[dhughes]

As a Canadian I bet I have far more Internet freedom than a US citizen does I don't have to fear being flagged as a downloader of movies by media corp swat teams.

I'd say any person in any western nation would think their country is more fair than the others.

I'm not distrustful of the UN I'm not a fan because it's a huge bureaucracy but the US isn't any better, I bet people in the US wouldn't accept Canada being in control of ICANN.

[potatolicious]

As a Canadian your freedom to torrent is probably greater than your American buddies - the legality of downloading is murky, though uploading is most definitely illegal. Last I checked the two largest ISPs in Canada (Rogers and Bell) both throttle file sharing protocols, though my information may be out of date.

But we're not talking about your right to be a pirate, we're talking about something much more fundamental - i.e., freedom of speech.

We're talking about your ability to go online and talk shit about your neighbor, your city councilman, your MP, your Congressman, your Governor General, or your Prime Minister.

As a Canadian myself, I can tell you that the US takes a much stronger stance in favor of freedom of speech than Canada (or really, any Westminster system country today) and has consistently erred on the side of preserving speech moreso than Canadians - to the point where some Canadians consider the US stance to be rather extreme (e.g., malicious but truthful attacks are not consider libel nor defamation).

As far as protections for both political expression as well as creative expression (i.e., the arts) the US is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) in the world - and this is coming from a Canadian who's mostly cynical about American politics.

The claim that the US is the most free (in terms of speech) country in the world isn't just typical pompous American exaggeration, there is a lot of meat behind the claim.

[dhughes]

Yes I agree the US has enshrined freedom of speech Canada not so much it's more an unspoken unofficial agreement.

But I'd say it evens since the US seems to push the limits of prosecution on free speech and Canadian authorities just don't really seem to bother.

As for the incidents of lawsuits mentioned in other comments I can't say I've ever heard of them not that it matters but what I'm saying is it seems rare for anyone to go to that extreme.

[fraserharris]

We Canadians have fewer protections of freedom speech, specifically hate speech (ie: sections of the Criminal Code of Canada, and the Canadian Human Rights Act).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Canada

[tsotha]

It's not just that you have fewer protections. It's that someone can file a complaint with the local HRC for free and you'll end up spending thousands defending yourself. It's the perfect vehicle for legal harassment.

[miked]

This. Here's a story of two Canadian writers who were forced to spend thousands on defending themselves for engaging in politically incorrect Badthink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_complaints_against...

[hfsktr]

That link didn't quite work but this seems to be it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_complaints_against...

[fraserharris]

The most abused part of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Section 13, was repealed in August. Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth, author of the repeal bill, said this at the time:

"The current human rights code allows too many frivolous cases to proceed against citizens, when the Criminal Code already covers hate speech that could generate harm against an individual or group.

Acts of hate speech are serious crimes that should be investigated by police officers, not civil servants, he said, and the cases should be handled by "real judges and real lawyers," instead of a quasi-judicial body such as the human rights commission."

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/07/tories-repeal-sectio...

[ajross]

Not to step too far into a nationalist spit war, but:

Of all the oddball things to plant that maple leaf of internet freedom on, you picked... downloading illegal[1] copies of movies? Really? That's "freedom" to you guys up north?

[1] Something no one sane disagrees with. Very reasonable arguments can be made about overzealous enforcement, of course, or the lack of acceptable legitimate alternatives. But really: no one thinks that making copies of copyrighted material from anonymous peers on the internet is "OK", even if "everyone" does it.

[ampersandy]

Please, let's not make generalizations about an entire country because of one comment.

[ubernostrum]

Practically every major Western democracy has, or soon will have, roughly equally draconian anti-piracy enforcement, typically in the form of "N Strikes" laws with forced disconnection. Practically every major Western democracy does, or soon will, have ISP-level filtering of sites alleged to infringe copyright.

So copyright enforcement is not an area where it's really possible to take a useful stand.

Other aspects, though, are: consider, say, an internet subject to English libel jurisdiction. Or one subject to some European countries' feelings on religious -- particularly Muslim religious -- content. Or one subject to China's ideas about appropriate political speech.

While there are many things to complain about with respect to the US federal government, and its approach to freedom of speech, it is -- much like democracy is occasionally quipped to be -- the worst, except for all the alternatives.

[ihsw]

As a fellow Canadian you should know that Bill C-30 is gaining support, and there is apparent international pressure[1] from US and UK to pass this legislation.

Just as CALEA continues to be abused in the US against 'downloaders' it will be abused here just as well.

Personally I would prefer Canada continue to maintain its unwillingness to implement these policies and instead wait several years to study the effects of these CALEA-like laws on other nations.

[1]: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/27/canadian-government-...

[Roybatty]

Canada and most of Western Europe doesn't have the protection of freedom of speech that is embedded in the U.S. constitution. In particular, things like "hate speech". I believe Canada has the same insidious problem that many western European countries have where if you "deny" something in public, you can go to jail.

The U.N. would just take this leftist P.C. nonsense an order of magnitude further.