44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 29, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am honoured to have the opportunity to rise in this place on behalf of the good people of Thornhill to speak to issues within Bill C-11, the online streaming act. It is a new name. As many will remember, in the previous Parliament my colleagues in this place spoke to the issues in a different bill: That was Bill C-10, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act.
While this new bill has a new title, the very same issues exist in this bill as did in the last. It is almost the same bill, with a different name and the same problems. Those problems were an admission of the former heritage minister: He said it was flawed. It was a flawed bill that nevertheless passed the House only for Canadians to be spared its overreach by an election the Liberals deemed the most important in history. That, of course, brought us to almost the same result, with the same bill by a different name. This bill is a near copy of the government's deeply flawed Bill C-10. It fails to address the serious concerns raised by experts and Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
While we will hear members opposite claim that there is now an exemption for user-generated content, which is one of the major concerns the minister admitted was deeply flawed, the new bill would do the same thing as the old bill and would allow the CRTC to regulate any content that generates revenue, directly or indirectly. That means virtually all content would still be regulated, including independent content creators earning a living from platforms such as YouTube, Spotify or even TikTok, which is a favourite of some members in the new government arrangement.
Let me be absolutely clear. Conservatives support creating a level playing field between large, foreign streaming services and Canadian broadcasters while protecting the individual rights and freedoms of all Canadians. That is fundamental. We also know that Canada is home to many world-class writers, actors, composers, musicians, artists and creators. Creators need rules that do not hold back their ability to be Canadian and global successes. With this all being true, there are those who are rightfully warning that digital creators, those we celebrate as Canadian stars, could lose foreign revenue if the government forces digital platforms to promote Canadian content. That means cutting into revenue that Canadian content creators earn, which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
The online streaming act would skew the algorithm our online platforms use to match them with viewers' personal preferences. That force-feeding of Canadian content that the government chooses, rather than what might match the viewers' preferences, is no doubt a problem: When they force people to watch something that they may not want to watch, in an effort to promote it, they might be doing the exact opposite. It would suggest that if they force content on viewers, a conclusion could very well be that the forced content is not actually popular, leading of course to potentially less promotion abroad of what was irreparably deemed unpopular by the government or the CRTC.
This is actually disadvantaging our talent, which is arguably one of our greatest exports. Yes, as many in the House know, videos that few people watch are actually harder to find. They do not pop up. They are not promoted. If people do not select the Canadian content the government decides it wants them to watch or that it has offered them, people click on something else, leading to perhaps the dreaded thumbs-down rating. This, of course, knows no boundaries, and it would be deemed less popular here and abroad. Again, the government will say it is not doing that and that it will not regulate YouTube users and TikTok users who post their content, but that is not what the bill says.
The bill would give the authority to the CRTC to regulate any content. Even if people were to take this at face value and believe it, why would the government not make that scope in the bill more clear? Why would it not make it more prescriptive? If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Hiding behind the complexity of legislation, as the minister has, should be a concern to every single Canadian who generates content that this bill would regulate and every single Canadian who watches it.
It should be of great concern that the CRTC is being tasked with administering the act. It is a body already stretched to its limits in this country. A fair question to anyone supporting this bill would simply be that if the CRTC lacks the capacity to carry out its current mandate effectively, how can it be expected to take on the entire, infinite Internet? Knowing all that, the CRTC would be handed the power to develop the rules and regulations. It could make those up as it goes along, because guess what? The bill does not stipulate it.
This act would bestow on the CRTC the ability to determine its own jurisdiction without constraints, again despite it having no capacity to even do it.
Let us put that very serious issue aside for a moment and pretend the government bill does not do what it says it is going to do.
When the government sticks its nose in where it does not belong, we find ourselves up against a difficult reality that has become a recurring theme for the opposition.
If this bill is passed, Canada will become the first democratic country to enforce its Internet regulation law. Canada will also become the first country to regulate online content created by people living in Canada.
We will be in good company with dictators from countries like Iran, Turkey and North Korea when it comes to protecting personal freedoms, because the government is not comfortable with a vast, open communication space that exists outside its control.
That is control the government could potentially exert over the tens of thousands of digital first creators who have found a way to earn a living and export their talent globally. We should be celebrating these accomplishments. We should be encouraging their spirit of entrepreneurship. We absolutely should not be punishing them with the demands of this legislation under the guise of creating a “level playing field”, as the government says, “where web giants will pay their fair share”. What we would actually get is like the disappointment we get in a cereal box: We would get an Internet czar, which sounds alarming because it is alarming.
It is important to remind members of the House that the Broadcasting Act was not meant to regulate the Internet. Many will say that this modernization of an act that was put in place for radio and TV will somehow boost the Canadian arts and culture sector. To that, I say I have a bridge to sell them. It is not going to happen. That is not how it works. More regulation has never, and will never, incentivize more artistic creation, let alone more wealth and success for creators, because one thing is for certain. When the government-instructed bureaucrats pick winners and losers, there are no winners in this realm or in any other in the history of government. Having the government pick winners, based on how Canadian content is viewed or how it decides what we will watch, is an imposition on our freedom to choose what we actually want to watch. It also does not lead to more Canadian content.
Bill C-11 is a solution looking for a problem that does not exist. I hope members of the House will carefully review every aspect of this bill because, as a member before me said, it is going to have grave consequences for generations to come. There is a lack of clarity in this bill on what it is going to do. Instead of promoting our Canadian creators, it actually punishes them.
I hope that members of the House will think of their rights and freedoms on the Internet before they agree with the current government's illogical pursuit to control what we see online.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite would know that, if he looked at all of the tiles on Netflix, he would see Canadian content.
Canadian content is important. The problem is that the bill does not even stipulate what Canadian content is. How does the member opposite regulate something if he cannot define it?
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Madam Speaker, what I am saying is that the government should never regulate what we see online. It should never pick winners and losers, and it certainly should not have the CRTC deciding the ad hoc rules of what Canadians can see online and when. That should be one's choice.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot from the NDP talking about making web giants pay their fair share. This is, again, a party that has spent almost $2.5 million on platforms such as Facebook. To the hon. member's question, I do not see how he can stand in the House and ask that question. I would say to the hon. member that we cannot regulate ourselves to success. That is not going to create more, or better or successful, Canadian content. We have never done that. We could never do that.
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