Bill C-63 gives Commissions too much power

The Trudeau government's new Online Harms legislation Bill C-63, while less of an overreach than its predecessor Bill C-36, concentrates too much unchecked power in the Canadian Human Rights Commission and  a new Digital Safety Commission. 

Peter Menzies: New Online Harms Act Gives Appointed Commissioners Too Much Power | MacDonald-Laurier Institute | Peter Menzies:

Februay 27, 2024 - "Canada has launched  legislation reining in social media and reducing its citizens’ freedom to express themselves online. And while supporters of the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) believe tighter control of speech and images by government is necessary to make platforms such as X and Facebook 'safer,' it’s unclear if that will be the case.... 

"There will be a Digital Safety Commission led by a chair, vice-chair, and commissioners supported by a staff of public servants. Its job will be to oversee social media companies, each of which will have to satisfy the commission that it has policies and practices in place that protect users from seven distinct online harms. Those are: sexually victimizing children, bullying, inducing children to harm themselves, extremism/terrorism, inciting violence, fomenting hatred, and sharing intimate content without consent, including deepfakes. The platforms will have three 'duties of care' ... to act responsibly, ensure content in those seven categories is inaccessible, and to otherwise protect children. In addition, platforms will have to inform police if, while patrolling users’ content, they come across incidents of child sexual exploitation.

"The good news is that just about everything this new five-person commission of cabinet appointees will be 'imposing' is already covered in the Criminal Code and has been blocked or removed by the companies for years. And given that early drafts of the legislation envisioned a government commission empowered to directly patrol and order the removal of 'lawful but awful' online content, the duty of care approach is a welcome relief that signals a significant retreat....

"In addition, the government is creating a Digital Safety Ombudsman (also a cabinet appointee) whose job will involve duties such as supporting victims of the online harms outlined, offering advice to the companies, and educating the public in navigating the social media landscape. Seems a little heavy on the bureaucratic overkill if you ask me, but ... again, in terms of having a lot for the average person to worry about... not a lot to see here. Not much about your experience is likely to change, at least not at this stage, given that the behaviours demanded are already being performed.

"But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about. As internet expert and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist pointed out, the powers of the Digital Safety Commission are immense. 'It can issue rulings on making content inaccessible, conduct investigations, demand any information it wants from regulated services (and) hold hearings that under certain circumstances can be closed to the public,' Geist wrote. 'The Commission is not subject to any legal or technical rules of evidence, as the law speaks to acting informally and expeditiously, an approach that seems inconsistent with its many powers.'

"Another legal expert, Halifax lawyer David Fraser, put it this way on X: 

"I 100% expected it to be much worse" doesn’t make it automatically good. Take a close note of the repeated use of the phrase 'reasonable grounds to believe' and 'suspect", which set a very low bar and always err on the side of removal,' he wrote.'The content must be removed or made inaccessible permanently if there are reasonable grounds to believe that there are reasonable grounds to suspect.... Not even actually believe or actually suspect.

"Alarming, in my view, is the Online Harms’ provision to define racist and homophobic comments as discrimination and give the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) the power to take complaints on that basis, levy fines up to $20,000 against those it deems guilty, and order them to remove their posts. This stands a very good chance of flooding the human rights commission ... with complaints from organizations and individuals seeking to embarrass and impoverish their ideological foes.... It is entirely conceivable that everything from religious texts to statements such as 'a person with a penis cannot be a woman' will be subject to fines and takedown orders by the CHRC, where the usual rules of evidence don’t apply, guilt is the de facto default position, and the term 'kangaroo court' is often applied.

"Lastly, it was disappointing not to see one more duty imposed on X and Facebook, specifically the duty to preserve freedom of expression and apply their content moderation rules in an objective fashion, favouring neither progressives nor conservatives. But, given the road we’re now going down, that’s probably not the government’s preferred outcome."

