Mr. Speaker, it has become a very clear pattern of how the government will use the levers of power for personal vendettas to attack and attempt to destroy the reputation of critics. It is becoming very disturbing.
The incident that happened during the Copenhagen conference almost slipped by without any real public comment because the media were not paying attention. Government members were getting embarrassed, as they should, by their horrific stand on the tar sands and lack of international commitments, a situation that has obviously come back and bit them with their humiliating vote last week at the UN. However, they went after an ISP provider, serverloft, which responded because the Canadian government told it to shut down sites immediately. In order to do that, it had to interfere with a wide block of ISP server addresses and shut down 4,500 websites of people who were putting up legitimate products and information. It could have been educational resources. These people had their democratic ability to participate in a digital realm interfered with and monkey-wrenched by a government that panicked, was embarrassed and could not seem to deal with any kind of parody from the Yes Men, who are very funny international political comedians.
I would challenge the government. If it believes it can get away with shutting down 4,500 web addresses, then why is it not spending more time with the dictators in Burma and more time with China? It is not sending any kind of message in terms of democratic commitment in a digital age if it will use the levers of government to shut down 4,500 websites in order to get at two hoaxers making fun and making a very fair political parody of the government.