HANNAFORD: We know what you're thinking so we're putting you in jail... The Online Harms Act is harmful indeed

Our recent experience with the War Measures (Emergencies) Act should make us all deeply suspicious of Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act. Like the War Measures (Emergencies) Act itself, there’s a lot more buried in the text than the reassuring title suggests.That is, of course, Canadians need a legal mechanism for their duly elected government to respond to an act of war — but what a surprise that this otherwise defensible legislation also gave them the indefensible power to freeze the bank accounts of people staging a peaceful protest.Now, from the people who successfully exploited that erstwhile overlooked little sub-section of the War Measures (Emergencies) Act, comes the Online Harms Act.What fentanyl is to be found among the aspirins in this bottle?Ostensibly, the Online Harms Act is about curbing the use of the internet to spread ‘hate’ and to efficiently remove child pornography.Setting aside for the moment what constitutes hate and what is merely an antiseptic analysis of regrettable patterns of offensive behaviour among identifiable demographic groups, most people will listen to an argument for restraining outright ‘hate’. And of course, any decent person would support laws that protect children.But like the War Measures (Emergencies) Act, Bill C-63 also comes with its own buried surprises — dangerous provisions, as commentator Michael Geist points out, that have nothing to do with its headline issues.Our own Shaun Polczer offered a useful summary when the bill was introduced.The government is to form a new regulatory body separate from the CRTC to crack down on seven types of online ‘harms’ including: hate speech; terrorist content; incitement to violence; sharing of non-consensual intimate images; child exploitation; cyberbullying; and inciting self-harm. This five-member ‘digital safety’ commission would be empowered to “order the removal of online content that sexualizes children or victims of sexual violence and sexual content that is posted without consent.”And the prime minister assured us at the bill’s introduction that the law was aimed squarely at protecting children from online predators.See? All good.No. We’re off into the ‘Minority Report’ world of anticipatory arrest and sentencing. That is, the bill also — and discreetly hidden in the sub-sections — allows for the pre-emptive house arrest, ankle bracelet and all, of people who have not offended, but might be presumed to be about to do so, based on something they might have said in the past. Even ten years ago, as Tom Quiggin cogently points out.And it only takes a snitch to do it. In the section of the draft legislation dealing with required amendments to the Canadian Criminal Code, it states under “Fear of hate propaganda offence or hate crime:”810.012 (1) A person may, with the Attorney General’s consent, lay an information before a provincial court judge if the person fears on reasonable grounds that another person will commit· (a) an offence under section 318 or any of subsections 319(1) to (2.1); or· (b) an offence under section 320.1001.Those of us who have attended to the free speech file over the decades could call to mind several litigious ‘persons’ who ‘may’ be more than happy to go and see the AG and in the spirit of the Salem witch trials, declare that ‘another person’ be a witch.This of course, is outrageous… punishment without a crime. In the Anglo-American world of which Canada had been until 2015 a foundational part, we have never done this to our citizens in peacetime. (The wartime exceptions would be the involuntary detainment of 'enemy aliens' and in Great Britain the detention of members of the British Union of Fascists for the duration.)A person shilling for the government might try to defend it by arguing that people are bound over to keep the peace all the time. So they are. But they are not pre-emptively declared guilty and placed under house arrest.Or jailed for a year.“The provincial court judge may commit the defendant to prison for a term of not more than 12 months if the defendant fails or refuses to enter into the recognizance.”Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel-Garner put it very well in a tweet yesterday. “In Justin Trudeau's Canada, you get the same sentence for actually committing a sexual assault OR if the government SUSPECTS you MIGHT commit a "hate crime." (She’s right. Take a look. See also Lethbridge MP Rachel Thomas.)Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani promises, as one would expect, that such extreme powers would be exercised only in extreme circumstances, for the most hateful people.“There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. But this is not about the bad stuff. This is a much higher level,” he says. “Awful but lawful,” would remain online.Well, fair enough. But what else is he going to say?What Canadians have learned — the hard way — is that the government of which he is a part is not to be trusted. To meet a goal, it will cheerfully pass unconstitutional legislation — Bill C-69 comes to mind. Failing that, it will make unconstitutional use of existing legislation as was the case during the Freedom Convoy. It is standard operating procedure; do what it takes, and when the courts call you out, act surprised that anybody would doubt your good intentions.This bill is ripe for abuse. Sure, the first person to be placed under house arrest (without guns or alcohol, by the way — that’s in there too) will likely be an unsympathetic character. Nobody will care or spring to his defence.However, give it a few years. The definitions will evolve. Somebody now considered anti-government because they don’t like the Trudeau Liberals, will eventually be defined as anti-government because the Trudeau Liberals don’t like them.This is un-Canadian. It is anti-freedom. It is creepy stuff.

HANNAFORD: We know what you're thinking so we're putting you in jail... The Online Harms Act is harmful indeed

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