Call it a free speech rumble in the Big Smoke.
Rumble, the video platform dedicated to protecting freedom of expression online, brought some of its top personalities to Toronto for an event aimed at combatting Bill C-63, the federal Liberal government’s so-called Online Harms Act.
The show, Rumble’s first ever live event, featured Donald Trump Jr., who hosts the “Triggered” podcast on Rumble, along with award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald and Canadian lawyer and streamer David Freiheit, better known as Viva Frei.
The guest speakers also included Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski, and former Fox personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is now engaged to Trump Jr.
There was a common thread among the panellists. As David Menzies of Rebel News said, “Bill C-63 is the most censorious bill ever to be introduced in the Western world.”
The panellists criticized C-63 for its retroactive ability, the poor definition of hate speech, and its ability to punish individuals for future speech.
As long as an individual can remove something online, they can be held accountable for it, even if it was 15 years ago, despite not being illegal at the time the “hatred” was posted.
Freiheit pointed out that much of what the bill purports to do is already illegal.
“Bill C-63 itself doesn’t do anything, as far as I can tell, that existing law does not already deal with. The idiocy of slapping massive penalties on so-called ‘hate speech’ is absurd,” Freiheit told True North. “These types of bills exacerbate the very problems they purport to resolve. This is not going to make people hate people less; it is actually going to make people hate people more and bury or use darker methods to communicate that hate.”
During his livestream segment, Freiheit mentioned that those who hate him should have their speech exposed so that he can know his opponents and potentially grow from their criticism.
“I want to know who hates me, and I want to know why they hate me; there might be a good reason,” he said on stage.
He thinks having some people be protected classes that can’t be criticized while others are free game for hate is only going to create divisions in society.
“Every human should be a protected class period. The idea you’ll ban hate speech for protected classes, but not for others, might be sort of one of the reasons why we’re seeing churches burning in Canada at a very high rate. Nobody calls that a hate crime,” he said. “(The bill) will create the division that it purports to try to turn to end.”
Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich was in attendance and told True North in an interview that the current fight against this censorship bill is just an extension of the battle for freedom she helped organize, which led to the Freedom Convoy in February 2022 in Ottawa.
“What’s happening in Canada, especially if Bill C-63 goes through, I think we need to be concerned about all of it,” Lich said. “It is an assault on free speech. If Bill C-63 were already implemented, I would be in the gulags right now. I would be gone.”
She said everyone who cares about their country, future, kids and grandkids needs to be aware of what the Liberal government is trying to do with this bill.
“(The government) is why we did what we did (in 2022). It was to stop government overreach, and it’s still happening today. So I hope people pay attention, follow this (bill), contact their MPs on every level and express their concern,” Lich said.
Other issues with the bill highlighted by the speakers were that hate speech is ill-defined and could be used in various ways depending on who holds the reins of government.
A section of the bill could allow people to be under house arrest and other limitations if it is reasonable to believe that they will commit a speech crime in the future.
Ezra Levant, the founder of Rebel News, warned that the bill could be used against Rebel and other independent media that differ from the cultural orthodoxy.