By Canadian Constitution Foundation ——Bio and Archives--February 27, 2024
Canadian News, Politics | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
The Canadian Constitution Foundation is deeply concerned that the Online Harms Act introduced in the House of Commons on February 26 will significantly hamper constitutionally-protected expression.
The Online Harms Act would limit constitutionally-protected expression in the following ways:
CCF Executive Director Joanna Baron called the bill extremely concerning and took issue with placing these censorship provisions in the same bill as some otherwise laudable measures.
“Justice Minister Virani has tied these speech restrictions to defensible measures like removing images of child sexual exploitation material and revenge porn,” she said.
“But don’t be fooled,” she added. “Most of the bill is aimed at restricting freedom of expression. This heavy-handed bill needs to be severely pared down to comply with the constitution.”
CCF Counsel Josh Dehaas said he is particularly concerned that the threat of crossing the difficult-to-see line between legal speech and hate speech will cause many Canadians to stay silent about controversial but important political issues.
“It’s difficult for me, a lawyer who works on free expression cases, to know exactly where the line is between protected speech and hate speech,” he said. “If this bill passes, I suspect many Canadians will now be too afraid of a human rights complaint to participate in policy debates around things like race, religion and gender.”
|
---|
View Comments
The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is a registered charity, independent and non-partisan. We defend the constitutional rights and freedoms of Canadians in the courts of law and public opinion.