The people of Canada are about to lose their voice, and some say they may never get it back! Canada’s renewed push for online censorship is threatening freedom of expression and silencing the voice of the people.
As Canada’s federal government signals a renewed determination to regulate online content, critics fear the country is on the verge of stifling democratic discourse in the name of public safety.
After shelving its controversial Online Harms Bill earlier this year, Ottawa now appears poised to resurrect some of the most sweeping elements of the proposal. Under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberals have framed the revival as a “fresh look” at digital harms, but civil liberties groups caution that this language is little more than a rebranding of old threats to free speech.
Government-induced political laryngitis seems to be the coming diagnosis for Canada.
Is voice silencing a segue to mass surveillance and privacy invasion? Organizations like The Democracy Fund have wasted no time in sounding alarms. Mark Joseph, the group’s litigation director, argues that existing laws already give police and prosecutors ample tools to pursue genuine criminal conduct.
“Reintroducing blanket censorship powers isn’t about closing legal gaps,” Joseph said. “It’s about centralizing control over what Canadians are allowed to say and think.”
The previous version of the bill, known as C-63, would have granted the government the power to force platforms to erase flagged content within 24 hours. While officials insisted this was intended to combat egregious material, like child exploitation imagery and non-consensual deepfakes, the bill’s broader language risked sweeping up legitimate debate, satire, and dissent.
Later drafts tried to narrow the scope, but critics remained unconvinced, noting that new provisions to amend the Criminal Code and expand definitions of hate speech could chill public discourse far beyond the internet’s darkest corners.
Preemptive punishment could serve as a tactic to silence critics who are voicing their opposition. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the shelved legislation was its provision for preemptive restrictions. Under so-called “peace bonds,” individuals could be placed under house arrest, forced to wear electronic monitoring devices, or banned from the internet altogether, not for crimes they had committed, but for what authorities feared they might do.
Is the Canadian government telling their people their voices are not welcome in Canada, or are they saying only government-approved speech will be tolerated?
Former Justice Minister Arif Virani defended the approach as a way to curb radicalization before it turned deadly. But many saw it as a profound violation of civil liberties, effectively criminalizing thought and association.
Current Justice Minister Sean Fraser insists that no final decisions have been made about which parts of the bill will return and which might be retooled or scrapped. However, Fraser has also emphasized that new technologies like artificial intelligence are creating “unprecedented challenges,” and Ottawa must act to protect Canadians from emerging threats.
For free expression advocates, these assurances offer little comfort. “The temptation to regulate expression in the name of security is always strong,” said Joseph. “But a free society can’t survive if the government gets to decide whose ideas are too dangerous to hear.”
Whether Ottawa will bundle online harms measures into a single omnibus crime bill or introduce them piecemeal remains to be seen. Fraser has indicated consultations with other ministers are ongoing, and legislation could be tabled as soon as this fall.
Until then, critics are bracing for a fresh battle over the boundaries of free speech.
Final Word: If there are boundaries to free speech, then free speech is nothing more than a facade.
Replies
There are limits to the exercise of 'Speech' .Not all speech should be tolerated. Speech that incites violence, riot, or whose main purpose is to create dangerous or reckless conduct needs to be regulated. One should not be allowed to scream fire in a crowded theater is an example where speech needs to be regulated. Speech whose sole purpose is to create harm should be restricted and, in extreme cases, made illegal.
Slander and certain forms of racial and pejorative speech... should be subject to civil and criminal prosecution... NOT ALL SPEECH IS CONDUCIVE to good order and should be identified as unacceptable conduct with civil and ciminal penalties. At one time, our youth understood this precept and many a mouth was washed out for using unacceptable language... cussing... was once outlawed in many of our communities.
And remember, on the other side of it, when kids were taught to call someone "Ma'am," or "Mister?' That was my childhood. None of this behaviour would have been tolerated.
Canadians have decided that they want to live in a totalitarian country by the way they have voted over the last two decades. Canada is rapidly becoming a threat to the United States of America and is already a very poor ally. President Trump needs to send a very pointed message to Canadians that they MUST take a different path forward toward enhanced civil liberty or they will become an enemy of the United States!
This has been coming. Remember the Truckers—who tried to rally the people of Canada? That rally did NOT happen, as far as I know or saw. Inaction is not a good idea.
Canadians are inaction........