“Minority Report”: The Sequel. A warning to the Canadian Church

From the Frontier Centre for Pubic Policy

In the 2002 futuristic movie, “Minority Report,” viewers are introduced to a ground-breaking technology that allows law enforcement to preview a crime before it is committed. Then this determination becomes the basis for the arrest and the sentencing of the “pre-crime” perpetrator.

In a case of life imitating art, on February 26, the Canadian government tabled legislation containing provisions that are eerily like the plot imagined in Tom Cruise’s blockbuster.

The proposed legislation should be of great concern to churches and pastors who may face unprecedented legal exposure if it is passed.

Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, seeks to “promote online safety.” The Act endeavours, in part, to protect children from online sexual exploitation and requires the mandatory reporting of online child pornography by internet providers. So far, so good.

But the proverbial devil is lurking in the details of the provisions pertaining to online hate speech, which are simply breathtaking.

The Act represents what many consider to be the most dangerous assault on free speech this country has ever seen, prompting Canadian novelist, Margaret Atwood, to refer to the proposed legislation as “Orwellian.”

This bill would not only have a glacial effect on free speech, but it would also trigger an open season on religious organizations that do not align with mainstream dogma.

Here are some of the reasons behind this apocalyptic assessment of this piece of legislation.

The bill defines hate speech as speech that “is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

This definition is so vague, ambiguous, and far reaching that it could apply to any opinion that diverges from the government-sanctioned media narrative.

The responsibility of judging complaints would be lodged with the Human Rights Commission. This fact alone is deeply worrisome, as the threshold for deciding guilt is much lower in the Human Rights Tribunal than in a criminal court, where a person must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Plaintiffs could file their complaints anonymously without incurring any legal costs. Defendants, on the other hand, would be bound to retain legal counsel at considerable expense to them.

Should they win their case, the plaintiffs stand to be awarded up to $20,000. The defendants could be imposed an additional fine of up to $50,000. Should a legal violation be considered to have been motivated by hate, the defendants could also face life imprisonment!

The incontrovertible proof that Bill C-63 is not about protecting children but strangling free speech resides in what is now ironically referred to as the “Minority Report” provision.

As unhinged as it sounds, the legislation states that if a member of the public has grounds to believe that someone is likely to engage in hateful speech, that person can appeal to a provincial judge who may then subject the defendant to house arrest and other restrictions.

Human nature being what it is, there is no telling the number of people who will be incentivized to file complaints knowing they have much to gain and nothing to lose.

Conservative churches would become instant targets in the tsunami of human rights violation initiatives that the proposed legislation would trigger.

In response, churches may decide to play it safe by restricting their services to in-person participation or by self-censuring.

While either choice would no doubt be welcome by a government that wants to silence those who hold “unacceptable views,” to quote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, such restrictions would no doubt prove to be detrimental to the churches and the common good.

The proposed legislation is not about protecting children. It’s about unleashing the mob against those who would oppose an agenda that is already proving to be an existential threat to liberal society.

Bill C-63 is currently at the nexus of the fight to preserve our most fundamental freedoms, Canadian democracy, and the well-being of future generations.

Churches have a window of opportunity to voice their opposition to this appalling piece of legislation.

What can be done?

First, be informed. Videos posted by the Canadian Constitution Foundation are a great place to start.

Second, promote congregational awareness. Church leaders can no longer pretend that such issues are beyond the scope of their pulpit. To denounce injustice is indeed part and parcel of the church’s prophetic mandate.

Third, church members should contact their member of parliament to express their opposition to Bill C-63.

Canadian churches have historically chosen to remain on the far edges of the culture war currently raging in the Western world. But if Bill C-63 receives royal assent, these same churches may soon unwittingly find themselves in the middle of the very battlefield they so vigorously sought to avoid.

Pierre Gilbert is Associate Professor Emeritus at Canadian Mennonite University.

