Skip to main content

Wearing a mask in Canada during an unlawlful protest will get you 10 years in prison

CBC reports that Bill C-309 has passed and it is now law in Canada.

According to the bill:

"The bill creates a new Criminal Code offence that makes it illegal to wear a mask or otherwise conceal your identity during a riot or unlawful assembly. Exceptions can be made if someone can prove they have a "lawful excuse" for covering their face such as religious or medical reasons."

From a PR perspective this limits the branding effectiveness that some protests can achieve.

Both Anonymous and Occupy protesters are known for wearing Guy Fawkes masks...




For those that don't know Guy Fawkes is most popularly known from the movie V for Vendetta




Anyway, I can appreciate the need to be able to identify people during a riot, but the law is clearly too broad. It's absurd to put someone in jail for 10 years simply because they wore a mask to an unlawful gathering (which many protests, by the letter of the law, are). 

Putting people in jail for two weeks would be more than enough to act as a deterrent to wearing a mask. But 10 years is just insanity. 

If Canada actually throws someone in jail for 10 years because they wore a mask while protesting something it's going to mark a dark day in our country's history.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Featured Post: Where Can You Buy My Books?

Interested in purchasing one of my books? Below are the links that will take you to the right place on Amazon. A Manufactured Mind On Amazon On Kobo On Barnes and Noble On iTunes Obey On Amazon On Kobo  On B&N  On iTunes  The Fall of Man Trilogy Days of Judgment (Book One) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes System Crash (Book Two) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes A Fool's Requiem (Book Three) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes
Post a Comment
Read more

A Look Back on 2017 / A Look Forward to 2018

Hard to believe it's been two years (and six books) since I started publishing. Thought I'd take a moment to look back on the journey, some of the highlights and what's in store for the future. Eyes Wide Open I had no idea what this publishing path would be like - I went in blind with nothing more than an interest in telling a story. It turned out to be way harder than I could have imagined. You'd think writing a book wouldn't be that difficult, but it is. It's not so much the book that readers see that's hard to produce, it's the ideas and writing that get left on the cutting room floor. But beyond the actual stories, learning Photoshop to do my own covers, understanding how to market my books, learning how to create print versions, and a dozen other things really opened my eyes to how much effort is required to get a book to market. Along the way I’ve had my moments where I questioned my sanity to put myself through the process. But...
2 comments
Read more

Pew Research says Press Credibility In Decline

According to Pew Research negative opinions about the press are at an all time high. Definitely check out the source article because they have a ton of infographics that are worth looking at. The main graph related to the research is the one below: As you can see, the public no longer views the media as unbiased or fully accurate. There are dozens of variables that play in to this phenomena, but I think the biggest one is that the public has traditionally viewed the media as doing the people's work. Which is to say, they are kind of like the FBI, but they work for the people not the government. They are suppose to root out what is going on and inform the people so that society can hold politicians and corporations accountable (note the reoccuring theme of accountability that I talk about often in this blog, because it's a causal variable behind much of the issues in the world today). Over the past 15 or so years, the press has lost it's credibility with the p...
Post a Comment
Read more