Read more: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/new-online-harms-act-gives-appointed-commissioners-too-much-power-peter-menzies-in-the-epoch-times/

Trudeau's Online Harms Act is WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT | Northern Perspective | March 1, 2024:

Trudeau gov't tables Online Harms Bill C-63

Any Good in Ottawa’s Online Harms Bill Is Overshadowed by Its ‘Hate Speech’ Provisions | Epoch Times | Cory Morgan:

Feruary 26, 2024 - "It’s been a long time in coming and now the government has finally tabled a new version of its Online Harms Act (Bill C-63).... The full title of Bill C-63 is: 'An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.' It’s quite a mouthful and it reflects a bill that’s trying to take on many issues at once....

"There is a lot to unpack in the bill and there are some good regulations within it.... Child pornography is a scourge that must be pursued and prosecuted with the utmost vigour. The internet has offered a platform that has allowed the production and distribution of child pornography to flourish. We need to give law enforcement, government agencies, and internet providers tools to try and protect children and hold those exploiting children to account.... That said, the world has changed.... On websites that have hundreds of thousands if not millions of interactions per day, it can be tough to keep up with what’s being posted. The legislation must give providers reasonable timelines and means to keep inappropriate content under control....

"As always, the devil will be in the details. The bill calls for the establishment of a 'Digital Safety Office of Canada' to administer the whole thing. Forming a new bureaucracy rarely leads to a more efficient administration of laws or regulations no matter how well-intentioned the action was. It also raises the scary prospect that a few bureaucrats can decide what content is harmful.

"The bill also calls for revisions to the Criminal Code to increase the maximum sentences for hate propaganda. It specifies increasing the sentence for promoting genocide from a maximum of five years to a life sentence. This is where this bill is going to get into trouble. For one, the nation can’t even settle on what the definition of genocide is anymore. It can range from calling for the extermination of a race to opposing the changing of gender pronouns in schools. Secondly, while the promotion of real genocide is odious and could indeed earn criminal sanction, offering a penalty of a life sentence is beyond reasonable. Even murderers in Canada often don’t get life sentences. This is just inviting legal challenges.

"The bill delves into hate speech and further empowerment of the Human Rights Commission. It is returning restrictions on expression and speech that went too far in the past which is why the Harper government rescinded Section 13 of the Human Rights Act. Speech was being unduly infringed upon and the commission was overstepping its bounds. The new definitions of criminal hate speech will surely land in our courts, too.

"Bill C-63 has some merit but the bill may be lost due to the government’s zeal in trying to pack hate speech provisions into it. If the child protection section could be broken free into a bill of its own, it could be a fine piece of legislation." 

Read more: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/cory-morgan-any-good-in-ottawas-online-harms-bill-is-overshadowed-by-its-hate-speech-provisions-5595592

Bill to combat harmful online content | CBC News: The National | February 26, 2024: 

The most dangerous Canadian internet bill you've never heard of

The Most Dangerous Canadian Internet Bill You’ve Never Heard Of Is a Step Closer to Becoming Law | Michael Geist:

December 14, 2023 - "After years of battles over Bills C-11 and C-18, few Canadians will have the appetite for yet another troubling Internet bill. But given a bill that envisions government-backed censorship, mandates age verification to use search engines or social media sites, and creates a framework for court-ordered website blocking, there is a need to pay attention. Bill S-210, or the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, was passed by the Senate in April after Senators were reluctant to reject a bill framed as protecting children from online harm. The same scenario appears to be playing out in the House of Commons, where yesterday a majority of the House voted for the bill at second reading, sending it to the Public Safety committee for review. 

"The bill, which is the brainchild of Senator Julie Miville-Duchêne, is not a government bill. In fact, government ministers voted against it. Instead, the bill is backed by the Conservatives, Bloc and NDP with a smattering of votes from backbench Liberal MPs. Canadians can be forgiven for being confused that after months of championing Internet freedoms, raising fears of censorship, and expressing concern about CRTC overregulation of the Internet, Conservative MPs were quick to call out those who opposed the bill (the House sponsor is Conservative MP Karen Vecchio).... 

