Or….& this is crazy, but….or the Liberals could just turn over the unredacted documents for the Green Slush Fund parliament ordered them to produce back in what? Initially May? Something like more than 1/2 a year ago?
OTTAWA—The Liberal government’s decision to cleave its controversial online harms legislation into two on Wednesday was framed by the federal justice minister as the quickest way to prioritize child safety in a Parliament he says the opposition Conservatives have plunged into paralysis (???).
Attempts by the Conservatives to ask the Trudeau Liberals why they continue to block access to thousands of documents were roundly ignored.
torontosun.com
Withholding the information is significant because it appears to fly in the face of the Speaker's ruling by Fergus that the government likely had no right to do so.
nationalpost.com
Parliament is paralyzed. The business of Canada has been set aside. Why? Because Parliament voted, […]
gregmcleanmp.ca
(The government has been unable to put any of its own business before the House of Commons for a few months now, and the Conservatives on Thursday said that's the result of Liberal "corruption”)
The widespread calls from civil liberties, human rights and religious minority groups to split up the bill were not one of the primary reasons Arif Virani said was behind the decision, though he acknowledged that some had been “suggesting” he make the move.
“What we looked at in September was a parliamentary calendar that had three months’ worth of time. In three months’ worth of time, we've had exactly one day of debate dedicated to this bill. Is that frustrating for me? You're absolutely right, that's frustrating for me,” Virani told reporters.
Or….& this is crazy, but….or the Liberals could just turn over the unredacted documents for the Green Slush Fund parliament ordered them to produce back in what? Initially May? Something like more than 1/2 a year ago?
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme now says there are “ongoing investigations” into the embattled fund.
nationalpost.com
Somebody had to know. And probably a lot of somebodies.
torontosun.com
…etc…The legislation at issue is the Trudeau Liberals’ proposed solution to dangerous content on the internet: a sweeping bill that has drawn praise for its efforts to hold social media platforms accountable for the content they host, and criticism for changes to the Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) that some say polices free speech.
On Wednesday, Virani announced that all four parts of the bill will be split into two groups.
Justice Minister Arif Virani's move means that the bill’s most contentious parts — highly debated changes to the Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Act — will be hived off into its own legislative track.
apple.news
One legislative track will deal with the parts of the bill that “mostly” address harmful content directed at children. The first of those parts is the Online Harms Act, which would require social media platforms — including livestreaming and adult-content services — to minimize exposure to seven types of harmful content. Three of those categories focus on children: content used to bully a child, content that induces children to harm themselves, and content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor of child abuse.
The remaining four deal with other harms: content in which intimate images (including deepfakes) are shared without consent, content that incites violent extremism or terrorism, content that incites violence and content that promotes hatred.
That entire part of the legislation will be combined with another part of the original bill that proposes changes to how child pornography on the internet is reported and how those offences are handled.
Those two sections of the bill have been widely viewed as the more acceptable parts of the legislation, by experts and opposition parties alike.
But the decision means that the bill’s remaining two parts — proposed changes to the Criminal Code and the CHRA that have been deemed “
draconian” and poorly thought out
by critics — will be combined into one.
The legislation had proposed creating a stand-alone hate crime offence that could be applied to every offence in the Criminal Code, and could come with a maximum penalty of life in prison. Other changes involved upping penalties for hate propaganda offences, such as increasing the maximum penalty for advocating for or promoting genocide from five years to life imprisonment.
Ottawa has previously said the legislation is not intended to put people behind bars for life for expressing opinions (
), but instead would “twin” the new hate crime offence with existing Criminal Code offences “already punishable by a maximum of life in prison.” (?????)
The new offence was “partly” meant, government officials have said, to improve how hate-motivated offences are tracked and prosecuted.
The CHRA changes, meanwhile, would allow people to file online hate speech complaints — which could be enormous in volume — to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which could result in financial penalties or content being removed.
Virani justified the split as necessary in a House of Commons that has been waylaid by debate on a single issue — whether the Liberals should pony up more unredacted documents tied to a scandal-plagued green technology funding agency — for more than two months.
Or maybe…just maybe…the Libs could realize that they don’t have a majority in Parliament, and that they’re not representing the majority or Canadians?
Virani said the parliamentary impasse made the Liberals “rethink” how they should use their time to get parts of the bill past the legislative finish line…
& I’m assuming they plan on this happening on the NDP/Liberal’s “opposition” day? Right? Jagmeet?
“I'm not going to look at the face of Canadian parents, of Canadian children, and tell them that I'm not going to do everything I can to protect those kids,” Virani said.
Or….& this is crazy, but….or the Liberals could just turn over the unredacted documents for the Green Slush Fund parliament ordered them to produce back in what? Initially May? Something like more than 1/2 a year ago?
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) welcomed the decision, saying in a statement that the more contentious parts of the legislation can now undergo the “focused scrutiny it deserves” (=dustbin)
The CCLA was one of more than 20 groups and experts who
called, back in May, for the legislation to be split in two over free speech and other concerns.
In spite of the criticism, particularly due to the Israel-Hamas war and its ripple effects in Canada, the federal government has insisted the changes
won’t infringe on Canadians’ freedoms.
Pinky swear even!!!
Conservative justice critic Larry Brock told the Star in a statement that Virani was “desperately trying to salvage his deeply flawed legislation.”
“We will repeal Trudeau’s draconian censorship laws and bring home protection of children and Canadians online while protecting the rights and freedoms of Canadians,” the statement read.
P.S. for Jagmeet Singh. The cool kids are doing it…
Rather than address serious issues (health care, immigration, spiralling debt levels) they choose once again to bamboozle (they think) gullible Canadian voters.
