During the throne speech earlier this week, the government made a vague promise to “take action against online hate.”
But how does the government define what constitutes “hate?” Will the government change the way Canadians access the internet?
True North’s Sam Eskenasi takes a look at how hate crimes laws might be used to regulate the internet.
The Chinese government is continuing its crackdown on ethnic and religious minorities.
The Communist government of China has forced 38 villages inhabited by the country’s Yi minority into communities planned by the government.
The Yi are a small ethnic group from southwest China with a distinct language and religion. The Yi are believed to have lived in the mountains of Sichuan for around 3,000 years.
According to the Associated Press, thousands of Yi have been ordered to leave their homeland in the Sichuan mountains and made to work in state-run agricultural plantations.
Foreign journalists visiting the new Yi community report that pictures of Chinese President Xi Jinping were placed in every apartment before the Yi arrived, with posters across the community encouraging the Yi to abandon their native language and adopt Mandarin.
Mardarin is the only option for Yi students in the communities’ state-run schools.
While the Chinese government claims the relocations were part of a national anti-poverty campaign, the move has been associated with other recent mass-persecutions of China’s minorities such as Mongolians, Uyghurs and Chinese Christians.
Earlier this month, protests broke out in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia after the Communist government announced that Mandarin will replace Mongolian in half of all school programming.
The government has since suppressed the protests, with those continuing to speak out risking severe punishment.
“If you don’t send the kids [to school], they take away your jobs,” one Mongolian man told the L.A. Times.
“You can’t get subsidies or loans from the banks. They put you on a blacklist. They are arresting the people who signed petitions. They have all kinds of methods.”
On Friday, it was revealed that China is operating as many as 400 internment camps in Xinjiang province for ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.
It is estimated that around 1.5 million Chinese Muslims are held in internment camps, with many used as forced labour for tech giants such as Huawei.
In a True North exclusive, Uyghur rights groups have urged the Canadian government to reconsider its relationship with Huawei over its involvement in Uyghur internment.
The Government of Canada has nominated former Liberal MP and finance minister Bill Morneau to the Secretary-General position at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“Mr. Morneau’s experience between 2015 and 2020 as finance minister in an avowedly feminist government and his previous leadership roles in think tanks, philanthropic organizations and the private sector have given him a deep understanding of the major challenges facing the world’s economies,” claimed a Global Affairs Canada press release.
Support for Morneau’s bid was first announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following Morneau’s resignation from cabinet and government.
Morneau resigned amidst the disastrous WE Charity scandal, when it was discovered that Trudeau and Morneau had close personal and financial ties with the organization.
Reports on the scandal revealed that Morneau accepted $41,366 worth of free travel from WE to Ecuador and Kenya prior to signing off on a decision to award the organization a contract to manage the $912 million federal student service grant program.
Morneau eventually apologized for his actions and announced that he had reimbursed the charity for the expenses.
On his way out, the former minister billed taxpayers $81,105 in travel costs. The travel expenses incurred included $583 a night hotel stays in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, during Trudeau’s testimony before the House of Commons finance committee, the prime minister denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
Trudeau’s brother, mother and wife were paid a combined worth of half a million dollars for speaking engagements with WE, and Trudeau’s wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau hosts a podcast with WE.
“There was never any direction by or attempt to influence from me or my staff that the public service recommend WE Charity,” said Trudeau during his testimony.
Document disclosures later revealed that the prime minister’s office was directly involved in discussions about WE before the decision to award the contract was made.
Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion is currently conducting an investigation into whether the prime minister broke ethics laws in the affair.
The provinces have begun rolling back reopening in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Although some of their actions are reasonable, it appears politicians are getting a little too comfortable with imposing restrictions on Canadians.
True North’s Anthony Furey says Canadians need to speak up and let these politicians know they don’t want another lockdown.
Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault accused “some on the right” for claiming that the Liberal government seeks to require content creators to be licensed despite past comments by the minister to that effect.
Guilbeault made the comments during a Zoom town hall meeting held on Friday afternoon hosted by the Fédération nationale de communications et de la culture (FNCC-CSN).
“I’m not sure where you saw in the speech from the throne or some of my comments anything regarding censorship or licensing,” said Guilbeault in response to a question from a townhall participant.
“I mean, some on the right have claimed that this is what we were doing. It’s not and I read the speech from the throne a couple of times already and I can’t think of anything in the speech from the throne that this is our intention.”
Guilbeault has suggested in the past that the Liberal government seeks to require media organizations to get a government license based on recommendations by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
During a February appearance on CTV’s Question Period, Guilbeault said licenses would in fact be required.