"I should preface criticism of the bill by making it clear that underage access to inappropriate content is indeed a legitimate concern.... However, Bill S-210 goes well beyond personal choices to limit underage access to sexually explicit material on Canadian sites. Instead, it envisions government-enforced global website liability for failure to block underage access, backed by website blocking and mandated age verification systems that are likely to include face recognition technologies. The government establishes this regulatory framework and is likely to task the CRTC with providing the necessary administration. While there are surely good intentions with the bill, the risks and potential harms it poses are significant....

"Bill S-210 ... creates an offence for any organization making available sexually explicit material to anyone under the age of 18 for commercial purposes. The penalty for doing so is $250,000 for the first offence and up to $500,000 for any subsequent offences.... The enforcement of the bill is left to the designated regulatory agency, which can issue notifications of violations to websites and ... the steps the agency wants followed to bring the site into compliance. This literally means the government via its regulatory agency will dictate to sites how they must interact with users.... If the site fails to act as instructed within 20 days, the regulator can apply for a court order mandating that Canadian ISPs block the site from their subscribers. The regulator would be required to identify which ISPs are subject to the blocking order. The website blocking provisions are focused on limiting user access and can therefore be applied to websites anywhere in the world with Canadian ISPs required to ensure that the sites are rendered inaccessible.... 

"The bill not only envisions the possibility of blocking lawful content or limiting access to those over 18, it expressly permits it. Section 9(5) states that if the court determines that an order is needed, it may have the effect of preventing access to 'material other than sexually explicit material made available by the organization' or limiting access to anyone, not just young people. This raises the prospect of full censorship of lawful content under court order based on notices from a government agency. 

"If that isn’t bad enough, there are two additional serious concerns. First, the bill is not limited to pornography sites. Rather, it applies to any site or service that makes sexually explicit materials available. This would presumably include search engines, social media sites such as Twitter, or chat forums such as Reddit, where access to explicit material is not hard to find. If the bill was limited solely to sites whose primary purpose is the commercial distribution of sexually explicit material, it might be more defensible. As it stands now, the overbroad approach leaves this bill vulnerable to constitutional challenge.

"Second, consider the way sites are supposed to comply with the law, by establishing age verification systems. This effectively means that sites will require their users to register with commercial age verification systems in order to run a search or access some tweets. And the age verification systems raise real privacy concerns, including mandated face recognition as part of the verification process."

"Senate private members bills rarely become law, but this bill is suddenly on the radar screen in a big way. The bill should not have come this far and should not be supported. Creating safeguards for underage access to inappropriate content is a laudable goal, but not at the cost of government-backed censorship, mandated face recognition, and age-approval requirements to use some of the most popular sites and services in the world."

Read more: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/12/the-most-dangerous-canadian-internet-bill-youve-never-heard-of-is-a-step-closer-to-becoming-law/

The End Of Online Privacy In Canada? A Lawyer Explains Bill S-210 | Runkle Of The Bailey | December 14, 2023:

Undeletable child porn images being sent to anti-NDAA activists

Using Child Porn To Take Down The Liberty Movement? (Video) | Ben Swann:

August 22, 2013 - "Dan Johnson of the group P.A.N.D.A (People Against the NDAA) talks with Ben Swann about the child pornography sent to him via a Tormail account.... Johnson received this email only a few weeks after Luke Rudkowski (We Are Change) and Madison Rupert (End The Lie) also received emails from a purported 'whistleblower.' Those emails also contained child pornography....

"Explains Johnson, 'If I didnʼt have any IT background, I would think that deleting the file actually deletes the file. It doesnʼt really delete the file; it just deletes the markers where the file is supposed to be. So the file would still be on my computer and I wouldnʼt know it. So if I were to be raided at any point because someone were to say "I think Dan has child [p]ornography on his computer" then someone would come in, they would open the computer, they would look at it. I would obviously have no idea it was there. They would take the computer and what would happen from there, I am not really sure. It is about 5 years in prison for each image.'"

Read more: http://benswann.com/using-child-porn-to-take-down-the-liberty-movement-video/
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