EXPLAINING FREE SPEECH TO TRUDEAU

   Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that while he “believes in free speech,” online discourse is “destabilizing our democracy” – and he argued that Freedom Convoy participants and Fox News are leading culprits. Trudeau made the remarks during a closed-door interview conducted in September by the Public Order Commission (POEC).
   The PM’s remarks were only recently made available via a newly posted summary of the interview conducted behind closed doors by staff members of POEC – the commission tasked with investigating Trudeau’s controversial invocation of the Emergencies Act.
   “The government believes in free speech,” the summary of Trudeau’s remarks reads. “But with social media, there is a new way to foment anger and hate that is different from anything we have seen before, difficult to counter, and it is destabilizing our democracy. He raised the examples of spoof websites that look real.”

   Trudeau told POEC staff that the Freedom Convoy reflected a global rise of misinformation and disinformation and insinuated that many of those who disagreed with his government’s Covid-19 policies were built on falsehoods and wrong facts.