Up Next

The Winnipeg Lab Leak: A Tale of Naivety and National Security Neglect

Don't Miss

Advocacy group urges change to recall and citizen initiated referendum legislation

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Trudeau “Played Doctor” With Children

Business / 7 hours ago

Liberals, globalists flip out after Trump orders USAID freeze

Business / 7 hours ago

Trudeau Liberals pledge $41.5 million for over 100 pro-2SLGBTQI+ projects

Censorship Industrial Complex

Trump’s Executive Orders Are Taking Massive Chunk Out Of Censorship State

Published on January 31, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Roderick Law

President Donald Trump has hit the ground running, issuing a flurry of executive orders. Two of them are particularly welcome.

The first, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” mandates agencies across the government cease funding and end any activities that would “unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” The other, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” requires agencies “to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”

Each order is necessary, and their issuance so soon after the inauguration shows that Trump understands that censorship and “lawfare” were rampant under his predecessor.

Dear Readers:
As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers. Please consider making a small donation of any amount here. Thank you!

Former President Joe Biden himself (or whoever gave him words to read) gave us a stark reminder of his comfort with censorship in his farewell address, when he warned of the “potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country.”

But Biden was referring to the rise of social media that do not enforce speech codes dictated by one side of the political divide. He went on to complain that we are getting “buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation,” while “[s]ocial media is giving up fact-checking.”

It’s true: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg saw the election results and realized public toleration for censorship has reached its limit. He is dismantling Facebook’s “fact checking” apparatus and following X’s “community notes” model.

Worse, Zuckerburg is telling tales out of school, recalling how during the pandemic Biden officials would “scream” and “curse” at Facebook employees to remove posts that countered the government line. Tech-industrial complexes are dangerous things if you do not control them.

We can’t forget that government censorship, and its support for research into censorship technologies, is broad and deep. Consider the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The committee was composed of academics and tech company officials working very closely with government personnel. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) discovered they also worked with left-wing activists. The committee was created ostensibly in response to misinformation campaigns from foreign actors, but it evolved toward domestic “threats.” It had a “Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-information” subcommittee. “Mal-information” is info that is true, but contrary to the preferred narratives of the censor. Trump’s order directly calls such efforts a “guise” to censor speech “in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.” Unfortunately, the committee was the tip of the iceberg. The Pentagon and the State Department had their own ties to censorship initiatives.

The same impulse that fostered censorship weaponized Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice(DOJ). Ask pro-life activists facing prison sentences for peaceful demonstrations outside abortion clinics.

Going back further, talk to parents who, FGI discovered, were called racist and transphobic by teachers unions and the Biden Education Department. Or the concerned parents who dared to speak up in school board meetings around the country. Their reward was being called a threat and singled out by the DOJ and FBI. We can be thankful to whoever it was that leaked the FBI memo recommending infiltrating Catholic Mass enthusiast cells.

Trump’s executive order on weaponization will hopefully right some of these wrongs and remind the DOJ and intelligence services that they work for the people. (The president also stripped security clearances from the 51 former intelligence officials who, without evidence, dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a “Russian information operation.”) If nothing else, it will make clear to all, no matter their party, that there are no grey areas and no workarounds when it comes to fundamental constitutional rights.

The federal government has strayed far from its purpose of securing the God-given rights of its citizens. Trump received a mandate from the voters to move it back to the true path, and these orders bring vital reforms. Ideally, Congress will follow suit and pass legislation doing the same, but permanently. As Americans, it is the least we should expect from our government.

Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative.

Brownstone Institute

Information Disorder Syndrome

Published on January 30, 2025

Todayville

From the Brownstone Institute

By Robert Malone

Information disorder is a term coined in 2017 in a report titled “Information Disorder Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policymaking” that was drafted for the Council of Europe. (Derakhshan & Hossein, 2017). Information disorder refers to the sharing or developing of false information, categorized as misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Of interest, the original 2016 election of President Trump triggered the commission of this report.

From the report:

This concept has been further developed by think tanks, academics, NGOs, governments, and others now invested in the vast fact-checking and industrial-censorship complex. We have all become well-versed in these concepts over the past few years.

A 2020 peer-reviewed study took this concept further and made information disorder into a mental health condition.

Abstract:

Many of us may be unknowingly suffering from information disorder syndrome. It is more prevalent due to the digitized world where the information flows to every individual’s phone, tablet and computer in no time. Information disorder syndrome is the sharing or developing of false information with or without the intent of harming and they are categorized as misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.

