Yet Another Bill That Threatens Internet Freedom in Canada
Hands up everyone who thinks it’s a good idea to allow kids to watch pornography?
Anyone? No? Sure? Anyone?
I didn’t think so. Neither do I. But that’s exactly why Canada is on the cusp of passing what could turn out to be its most invasive, privacy-threatening, internet-freedom suppressing, anti-free speech legislation yet.
And all in the name of a good cause. Welcome to Bill S-210, the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act. It’s a private member’s bill introduced by Sen. Julie Miville-Dechene. It has passed three readings in the Senate, where it was introduced, and is now in committee with the House of Commons, having sailed through its first two readings there.
It’s a bill with significantly frightening flaws and truly problematic potential. But it might very well become law because there aren’t enough politicians out there with the guts to oppose it.
Halifax privacy lawyer and law school lecturer David Fraser calls it a “clear and present danger to a free and open internet” that “shockingly” has gained political traction.
UN Climate Summit blocks Rebel News — again
Sheila Gunn Reid discusses how the United Nations refused to allow Rebel News into its climate change conference in Brazil despite an email claiming Rebel News was accredited.
The United Nations climate conference in Belém, Brazil, is underway — and, in true UN fashion, it took all of ten minutes for the hypocrisy to hit us in the face.
For the first time in nine years, Rebel News was officially accredited to enter the conference grounds. We got the approval emails. We got our work visas. We flew half way around the world. We went to pick up our badges. Then the bureaucrats did what UN bureaucrats always do when a climate heretic gets too close: they found a problem.
Suddenly, our accreditation “didn’t allow” us inside the main venue — the pavilions, media rooms, and meeting halls packed with activists, diplomats, and 55,000 carbon-burning delegates who flew halfway around the world to lecture ordinary people about their energy use.
But somehow, we were ...
