Episode 224: Why Prorogation and Donald Trump Spell the End of an Era in Canadian Digital Policy

A lot has happened over the past six weeks since the last Law Bytes episode that provided a year-end review. TikTok briefly went offline in the U.S., Meta changed its content moderation policies in a major shift designed to curry favour with Donald Trump, Amazon announced it is laying off all of its Quebec-based employees, and Bell obtained an expansive court blocking order covering copycat sites to name just a few developments. Future episodes will dive into these issues but for the moment, the biggest story for a podcast devoted to digital policy from a Canadian perspective is government’s decision on January 6th to prorogue Parliament and the inauguration of Donald Trump two weeks later on January 20th. Those two events effectively mark the end of the past five years of Canadian digital policy: the bills are dead due to prorogation and many of the laws seem likely to die due to Donald Trump. This week’s Law Bytes podcast takes a closer look at what just happened and will consider what lies ahead in next week’s episode. The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod. Credits: City News, Justin Trudeau’s Resignation as Prime Minister, January 6, 2025 Detroit Free Press, Trump Suggests Canada Should be the 51st State During Hurricane Helene Briefing