The severity of the syndrome is categorized into three grades. Grade 1 is a milder form in which the individual shares false information without the intent of harming others. Grade 2 is a moderate form in which the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of making money and political gain, but not with the intent of harming people. Grade 3 is a severe form in which the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of harming others.

The management of this disorder requires the management of false information, which is rumor surveillance, targeted messaging and community engagement.

Repeated sufferers at the Grade 1 level, all sufferers from Grade 2 and 3 levels need psycho-social counseling and sometimes require strong regulations and enforcement to control such information disorder.

The most critical intervention is to be mindful of the fact that not all posts in social media and news are real, and need to be interpreted carefully.

From this paper, the idea of “information disorder syndrome” quickly jumped into the lexicon of both the censorship-industrial complex and the mental health industry. It is important to note that the terms syndrome, disease, and mental disorders are often used interchangeably. In this case, it has been determined by organizations such as First Draft and the Aspen Institute that the way to cure this syndrome is to stop the flow of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation online.

Is it just a matter of time before the American Psychiatric Association puts this new “syndrome” into the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)?

Is this a possibility?

The American Psychological Association is at least considering how to fit “information disorder” or even “information disorder syndrome” into their modalities. The APA has developed a consensus statement report on fighting health misinformation, which we taxpayers paid for. The CDC paid the APA $2 million for this project.

Next up will be the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) developing a funding program to research how to cure or manage this new mental health disorder; considered a new syndrome because of the pernicious tendrils of the internet.

As information disorder syndrome is not a formally recognized mental health condition yet, so far, specific NIMH funding has been absent. However, suppose information disorder syndrome continues to evolve by the medical establishment into a mental health condition. In that case, it is conceivable that NIMH could support studies in the future, particularly for the “sufferers from grade 2 and 3 levels who need psycho-social counseling and sometimes require strong regulations and enforcement to control such information disorder.”

This is yet another example of how the government can and has previously exerted control over individuals. What happens when the APA stigmatizes people who have contrarian views or lifestyles or posts mis, dis or mal-information repeatedly online? The APA has a long history of discriminating and labeling categories of people who differ from the norm, such as when being gay became a mental health disorder in the 1950s.

This lasted for decades, and the APA endorsed many medical treatments such as surgical interventions, including castrations, vasectomies, hysterectomies, and lobotomies, drug therapies (including aversion therapy, which included inducing nausea, vomiting, or paralysis when exposed to same-sex erotic images or thoughts) and even chemical castration, sexual depressants and stimulants, LSD, estrogen and testosterone and also electroconvulsive therapy—which involved administering electric shocks to patients.

Taking this back to the topic at hand, making information disorder a syndrome affecting the individual allows the state through the medical and insurance industries to step in and force the individual to conform to societal norms. As shown in the example above, this is within the realm of possibilities.

Is this a future that is going to happen? Who knows, but it could. And we have to be prepared for this future manifesting in various planning stages. This is why terms such as “information disorder” and “information disorder syndrome” are being propagated throughout new media and must be rejected at all levels.

”Free speech is the most pragmatic tool we have for ascertaining truth. Only by examining all sides of an issue can the truth be chiseled out like a statue out of marble. But the underlying reality is that there can be many truths; we each have our own experiences, values, mores, and life. That is the beauty and wonder of being an individual. There can be no free speech without free and open access to ideas, knowledge, truths, and untruths. Without free speech, we are little more than slaves.

We must defend all speech—whether untrue, hateful, or intolerable, as that is the only way to protect our rights and abilities to understand the world. As soon as free speech is restricted, that restriction will be used to sway public opinion. As soon as one person can be defined as a heretic for uttering words, then soon everyone opposing the “officially approved” side of an issue will be labeled as a heretic. The next logical step will be for the state to define acts of heresy as criminal offenses. As soon as governments and those in power can sway public opinion by restricting free speech, democracy and even our republic of United States will be lost.”

(From “PsyWar: Enforcing the New World Order”)

Republished from the author’s Substack