Senator Kristopher Wells and other senators are 'interested' in reviving the controversial Online Harms Act legislation that was abandoned after the election call.
(LifeSiteNews) -- A recent Trudeau-appointed Canadian senator said that he and other “interested senators” want the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney to revive a controversial Trudeau-era internet censorship bill that lapsed.
Kristopher Wells, appointed by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year as a senator from Alberta, made the comments about reviving an internet censorship bill recently in the Senate.
“In the last Parliament, the government proposed important changes to the Criminal Code of Canada designed to strengthen penalties for hate crime offences,” he said of Bill C-63 that lapsed earlier this year after the federal election was called.
Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act, was put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online.
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 in essence 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.
Wells said that “Bill C-63 did not come to a vote in the other place and in the dying days of the last Parliament the government signaled it would be prioritizing other aspects of the bill.”
“I believe Canada must get tougher on hate and send a clear and unequivocal message that hate and extremism will never be tolerated in this country no matter who it targets,” he said.
Carney, as reported by LifeSiteNews, vowed to continue in Trudeau’s footsteps, promising even more legislation to crack down on lawful internet content.
Before the April 28 election call, the Liberals were pushing Bill C-63.
Wells asked if the current Carney government remains “committed to tabling legislation that will amend the Criminal Code as proposed in the previous Bill C-63 and will it commit to working with interested senators and community stakeholders to make the changes needed to ensure this important legislation is passed?”
Seasoned Senator Marc Gold replied that he is not in “a position to speculate” on whether a new bill would be brought forward.
Before Bill C-63, a similar law, Bill C-36, lapsed in 2021 due to that year’s general election.
As noted by LifeSiteNews, Wells has in the past advocated for closing Christian schools that refuse to violate their religious principles by accepting so-called Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs and spearheaded so-called “conversion therapy bans.”
Other internet censorship bills that have become law have yet to be fully implemented.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported that former Minister of Environment Steven Guilbeault, known for his radical climate views, will be the person in charge of implementing Bill C-11, a controversial bill passed in 2023 that aims to censor legal internet content in Canada.
