Stop Trudeau’s Censorship Bill! Contact your Canadian Senators NOW
OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre said freedom of speech and to live life as one chooses is something “endowed by God” on all Canadians during a debate in the House of Commons last week when he blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s internet censorship legislation Bill C-11.
“And the question is who decides (what people can or cannot say)? Do we allow a small group of privileged insiders close to the Prime Minister decide what we think, say and believe? Or do we allow do we believe that every single Canadian is endowed by God with the ability to decide for themselves,” Poilievre said while debating Bill C-11.
“Madam Speaker, I believe every Canadian has that ability, and that is why we will stand up every day in every way for the section 2B rights (Charter rights) of freedom of expression.”
Last Thursday, Trudeau’s internet censorship legislation, Bill C-11, inched closer to becoming law after MPs passed a motion in a 212-117 vote to adopt the bill without agreeing to the amendments previously made by the Senate.
The bill has faced immense criticism for its implications on freedom of speech, to the point that even Big Tech giants YouTube and Apple, which both have a history of enacting their own forms of censorship on users, had previously urged the Senate to stall the bill.
In effect, Bill C-11, if given Royal Assent, would mandate that Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the CRTC, be in charge of regulating online content on platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure that such platforms are promoting content in accordance with a variety of CRTC guidelines.
Last Thursday, Poilievre brought up the fact that even well-known, left-leaning Canadian author Margaret Atwood, whom he noted has views radically different from his own, sees the dangers of Bill C-11.
“This is a bill that is designed to take away that right (free speech) and to concentrate in the hands of a few, and do not take my word for it, listen to Margaret Atwood again, no friend of conservatism,” Poilievre said.
“And she said, ‘All you have to do is read some of the bizarre biographies of the writers writing in the Soviet Union and the degrees of censorship they had to go through government bureaucrats. So it is creeping totalitarianism if governments are telling creators what to create,’ end quote.”
Poilievre added that if anyone else in Canada had said what Atwood said “they would have been called alarmist.”
“But someone who is part of the literary establishment in this country, possibly among the most well-known someone with whom I agree on almost nothing, because our views are not at all lined, but she understands one thing, and that is that the power of words can only exist in concert with the freedom to express those words,” Poilievre said.
“I’m sure that she would vigorously debate most of the things that I say on the floor of the House of Commons, but that’s only possible if you have freedom to debate. Disagreement is the lifeblood of democracy.”
During the debate of Bill C-11 last week, Speaker of the House Anthony Rota took issue with Poilievre displaying a copy of George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984, calling it a “prop.”
Poilievre was using 1984 to make a point about how C-11 will bring forth more government control of everyday Canadians’ lives, noting how the classic novel is not supposed to be “an instruction manual.”
As it stands now, C-11 will go back to the Upper Chamber, where senators can accept it as is or demand changes be made.
Poilievre says the term ‘woke’ used by leftists has but one meaning: ‘Control’ of people who oppose mainstream views
During the debate of Bill C-11 last Thursday, Liberal MP Jenica Atwin demanded that Poilievre define what he meant when using the term “woke,” and asked him if he would backtrack for saying that Canada’s broadcast regulator the CRTC is a small group of insiders who do the bidding of Trudeau.
In response, Poilievre said that “actually I will backtrack, it is a big group of insiders, it is a big, sprawling bureaucracy with far too many people working for it.”
“There will be less people working for the CRTC when I’m prime minister, because they will have less power and they will have a hell of a lot less to do when I restore freedom of speech and freedom of expression online and on the internet,” he added.
When defining the term “woke,” Poilievre spared no words in calling out the word as a term used to “divide” Canadians so that everyone could be controlled.
“As for the definition of woke, woke has one purpose only, one purpose plenty of pretexts, but only one purpose, control,” Poilievre said.
“It is designed to divide people by race, by gender, by ethnicity, by religion, by vaccine status, and any other way that they can divide people into groups. Because why? Then you can justify having a government to control all those groups no more woke, we need freedom.”
Last week, the Trudeau federal government shut down further debate on Bill C-11.
The Liberal motion to stop debate on Bill C-11 was blasted by Poilievre, who while still in the House of Commons posted a video to Twitter on Thursday calling out Liberal “censorship.”
Normally, once the Senate passes a bill, it will be given Royal Assent and become law. However, procedure dictates that for a bill to become law, the text that is passed by both the Senate and House of Commons must be exactly the same.
Since the Senate had made multiple amendments to Bill C-11, which the House has now rejected, the Senate can either relent and allow the House to have its way or stand its ground and re-demand the House accept the changes it made to the legislation.
Concerned Canadians can contact their senators by visiting the link below.
Stop Trudeau’s Censorship Bill! Contact your Canadian Senators NOW