Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has ripped a piece of proposed hate speech legislation promoted by the government, saying it will be used to simply ban speech that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hates.
Poilievre, who is leader of the Conservative Party, made the remarks this week, when a reporter asked about him about the Liberal Federal Government’s online harms bill, which would include a ban on online hate speech.
Asked if his party would oppose the bill, Poilievre replied: “Yes, we will oppose Justin Trudeau’s latest attack on freedom of expression.”
NEW – Canada's opposition leader says the Liberals' bill to ban "hate speech" online is about banning speech Trudeau hates.pic.twitter.com/cKViU04N6c
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 21, 2024
He went on to claim that if the bill was passed, the Canadian government would mislabel any speech they disliked as “hate speech.”
“What does Justin Trudeau mean when he says the word hate speech? He means speech he hates,” Poilievre claimed.
He then went on to reference Justin Trudeau previously using the “ridiculous term” of “peoplekind” (rather than “mankind”), adding that a political consultant had said it was “hate speech” to “criticise” Trudeau for this.
Justin Trudeau tells woman to say 'peoplekind' not 'mankind' https://t.co/5zNvaB02UJ
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) February 7, 2018
“Justin Trudeau said anyone who criticised him during the pandemic was engaging in hate speech,” Poilievre said.
“Basically, anybody who disagrees with his radical agenda when it comes to kids, he says, is hate speech. He attacked Muslim parents who are protesting against his agenda. Is he going to criminalise those Muslim parents for protecting their children in schools?”
Poilievre claimed that anything Trudeau personally “disapproves” of would be “criminalised” under such a law, and that he could even foresee Jewish Holocaust victim Anne Frank’s books being banned, as they were recently by an Ontario school board.
“Go down the list of things that Justin Trudeau disapproves of, and you can imagine all of the things that will be criminalised,” he said.
“And then there comes the question of who is going to be in charge of determining what is hate speech?
“Recently, a school board in Ontario banned Anne Frank’s books. So would that be considered hate speech under Justin Trudeau’s woke authoritarian agenda? I think it would.”
An Ontario school board has removed all books published in 2008 or earlier from libraries in the name of "equity"https://t.co/yfhhBMyzOy
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 14, 2023
Poilievre warned that anyone who thought that only speech they dislike will be criminalised should “go through the list of their own thoughts” that the Prime Minister considers to be “unacceptable views.”
“You can assume that he will ban all of that as well,” he added.
He also added that no one should take lessons on “hate” from a Prime Minister who once wore blackface.
Justin Trudeau apologizes for brownface and blackface photos: "This is something I deeply, deeply regret" https://t.co/UprwXjQsqy pic.twitter.com/5v9KqpuOFA
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 19, 2019
The government’s long-awaited online harms bill could be tabled as early as next week, according to CBC News, with proponents of the legislation hailing it as a way to protect children and prevent online abuse.
Canadian Justice Minister Arif Virani, who is set to table the bill, has promised to balance any hate speech or misinformation regulations with freedom of expression.
Trudeau’s Liberal Party’s 2021 election platform vowed to “combat serious forms of harmful online content, specifically hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, child sexual abuse material and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.”