44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am sure that the member, had he been listening to my speech, would have known that at the beginning I said that I appreciated that the bill actually does say that the algorithms are protected. I did say that in my speech.
Specifically, since the member spent a bit of his speech discussing my speech, which was very flattering, I will read what the bill actually says:
In making regulations under subsection (1), the Commission shall consider the following matters:
(a) the extent to which a program, uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service, directly or indirectly generates revenues.
In (b) and (c), the bill does not say “and/or”. It does not say any of that. It lists three different things. Any one of those things, individually, can be regulated according to the act.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about algorithms.
The department has already said that it wants to focus on results in terms of discoverability and not intervene directly in algorithms. I am just wondering, though, how do we get the results we want without going through the algorithms, which play a fairly significant role nowadays in these kinds of platforms and social networks? Should this not be added to the bill?
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Madam Speaker, we are actually using algorithms currently. What this bill proposes is that they will choose which content and which speech Canadians must view. In the current system, the algorithms are driven by an individual's choice of what they want. What this bill proposes is to usurp that choice and should impose the government's choice upon the people, and that is what we are opposing.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois agree on one thing, and that does not happen often. The thing we agree on is the presence of Quebec and Canadian content on platforms.
If this is what matters, why exclude algorithms from the methods to ultimately achieve the same result?
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Madam Speaker, I am going to be honest. I had a really difficult time following that logic around making it easier to get on the radio. I imagine what makes it difficult to get on the radio is purchasing all of the equipment, including the antennas. Yes, I am aware that the CRTC has a lengthy application and the amount of work to fill it out. The real thing that would make it hard to get on the radio, I imagine, would be all the equipment that one needs for radio that they do not need to get on YouTube or whatnot.
Nonetheless, on this point of algorithms and the government setting up, I think it is important to point out to many Conservative members that the legislation specifically says, “The Commission shall not make an order under paragraph (1)(e) that would require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code.” It is clear from the legislation that there cannot be government control over the algorithm, despite the fact that this member would suggest otherwise.
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Madam Speaker, I would say that it takes about $20,000, in terms of equipment, to get set up. Yes, it is a hundred per cent much more difficult to get on the radio. However, the equipment is readily available. If someone has the $20,000, they can have the equipment up and running overnight. However, what someone cannot get is the licence to start broadcasting overnight. That takes several months, several review boards and all these things. There is a significant case in northern Alberta where I am dealing with the CRTC and we are unable to get a radio station in northern Alberta where there is only one other radio station servicing the entire community.
As for the algorithms, Ms. Ramneet Bhullar, in her article, talks about the algorithm manipulation. She says this is an odd fix because, rather than stating that the government cannot manipulate the algorithm, they can demand an outcome, which is essentially manipulating it.
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Madam Speaker, just again on that point around algorithmic transparency and the manipulation of algorithms, the bill specifically says that the government cannot regulate the algorithms, but what happens in practice is that the regulations for Canadian content will effectively manipulate the algorithm. If the government can say a certain percentage of one's content must be Canadian content and it must show up in one's feed, then that is essentially manipulating the algorithm. That is precisely what Ms. Ramneet Bhullar said in her article.
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Madam Speaker, on the topic of manipulated algorithms, I would tend to agree. One would only have to reference all the fake participants and followers among the Conservative leadership candidates. When talking about algorithmic manipulation, look at what just happened in the occupation.
Would the hon. member agree that big corporations, such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and the like, have a disproportionate impact on our discourse and would he agree that they need to be perhaps broken up, as well as some of the big conglomerated mainstream media outlets that we have like National Post and others?
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