It wasn’t long ago that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was promising to make Canada “the freest country on earth.”
It was a message that clearly resonated with the party membership. Mr. Poilievre went on to win the Conservative Party of Canada leadership on the first ballot—a resounding victory fuelled by words guaranteed to send the Liberals into a tizzy.
“Unfortunately so many of our freedoms are under attack as big, bossy government takes your money and tells you what to do, imposing vaccine mandates and attacking your dollar value. ... Attacks on our freedom … freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, freedom of trade,” he said.
“It is the job of each generation that is living to stand up and fight for their freedoms. ... It is our duty, in this living generation, to defend those freedoms so that generations yet to come will enjoy the great blessings … for which so many have fought and died over the generations. ... Let’s make our country the freest on earth once again.”
Stirring stuff. Which is why it is difficult to believe that, two years after speaking those words, Mr. Poilievre’s party has become the driving force behind the passage of the most invasive, freedom-restricting, privacy-threatening legislation yet.
What, you might very well wonder, can be wrong with legislation that prevents children from being exposed to porn? In principle, it’s hard to find anyone who would disagree. But the road to hell, as grandpa used to say, is paved with good intentions, and this bill, the brainchild of Sen. Julie Miville-Dechene, contains many pathways to perdition. As always, the devils populate the details.
The definition of “sexually explicit material,” for instance, lacks the precision required to apply solely to porn and could therefore apply to content readily available on Apple TV, Netflix, Disney+, CBC Gem, and Crave. Liberal MP Chris Bittle, a member of the Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, says it could even include programming such as “Game of Thrones.” Sen. Miville-Dechene disagrees with this, but internet expert and law professor Dr. Michael Geist sides with Mr. Bittle—an unusual alliance if ever there was one.
A second major concern involves the matter of age verification. The bill is trying to ensure that only adults can access porn online and that means providing proof of age. But who would do this? Who would be keeping a record of who has verified their age, and how would it be done? The porn site? Credit card? Driver’s licence? Passport? Facial recognition? Fake ID? Who would store this information and where? How would it be secured, and for how long?
Complicating matters further is that the bill demands that “any organization making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons.”
And that means, given the lack of precision on the definition of sexually explicit material, that it wouldn’t just be porn sites demanding your ID when Bill S-210 becomes law, you might need to flash your driver’s licence just to access Netflix.
Worse, Google and other search engines could wind up insisting you have proof of age in order to use their search engine.
Still thinking this is a good piece of legislation because its ambitions are virtuous? I thought not.
The bill could be fixed. Or, could have been, because the committee capable of amending it appears, after long hours of Conservative filibustering, to have lost interest in doing so. That means Bill S-210 is about to go, unamended, back to the House of Commons for third reading and a vote.
All along the way, only the governing Liberals have been opposed to it, claiming their (just as problematic) Online Harms Act will suffice. But they are in a minority, so this “clear and present danger” to the freedom of Canadians appears poised to pass, as is. Barring a last-minute twist, it will become law thanks mostly to the party whose leader said he wants to make us the freest people on earth.
Go figure.
