At a campaign event in Collingwood, the Leader of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, had reiterated his party’s commitment to fight the Trudeau Liberals’ repeated attempts at curtailing free speech online.

Statement by Maxime Bernier:

“The rights of Canadians to freely express themselves online are being eroded at an alarming speed under the Trudeau government.

With C-10, the Liberals plan to give the CRTC power to regulate online publishers, including ordinary Canadians who are social media users. With C-36, they want to censor so-called “hate speech” and force social media companies, which are already censoring speech that isn’t politically correct, to crack down even more. They also plan to bring back Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, a hate speech provision that was repealed in 2013 because it was being arbitrarily used by far left activists to legally harass people they did not agree with.

We already have laws to fight online threats of violence or propaganda by terrorist groups. These laws should be enforced. We don’t need more. What some people find politically incorrect, offensive or even hateful cannot serve as the legal basis for censorship. Canadians must be able to enjoy maximum freedom of expression as guaranteed in Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A PPC government will repeal any existing legislation or regulation curtailing free speech on the internet and will oppose the reinstatement of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.”