Feds Planned to Sue Individual Canadians Over Online Posts, Internal Memo Reveals

An Access to Information request has revealed that the federal government put together an internal plan to monitor online content and potentially sue individual Canadians over what they post.

The strategy is laid out in a 35-page internal document from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), which was obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter. The department is headed by Industry Minister Mélanie Joly. Now the non-profit Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is reaching out to find out whether any Canadians have received notices from the federal government about taking down their online posts.

Based on the records, the department set up a framework to track online narratives, comb through individual social media posts on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and X, and size up potential threats tied to what the government calls online misinformation. The redacted documents show it built out an escalation process for dealing with targeted content, and that process included the option of taking legal action against individual Canadians over what they post.

The JCCF has responded publicly by offering to help affected people, stating: “If you receive a government demand letter seeking the removal of your online content, submit a request for legal representation to the Justice Centre. We want to hear from you.”

So far the federal government hasn’t said anything about how the monitoring program actually works or how often it has weighed legal escalation.

Just last month, the Liberal government quietly passed its controversial Bill C-22, seen as a spy bill, overnight without any debate. Companies such as Apple, Google and numerous VPN companies argued strongly against the bill, but it didn’t matter in the end.