CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter was sent in response to an article about the federal government ordering TikTok to wind-down Canadian operations, citing national security risk and subsequent letter calling the move "weak-kneed."
Regarding Mr. McKean’s letter to the editor on Canada and TikTok, published Nov. 9, 2024, it seems that he is misinformed.
The Canadian government did not shut down or ban the TikTok platform in Canada. Rather, the government ordered TikTok to close offices in Toronto and Vancouver after receiving reports from the Canadian intelligence community, including the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, that allowing business in these offices to continue posed a risk to Canadian security.
This is because of the ties that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has to the Communist Party of China.
Canada’s move follows a potential total ban on TikTok in the United States (wnow threatened by the new Trump presidency). Like Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and France have all banned TikTok from government devices. India banned TikTok completely in 2020.
This action taken by the Canadian government is far from, as Mr. McKean put it, a “weak-kneed” attempt to “block the spread of information regarding the misdeeds of the current government.”
Rather, this is a prudent action taken in the interests of Canadian national security, no matter how Mr. Poilievre might try to spin it.
Randall Douglas
Grey Highlands, Ont.
