In my latest Spectator column I’ve written about Justin Trudeau’s dystopian Online Harms Bill. Here’s how it begins:
You’d assume the reaction to the SNP’s new hate crime laws would make other authoritarian governments hesitate before introducing similar legislation. Humza Yousaf has become a laughing stock and his approval ratings have fallen by 15 points. But apparently not. The new Irish Taoiseach, Simon Harris, is determined to railroad through the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, Donald Tusk’s government in Poland wants to introduce a new law that would make it a criminal offence to ‘defame’ a member of the LGBT community and Justin Trudeau is pressing ahead with an Online Harms Bill that makes our own Online Safety Act seem like the First Amendment. It’s as if all these ‘liberal’ leaders are saying: “You think Humza Yousaf is the West’s foremost opponent of free speech? Hold my beer.”
The Canadian proposal is, by some distance, the worst. It’s so dystopian, even George Orwell and Philip K. Dick failed to anticipate it. Discrimination is already banned under the Canadian Human Rights Act, but the new law will expand the definition of ‘discrimination’ to include online speech “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group”. To those worrywarts who are anxious about the risk that this new law might be weaponised by woke activists, the government has said that ‘detestation’ and ‘vilification’ are not the same as ‘disdain’ or ’dislike’, which will still be permitted (thank you, Mr Trudeau), or speech that ‘discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends’.
Which raises the question: who gets to decide what speech falls foul of this new standard? And what qualifies them to make these Solomon-like judgments, parsing the difference between ‘dislike’ (acceptable) and ‘detest’ (verboten)? That job will fall to a new national agency called the Digital Safety Commission, comprised of five commissioners and an army of bureaucratic busybodies, which will have the same powers as a federal court, save for the fact that it won’t be bound by ‘any technical or legal rules of evidence’. (Points to Kafka for anticipating that.)
Worth reading in full.
I end by inviting anyone interested in helping me set up a Free Speech Union of Canada to contact me on tobyyoung@freespeechunion.org.
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Here is an example of where we’re at. This is bizarre. Somewhere in England some police plus a mental health nurse turn up at a Christian man’s house, expressing concerns because he posted something online about the recent stabbing of a Bishop in Australia. This isn’t even Clown World, Scotland. They all sound English to me. Do you think they’ll also be dropping in on Muslims posting their usual hateful stuff online?;
”Police:
“People have raised concerns about your views…That you’re concerned about what’s going on in Australia.”
The man had posted on social media reacting to the Sydney church attack, saying that ‘Christian’s should stand up.’”
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1781257648114909652
Morning my old Northern chum
I watched this the other day & it’s Humza,s antics we in England need to ridicule they say, when actually the same shiz is already here !
Now then, wor Freddo.
It does seem a long time that we’ve been coming on here, putting the world to rights. Me, thee and a handful of other decent, respectful old-timers still remain but our numbers have dwindled. We’ve weathered the changes to this site, however. Just the topics have changed from lockdowns and masks that we used to moan about, from times of yore.
Thanks for the link.
Ahh…I get it – so Christians are the problem!
..like Jews being arrested for being.. well, Jews!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/19/police-threaten-jewish-man-arrest-palestine-protest-london/
…indeed! Both in the same ‘non-protected’ category I think.
It’s a shame the clip cut out prematurely as I’d be interested to see how it ended
I hope he hid his Hitler posters in the nick of time though, otherwise he’d maybes be subjected to the Sam Melia treatment.
Didn’t see any of them ‘Digi dogs’ neither, like they’ve got in Scotland… I wonder when they’ll introduce those robodogs here in Europe.
Bit too dystopian/’Black Mirror’ that though but give it time.
Canada went full on fascist retard for Rona. As a Canadian living in the UK it was apalling but entirely predictable. Most Canadians are statists and believe the CBC and authority (like the Aussies or Brits). Most, regardless of money or letters after their names, are not the brightest, I would classify much of the urban mass as illiterate. When Castro (his real name) was selected in 2015 I predicted the quick demise of the country. 1 million + invaders per annum, a Liberal fascism (a good book by Jonah Goldberg), assaults against Christians and their churches (>50 arsoned), destruction of the hydro-carbon industry, drugs, crime, homelessness, climate-trans and medical nazism. State power, using the scamdemic, has amplified and ramped up enormously.
And this is just the start. The apathetic and rather ignorant nature of most Canadians, will mean that few will care about the ‘online harms bill’ and will believe the propaganda (saving children, it is always the children).
A FSU in Canada is long overdue, so kudos to Toby for making the offer. Sadly, no more than a handful in the country of 40 million (it was 25 million when I grew up there), will care (<15 %). I know them well.
I have some friends like your Canadian colleagues. One of them said to me when I criticised the silly Scottish Government Hate crime nonsense “Well you cannot go around calling people names”. ——-I replied “And do you really think that it is the proper role of governments to police what all citizens say to each other, don’t you think maybe they should have better things to do than be the morality police while people are running about with knives and shops are being ransacked by morons filling their rucksacks up? All I got was this blank stare.
