CanadaPolitics

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56300933

cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/canada/p/373772/opinion-canadas-age-verification-bill-for-porn-is-a-slippery-slope-to-a-restrictive-interne

Canada’s proposed Bill S-209, which addresses online age verification, is currently making its way through the Senate, and its passage would be yet another mistake in tech policy.

The bill is intended to restrict young peoples’ access to online pornography and to hold providers to account for making it available to anyone under 18. It may be well-intentioned, but the manner of its proposed enforcement – mandating age verification or what is being called “age-estimation technologies” – is troubling.

Globally, age-verification tools are a popular business, and many companies are in favour of S-209, particularly because it requires that websites and organizations rely on third parties for these tools. However, they bring up long-standing concerns over privacy, especially when you consider potential leaks or hacks of this information, which in some cases include biometrics that can identify us by our faces or fingerprints. [...]

https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/practical-philosophies-part-three?r=4ot1q2&showWelcomeOnShare=true

How much does one's own self-definition substitute for reason in our society? And how much of that self-definition is imposed upon us by our community?

https://armsembargonow.ca/nomoreloopholes/

Remigration? Lead the way fascist pigs.

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/116326

From Common Dreams via this RSS feed

Rob's coming to TO on Dec 1st.

Canadian politicians have increasingly taken to social media to campaign as well as communicate with constituents, sharing updates on policies, local events, emergencies or government initiatives.

But stories have emerged of constituents being blocked by their representatives. Should Canadian politicians be free to block their own constituents?

Some politicians claim the blocking is to combat increased online harassment, while constituents have claimed that simply being critical of policies or initiatives is enough to get them blocked.

Some recent cases in Canada include federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault being asked to unblock Ezra Levant on X in 2023, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith blocking constituents on X in 2023 and Montréal Mayor Valérie Plante blocking comments on X and Instagram in 2024. In 2018, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson was sued by three local Ottawa activists after blocking them on X.

Charlie weren't so saint--but he's useful to understand something very new about the way we communicate! https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/practical-philosophies-part-two-charlie?r=4ot1q2&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Harper didn’t disappear after leaving office, he became chair of the International Democracy Union, a global alliance of right-wing parties that includes Netanyahu’s Likud and the U.S. Republican Party. That same network now ties a former Canadian Prime Minister to political movements led by a sitting leader on trial for corruption and a sitting U.S. president convicted on felony counts. Who’s really running the Conservatives, and is there a Liberal equivalent?

The Toronto met uni has a student pro Israel organization that hosted IDF soldiers in a school sanctioned private event. Protestors naturally protested by forcing their way into an event and one person broke a glass door. Here's a video from it all attached to the post.

This was after the Idf soldier already trapped a few students inside with them and after the soldier had enough he grabbed Canadians and dragged them across the floor while their bodies hit against hardwood furniture and threw them through broken glass when those protestors had been entirely peaceful too.

The cops did not charge the IDF soldier Jonathan Karten but found it in them to arrest 5 different protestors after throwing them to the ground in the subway quite awhile later. A completely violent response in defense of a literal war criminal who treated female students like ragdolls and dragged them around before throwing them through broken glass. This is an extremely disturbing scene and seeing this play out while the school supports the soldier is deeply unsettling.

if you want to make any sort of statement toward the school about distaste with the matter global@torontomu.ca seems to be their most clearly documented email address. I have written them an email and you can use my premade email with this mailto link, and you can add anything you'd like or remove anything and sign your name if you'd like. You may need to copy the link itself since lemmy is being a bit weird about it since it has spaces between paragraphs.

