Those who didn’t believe Canada was on the road to totalitarianism when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leftist government froze the accounts of anti-vaccine truck protesters, can reconsider their opinion.
Canada’s immigrant justice minister, who hails from Uganda, has proposed a life sentence for not only those who “advocate genocide,” but also those who commit a “hate crime.” But worse still, if possible, is that one can be imprisoned for crimes he might commit.
The penalties are part of a wide-ranging bill that would spell the end of free speech in Canada.
Bill Provisions
Key provisions in the frightening “Online Harms Act” — which creates a Digital Safety Commission and Digital Safety Ombudsperson — ban virtually any speech that the government finds offensive or “hateful.”
The “advocating genocide” provision should be most concerning to Canadians.
“Every person who advocates or promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life,” the bill says. Previously, the sentence was no more than five years.
The section regarding hate crimes is likewise problematic:
Everyone who commits an offence under this Act or any other Act of Parliament, if the commission of the offence is motivated by hatred based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.
Thus, hate speech would become what amounts to a capital offense.
Monetary penalties are crushing — “not more than 6% of the gross global revenue of the person that is believed to have committed the violation or $10 million, whichever is greater.”
The upshot of the genocide provision, explained Canadian commentator Stephen Moore, is that “someone who writes something that a government official decides is ‘advocating genocide’ will face a longer maximum sentence than someone who rapes a child.”
But that isn’t all. “Its real goal is to allow judges to sentence adults to prison for life for things they’ve said and for up to a year for crimes they haven’t committed,” Moore wrote.
“A person may, with the Attorney General’s consent, lay an information before a provincial court judge if the person fears on reasonable grounds that another person will commit” a hate crime, the bill says.
And the target of that claim might land in jail:
If the provincial court judge before whom the parties appear is satisfied by the evidence adduced that the informant has reasonable grounds for the fear, the judge may order that the defendant enter into a recognizance to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for a period of not more than 12 months….
However, if the provincial court judge is also satisfied that the defendant was convicted previously of any offence referred to in subsection (1), the judge may order that the defendant enter into the recognizance for a period of not more than two years.…
The provincial court judge may commit the defendant to prison for a term of not more than 12 months if the defendant fails or refuses to enter into the recognizance.
The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Taube compared the bill to the film Minority Report:
The 2002 film “Minority Report” depicts a specialized law-enforcement unit called Precrime that relies on information from psychics to apprehend would-be offenders before they can commit crimes. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to have taken this as a suggestion rather than a warning.
Even Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, the execrable dystopian novel, thinks the bill goes too far.
“If this account of the bill is true, it’s Lettres de Cachet all over again,” she wrote on X. “The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting! Trudeau’s Orwellian online harms bill.”
In 17th- and 18th-century France, lettres de cachet were letters signed by the king to imprison his enemies.
The Author
The brain behind the bill is not Canadian, although he claims citizenship and serves in Parliament.
Arif Virani, an Indian, was born in Kampala, Uganda. He landed in Canada when Ugandan President Idi Amin expelled South Asians in 1972 because they dominated trade.
Of course, Virani called Atwood’s concerns “ridiculous,” a standard reply from leftists who propose legislation that is clearly totalitarian.
The former chief justice of the nation’s Supreme Court likes the bill, CBC reported.
“It’s our responsibility as responsible citizens, it’s the government’s responsibility, to deal with new media, new harms, new things that develop in society,” said Beverley McLachlin. “So I applaud the government for taking this on, as many other countries have.”
But McLachlin also believes the “life sentences for sending out some words” is too “heavy” and will invite challenges in court.
As for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, totalitarian impulses might be in his genes.
He’s a fervent admirer of the Chinese communist regime and a fanboy of Cuba’s late communist caudillo, Fidel Castro.
In its report about the Chinese agents who infiltrated Canada’s top virus lab, The New American speculated that Trudeau could well be a Chinese agent. As well, internet rumors abound that he is the love child of Castro and Margaret Trudeau, who was married to late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Photos of the two men when they were young show that the “Canadian” prime minister could pass for Castro’s twin, although the leftist Mainstream Media claim that Trudeau’s mother didn’t visit Castro until Justin was 5 years old.
