Liberal MPs are defending Bill C-11 by calling sexual assault ‘Conservative filibuster’. One MP blocked us for calling it out.
Yesterday, we reported on the sickening story that the Canadian government was putting forth a motion to put a study on sexual assault within Hockey Canada on the back burner so they could push Bill C-11 through faster. The story was quite shocking because you have an issue that is important to tackle, like sexual assault, being delayed because the Canadian government is more interested in censoring social media.
In the context of current political affairs, this is actually quite scandalous. Already, as you know, you have the story of Hockey Canada and sexual assault bubbling up in the background. More at the forefront, you have the current multi-year long disaster about sexual assault and harassment in the military as well. The Canadian government has burned through multiple ministers responsible for that portfolio including both Canadian and Liberal ministers. This is simply because they were seemingly unable to handle the situation that well. This over top of how heads of military constantly being swapped out because they keep being accused of sexual harassment among other things. It’s a situation that is so bad, it’s basically a farce at this stage.
So, really, when you have a Prime Minister constantly talking about how they treat the issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment very seriously, about the last thing you would want is to be seen as not really taking the situation seriously. Yet, when you have a government tabling motions that would delay an investigation into sexual assault, that threatens to leave people thinking that the government says a lot about being at the forefront of tackling sexual assault and sexual harassment, but at the same time, through their actions, don’t really treat these issues all that seriously.
So, when questions started being raised about why the government is more interested in censoring the Internet, it seems that some MP’s realized that this situation actually isn’t a good look for the Canadian government. That MP in question said that they would look into it, but said that using something as trivial as sexual assault to block the all important Bill C-11 is “unacceptable”. The comments absolutely stunned university law professor, Michael Geist:
Government called out in Question Period for failing to prioritize study on Hockey Canada abuse scandal. @PascaleStOnge_ responds that will investigate but that using the issue to block Bill C-11 is unacceptable. Even hinting an equivalence is stunning.
— Michael Geist (@mgeist) June 9, 2022
Government called out in Question Period for failing to prioritize study on Hockey Canada abuse scandal. @PascaleStOnge_
responds that will investigate but that using the issue to block Bill C-11 is unacceptable. Even hinting an equivalence is stunning.
At this point, you might be thinking that maybe it’s just one person, namely Pascale St-Onge, making these comments and it may be just the result of someone mispeaking in some way. Still, you can’t help but wonder that, at this stage, the Liberal party has a brewing scandal on their hands.
Well, now a second MP has stepped forward to basically say that sexual assault is no big deal. What a surprise that this MP is non other than Chris Bittle. Apparently, Bittle was upset that the trivialization of sexual assault was being called out. Unsurprisingly, someone of his character is actually doubling down on this:
Again, Michael leaves out the facts. Libs, Bloc and NDP offered to use Monday and Wednesday's meetings to hear from hockey Canada. Conservativs still filibustered.
I guess Michael supports the CPC use of sexual assault to filibuster legislation. Disgusting.
— Chris Bittle (@Chris_Bittle) June 9, 2022
Again, Michael leaves out the facts. Libs, Bloc and NDP offered to use Monday and Wednesday’s meetings to hear from hockey Canada. Conservativs still filibustered.
I guess Michael supports the CPC use of sexual assault to filibuster legislation. Disgusting.
Now, the first two sentences, fine, a political disagreement. Everything after that, namely the last sentence in the first paragraph and the second paragraph, is what is problematic here. Basically, the MP is suggesting that investigating sexual assault is little more than ‘Conservative filibuster’. This is in the context of the government using motions to try and delay these investigations to try and pass Internet censorship legislation. Trying to politicize sexual assault like this, in my view, is abhorrent. What’s more is pushing these investigations down the timeline to try and pass something as terrible as Internet censorship is way beyond the pale. It crosses the line for what should be acceptable.
As someone who is familiar with the Met Too movement, the question is, what should someone do in a situation like this? If someone like me says nothing, is that simply passively agreeing with this thinking? Would saying nothing normalize such a behaviour? Would I be that much better by letting these statements stand unchallenged? I think the answer to all of this is “yes”. So, I personally responded with the following:
If you think that it is perfectly acceptable to prioritize censoring the Internet over investigating allegations of sexual assault, then you and your government have become completely morally bankrupt. You should be ashamed of yourself.
— Drew Wilson (@IceCube85) June 9, 2022
If you think that it is perfectly acceptable to prioritize censoring the Internet over investigating allegations of sexual assault, then you and your government have become completely morally bankrupt. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Even now, now that we are no longer in the heat of the moment, I personally find pride in that tweet. I was not going to allow victims of sexual assault be re-victimized like this. I stood up and condemned such comments right in that moment. The right thing was done in my view.
Within hours of standing up for victims of sexual assault, I got greeted with this lovely screen:
That’s right, I got blocked for the crime of standing up for sexual assault victims by a Liberal MP. Really, this is kind of a badge of honour for me.
Of course, this is far from the first time Bittle has said or done things that doesn’t make him look like that great of a person either. Back in March, the same MP was actively attacking Canadian creators for raising concerns about Bill C-11. When Michael Geist responded by answering Bittle’s questions, the MP went on to attack Geist through name calling and insults on top of it all.
While that incident made the MP look quite bad, what happened recently is, in our view, on an order of magnitude worse by comparison. The fact is, you now have evidence to suggest that multiple Liberal MPs are trivializing sexual assault and using it as a political tool to push through something as bad as Internet censorship. It truly is unacceptable and should be called out for what it is.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
