John Carpay, B.A., LL.B. is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which recently released Death by a thousand clicks – The rise of internet censorship and control in Canada.As we enter 2026, Canada’s federal government is quietly but surely transforming Canada’s centuries-old traditions of free speech and privacy rights into something revocable at the pleasure of the CRTC, politicians and bureaucrats.As explained in Death by a thousand clicks, there are six laws which together will make Canada more like the United Kingdom, where over 30 citizens are arrested each day over their social media commentary. Two of the six have already been passed into law, three are now before Parliament, and one looms on the horizon,The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) became law in 2023 and put all streaming platforms and user-generated content under the authority of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The CRTC’s control over “broadcasting” now includes content produced by Canadian individuals, businesses, charities and citizens’ groups..MARTYN: No apologies. Canada was built, not stolen.The Online News Act (Bill C-18) also became law in 2023, and obliges platforms to pay news publishers for content, supposedly to address the imbalance between dominant “digital news intermediaries” (e.g., Google and Meta) and Canadian news publishers like CBC, CTV, Global, etc. Meta responded to this new law by blocking all Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram, slashing traffic to domestic media and increasing the latter’s dependence on government subsidies.The Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) died with the April 2025 election, but looms on the horizon as the federal government contemplates re-introducing similar legislation. The Online Harms Act was introduced on the pretext of protecting children, as though the Criminal Code does not already prohibit threats, intimidation, extortion, revenge porn, child pornography and other harmful conduct. The Online Harms Act would create a new federal bureaucracy under the Digital Safety Commission, empowered to enforce internet censorship regulations crafted by the federal cabinet without any accountability to Parliament. This new Digital Safety Commission would have swept power over online platforms, forcing them to remove or block a broad range of content on threat of massive fines and penalties.The Strong Borders Act (Bill C-2) should be called the Strong Surveillance Act. Still before Parliament today, it authorizes warrantless demands for subscriber data and metadata from online providers, granting a host of non-police government officials unprecedented powers to monitor Canadians’ digital activity, without judicial oversight. .Any online service provider – including social media and cloud platforms, email domain hosts and even smaller service providers – would be compelled to disclose subscriber information and metadata.The Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act (Bill C-8) would empower the federal cabinet to kick Canadians off the internet, i.e., “direct a telecommunications service provider to remove all products provided by a specified person from its telecommunications networks or telecommunications facilities, or any part of those networks or facilities.”The government claims that it wants to “modernize” Canada’s cybersecurity framework and protect it against threats of “interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation.” Sadly, it remains unclear whether “disinformation” (as defined by government) would constitute “interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation.”The Combatting Hate Act (Bill C-9) would remove the existing requirement that hate speech prosecutions must first be approved by the Attorney General. With discretion left entirely in the hands of local police and prosecutors, this would see far more Canadians getting prosecuted over their social media posts and off-line speech, making Canada more like the United Kingdom..FLANAGAN: If you've got nothing to hide, why the secrecy?.The Combatting Hate Act also removes needed protection from religious leaders (and others) who wish to proclaim what their sacred scriptures teach about human sexuality. Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, has stated publicly that he views certain Bible and Koran passages as hateful.Laziness and naivete are no excuse for Canadians to condone this gradual government take-over of our previously free and open internet. The Online Streaming Act and Online News Act should be repealed immediately. MPs of all parties should reject the Strong Borders Act, the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act, and the Combatting Hate Act (which are now before Parliament) and oppose the re-introduction of the Online Harms Act. Apathy means the death of freedom.John Carpay, B.A., LL.B. is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which recently released Death by a thousand clicks – The rise of internet censorship and control in Canada.