mailto:global@torontomu.ca?subject=Disgusting%20Response%20to%20Violent%20IDF%20Soldier&body=I%20am%20a%20concerned%20Canadian%20extremely%20disturbed%20by%20the%20Toronto%20Metropolitan%20University's%20(TMU)%20response%20to%20the%20event%20organized%20in%20support%20of%20the%20Israel%20Defense%20Force%20(IDF).%0A%0AThe%20IDF%20has%20been%20implicated%20in%20so%20many%20war%20crimes%20that%20I%20cannot%20even%20begin%20to%20list%20more%20than%20a%20few%20before%20the%20email%20begins%20to%20drag%20on%2C%20but%20I%20still%20will.%20Systemic%20rape%20of%20prisoners%2C%20use%20of%20internationally%20illegal%20chemical%20weapons%20ON%20CHILDREN%2C%20ethnic%20cleansing%2C%20use%20of%20starvation%20as%20a%20tool%20of%20war%2C%20and%20thats%20just%20to%20name%20a%20few.%20%0A%0AOne%20such%20war%20criminal%2C%20part%20of%20an%20organization%20that%20literally%20killed%20Canadians%20in%20the%20past%2C%20was%20allowed%20to%20go%20on%20a%20tour%20about%20victimizing%20themselves%20and%20spreading%20false%20narratives%20about%20their%20victims%2C%20all%20in%20connection%20to%20a%20group%20sanctioned%20and%20supported%20by%20the%20TMU.%0A%0A%20How%20can%20this%20possibly%20be%20allowed%20to%20occur%2C%20and%20how%20can%20the%20school%20possibly%20support%20the%20war%20criminal%20over%20protestors%20and%20rioters%20who%20felt%20they%20needed%20to%20stand%20up%20against%20this%20injustice%20completely%20allowed%20by%20the%20school.%20The%20school%20forced%20protestors%20hands%20by%20refusing%20to%20stand%20for%20its%20obligations%20to%20students%20and%20the%20international%20community%2C%20and%20whilst%20protestors%20damaged%20property%2C%20an%20active%20war%20criminal%20dragged%20students%20that%20the%20criminal%20locked%20in%20the%20room%20by%20their%20arms%20as%20their%20bodies%20hit%20hardwood%20furniture%20before%20they%20were%20thrown%20to%20the%20ground%20through%20broken%20glass.%0A%0A%20This%20is%20clear%20assault%20and%20instead%20of%20standing%20with%20the%20victims%20the%20school%20chooses%20to%20stand%20with%20war%20criminals%3F%20Is%20this%20how%20the%20school%20would%20have%20responded%20to%20german%20nazis%20creating%20a%20meeting%20off%20campus%20with%20nazi%20war%20criminals%3F%20such%20a%20thing%20happened%20in%20the%20government%20recently%20and%20it%20faced%20similar%20backlash%20to%20here.%20But%20I%20am%20not%20so%20sure%20the%20university%20shares%20the%20same%20values%20as%20the%20Canadian%20people%2C%20maybe%20they%20align%20more%20with%20the%20terrorists%20they%20allow%20to%20speak%2C%20that%20is%20all%20anyone%20could%20assume%20by%20the%20lax%20response%20of%20the%20admin%20at%20least.%0A%0APlease%20course-correct%20on%20this%20disturbing%20response%20and%20show%20support%20and%20understanding%20for%20the%20students%20let%20down%20by%20this%20disgusting%20support%20of%20war%20criminals%2C%20allowing%20them%20to%20use%20school%20systems%20as%20a%20means%20of%20advertisement%20and%20promotion.

We are so used to professionals spinning nonsense that we rarely think about how evil this is---.

https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/mencius-the-dao-and-spin?r=4ot1q2&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Chow was criticized by pro-Israel Jewish groups, who said her comments were antisemitic and could encourage violent reprisals against the Jewish community.

This sounds bad for the public in the long term.

Introduction:

During the August long weekend, a Canadian politician sat in a Smitty’s diner, recording a selfie video. He talked about a waitress he met who worked at least sixty hours a week but still finds that her money “vanishes into thin air.” This, he noted, is “what I see everywhere. People telling me that they’re working harder and harder, and their money just evaporates.”

It sounds like something the leader of the New Democratic Party might say. The story is about ordinary Canadians stretched thin. It’s a story of the working class. But no, the kitchen-table parable was delivered by Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party leader. Canada, Poilievre said in the video, should be a country “where hard work pays off.”

Just over a month later, former journalist and left-wing activist Avi Lewis released his own YouTube video, a hype trailer for his bid to lead the federal NDP—a race to replace former leader Jagmeet Singh that will culminate in a vote at the party’s conference in March. (Lewis’s grandfather, David Lewis, was one of the founders of the party.) Canadians, he said, are living “an everyday emergency of just trying to get by in an impossible economy,” and he lamented that “working hard doesn’t earn you a living.”

You see the problem for the NDP. At a time when the rent is devouring paycheques, wealth is pooling at the top, and economic nationalism is resurgent, right wingers are beginning to sound like Canada’s leading social democratic party. A closer listen reveals important differences in the solutions they propose—more on that later—but the topline narrative is the same.

You’d be forgiven for assuming this is strictly about branding. It’s not. What the NDP is up against is much more structural, more deeply cultural. The real challenge isn’t just the language it uses; it’s semantics. The shared understanding of what words mean has shifted dramatically under the party’s feet. This fundamental change, driven by a new kind of political and ideological identity, has left the NDP struggling not just to communicate but to understand its mission as a social democratic party.

Now, with just a handful of seats left in the House of Commons and a leadership race underway, the NDP finds itself at a critical juncture. It can reclaim its mission by giving new meaning to its message, or it can keep misunderstanding the cultural landscape and fade into nothingness. Evolve—or die.

The US tariff on Canada and the tension between the two allies are unprecedented. "Well, maybe the friendship has run its course and the 'honeymoon is over." Read my opinion from a ** Canadian perspective. ** https://flippen.ca/could-the-tensions-between-canada-and-the-us-escalate-over-trade/