‘Anti-hate’ network leader named to Canadian gov’t advisory panel for online safety

OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — The leader of Canada’s so-called “Anti-Hate Network” has been named to the government’s “Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety.”

Recently, the Liberal government said it was reconvening its advisory group, which includes Bernie Farber of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN).

This panel will be tasked with guiding the government on policy related to so-called “online harms.”

Farber was named to the same panel in 2022 that went silent after Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, died in January 2025.

The new panel is stacked with academics and activists who want more censorship on digital platforms.

The government said the panel’s findings will “subsequently go on to inform ongoing legislative work in various aspects of online safety.”

Years ago, Farber made media headlines for falsely posting a photo on Twitter of an anti-Semitic flyer that he claimed was found “in plain sight” during Ottawa’s Freedom Convoy.

Despite this, Farber was appointed to the original 2022 “expert advisory group on online safety” by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.  

CAHN has been known to work with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in the United States and received money from the Canadian government in 2020 as part of an “inclusion” grant. 

The current Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney has hinted it is looking at reintroducing a new version of Bill C-63.

Bill C-63 was put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online. The bill died last year after Trudeau called the 2025 federal election.

This bill looked to ban legal internet content that authorities deemed “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group.” Those in violation of the law would have faced potential $70,000 fines or house arrest.

The goal was to have internet content policed by a federally appointed digital safety commissioner, who would act as an all-powerful judge on the matter.

In response, Canada’s foremost constitutional freedom group, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), launched a national campaign calling on the Liberal government to stop trying to reintroduce a bill censoring the internet.

In a press release to LifeSiteNews, the JCCF said its national campaign urges the federal government “not to reintroduce Bill C-63, the proposed Online Harms Act, or any substantially similar legislation that would undermine freedom of expression, due process, and the rule of law in Canada.”