“If you’re a distributor of content in Canada and obviously if you’re a very small media organization the requirement probably wouldn’t be the same if you’re Facebook, or Google. There would have to be some proportionality embedded into this,” Guilbeault said.
“We would ask that they have a licence, yes,” Guilbeault continued.
The minister later retracted his comments after public backlash.
Earlier this week, the throne speech included one vague bullet point on “taking action on online hate” within its section on systemic racism that critics claim could imply further censorship and free speech infringement.
This is not the first time that the Liberals have floated measures to combat online harassment and hate speech.
After a 2019 committee investigation into online hate, the Liberal-led committee recommended reviving Section 13 of the Human Rights Act. Section 13 was repealed in 2011 after claims that it violated the fundamental right of freedom of expression.
Committee member and Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has also suggested in the past that offenders who participate in online hate speech or harassment should face fines or be ticketed.
“There needs to be a recourse against the platforms and the individuals responsible for the speech,” said Erskine-Smith before suggesting that “an administrative system that is flexible and efficient” should be set up to punish those who break the proposed rules.
An advocacy group seeking to educate Canadians about overpopulation and climate change has erected a number of billboards throughout Vancouver, British Columbia which encourage people to practice population control measures.
The purpose behind the One Planet, One Child ad campaign, which is being promoted by the organization World Population Balance (WPB), is to “hasten progress toward a small family norm, leading to a sustainable world population.”
The campaign suggests that Canadians should only have one child, practice contraception or choose a childless life to reduce the world population.
“We want to get Canada talking about overpopulation. A surprising number of journalists, elected officials, and the public are unaware the world is overpopulated or uncomfortable talking about it.” said WPB Executive Director Dave Gardner, in a news release.
“[People] don’t realize the solution to overpopulation – and much of the environmental destruction it causes – is simply to embrace the accelerating trend toward freely chosen smaller families.”
As it stands, Canada has among the lowest fertility rates in the world, according to World Bank Data. For every woman in Canada, 1.5 children are born. In comparison, countries with some of the highest fertility rates like Niger or Somalia, have over 6 children being born per woman.
On WPB’s website, the group also advocates using “specially-created” soap operas to idealize the life of families who have fewer children to illiterate people.
“These special soap operas are currently running on every continent (except Antarctica) and are having an incredible impact to help reduce people’s expectations about their “desired family size,” claims the WBP website.
Among the messages included on the billboards found throughout Vancouver include statements like: “We Choose One!”, “We Chose Childfree!”, “Traffic congestion starts at conception”, and “Thank you for shrinking your carbon footprint,” among other phrases.
A former Liberal MP’s company was awarded a $422,946 federal contract just weeks after leaving office.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Baylis Medical, a medical supplies company owned by Liberal MP Frank Baylis, applied for a contract with Industry Canada while Baylis was still sitting on the Commons Industry Committee.
The contract was awarded to Baylis Medical just two months after Baylis retired from politics.
“Frank was cashing in,” said Conservative MP Kelly McCauley, who obtained records on the contract.
“The industry department must have known Baylis Medical Company was the same Frank Baylis who was sitting on the industry committee. It just raises a lot of red flags.”
McCauley suggests that the Baylis’ dealings should have been scrutinized for possible conflicts of interest. Baylis has not said if he ever informed the Conflict of Interest Commissioner about the contract.
“Frank Baylis is sitting on the industry committee, questioning the industry minister, questioning the deputy minister, while his company is bidding on a contract with the industry department. You’d think someone would have asked questions of their own.”
Baylis served as MP for Pierrefonds—Dollard from 2015 to 2019. During his time in office, he encouraged the government to promote “innovation” and ensure new products get approved by regulators quickly.
In April, the federal government agreed to buy $237.3 million worth of Baylis Medical ventilators despite the devices not being approved by regulators.
Health Canada did not approve Baylis ventilators until two months after the contract was signed.
New data coming out of Australia reveals that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is operating around 400 internment camps in the Xinjiang province.
The camps, which are believed to hold millions of religious minorities for the purposes of re-education and forced labour, were identified by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) using satellite imagery.
“The evidence in this database shows that despite Chinese officials’ claims about detainees graduating from the camps, significant investment in the construction of new detention facilities has continued throughout 2019 and 2020,” said ASPI researcher Nathan Ruser.
Full reports and an interactive map of the mass detainment camps can be found at The Xinjiang Data Project.
The location of the facilities were determined using survivor testimonies and other sources.
