Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau officially announced an election last Sunday, meaning opposing parties have only five weeks to try and prevent the Liberal Party from forming a majority government, seemingly the only way to prevent the proposed online censorship bills from passing.
According to TrueNorth, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) confirmed that a Conservative government would not advance Trudeau’s Liberal government’s censorship bills C-10 and C-36. Both bills focus on more social media censorship and punishing Canadians for exercising their freedom of speech.
The Conservative Party of Canada’s 2021 platform clarified that it would scrap the censorship bills id it gained a majority. The party is against the prosecution of online “hate speech” as proposed in Bill C-36.
Bill C-36 would change the criminal code making hate speech a crime punishable through $70,000 fines or house arrests.
CPC’s 2021 platform reads: “Free speech, freedom of expression, and a free press are fundamental tenets of Canadian law and Canadian democracy. We will oppose government censorship of material that is not criminal in nature merely because some may find it to be offensive.”
CPC said that Bill C-10 “gives too much power to regulators while failing to provide businesses with the clear guidelines they need to operate.” The CPC acknowledged that there was a need for the CRTC to regulate social media, but it is against increasing the regulator’s mandate to include social media users and online publishers.
