Russia blocked its independent media a few months ago. Is this where Canada is going with its Bill C-11 ? It's not late to oppose it, if you want...
More parallels and differences between my experiences in USSR and Canada. Plus some more good news.
In my submission to Public Order Emergency Commission, I’ve mentioned how the coverage of peaceful protests in official channels in Canada reminded me of propaganda that I lived through in my childhood years in USSR. I noted at the same time however that there’s a huge difference between Canada and USSR (and Russia now), in the sense that here in Canada we still have multiple democratic tools to express our concerns and influence the decision making, including: court appeals (such as the latest one by Canadian Civil Liberties Association against Nova Scotia which was allowed), democratic elections (such as the one in Alberta), signing petitions, peaceful protests etc.
Here’s another parallel between what I observe in Canada and back in USSR and Russia now, and what we can do to continue protecting our democracy and freedoms.
You may remember (as this was widely reported on all our North American channels), how several months ago Russia introduced the “censorship” and anti-fake” Bill that forced many independent media channels to close or move out of the country (one of which was ‘Echo of Moscow” which I and many of my friends in Russia watched). Since then the only way for my friends in Russia to keep watching these independent channels was via VPN…
Now Canada seems to moving towards a rather similar direction by introducing Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act, which if approved may lead to the same outcome - that the only way for Canadians to keep watching independent channels would be via VPN…
Despite much of concern raised about it (including by Privacy Commissioner, The National Post, and even Google itself), Bill C-11 has been just passed last week in the House of Commons. Now it moves on to debate in the Senate.
So … If this is something of concern to you too, it’s not late oppose it (yet). Here’s how:
Way 1: sign petition here (oneclickpolitics)
Way 2: write directly to senators using their emails provided here
Way 3: automated form here (action.openmedia.org)
Way 4: directly from here (https://www.strongandproud.ca/c11)
In meanwhile, You can also start learning how to use VPN (plus some additional background) from here
The Bill itself is here:
https://www.parl.ca/Content/Bills/441/Government/C-11/C-11_3/C-11_3.PDF
Decide for yourself whether it does pose the risk for Canadians (of not being able to view independent news media in Canada without VPN) or not.