“Camps are also often co-located with factory complexes, which can suggest the nature of a facility and highlight the direct pipeline between arbitrary detention in Xinjiang and forced labour,” wrote an ASPI report.
On Thursday, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis questioned whether the Liberal government was taking the proper precautions to not buy personal protective equipment (PPE) from China which has been created through the use of slave labour.
“Many concerns have been raised about how Uyghur Muslims in China, who face horrific repression (the largest detention of a minority since the Holocaust according to many experts), are being forced to participate in slave labour including the production of PPE,” said Genuis in the House of Commons.
“When we’ve previously asked the government what safeguards are in place to ensure that slave labour is not part of the supply chain for our government procured PPE, we were told by the minister that there’s a process by companies to self-certify, in other words, they tell us everything is fine and we believe them.”
Genuis has been a vocal advocate for Uyghur rights in the past. Before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued parliament in August, he was a member of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
“We need to pass tough new legislation to ensure that we are not importing or buying products that have slave labour in them and also that Canadian entities are not invested in security companies that are facilitating this genocide,” Genuis told True North in August.
The question of forced Uyghur labour has also muddled Huawei’s bid for access to Canada’s 5G network.
According to a 2019 ASPI report, the tech giant is complicit in the repression of Uyghur minorities through its involvement in surveillance and policing.
“Huawei is providing Xinjiang’s police with technical expertise, support and digital services to ensure ‘Xinjiang’s social stability and long-term security’,” wrote the report.
As reported exclusively by True North, Uyghur rights groups have urged the Canadian government to reconsider its relationship with the Chinese tech company over its involvement in human rights violations.
“A company that has been linked with gross human rights violations against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic ethnic groups shouldn’t be given such an important role within the Canadian infrastructure,” Program & Advocacy Manager of the World Uyghur Congress Zumretay Arking told True North.
“Inviting a company that works closely with one of the most authoritarian regimes would be inviting these repressive policies and allow it to be embedded in the backbone of Canada’s future communication infrastructure and network.”
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The Trudeau government’s latest speech from the throne is all about big government, big spending, and big areas of overreach into provincial jurisdiction. Absent from the speech were any calls for national unity or a desire to tackle western alienation, or a commitment to stand up for freedom of speech and other fundamental freedoms. In fact, among the only Canadian values mentioned was being “welcoming” to newcomers.
True North’s Andrew Lawton breaks down the speech from the throne and reactions to it from Canadian lawmakers. Also, actor Kevin Sorbo joins the show to preview his upcoming film Climate Hustle 2, a documentary exposing the global warming fear-mongers and profiteers.
The City of Toronto would have to spend an estimated $3.02 million to rename Dundas St. and other facilities with the name after complaints by activists that the place name has historically racist ties.
According to a report filed with the city’s executive committee, renaming Dundas St. would mean replacing 730 street signs plus renaming two subway stations and two streetcar routes, which would require new signage. Changing the name would also affect three parks and 13 park facility signs, not to mention 685 Bike Share stations, as well as dozens of other changes.
Compensation to residents for street name changes could cost taxpayers up to $980,000.
“Businesses would incur higher financial costs than residents even though most changes to address can be made online. However, the time required to make the changes with a variety of suppliers, institutions and other contacts could take up a considerable amount of an operator’s time,” said the report.
The report comes as more than 15,000 people sign a petition calling on Toronto to strip the name of the “highly problematic” Henry Dundas, the first Viscount Melville from city streets, over allegations that his name is linked to “colonialism and slavery.”
“In the wake of two weeks of protests against police murder and racial injustice, Toronto City Council can take a constructive and symbolic step toward disavowing its historic associations with persons who have actively worked toward preserving systems of racial inequality and exploitation,” the petition claims.
Toronto has since acquiesced to the demands of protesters and launched a review into Dundas St. as well as numerous other place names.
“We realized other streets such as Jarvis Street, Russell Hill Drive and Baby Point are other places that are problematic so we’ll be working through a very thoughtful process,” Toronto’s chief curator of museums and heritage services, Wayne Reeves, told 680 News.
The consultation alone approximately cost Toronto $250,000.
During hearings, descendants of the Dundas family spoke in defense of their family’s history claiming that the historical Dundas had “no personal involvement in the slave trade,” according to Bobby Melville.
“I carry the name with pride. (The street) also carries the names of a pioneer family,” said Richard Dundas.
Toronto Mayor John Tory has spoken in favour of renaming place names with perceived racist histories.
“Considering the renaming of Dundas Street is just the beginning of the work we need to do to build a Toronto where we all belong,” said Tory.
