Online censorship of government critique bad idea
Stephen Guilbeault, Justin Trudeau’s Heritage minister, recently suggested that “hurtful words” directed at Canadian politicians be censored [online]. What kind of Canada does he now envisage, one in which the slightest criticism of our elected officials should be snuffed out in case it runs the risk of hurting their feelings? To be blunt, that’s insane. This is Canada, a nation, not a giant slumber party in which we should have to worry about whether or not we have made one of the guests cry.
What is more, this is censorship, pure and simple, worthy of the kind of thing that Stasi, the East German security forces, or the KGB would have been proud of. The Liberal government now appears to be venturing more and more into the area of P.C. and woke culture tyranny and the final goal of this isn’t even cleverly concealed. “No nasty criticism of the Liberal Party or Justin Trudeau folks, you’ve upset them both. If you do that again we’ll censor you.”
Politics is a tough game folks. Not to overuse a prevalent cliché, but “if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” We Canadians have every right to strongly criticize our public officials, and if their feelings are hurt by this perhaps they should look for another line of work.
Guilbeault has even suggested a “kill switch” to be used [on websites] if commentary on politicians gets really nasty. Shades of the Ministry of Truth. When the government starts telling you whether or not you can be upset, or upset someone else, and what words you can use to express that, then we have already sunk into the terrible reality of George Orwell’s 1984 dystopia. People were warned about this government and its potential overreach years ago. It appears that, to use another cliché, “the chickens have finally come home to roost.”
Perry Foster
Duncan