A couple updates re: Canada's Online Harms Act
Margaret Atwood and the Human Rights Tribunal's ex-chair urge the public against it
Following up from my post the other day about Canada’s dystopian nightmare, the Online Harms Act, I’m very pleased to see that Margaret Atwood has spoken out against it.
She points to an excellent piece in the Spectator that reveals that the bill has an even more frightening power, one that I wasn’t previously aware of: it empowers the government to arrest and imprison people on mere suspicion that they might post something “harmful” online in the future — like the Precrime police in Minority Report. It really doesn’t get any more dystopian than this.
Another welcome voice urging Canadians to oppose the bill is a lawyer named David L. Thomas, who has the distinction of having chaired Canada’s Human Rights Tribunal from 2014 until 2021. This is the very body that Ottawa wants to empower to adjudicate “online harms.” Thomas does not pull his punches: he calls the bill a “terrible law that will unduly impose restrictions on Canadians’ sacred Charter right to freedom of expression” and he blasts the Liberal government for their dirty tactics: “By drafting a vague law creating a draconian regime to address online ‘harms,’ they will win their wars without firing a bullet.”
His article also clarifies something that I had been mistaken about in my piece: I had said that anonymous complainants can be awarded up to $50,000 at the Human Rights Tribunal, but I’m mistaken: the complainants themselves can take only up to $20,000 from you, but the government itself can seize an additional $50,000 from you to keep for itself.
Thomas also highlights the absurdity that each and every person who “witnesses” your supposedly hateful content online could be eligible to take $20,000 from you.
It makes no sense.
And in Car Theft Epidemic news, the Toronto Police are now telling people to just leave their car keys by the front door of the house so they can be readily taken without risk of violence by the car thieves who have overrun the city. Every six minutes a Canadian car is stolen. Most are taken by organized crime rings and transported to black markets overseas.
If you haven’t read (or listened) yet, here again is my piece about the Online Harms Act, with a prologue about the car theft crisis. Enjoy!
OMG you have it bad in Canada, Arty, thanks for the detailed update.
The Scottish Hate Crime Act and Irish Hate Crime Bill are also really scary!
As you may know I often feature film clips in my updates and did previously include China Town as an obvious choice:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/chinatown
Dusty