The Line: ' Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez continued to insist that his bill doesn’t grant the CRTC authority over social media posts when it very clearly does. And he continued to get away with the same tactics for which his less fortunate colleague Marco Mendicinco has been denounced recently: misrepresenting reality.
'But then Liberal MP Tim Louis of Kitchener took this government’s truth-torquing communications strategy to a breathtaking level of self-righteous fantasy — one that dripped with contempt for all but he and his clan.
'He calmly rose in the House of Commons and quietly accused C-11’s critics of deliberately spreading “misinformation” — a chilling threat given the government’s plans to deal with he same in “Online Harms’ legislation later this year.
'Louis did not even try to say, as did Mendicino’s deputy minister, that there was a misunderstanding of some kind. He did not attempt to make it clear that there are people who — as reasonable people often will — disagree. He did not dismiss the bill’s critics as being overwrought, incorrect and yet honourable. He stood up in the House of Commons and, barefaced, declared that views, lived experiences and legal analyses — including the testimony of CRTC Chair Ian Scott — are “simply untrue.” In other words, it’s all #fakenews.
'And we are all liars....'