In a Twitter Spaces program on Monday night with Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is campaigning to be the Democrat Party’s nominee for president in 2024, the talk got around to government control and free speech..Musk did not hesitate to single out Canada as a country without free speech..“It’s easy for people to take for granted the system we have here in the United states, but it really doesn't exist anywhere else, you know, not even in Canada,” said Musk..“I’m half Canadian, you don't have the free speech rights in Canada you have in the United States and perhaps a new government in Canada at some point will enact those rights because it's really important.”.“Yeah, I think if we if we don't protect free speech at all times, we don't have a functioning democracy (and) if we don't have a functioning democracy nothing else matters.”.Commenters on Twitter agreed with Musk, with one writing, “Canadians are losing their freedom every day. I agree that we need a new government. One that will choose to protect our fundamental rights and freedoms.”.Another wrote, “All rights can be taken away, but Musk is correct. Trudeau must go” and yet another, “Tyranny is winning unfortunately in Canada. Trudeau is not being held accountable for his actions. From VaX discrimination, out of control spending, bill c-11 … democracy should not be limited to a vote every 4 years…”.Recently, Newsweek magazine ran an opinion piece titled Trudeau Is Crushing Free Speech in Canada. Let It Be a Warning to the US and written by Jamil Jivani, a Canadian..In it, Jivani wrote, “Canadians made the mistake of taking free speech for granted. Now, President Biden's friend, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is close to having new laws in place that would expand government regulation of online speech in Canada.”.Jivani pointed to Bill C-11, or the Online Streaming Act.. “The Trudeau administration claims the act will ensure online algorithms promote Canadian content on social media and streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify,” he wrote..“Yet when a multi-partisan group of Canadian Senators proposed an amendment to the legislation to protect what individual citizens say on social media from government oversight and regulation, the Trudeau administration rejected the amendment.”.“The bill also makes clear that the purpose of these new government powers is to "support countering disinformation.”."Taking these aspects of the legislation together, the Trudeau administration is asking the Canadian public to trust them with an unprecedented amount of control over the internet. As currently written, the law would grant federal government bureaucrats the power to deem a student's YouTube channel insufficiently diverse, or to find a rapper's music guilty of spreading ‘disinformation.’”.“Every day, Canadians could have their social media and streaming accounts shutdown or shadow banned for creating content that's rejected by a government-controlled algorithm.”.Jivani concluded by writing, “Americans were right to push back on Joe Biden's "disinformation governance board" and force him to back down. So far, Canadians haven't been so lucky. If you can learn anything from what's happening north of the border, it's this: Free speech is precious. Never let it go unattended."
