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Former Canadian broadcast regulator warns against Conservative-backed internet bill

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Peter Menzies served as CRTC vice-chair after an extensive career in the newspaper industry

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘By all means, ensure the Criminal Code is enforced, but do not, under any circumstances, put some puffed-up public servant in charge of patrolling the online world. The state has no business in the WiFi of the nation,’ former CRTC vice-chair Peter Menzies wrote.

One of the past vice-chairs of Canada’s official broadcast regulator, Canada’s Radio-Television Commission (CRTC), has sounded the alarm over recent Conservative-backed federal legislation working its way through the system which looks to severely regulate the internet under the appearance of “protecting children.” 

Peter Menzies, who served as the CRTC’s vice-chair for a time after an extensive career in the newspaper industry, and who is not known for being very conservative, wrote in a recent blog post in The Hub that the “[s]tate has no business in the WiFi of the nation,” criticizing in particular Senate Bill S-210.  

He specifically used his ink space to criticize the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) and its leader Pierre Poilievre for supporting Bill S-210. 

“The Conservatives, as we speak, are backers of Independent Senator Julie Miville-Dechene’s private member’s Bill S-210. Its intent, like so many pieces of legislation, is virtuous, as it is trying to protect children from access to online pornography. But the road to regulatory hell is paved with good intentions, and the legislation is so clumsily constructed as to pose significant threats to privacy and free expression,” wrote Menzies. 

Currently before Canada’s House of Commons for review is Senate Bill S-210, “An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material.” The bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons last December, with CPC MPs lambasting most Liberal Party MPs for voting against a bill designed to protect children from accessing online pornography. 

The creator of the the non-governmental law, Miville-Dechêne, was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2018. It was passed by the Senate in April 2023. 

S-210 would create a framework to make it an offense for any organization that makes available “sexually explicit material” to anyone under the age 18 for commercial purposes. Anyone breaking the new rules would be fined $250,000 for the first offense and up to $500,000 for any subsequent offenses. 

However, professor Dr. Michael Geist, who has been an open critic of already passed Trudeau government online censorship bills  C-18 and C-11, as well as the newly introduced “Online Harms” Bill C-63, has warned that S-210 is an “avalanche” of bad news despite its good intentions. 

Menzies observed that if the Conservatives genuinely “Want to give us back control of our lives and make us the freest people on earth, they could start by stepping back from their recent alliance with Big Government solutions and instead find ways to help individuals take control of their lives by managing what comes into their homes.” 

He called S-210 “So clumsily constructed as to pose significant threats to privacy and free expression.” 

Menzies warned that Bill S-210, despite its seemingly good intentions, could result in Canadians being forced to use government-issued IDs to access many different internet services. 

Menzies wrote that in his view, it makes no sense that the CPC under Poilievre oppose Trudeau’s new Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, yet support Bill S-210. 

As for Bill C-63, it was introduced in the House of Commons on February 26 and was immediately blasted by constitutional experts as very troublesome. 

The new law will further regulate the internet and will allow a new digital safety commission to conduct “secret commission hearings” against those found to have violated the new law, raising “serious concerns for the freedom of expression” of Canadians online, one constitutional lawyer warned LifeSiteNews. 

The Liberals under Trudeau claim Bill C-63 will target certain cases of internet content removal, notably those involving child sexual abuse and pornography.  

The reality is, that the federal government under Trudeau has gone all in on radical transgender ideology, including the so-called “transitioning” of minors, while at the same time introducing laws that on the surface, appear to be about helping children.  

Under Trudeau, the federal government has given millions of taxpayer money to fund LGBT groups of various kinds and aggressively pushes a pro-LGBT agenda. 

Trudeau gov’t needs to ‘leave legal internet’ content alone

Menzies observed that what needs to happen instead is for governments to “[l]eave legal content on the internet alone,” and instead empower “parents” to have more control over what can be viewed online.  

“By all means, ensure the Criminal Code is enforced, but do not, under any circumstances, put some puffed-up public servant in charge of patrolling the online world. The state has no business in the WiFi of the nation,” he wrote.  

“Second, empower parents and families with the equipment they need to control their household’s internet access as they see fit and work with the people who really understand technology to do so.” 

The CPC under its leader Poilievre has clarified that Conservatives “do not support any measures that would allow the imposition of a digital ID or infringe on the privacy of adults and their freedom to access legal content online,” when it comes to Bill S-210 or another other future law.  

Campaign Life Coalition recently warned that Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act, will stifle free speech and crush pro-life activism. 

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DEI gone?: GOP lawmakers prep to clean house in federal government

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From The Center Square

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Many of Trump’s cabinet picks so far have also pledged to remove DEI programs from the federal government. These policies can range from training federal employees on “white privilege” to using medical research funds to study racism to awarding federal funds to recipients only as long as they toe the line on DEI orthodoxy.

President-elect Donald Trump’s win and his subsequent creation of a Department of Government Efficiency have galvanized lawmakers to pave the way for legislation to clean out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, staff and programs that have ballooned under the Biden-Harris administration.

The Center Square was given advance copy of two bills filed Thursday by U.S. Rep. Bob Good, R-La., to end DEI practices at the Department of Housing and Urban Development

The first bill, the Flexibility in Housing Act of 2024, would block a Biden-Harris administration rule at HUD. That rule is about to be finalized and would require HUD grant recipients to implement “equity-driven housing plans.”

