Liberals face backlash over X post that promotes free speech

While a post to X from Canada’s foreign policy account, run by Global Affairs Canada, warned Canadians to #ThinkBeforeYouShare, it was the agency itself that got community noted.

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While a post to X from Canada’s foreign policy account, run by Global Affairs Canada, warned Canadians to #ThinkBeforeYouShare, it was the agency itself that got community noted.

“The Canadian government is currently in the process of drafting Bill C-9, which would criminalize forms of protected speech and protest,” reads the community note.

The post and accompanying video warned Canadians that “foreign regimes” were mass-reporting posts to take them down, “coordinate harassment, and file baseless legal threats until critics silence themselves.”

The federal government agency said that “when dissent goes quiet, the truth goes with it.”

However, the community note led to various Conservative MPs, groups, and individuals reacting negatively to the post and potential hypocrisy from the federal government.

While many Canadians highlighted Bill C-9, similar to the post, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took it a step further.

“This Liberal government is targeting voices that they disagree with. C-11 grants widespread censorship powers. C-18 blocks news from social media. C-9 seeks to charge Canadians for quoting politically incorrect scriptures,” he said.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner noted that Immigration Canada’s Deputy Minister Harpreet S. Kochhar tried to stop MPs from posting videos of committee hearings.

“Your govt created a news ban on various social media platforms and has mused about putting content controls on platforms like X,” said Rempel Garner. “I think you should probably sit this one out.”

Conservative MP Rachael Thomas similarly highlighted the three bills attacking free speech in Canada.

“Never mind foreign regimes, censorship is alive and well in Canada,” she said.

While Canadian politicians were critical of the Liberals, so too were non-politicians.

For example, the CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights, Rod Giltaca, replied to the post, writing, “Isn’t this exactly what you people have been doing? Confusing…”

While the Liberals didn’t reply to him as of the time of this article’s publication, another user did.

“It’s what communists do. Accuse others of what you’re guilty of,” replied the user.

Another user similarly cited documents from the Privy Council Office in relation to the Public Order Emergency Commission, where they allegedly admitted to censoring social media accounts related to the Freedom Convoy.

“But yeah, tell us more about how you’re mad about foreign regimes doing EXACTLY what the Liberal government does,” wrote the user.

Freedom Convoy co-organizer Tamara Lich provided such an example.

“After walking down the street in Ottawa doing a FB Live and showing the happiness, gratitude and love on the streets in early Feb ‘22, I arrived back to the Arc and discovered that my FB account had been completely removed. I was never able to recover it. A few days later I found the time to hop onto my laptop to create a new account. The computer was the only way I could access it due to facial recognition on my iPhone,” she said.

Bill C-9 has faced extensive opposition in recent months.

Last week, Canada’s Catholic Bishops wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney, urging him to reconsider amendments to Bill C-9 that would undermine freedom of religion and expression.

Civil Liberties groups have also raised concerns previously, such as the potential to give judges and police the power to jail Canadians for “feelings of hate” instead of actual crimes.

Previous proposed changes in the legislation would also define “hatred” in the Criminal Code. Critics argued that legislating the definition would further erode freedom of speech and assembly.