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In the dystopian world of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, new legislation introduced to combat online hate will give authorities house arrest power if a complainant believes a virtual hate crime is about to be committed.
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Quite apart from the constitutional challenges this represents, there are other serious concerns. Who’s defining what hate is? Are we sending mind-readers on house-to-house searches looking for people who might break the law?
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This is reminiscent of the 2002 movie Minority Report, where police use psychic technology to arrest and convict murderers before they commit their crimes.
Under the new legislation, a person could be forced to wear an electronic tag if requested to do so by the attorney general, or stay home if ordered to do so by a judge.
Justice Minister Arif Virani defended the Online Harms Act. He compared the restrictions to a peace bond and said it would be “calibrated carefully” and meet a high threshold to apply.
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“If there’s a genuine fear of an escalation, then such an individual or group could come forward and seek a peace bond against them from doing certain things,” Virani said.
Except you don’t get a peace bond just by thinking someone will do you harm. This law is very subjective. What if someone irrationally fears another person is going to cause them harm?
What guarantee do we have that the law will be applied evenly? Will some groups use it to silence their foes?
In recent months we have seen real — not virtual — hatred on our streets week after week. Thousands of protesters take to the streets regularly with hateful messages aimed at the Jewish community. They’ve targeted Jewish schools, Jewish hospitals, Jewish restaurants, Jewish shops and statues of renowned Jewish Canadians. There are already laws in place that police could use to stop threatening behaviour, but they’re rarely applied.
Now, though, the government proposes that someone can claim to read the mind of another person and that they’re about to cause them online harm. And that would be sufficient to have a person confined to his or her home.
This law should be tossed out on constitutional grounds. If not, we’ll need clairvoyants, not police, to enforce it.
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