It’s bad in so many ways… and it has to go — as much as we’ve all been having fun laughing at Vic Toews for naievely suggesting that if we (Canadians) stood in the way of Bill C-30 then we were clearly supporting child pornographers1.
My fave piece about this is, surprisingly, from the Globe and Mail in which the author imagines what Harper has to go through to regularly reign in his caucus of loonies, “If Only Tory Caucus Walls Could Talk…”
If you want to find out more about why, in particular, Bill C-30 (and its many predecessors and likely successors) here’s some particularly nasty bits:
- The Hidden Gag Order in Bill C-30 from Canadian Privacy Law Blog
- That it doesn’t do anything to address the problem from Geek Life
- The aggregate information would be a Holy Grail for Hackers from the National Post
Or you could read all the gory details about Bill C-30 from Michael Geist who tends toward the academic but covers it from every angle.
But, as usual Rick Mercer really nails it, concisely and with humour:
If you want to do something, please write to your MP, or at the very least, sign this petition.
1Well, actually, he directed his comments at another MP,
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the opportunity to tell him that every province unanimously supported moving forward with the legislation, legislation that was introduced first under the Liberal government, by his party. …
He [Mr. Scarpaleggia] can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”
but I’m going to play the “an injury to one is an injury to all” card on this one and presume that Mr Toews was speaking directly while thinking broadly.
I had a thought while reading your footnote, the quotation of Toews’s remark in the Commons: when all the powerful put aside their rivalries and competition to support a common interest, it can only be to do something truly good or completely evil. So far the examples all seem to be of the latter. There can be no more concise or effective argument against this legislation than to be told it is apparently only controversial to the common people. In so doing Toews is either a liar or made the mistake of point out who is being served by C-30. Hint: it isn’t the children or their parents.