Don't you even think about wrongthought much less dare to speak it in Canada. Because if you do you might end up in gaol, for life. Via Zerohedge:
We have previously discussed the unrelenting attacks by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his allies on free speech. There has been a steady criminalization of speech, including even jokes and religious speech, in Canada. Now, the Canadian parliament is moving toward a new change that would allow the imposition of life imprisonment on those who post views deemed supportive of genocide. With a growing movement calling Israel’s war in Gaza “genocide,” the potential scope of such a law is readily apparent. That appears to be its very draw for anti-free speech advocates in the country.
The Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63 increases the potential penalties from five years to life imprisonment. It also increases the penalty for the willful promotion of hatred (a dangerously ill-defined crime) from two years to five years. The proposed changes constitute a doubling down on Canada’s commitment to reducing free speech for citizens despite criticism from many in the civil liberties community.
There is also a chilling option for house arrest if a judge believes a defendant “will commit” an offense. In other words, if a judge thinks that a citizen will be undeterred and try to speak freely again.
Justice Minister Arif Virani employed the same hysteria to convince citizens to surrender their freedoms to the government. He expressed how terrified he was with the potential of free speech, stating that he is “terrified of the dangers that lurk on the internet for our children.”
It is not likely to end there.
Today the rationale is genocide. However, once the new penalties are in place, a host of other groups will demand similar treatment for those with opposing views on their own causes.
This law already increased the penalties for anything deemed hateful speech.
The law comes after Canada blocked a Russian dissident from becoming a citizen because of her violation of Russian anti-free speech laws.
In a telling act, the government said that the same conduct (i.e., free speech) could be a crime in Canada.
Indeed, it may now be punished even more harshly.
I have family over there, in Alberta, maybe they need to get out.
LSP
Between the pestilence of Vancouver and the pestilence of Toronto live decent people who are justified in saying, "Hell No". Civil war possible? They are between a rock and a hard palace.
ReplyDeletePetition to join the USA? We are circling the same drain. They have oil and agriculture. Most of B.C would join them giving Prince Rupert for a port. They can survive as an independent country.
Yeah, time to get out whilst they still can.
ReplyDelete"The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology."
Ayn Rand, with whom I disagree on a number of points, but spot on here.
I'm half-Canadian; ancestors on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Up until the 2010s, I was the 4th generation holding the "new" family farm (g-granddad traded off the old homestead for the new one). Circumstances caused the sale of the place - and I was deeply hurt over the loss. But now? Glad we got out and happy (happier - low bar though) to be a US citizen. But I'm a (was) "Maple Leaf Forever" Canadian, not the "Oh (No) Canada" group. Canada's demise began when they changed the flag. Wasn't that long ago that American dollars and a Canadian passport was a ticket to the world. I could see the US falling into the pit of its own doom, but Canada? Who'd have thought it.
ReplyDeleteWSF, my Albertan wife is totally on board.
ReplyDeleteWSF, my Albertan wife is totally on board.
ReplyDeleteRight on, Wild.
ReplyDeleteWith you on Rand. She's like a kind of thwarted Thomist, or something. But hey, often on the money.
On some things she was on the money. But Rand was personally loathsome. And ideologically she’s the reverse side of the coin that features her leftist/Bolshevik cousins on the obverse. Both are given to ideologies that are wholly unsuited to actual human beings*, and both are prescriptive, absolutist, know-it-all monsters.
Delete*by “actual human beings” I am (for once) not making a sarcastic reference to how we’re all subhuman cattle put on earth by G-d to serve, well, you know who. I mean real-life humans with normal instincts, impulses, and emotions, as opposed to ants (for the Bolsheviks) or inhuman caricatures such as John Galt (for the Objectivists).
Anon, I'm moved by that.
ReplyDeleteA fair few of my people are in Calgary. Alberta's way better than, say, Ontario, but still.
Maybe it's time for those kids to pack up and ship out.