Go Ad Free

The federal government is now warning Canadians about foreign regimes silencing critics online.

Dissenting voices disappearing from your feed? It might not be an accident. Some foreign regimes silence critics through takedowns, legal threats and intimidation campaigns.

Learn their tactics and #ThinkBeforeYouShare pic.twitter.com/olYFOc9rIf

— Foreign Policy CAN (@CanadaFP) December 5, 2025

They have the grave tone and the uppity moral outrage and the helpful little paternalistic, government knows best reminder to “think before you share.” That takes some serious nerve.

Because the last time Ottawa was caught leaning on social media companies to suppress speech, it wasn’t in some far-off dictatorship. It was right here in Canada.

And the proof didn’t come from conspiracy theorists. It came out at the official inquiry into the government’s use of a wartime law against its own citizens: the Public Order Emergency Commission. On the record. In black and white.

Documents submitted to that commission showed the federal government, specifically the Privy Council Office, pressuring Facebook, Google, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and Microsoft during the Freedom Convoy. Not to stop violence. Not to stop crimes. But to deal with what they called “problematic content.”

• Political dissent
• Embarrassing video
• Peaceful organizing
• Criticism

After that show theatre of a  commission, a real court found the Emergencies Act — the nuclear option of Canadian law — was ruled unconstitutional in its use.

Trudeau claimed that the Emergencies Act was “proportional, measured, and responsible.”

This is FALSE.

The Federal Court confirms that Conservatives were right all along. The invocation of the Emergencies Act violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. pic.twitter.com/w4aMrjvyZv

— Dane Lloyd (@DaneLloydMP) January 25, 2024

This isn’t a government that might someday abuse speech controls. This is a government that already ran a censorship stress test on its own population and failed in court.

So when the same people now post videos warning about “foreign intimidation tactics” and “critics disappearing from your feed,” Canadians don’t just raise an eyebrow.

They Community-Note them into next week about the government's efforts to censor Canadians one more time with Bill C9, which will censor Christian speech inside churches as hateful — learn more at ProtectReligiousFreedom.ca. 

You don’t get to pretend you’re fighting authoritarianism after quietly phoning tech platforms to scrub domestic dissent. You don’t get to warn about “coordinated harassment” after coordinating censorship. And you definitely don’t get to say, “Think before you share,” when what you really mean is: Think before you embarrass us.

The emergency powers failed. The courts pushed back. So what’s the new plan? Permanent law. No emergency declaration. No sunset clause. No extraordinary justification.

Just ordinary legislation, completely rewriting the rules of protest forever under the banner of “safety."

The new standard is simple: If your protest is inconvenient…If your presence is uncomfortable…If your message is politically disruptive… Congratulations, you’re now flirting with Criminal Code consequences of up to ten years.

Freedom of speech — but only for approved opinions. Freedom of protest — but only if it doesn’t interrupt the narrative. Freedom of belief — but only until it contradicts ideology.

They’re not trying to silence violent extremists. We have laws to do that already; they just refuse to use them. They’re trying to filter law-abiding citizens.

Because here’s the real danger: It’s not that people will be jailed in massive numbers. It’s that people will stop speaking at all because the legal risks become vague, the enforcement unpredictable, and the consequences catastrophic. It's the horrors of self-censorship they want us to submit to. 

Right now, Canadians can still Community-Note these hypocrites. Right now, the public can still correct the record in real time and sunlight can still punch directly through the darkness of the official spin. But that only works while speech is still free.

Because if this government gets its way with Bill C-9, the ability to speak truth to power won’t just be discouraged, it could become criminalized. Community Notes only exist in a free society.

For now, Canadians can still correct their leaders. But this government isn’t warning you about censorship because it fears it. It’s warning you about censorship because it wants to control who gets to use it.