OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — A Conservative pro-life MP publicly condemned internet censorship Bill C-18, warning that it will give the government authority over journalism.
During a June 20th Parliament Session, Alberta Member of Parliament (MP) Rachael Thomas blasted the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to pass Bill C-18, which proposes to censor internet content across Canada.
Bill C-18 puts the government squarely in the centre of the newsroom.
Canadians deserve unbiased news coverage.
Journalists deserve to function as professionals independent of government pressure. pic.twitter.com/UuXvzOMGpW
— Rachael Thomas (@RachaelThomasMP) June 20, 2023
“The media plays a few key roles in society that we support,” the pro-life conservative declared.
“One: they’re the watchdog, so in other words, they protect the public interest,” Thomas said, referencing the media’s coverage of the Trudeau government “turning a blind eye” to Chinese election interference.
“But we know that because of a brave whistleblower using the vehicle of media,” she revealed. “So, make no mistake, media has an important role to play in our society.”
“Media has an important role to play in our society in terms of telling stories, in terms of raising awareness, in terms of accountability,” Thomas warned, referencing the media’s role in reporting on the wildfires across Canada as government funded outlets attributed the blazes to “climate change” despite police arresting several arsonists.
“The way that media is able to play its greatest role is when it is kept independent,” Thomas declared. “When it is allowed to thrive without government intervention, without undue pressure, without being dictated to.”
Bill C-18, a proposed law fast-tracked by the Trudeau government, aims to compel social media sites to share revenue with certain news outlets, something experts have warned could be the end of independent media.
Facebook recently announced it will begin censoring news websites for some Canadians in preparation for the passage of Bill C-18.
In April, the Trudeau government passed Bill C-11, which Senator Marc Gould explained “would amend the Broadcasting Act to modify Canada’s broadcasting policy, bring into the act ‘online undertakings’ that transmit content over the internet, and change the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) regulatory powers, among many other things.”
Bill C-11 will, in effect, force social media companies and others to promote more Canadian content but could regulate user content as well.
Campaign Life Coalition’s Jack Fonseca told LifeSiteNews that Thomas is “completely justified in her concern about Bill C-18.” However, he warned that she “did not go far enough in stressing just how dangerous to our democracy this bill is.”
“I don’t give this warning lightly,” Fonseca revealed. “I say it soberly, purposefully and without any attempt to sensationalize. We are witnessing a concentration of government power which is designed to bring about a totalitarian dictatorship in Canada.”
“What has every aspiring dictator in history done to secure the power he needed to bring about a dictatorship?” he questioned. “Their government, often democratic in the beginning, seized control of the media in order to suppress all potential opposition, and they also confiscated guns so the citizens had no possible means of defending themselves against state force, or of rebelling.”
Fonseca compared these actions to those of Trudeau.
“He’s seizing control of all media, and he’s pushing for gun confiscation whether by banning them, or coerced confiscation,” Fonseca pointed out.
“Adolf Hitler did this. Josef Stalin did this. So did Chairman Mao in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, who murdered a quarter of his citizens, and more recently, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela,” he continued.
Fonseca reminded Canadians that Trudeau has publicly stated the country he admires the most is China “because of ‘its basic dictatorship’.”
Fonseca warned the increased media censorship and gun laws have “nothing to do with ‘promoting Canadian content’ or ‘safety.’ It’s about power.”
According to Fonseca, similar to Nazi Germany, Canadian mainstream media outlets are “keeping the people ignorant about Trudeau’s alarming consolidation of government power.”
Fonseca warned that the push for increased online censorship is because “Trudeau knows he is so despised by Canadians, that Liberals cannot win the next election without cheating, and so they plan to cheat, massively.”
He argues that Trudeau is attempting to “suppress all voices of opposition” to crush any reports of “widespread election fraud, voter suppression and Chinese foreign interference.”
“I think this has been in the works for a long time,” Fonseca revealed. “Very early in Trudeau’s reign as Prime Minister, he loosened voter identification requirements, so that now you don’t need ID at voting booths to prove who you are. Election law now says that if someone in the room can ‘vouch’ for you, poll officials must give you a ballot.”
“Justin Trudeau is the most dangerous man in Canadian political history, and he’s smarter, in a vicious way, than most people give him credit for,” he cautioned. “Voters and opposition parties, be warned.”