Canada could arrest people before crime committed

Legislation being proposed by the Canadian government is potentially ‘fascist’, psychologist and author Jordan Peterson is warning.

Writing in the UK’s Telegraph online, he declares: ‘New legislation proposed by the government mandates the generation of a soon-to-be giant bureaucracy to monitor and punish in an extra-judicial manner so-called “crimes of hate”, soon [to be] defined as any speech or act that the bureaucrats and corporations in charge of the definition themselves object to.

‘The same legislation now even defines what might be well regarded as pre-crime; if a court agent now judges that a Canadian citizen might perpetrate a so-called hate crime in the future, that person can be fitted with an electronic surveillance device, restricted in his or her ability to move or communicate, all to monitor their compliance with the dictates of the state,’ he says.

A news report on the same website confirmed: ‘One of the suggested measures would give judges the ability to put people under house arrest who they worry could commit a hate crime in the future. The person could also be made to wear an electronic tag if the attorney-general requested it.’

Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, criticised the ‘draconian penalties’ proposed by the Bill.

However, Richard Moon, a law professor at the University of Windsor, said the proposed amendments would have minimal effect on religious expression since they would only apply to hate speech.

‘It’s not going to shut down general Christian speech,’ he said.

Moon said someone who calls LGBTQ lifestyles ‘sinful’ would not meet the legal threshold for incitement or promotion of hatred – unless they advocate for the extermination of certain groups or mischaracterise them in a way that could lead to ostracisation.

‘We’re talking about really extreme speech,’ Moon said.