Canada's leading pro-life group blasts censorship bill as 'takeover of the internet'

By newseditors // 2023-04-06

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Canada’s top pro-life group condemned the looming passage of what it said is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “Liberal totalitarian censorship Bill C-11” after his government tried to stop debate on the bill last week. (Article by Anthony Murdoch republished from LifeSiteNews.com) “This bill is simply the Trudeau Liberals’ takeover of the internet,” Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) president Jeff Gunnarson said in comments sent to LifeSiteNews and also posted via press release late last week. “The bill allows the government to determine what Canadians see online.”   Last Thursday in the House of Commons, MPs voted 173-145 on a “closure motion” to end the debate to the Senate amendments to Bill C-11, or An Act to Amend the Broadcasting Act and to Make Related and Consequential Amendments to other Acts. Later in the day, Bill C-11 inched even closer to becoming law after MPs passed a motion in a 212-117 vote to adopt the bill without agreeing to the amendments previously made by the Senate. Gunnarson said with the looming reality that Trudeau’s C-11 will become law, “freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas within Canada are under attack like never before.” “Canadians will soon see only what the government wants them to see online,” Gunnarson added.   According to CLC, pro-life and pro-family advocates who seek “justice for the preborn, the protection of the elderly and disabled, and the defence of marriage” could essentially be “excluded from the Canadian internet with the passage of this bill.” The Liberal motion to stop debate on Bill C-11 was blasted by Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre, who while still in the House of Commons last Thursday posted a video to Twitter calling out Liberal “censorship.” Senators Julie Miville-Dechene and Paula Simons added amendments that would more or less exclude user content on social media from any regulatory administration by the CRTC.  As it stands, C-11 will now go back to the Upper Chamber, where Senators can either accept it as is or again demand changes be made.  Normally, once the Senate passes a bill, it will be given Royal Assent and become law. However, procedure dictates that for a bill to become law the text passed by both the Senate and House of Commons must be exactly the same. Since the Senate had made multiple amendments to Bill C-11, which the House has now rejected, the Senate can either relent and allow the House to have its way, or stand its ground and re-demand the House accept the changes it made to the legislation.  The bill has faced immense criticism for its implications on freedom of speech, and even Big Tech giants YouTube and Apple, which both have a history of enacting their own forms of censorship on users, had urged the Senate to stall the bill.   In effect, Bill C-11, if given Royal Assent, would mandate that Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), be in charge of regulating online content from platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure that such platforms are promoting content in accordance with a variety of CRTC guidelines.   While Bill C-11 initially passed Canada’s Senate last month with 43 votes in favor and 15 opposed, it is only able to become law on the condition that multiple amendments added by the senators are adopted by the House of Commons.   Due to this, the status of C-11 is now uncertain, as the Trudeau Liberals rejected the changes made by senators.  All Conservative-appointed senators present in the Senate chamber had voted “no” on the bill, and only three senators appointed by Trudeau voted against it. Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com

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