Taibbi: In Search of the Great Canadian Terror
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I remembered seeing something about Trudeau’s digital censorship bill on Michael Shellengerger’s Public site earlier this year, but the idea of police arresting people on the basis of retroactive searches apparently didn’t register. “No way,” I thought, silently cursing Twitter. But I clicked on the tweet by “Camus,” which linked to a People’s Voice article that quoted Czech historian Muriel Blaive of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes at length. She called the bill “mad” and like Camus decried the retroactive punishment clause, which places a responsibility on Canadians (or visitors to Canada, as I’d learn) to delete any old statements on the Internet that may constitute illegal hate speech under the new bill.
Blaive noted, however, that while you can delete a past offense, the new Canadian law also punishes future or potential crimes. She wrote:
This is where it trips over into as yet unimagined dystopian territory. If the courts believe you are likely to commit a ‘hate crime’ or disseminate ‘hate propaganda’ (not defined), you can be placed under house arrest and your ability to communicate with others restricted… If the court believes there’s a risk you may get drunk or high and start tweeting under the influence — although how is unclear, given you can’t use your phone or a PC — it can order you to submit regular urine samples to the authorities. Anyone who refuses to comply with these diktats can be sent to prison…
This had to be a prank! I’d never heard of Muriel Blaive, nor her Institute (which does exist, as it turns out), but it seemed impossible that any democracy, even Justin Trudeau’s Canada, would seriously consider a law that could put people in jail for crimes they haven’t committed… yet? As Walter would point out later in the week, such a thing, if it existed, would represent a gap in George Orwell’s imagination. So why wasn’t there more coverage about a bill introduced in February?
Google only tells you so much. Official Canadian sites stressed the Online Harms Act created “stronger protections for kids” and “a new vision for safer and more inclusive participation online.” Initial CBC coverage was almost indistinguishable from that federal press release, quoting Justice Minister Arif Virani saying “We cannot tolerate anarchy on the Internet,” and “the mental health and even the lives of our kids are at stake.” Virani did concede in an interview with CPAC anchor Michael Serapio that there would be some speech concerns, but the bill “wasn’t about that,” but mainly focused on child protection, revenge porn, and other problems that surely were “uncontroverted,”
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For a moment, I read the title as in search of the great Canadian Tenor.
Link to videohttps://myscena.org/pierre-chenier/a-few-great-canadian-tenors/
