IT’S ABOUT POLITICS, POLICY, GOVERNANCE – AND DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR REAL 32 / Canadian Government Executive // SPRING 2024 THE LAST WORD The Liberal government’s proposed Online Harms Act targets harmful online content by proposing sweeping changes to both policy and governance. However, the politics of the issue – and the tendency of political parties and their leaders to use emotionally-charged issues as political wedge pieces – risks drowning out the chance for an inclusive, evidence-driven, earnest conversation about the harm created by online hate. Both Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre have hastened to personalized rhetoric to jab at one another in connection with this bill. Each is trying to undermine the other’s arguments through character-based attacks. Poilievre decided he was against the bill even before it was introduced in the House of Commons. He stated his objections to “Justin Trudeau’s woke authoritarian agenda” and suggested it is “ironic” that Trudeau, who “spent the first half of his adult life as a practicing racist, who dressed up in hideous racist costumes so many times he says he can’t remember them all, should then be the arbiter of what constitutes hate. What he should actually do is look into his own heart and ask himself why he was such a hateful racist.” Trudeau claims THE REGULATION OF ONLINE HARM: BY LORI TURNBULL The law would make social media platforms responsible for reporting instances of child sex abuse images and would generally beef up the duties of such platforms to protect users from harmful content.
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