“you cannot go around calling people names”
Thinking it is about name-calling seems naive but emphasis added to illustrate how it will work in practice.
As we have already seen, explanations vindicating speech that breaks these laws is quickly produced at taxpayers expense when it’s expedient to do so.
“criminal” is a ‘name’ or rather a descriptive term. so is “bigot”, “liar”, “fool” etc – so are these laws, laws against expressing opinions?
Which opinions can be expressed and which cannot?
Clues please? Anyone know anything about Humza Useless’ Scots version? What about Canada or elsewhere?
Is it against the law to write Humza Useless – a political opinion about the effectiveness of a national nationalist politician?
How does this work with the right to freedom of speech – which is a common law legal right in England and Wales according to the Supreme Court – with or without the Human Rights Act, or the ECHR or the ECtHR.
The right to freedom of speech also includes the right to know.
This means that if one person’s right to freedom of speech is interfered with another person can sue for breach of the right to know.
The logic is that one cannot engage in free speech on topics one is prevented from knowing about.
The unipolar world of Pax Americana is collapsing and the multipolar world emerging. The English speaking world and Europeans led on by the power crazed, global bully Uncle Sam appear to be desperately dismantling their own White Christian identity in order to create a new, powerful, authoritarian, progressive, multi- racial global identity to position itself to take on the more populous, sovereign members of the emerging (emerged?) multi polar world states.
What other reason can there be for governments of the white Christian nations to be at war with their own indigenous white Christian people ?
The left are the Omnipotent Busy Bodies that CS Lewis spoke about. The Liberal Progressives with their equality diversity race gender and climate doctrines cannot stand anyone disagreeing with all of that clutter so they invent new ways to stop you criticising it. ——You are a “racist” a “transphobe” an “Islamophobe” a “climate denier” etc etc. Then they enforce their tyranny with a zeal that shoplifters would fear more than a day job. The bigger the government the less the freedom and todays leftist bunch of tyrants are getting away with stuff we always assumed only happened in places like China and Russia.
This is what happens when inept socialists are out in positions of power. Look what Blair did to Britain, not one strand has been unpicked, in fact Cameron built on it in every way possible. Much worse is coming here, euthanasia, blasphemy laws and further regulation of speech.
I think Blair would’ve gone a lot further had it not been for, at the time, some old school conservatives that are pretty much all gone from the party now.
“I think the time has come to set up a Canadian Free Speech Union”
The legal profession thanks you for your service.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/29/are-we-being-gaslit-over-the-cause-of-the-princess-of-waless-cancer
Missed this piece but read it today , thanks, maybe they have the big C or are they being used to show how common it is these days ! I caught the Mcmillan Ad on the in-laws tv telling us that 1 in 2 people will get it ffs !
What ‘they’ don’t say is that low grade skin cancers are included in this – complete excision and hey presto a cure. @They@ are also probably including pre-cancerous conditions which if left untreated can lead to cancer.
It used to be 1 in 3 but I guess 1 in 2 sounds more scary.
Why are there no comments under that article?
We’ve asked Toby Young repeatedly why comments were removed and closed, but no response. Ironic really
Poor show DS
I can imagine why. I would not like people openly discussing a very personal and sensitive issue of my health in the parallel circumstances – albeit no one would be interested in me – for the PoW it would be a pile-on by the world and his wife.
So if Toby sees the wisdom of a hands-off approach, then I do not blame him or the DS team for disabling comments.
It is a way to take over the Country without the need for elections.
I just hope the Canadian truckers get out in time.
Could it possibly be the now old chestnut “LOCKSTEP” surely not ! It was nice to see good old Mr Tusk turn up in Poland , he will be worse than “Mr Hilter” !
Don’t worry about it Toby, it’s all just one gigantic cock up.
Altogether now… “Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Trudeau?”
Great idea about setting up a Free Speech Union for Canada. I immediately thought of the Canadian Truckers Freedom Convoy, and wondered what was happening with the long, drawn-out, vindictive trials of the organisers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, which led me to the Canadian “Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms” (JCCF), and their “Campus Freedom Index”:
“The JCCF created the Campus Freedom Index and each year, the Centre rates about 52 Canadian universities using letter grades on their “policies and actions to protect freedom of speech”. In 2014, the JCCF’s 2014 gave the F rating to 13 Canadian universities and unions, according to The Chronicle Herald. Of the 13, three had “actively censored controversial or unpopular speech on campus,”, according to JCCF—ten were cited for “not indicating they would deviate from past practice.”
That might be a good place to start.
Both the ‘left’ and ‘right’ have their own opinions and think they have the best ideas and solutions.
But a big difference is that most on the ‘right’ uphold the pinciple that everyone has the right to their own opinions while the ‘left’ want to force everyone to conform to their own opinions and ideology.
System working again?