John Robson: Poilievre Should Unequivocally Oppose Online Harms Act’s Draconian Measures

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during a Canada Strong and Free Network event in Ottawa on April 11, 2024. The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby

Commentary

Even given the practical, ethical, and intellectual collapse of Canada’s governing institutions, the “Online Harms Act,” a.k.a. Bill C-63, is an outrageous assault on free speech and due process, even allowing pre-emptive incarceration for what you might be going to say. What an opportunity for PM-in-waiting Pierre Poilievre to stand on principle. Um, Pierre? Are you there?

Canadians tend to underestimate the extent and nature of the mess because of an ingrained conviction that we are moderate, sensible people. However radical or inept public policy gets, we must somehow be safe in the moderate middle. We may not buy vainglorious chattering-class rhetoric about our health-care system being the envy of the world, but we don’t suspect that it might be unaffordable, ineffective, and unfair because it is far left. Ditto our crumbling military, ruinous spending and borrowing, lack of accountability, etc.

The National Post reports that even 43 percent of Liberals think “everything is broken in this country right now” while fully 59 percent of citizens at large are mad about how Canada is being run. But we can’t put our finger on the source of the problem, very left-wing principles plus ineptitude, and Poilievre won’t talk principles lest it ruffle feathers.

Wait, you cry. Doesn’t he breathe right-wing fire in every speech? Well, no. There’s steam, or fog. But no light or heat. So on C-63, he says: “We do not believe that the government should be banning opinions that contradict the Prime Minister’s radical ideology.”

Well, duh. And sometimes troubled times require stating truths so obvious they’re trite, like the state should not seize bank accounts over legal contributions to a protest that offended the prime minister’s august gaze. But Poilievre’s criticism was so vague he might not have read the bill first. As indeed he had not.

He wasn’t interested in its content, only its PR uses. And when he read it, the Star chortled, “Poilievre softens criticism of online harms bill.” He was carefully in favour of the good stuff like protecting children and banning deepfake revenge porn. But the contempt for due process, including letting activists drag people before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal not a court? A life sentence for, possibly, an ill-considered graffito? Massive fines for social media companies who do not “minimize the risk that users of the service will be exposed to harmful content”? Like whatever, man.

If you search C-63 on the Tories’ website you get a statement from their Shadow Minister for Innovation, Science and Industry condemning Liberals amending C-27 to “provide the Trudeau government near limitless regulatory power to moderate and prioritize the content Canadians see online” as in C-63. That’s it.

Poilievre is a political Rorschach blot. You can see a libertarian, a social conservative, a moderate, or Liberal lite. Whatever. Just vote for us.

Wait, you cry again. Trudeau’s polling numbers are disastrous and that harsh right-wing Pierre Poilievre will clean up the mess in Brian Mulroney’s “pink slips and running shoes” spirit, or Mike Harris’s “Common Sense Revolution.” And OK, he growls. But will he bite?

Will he dispute man-made climate change? He’s against the carbon tax, sure. But he’ll fight the dragon using “technology” which sounds cool and means nothing. The internal combustion engine is technology.

He condemns the Liberals’ neglect of defence. But would he double spending? And as I noted last week, he would have supported the Liberals’ bloated, ruinous budget if government didn’t get even bigger, it built homes not bureaucracy (cute but worse than meaningless), and it scrapped the carbon tax just on farmers.

Likewise “We believe that a dollar in the hands of the person who earned it is always more powerful than in the hands of the politician who taxed him.” But only if you want him to. If you like every single existing program, as Groucho Marx once said, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”

A painful irony here is that Pierre Trudeau, who did as much as anyone to set us on the path to ruin, a smug civil libertarian who vastly expanded the powers of the state with respect to the individual, would have been outraged at C-63 including its “minority report” provision. Just imagine his acid wit dissecting the defence a person might offer to a judge’s suspicion they might later spew hate. But Poilievre? He has an election to win by being firm but flexible.

Another irony here is that Poilievre is happy to lead any parade already en route and massive, whereas Justin Trudeau is a conviction politician taking Canada in radical directions that lack public support. But he seems to think we’re too apathetic and the opposition too unfocused to stop him.

Is he right? Or will Poilievre rally to his own principles?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.