Civil liberties must survive
There was significant shaming of religious institutions that initially kept their doors open throughout Canada even as many faith leaders were taking early precautions by telling congregants to pray at home.
Similarly, scenes of people converging on beaches and in parks raised the ire of many; giving rise to one more new COVID-19-related term — “covidiots.”
Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tone has changed. His determinedly upbeat, positive reinforcement focusing on all the millions of people staying home shifted on Monday. “Enough is enough,” he said, finally addressing the “covidiots” among us. Those who fail to quarantine now risk being fined. The federal health minister has additionally warned that civil liberties could be in jeopardy if people don’t follow the rules.
That some people fail to heed the warnings shouldn’t be surprising, even if maddening. Most of us aren’t used to sudden limits on our freedoms (except perhaps for public servants in Quebec who have lately been banned from wearing religious clothing on the job). We take our freedoms for granted, expecting to be able to move, assemble and worship without discrimination, as guaranteed by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and by various international frameworks.
While it’s a sign of a healthy democracy that people want to preserve the civil liberties they cherish, there are limits we must respect for the greater good. But that doesn’t mean governments have free reign, even in a time of crisis.
“Everything that governments and public officials do must be prescribed by law; and those laws need to be consistent with our Constitution,” reads a recent statement from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which admits it cannot stay on top of the rapidly shifting legal landscape on its own. Nor should it.
We must collectively be more vigilant in ensuring that governments in Canada — and around the world — don’t set our human rights advances back as they rush to contain the deadly coronavirus. This includes protecting migrants at our borders, immigration detainees and prisoners.
It means being aware of the threats posed even to freedom of expression.
“The 2019-nCoV outbreak and response has been accompanied by a massive ‘infodemic’ — an overabundance of information — some accurate and some not — that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it,” reads a February situation report from the World Health Organization.
“The spread of COVID-19 across the globe has been matched by the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus,” points out Quinn McKew, acting executive director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Article 19.
This is particularly alarming considering how white supremacists and other far-right actors around the world are taking advantage of the pandemic.
“Hate hasn’t taken a day off. It isn’t social distancing. It doesn’t have trouble concentrating. It continues to churn and sow division and chaos,” wrote Nick R. Martin, author of the Informant, a blog that covers neo-Nazism in America.
Fellow board member Kurt Phillips at the Canadian Anti-Hate Network points out that conspiracy theories here in Canada include suggestions the virus is an effort to decimate white populations, among other equally divisive narratives. Anti-Chinese discrimination, exacerbated in part by U.S. President Donald Trump’s racist description of the virus, is also fuelling hate.
But who is going to take down xenophobic content circulating online? With tens of thousands of human moderators now at home, algorithms are making mistakes and failing to distinguish between legal and illegal content. There are legitimate concerns that our information systems are compromised if social media platforms can’t get a fair handle on this.
“In situations of crisis such as now, governments and companies establish norms that would otherwise be unthinkable. We must be vigilant to ensure that they do not become the new norm,” pointed out Frederike Kaltheuner, a tech policy fellow at Mozilla in an interview with Wired magazine.
Once this is all over, we’ll want to fully exercise the rights and freedoms we too often took for granted before this emergency. That means we pay close attention now.