to be a Canadian citizen. And not just new content is assessed by the tribunal; even the accused’s old posts and videos are considered. If found guilty of posting content that is “likely” to foment hatred, the accused must pay up to $20,000 per complaint to the complainant and up to $50,000 in fines to the government. Unlike the traditional court system, the accuser accrues no financial cost and is unlimited in the number of accusations he can make. Further, he can even choose to keep his identity secret.
Rebel News publisher Ezra Levant illustrated in a several chilling posts on X how this could play out in the case of a high-profile Canadian like Jordan Peterson. “Even if you ‘win’, you lose,” Levant quipped. “[T]he process is the punishment. And of course, they’re going to win. This will become an industry — to enrich woke grifters and destroy you financially.” Levant called it “the Trump treatment”:
Overwhelm the target with endless nuisance suits that take time and money to fight. Even if the complaints are dismissed, you’re still at a loss. And if literally hundreds of complaints are filed against someone like Prof. Peterson, even if only 5% are upheld, that’s economically devastating.
It’s for good reason that Trudeau’s Online Harms Act has come under intense criticism since it was tabled last month.
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre labeled it Trudeau’s “latest attack on freedom of expression”; Jordan Peterson, “Trudeau’s illiberal manifesto.” The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has warned that the bill “not only chills free speech but also undermines the principles of proportionality and fairness in our legal system.”
Anyone reading Bill C-63 could be forgiven for thinking that Trudeau’s real goal is to silence his critics, not protect Canadians from creeps on the internet. They might even conclude that the greatest harms in Canada are found not online but in Ottawa itself.
