Stop Trudeau’s Censorship Bill! Contact your Canadian Senators NOW!
OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) –– Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s internet censorship legislation, Bill C-11, inched even closer to becoming law last night, after MPs passed a motion in a 212 to 117 vote to adopt the bill without agreeing to the amendments previously made by the Senate.
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.
Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre, in a video posted late Thursday to social media, said the fight is not over regarding Bill C-11, as there is a chance many good senators will try and stall its full acceptance.
BREAKING: The coalition passed the censorship bill just now, after shutting down debate.
What now?
The fight continues—sign here: https://t.co/BewRL0AILI pic.twitter.com/nJoV01SXG3
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) March 31, 2023
Yesterday, in a highly criticized move, the federal government shut down any further debate on the bill in the Lower Chamber, when MPs voted 173 to 145 on a “closure motion” to axe any further discussion regarding the Senates amendments.
The Liberal-led motion to end debate was quickly blasted by Poilievre, who, while still in the House of Commons, posted a video to Twitter calling out the Trudeau government’s “censorship” of its own “censorship bill.”
“The Liberals have just announced that they’re shutting down debate. They’re censoring debate on their censorship bill. We just got the notice right now,” said Poilievre.
URGENT BREAKING:
Trudeau’s team moments ago moved to shut down debate and ram through his online censorship bill.
We are still fighting.
But I need your help NOW.
Sign here for free speech: https://t.co/BewRL0AILI pic.twitter.com/jn3V9ykdwX
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) March 30, 2023
“As you know, they’ve been trying to censor the internet [through] what Canadian artist Margaret Atwood has called ‘creeping totalitarianism,’ to give Trudeau’s woke bureaucrats over at the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) the power to control what you see and say on the Internet.”
Poilievre slammed the Trudeau government for “bringing in what’s called closure, which shuts down debate [and] rams the bill through in record time.”
“Only conservatives are fighting back against this censorship bill. We believe you should have the freedom to say what you see and see online,” added Poilievre.
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 which is 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 previously urged the Senate to stall the bill.
In effect, Bill C-11, if given Royal Assent, would mandate that Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the CRTC, be in charge of regulating online content on platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure that such platforms are promoting content in accordance with a variety of CRTC guidelines.
When the bill was in front of the senate the first time, all Conservative-appointed senators present had voted “no” to the bill, while only three senators appointed by Trudeau voted against it.
Earlier this month, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez had sent a message to the Senate in which he said he disagreed with their proposed amendments.
In total, Rodriguez gave his dissent to six of the amendments added by senators but agreed to over a dozen others.
Among those rejected by Trudeau’s government were amendments made by Senators Julie Miville-Dechene and Paula Simons that would more or less exclude user content on social media from any regulatory administration by the CRTC.
According to Rodriguez, he disagreed with the amendment “because this would affect the Governor in Council’s ability to publicly consult on, and issue, a policy direction to the CRTC to appropriately scope the regulation of social media services.”
Bill C-11 was initially introduced to the House of Commons by Rodriguez on February 2, 2022, and is just one of many similar pieces of legislation introduced by Trudeau’s Liberals since they took power in 2015.
Late last year, the Trudeau government decided to fast-track another content-regulation bill, C-18, titled the “Online News Act,” by rushing it through the House of Commons. This bill is also now before the Senate.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, technology professor Brett Caraway from the University of Toronto, recently blasted Bill C-18 as “terrifying,” adding his voice to the growing number of experts who oppose the direction the Trudeau government is headed.
Stop Trudeau’s Censorship Bill! Contact your Canadian Senators NOW!