(Ottawa) “Online hate doesn’t stay online. She takes to the streets. This is the belief of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, who unfortunately has been proven right by the threatening incidents of which politicians have been victims in Quebec and in Canada — as in his native country, Argentina.
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It is also a phenomenon that he will seek to curb by tabling his long-awaited online hate bill. The legislative measure will be presented “as soon as possible,” said Minister Rodriguez, joined in Vancouver, where he continued his series of consultations on this subject on Friday.
Last week he was in Argentina. And he is devastated by what happened Thursday night in Buenos Aires, where Vice President Cristina Kirchner was the victim of an assassination attempt. “It’s appalling. It’s a miracle that the weapon jammed, ”he drops in a relieved tone.
Relieved, but worried.
Worried that a politician in Quebec or Canada is the victim of the same thing.
There is a rise in violence all over the place towards politicians. What circulates on social networks often has an impact. Often people who want to cause harm or act violently learn how to do it or get inspiration from others online. Yes, this is all worrying.
Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage
Minister Rodriguez must arrive with part of the remedy, which many have been asking for for ages. Last June, a group of specialists on online security gave him a report to guide him in drafting the bill.
Without being able, therefore, to go into the details of an unwritten legislative measure, he says he wants to act upstream.
“The spirit is to empower the platforms from the start, that is to say, to create a safer environment online […] and create a climate where they have this obligation, even before judging the content, to have a monitoring mechanism — all this, taking into account the importance of freedom of expression, which is fundamental,” he explains. -he.
For or against the status quo?
Reluctant to the concept of government intervention to bring “Big Tech” to heel, Conservative Party troops in Ottawa quickly waved red flags when Steven Guilbeault, formerly at the helm of the Department of Canadian Heritage, began to work on a bill to quell them.
The bill, whose objective is to ban hateful and violent content online, but also child pornography, was ultimately never tabled.
The one concocted by Pablo Rodriguez has a more preventive than “punitive” approach, in his words.
And already, the veteran politician is setting the table in anticipation of his filing.
Those who don’t want it will have to justify the status quo, tell us that it’s okay what’s happening now, that it’s okay for children to take their own lives because of what they’ve been through line. I want to hear them justify that the status quo is viable acceptable to society.
Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage
In Vancouver, where the minister was speaking, there will be a cabinet retreat next week in anticipation of the return to parliament on September 19.
On the agenda will be, among other things, the issue of the security of federal ministers, which Justin Trudeau has discussed in recent days in the wake of the act of intimidation of which Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was the victim during his visit to Alberta.
Several Liberals have underlined the fact that the favorite of the Conservative leadership race, Pierre Poilievre, had contented himself with denouncing the aggression with lip service. He did so in an interview with a local BC radio station, but not on social media.