The newly introduced bill, however, would block that rule and give power to states and local governments to decide how best to spend the funds.

The second bill, the “No Discrimination in Housing Act,” would prevent large corporations from using DEI programs to get federal tax credits in buying up single family American homes, something many economists say is driving up the cost of homeownership for Americans.

The new bill “would prohibit any entity with a DEI initiative from receiving the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit – thereby ensuring the tax credit is distributed based on merit – not for the advancement of the radical DEI ideology.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s radicalization of housing policy prioritizes woke DEI corporations, yet does nothing that will actually drive down the cost of a home in an economy destroyed by Bidenflation,” Good told The Center Square. “My bills aim to restore Trump-era housing flexibility and eliminate the DEI housing policies that prohibit families from pursuing the American dream.”

These two bills, first obtained by The Center Square, are in line with Republicans’ renewed push to eliminate the hard left turn toward DEI policies taken in the last few years of the Biden-Harris administration.

Those policies have been under the microscope for years, but Trump’s win gives Republicans hope they can be undone.

Many of Trump’s cabinet picks so far have also pledged to remove DEI programs from the federal government. These policies can range from training federal employees on “white privilege” to using medical research funds to study racism to awarding federal funds to recipients only as long as they toe the line on DEI orthodoxy.

The latest high-profile examples of controversial DEI spending involves the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Amid the scandal of its handling of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, reporting has shown that FEMA lists DEI and equity as it number one priority.

U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, introduced the Dismantle DEI Act, which advanced out of the House Oversight Committee, which would eliminate DEI programs in the federal government and return to a “colorblind” approach.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion – these are words that, on the surface, seem to represent ideals we can all support,” Cloud said. But when these principles are redefined and implemented as an ideology within our federal government, they take on a meaning that diverges from their original intent.”

A recent report from Do No Harm documented about 500 examples of DEI programs across many agencies choosing to reward some Americans over others.

“Under the guise of progress, this ideology seeks to categorize individuals based on immutable characteristics rather than valuing the content of their character or their individual achievements,” Cloud continued.

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‘Context Of Chemsex’: Biden-Harris Admin Dumps Millions Into Developing Drug-Fueled Gay Sex App

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Owen Klinsky

The Biden-Harris administration is spending millions funding a project to advise homosexual men on how to more safely engage in drug-fueled intercourse.

The University of Connecticut (UCONN) in July announced a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for Assistant Professor Roman Shrestha to develop his app JomCare — “a smartphone-based just-in-time adaptive intervention aimed at improving access to HIV- and substance use-related harm reduction services for Malaysian GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex,” university news website UCONN Today reported. “Chemsex,” according to Northern Irish LGBTQ+ nonprofit the Rainbow Project, is the involvement of drug use in one’s sex life, and typically involves Methamphetamine (crystal meth), Mephedrone (meth), and GHB and GBL (G).

Examples of the app’s use-cases include providing a user who has reported injecting drugs with prompts about ordering an at-home HIV test kit and employing safe drug injection practices, UCONN Today reported. The app is also slated to provide same-day delivery of HIV prevention drug PrEP, HIV self-testing kits and even a mood tracker.

“In Malaysia, our research has indicated that harm reduction needs of GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex are not being adequately met,” Shrestha told UCONN Today. “Utilizing smartphone apps and other mHealth tools presents a promising and cost-effective approach to expand access to these services.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and is punishable by imprisonment, according to digital LGBTQ+ rights publication Equaldex. Drug use, including of cannabis, is illegal in Malaysia, and drug trafficking can be a capital offense.

The NIH disbursed $773,845 to Shrestha in July to conduct a 90-day trial testing the efficacy of JomCare among 482 chemsex-involved Malaysian gays. It also provided Shrestha with $191,417 in 2022 to “facilitate access to gender-affirming health care” for transgender women in the country.

“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism used to describe a wide range of procedures, including sometimes irreversible hormone treatments that can lead to infertility as well as irreversible surgeries like mastectomies, phalloplasties and vaginoplasties.

Shrestha has a track record of researching mobile health (mHealth) initiatives for foreign homosexuals, co-authoring a 2024 study entitled, “Preferences for mHealth Intervention to Address Mental Health Challenges Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Nepal.”

The proliferation of LGBT rights has been a “foreign policy priority” under the Biden-Harris administration, a State Department spokesperson previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation, with President Joe Biden instructing federal government department heads to “to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”

“Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights,” a 2021 White House memorandum states. “The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values.”

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would collaborate to establish a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Musk claiming the agency would feature a leaderboard for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.” Some DOGE cuts could come from LGBTQ+ programs, such as a grant from the United States Agency for International Development to perform sex changes in Guatemala and State Department funding for the showing of a play in North Macedonia entitled, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”

“The woke mind virus consists of creating very, very divisive identity politics…[that] amplifies racism; amplifies, frankly, sexism; and all of the -isms while claiming to do the opposite,” Musk said at an event in Italy in December 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It actually divides people and makes them hate each other and hate themselves.”

Shrestha and the NIH did not respond to requests for comment. When reached for comment, a UCONN spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that, “specific questions about the grant and the decision to award it to our faculty member should be directed to the NIH, since that’s the funding agency.”

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