Read The Democracy Fund's brief on the dangerous reach of Canada's Online Harms Bill C-63.
The Government of Canada has introduced the Online Harms Bill C-63 to regulate and suppress "harmful speech." The Bill requires social media companies to remove certain speech, failing which they will incur substantial fines.
It re-introduces s.13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, allowing government censors to investigate and prosecute online speech. It empowers and incentivizes the public to anonymously inform on other citizens for online "hate speech." It amends the Criminal Code to criminalize conduct mostly covered by existing offences, and includes disproportionately severe penalties for speech crimes.
The Democracy Fund (TDF) has now reviewed the Bill. In our view, it creates a comprehensive system of online speech surveillance, and suppresses public speech through fear of prosecution. If it passes, it will eliminate free speech in Canada.
You can read our full legal brief on the Online Harms Bill C-63 here.
Parts of the Bill are important, particularly the offences dealing with child protection and non-consensual disclosure of intimate images. To the extent that laws do not already cover this conduct, these amendments to the Criminal Code should be severed from the larger Bill and passed into law.
However, the remaining parts of the Bill will create a vast bureaucracy tasked with surveillance and censorship of all public online speech in Canada. The Bill includes poorly-defined and ambiguous language that will incrementally expand to encompass controversial and then, over time, mainstream speech - as happened with the previous censorship law.
The Bill, if passed, will result in a flood of anonymous and politically-weaponized complaints and prosecutions, over-regulation of speech by unaccountable bureaucrats, a diminution in the critical thinking skills of citizens and, eventually, the destruction of free speech in Canada.
TDF does not believe that the government can be trusted with this power.
Historically, censorship has been used by authoritarian regimes to crush dissent and maintain control. It is the civic right and duty of all Canadians to decide for themselves what they will read and say: delegating this right and duty to the government is perilous.
TDF has resolved to counter this effort to deprive Canadians of their right to free speech.
To do so, we rely on public support. Your donations, which can be made on this page, are essential to help fight censorship in Canada and safeguard the future of open debate.
About The Democracy Fund:
Founded in 2021, The Democracy Fund (TDF) is a Canadian charity dedicated to constitutional rights, advancing education, and relieving poverty. TDF promotes constitutional rights through litigation and public education and supports an access to justice initiative for Canadians whose civil liberties have been infringed by government lockdowns and other public policy responses to the pandemic.