Canada is taking censorship lessons from the U.K.

Article by Rebel News staff.

Heritage Minister Marc Miller flew to Scotland in July, officially to attend the Commonwealth Games. According to an access to information memo obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, however, he also scheduled confidential briefings on a U.K. Labour Party plan to promote what it calls “social cohesion.”

Ezra Levant broke it down on Thursday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show.

The Labour do***ent, titled Protecting What Matters, calls for “new tools and powers to disrupt organizations that spread extremism, hate, and threaten public safety.” It also proposes to combat what it labels “digital grifters,” “hostile states,” and “politicians of grievance” — a phrase that, Ezra noted, technically describes almost every opposition politician who has ever existed.

“Isn’t every politician sort of supposed to have grievances and then try to solve them?” he asked.

Miller denied discussing censorship during the trip, saying on social media he met with a Scottish cabinet secretary and first minister, discussed nothing of the sort, and that “the most controversial thing I did was drink an Irn-Bru.” Ezra was unconvinced, though.

“It wouldn’t be the first time in history that a politician lied,” he said, adding that the confidential memo listed the briefings on Miller’s official schedule. “I don’t trust Marc Miller when he says he didn’t have discussions about censorship when his own schedule said that’s what they would be talking about.”

Responding to a Canada Proud social media post about the story, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke responded with one word: “Dystopian.”

Miller replied to Lutke directly, dismissing the story. Ezra noted that Lutke, of German descent, has particular reason to be alert to the language of state censorship — both the Nazi SS and East German Stasi were in that business.

The phrase “social cohesion” is not new in Miller’s vocabulary. In a parliamentary committee exchange obtained by Rebel News, Conservative MP Rachel Thomas asked Miller to define it after he said the CBC’s role was to foster social cohesion.

Miller replied that an age of “disinformation” required a strong state-funded broadcaster and suggested that questioning the CBC contributed to the spread of “falsities.” He also referred to “illegitimate sources” of information — without defining who decides what is legitimate. Thomas noted that the term is used by the People’s Republic of China to mean state control.

Ezra said he first encountered the phrase “social cohesion” in the United Kingdom — and that it has a very specific meaning there. A sitting UK Labour MP named Naz Shah from Bradford West once liked and retweeted a post arguing that the 1,400 young girls raped in Rotherham by gangs of predominantly Pakistani Muslim men should “shut their mouths for the good of social cohesion.”

“That’s what social cohesion means,” Ezra said. “It means shutting down anyone who has a grievance — including, in that case, the rape of 1,400 girls.”

Ezra also noted that he himself was banned from the U.K. earlier this year for being “not conducive to the public good” — which he described as another way of saying he was not part of their social cohesion.

Justin Trudeau introduced four separate censorship bills during his tenure — more than on any other subject. The pattern, Ezra said, is not subtle. The U.K., he said, offers Canadians a view into the future “like a dystopian time machine.”