Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Poilievre is predictable but hardly consistent

Pierre Poilievre - yes, I know, AGAIN, but there is just so much wrong with this guy - is vehemently opposed to the Liberals' forthcoming Online Harms bill C-63, which is designed to combat hate speech, terrorist content and some violent material on the internet.

Poilievre says it is all part of "Justin Trudeau's woke authoritarian agenda" (his latest favourite dog-whistle word-salad phrase), calling the legislation an "attack on freedom of expression", along with some other guff about Trudeau claiming that "anyone who criticized him during the pandemic was engaging in hate speech" (this presumably referring to the truckers' convoy). He dribbled on: "What does Justin Trudeau mean when he says the words 'hate speech'? He means the speech he hates. You can assume he will ban all of that."

Well, of course, anything that Trudeau is in favour of, Poilievre is against. Period. I get that. That is how Poilievre has defined himself, and for some reason a lot of people believe and support him, however misleading, disingenuous or downright false many of his claims are (cf. the guff above). Hell, he opposed the bill even before he saw what was in it, on principle.

On the other hand, Poilievre is in favour of the Senator-proposed Bill S-203, which calls for a totally unworkable and unenforceable mandatory age-verification for all porn websites, making porn sites criminally liable for failing to check users' ages. 

Er, isn't that even more of an infringement on freedom of expression? Does he really think that people should give their ID information to the like of PornHub, OnlyFans and XHamster? Even the Conservative Party he supposedly leads does not agree. Oops. 

But, if Trudeau is against it, then he's for it, no questions asked. Poilievre is nothing if not predictable.

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