44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 13, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I was quite sure I was up ahead of the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, but I will not argue the point. That is virtual reality, so here we are.
I am focusing less on what Bill C-18 proposes to do. It has taken the approach of saying, as we have heard, that when information, news articles and content appear in what we might call our conventional media, the social media giants and the tech giants pay for that. However, it does not get to this new problem. Neither Bill C-11 nor Bill C-18 gets to what is now being called by our security experts “IMVE”, ideologically motivated violent extremism, which is spread through social media content. I commend to the hon. parliamentary secretary and other members a recent opinion piece by Beverley McLachlin, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and Taylor Owen, the director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University.
We are not addressing the root problem here. It is a dangerous area. People want to back away from this nexus between free speech and protecting people from violent extremism. The solution I would put to the hon. member is to treat these new tech online sources, or whatever we want to call them, not as platforms but as publishers. That is what they are. They publish. We have a vast amount of common-law jurisprudence on what to do with publishing things that are false.
I put it to the hon. member that Bill C-18 and Bill C-11 do not address the threat to Canadian democracy in online disinformation.
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On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I know that it would have violated the Standing Orders for the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to stand and be recognized while the hon. parliamentary secretary was speaking, so I was rather teasing the hon. Speaker. I know that virtual hands go up at the beginning of a speech and no one in the House could do that. I withdraw any suggestion that I was critical of the Speaker's decision on who spoke first.
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- May/13/22 12:11:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition today that comes from a number of Canadians concerned for the health of our waterways.
They note that, with regard to fresh water within Canada, not dealing with the large issues of our oceans but looking at our internal waterways, our watersheds are significantly degraded by actions by industry. We need to pursue, as the petitioners claim, the Canada water agency; we need laws that protect water and laws that protect our watersheds, including ones that will support and enrich Canada's fisheries and our whole ecosystems that depend on healthy and sustainable water systems; and we need to bring our laws and our practices up to date to protect Canada's water.
We think we are a water-rich nation. We are not.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to add a few words in support of the point of order raised by the member for Joliette. I think he is right.
If it is true that there are differences between the copies of Bill C‑19, then there is a major problem in terms of respect for this institution. On behalf of the Green Party, I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will make a wise and fair ruling.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for his speech.
As an MP, one of my priorities is to tackle the increase in heinous crimes attributable to social media. That is not included in Bill C-11 or in Bill C-18, but the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other organizations have reported that there is a significant increase in crimes motivated by hate, racism and other unacceptable things.
I hope that my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue also has some ideas about how to reduce this threat to our society and our culture or how to put an end to it.
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