For those living in Canada, criticizing a politician, public servant, especially a cop can get one into legal trouble in the criminal justice system.
There is an archaic law called criminal libel section 300 and 301 of the Criminal Code, which carries a hefty prison sentence. You wouldn't find much of the convictions in case law because it's mainly used to scare dissidents and the working class into compliance.
“In some countries, insulting politicians can lead to jail.” That’s the provocative subtitle of a recent article in The Economist that lumped Canada in with Burma, China and Vietnam as countries that still prosecute citizens who defame public officials. It may come as a surprise to find ourselves in such dubious company, but look up Section 301 of the Criminal Code and there it is: the offence of “defamatory libel.”
The law is mainly used on dissidents and critics of the police and politicians.
The law goes in tandem with criminal harassment. Imagine working your joints off in a factory and one day you criticize a politician for not doing enough, and they feel offended and sic the overpaid Toronto Police on you.
Is that a life to live? Work like a serf in Toronto and one post complaining about the conduct of a public servant or cop by name gets you threatened with arrest under an archaic law which was used to protect British nobility?
While Canada shames developing nations to abolish criminal libel laws, Canada uses criminal libel laws to silence dissidents who criticize the politicians and the police.
While criminal charges for defamatory libel are rare in Canada, when they are brought, it is invariably to protect the reputations of public figures like politicians, judges and law enforcement officers. This is where Section 301 takes on the comminatory quality of criminal defamation laws in authoritarian regimes.
Criminal Defamation Laws in North America – Committee to Protect Journalists (cpj.org)