OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – One of Canada’s top pro-democracy groups has sounded the alarm by warning that the Canadian federal government is planning to revive a controversial Trudeau-era internet censorship bill that lapsed.
The Democracy Fund (TDF), in a recent press release, warned about plans by the Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney to bring back a form of Bill C-63. The bill, which lapsed when the election was called earlier this year, aimed to regulate online speech, which could mean “mass censorship” of the internet.
“TDF is concerned that the government will try once more to give itself the power to criminalize and punish online speech and debate,” the group said.
“TDF will oppose that.”
According to the TDF, it is “concerned that the government intends to re-introduce the previously abandoned Online Harms Bill in the same or modified form.”
Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act, was put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online. The bill died earlier this year after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the 2025 federal election.
While protecting children is indeed a duty of the state, the bill included several measures that targeted vaguely defined “hate speech” infractions involving race, gender, and religion, among other categories. The proposal was thus blasted by many legal experts.
The Online Harms Act would have censored legal internet content that the government thought “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group.” It would be up to the Canadian Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints.
The TDF said that Bill C-63 would have made it a criminal offense to publish ill-defined “harmful content.”
“It required social media companies to remove potentially harmful content or face punitive fines. Many defenders of civil liberty, including TDF, worried that the application of this badly defined concept would lead to mass surveillance and censorship,” the group said.
The TDF warned that under Carney, the government is “once again considering new or similar legislation to regulate online speech, with the Minister of Justice claiming he would take another look at the matter.”
Mark Joseph, TDF litigation director, pointed out that Canada already has laws that “the government can, and does, use to address most of the bad conduct that the Bill ostensibly targeted.”
“To the extent that there are gaps in the Criminal Code, amendments should be carefully drafted to fix this,” he said.
“However, the previous Bill C-63 sought to implement a regime of mass censorship.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews last month, a recent Trudeau-appointed Canadian senator said that he and other “interested senators” want Carney to revive a controversial Trudeau-era internet censorship bill that lapsed.
Another recent Carney government Bill C-2, which looks to ban cash donations over $10,000, was blasted by a constitutional freedom group as a “step towards tyranny.”
Carney, as reported by LifeSiteNews, vowed to continue in Trudeau’s footsteps, promising even more legislation to crack down on lawful internet content.
He has also said his government plans to launch a “new economy” in Canada that will involve “deepening” ties to the world.
Under Carney, the Liberals are expected to continue much of what they did under Justin Trudeau, including the party’s zealous push in favor of abortion, euthanasia, radical gender ideology, internet regulation and so-called “climate change” policies. Indeed, Carney, like Trudeau, seems to have extensive ties to both China and the globalist World Economic Forum, connections that were brought up routinely by conservatives in the lead-up to the election.
