44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 27, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that, with Bill C-11, those who enjoy online streaming platforms such as Netflix or Disney+, or videos on a platform such as YouTube, or maybe even just scrolling through Facebook looking at people's pages, these individuals would be impacted in the kind of content they could access and watch. Bill C-11 would determine the type of information that is put in front of them. Bill C-11 would determine the content that is put in front of our eyeballs.
When I say by Bill C-11, what I mean is that, according to clause 7 of the bill, it would be cabinet who could determine, through the CRTC, what Canadians can see, post or hear online. Again, it would be cabinet, based on clause 7, who would be given that authority. That is scary. It is scary for any government in power because it would mean that cabinet, which is partisan, would be directing what we can see, say or post online. Instead of giving a viewer more of what they want, YouTube would be instructed to give more of what the government wants. Again, this is very scary for most Canadians.
The government will claim, as the hon. member just before me did, that this bill is about supporting Canadian culture or levelling the playing field, but that is not true. Bill C-11 would amend the Broadcasting Act by bringing the Internet under its provisions.
In order to understand the effect of this, we need to understand why the Broadcasting Act was put in place in the first place. In the early 20th century, the Broadcasting Act was put in place to regulate TV and radio because those are finite commodities. There are only a certain number of radio stations or TV stations, so in order to make sure both official languages were represented within these platforms, the government determined they should be regulated so French language and culture would be protected and would be given space within these spheres.
Further to that, there was a definition given to Canadian content. We call it CanCon. There was this determination that a certain percentage of the content would be Canadian, or CanCon. The goal was to protect our culture, to make sure not only that it was American content making its way to Canada but also that Canadian content, things produced here, and there is a whole host of other criteria used, would be given space.
That is within the realm of TV and radio, which is limited, but now we are dealing with a space that is infinite, that is unlimited, which is the Internet. Anybody who wants a website can have a website, no matter their language of choice. Anybody who wants to have a YouTube channel can have a YouTube channel. Anybody who wants to have a space within TikTok, Instagram, etc. can have a space. We are no longer dealing with a finite resource.
The government does not need to regulate what content should be prioritized and what content should not be because we are no longer dealing with limitations. There is space for everyone.
I would plead with the government to perhaps look back on the record of what former prime minister Jean Chrétien had to say to this. In 1999, he faced a similar question about the Internet and whether it should be regulated. After undergoing a thorough investigation and a public inquiry, the determination was made that it should not be. He determined the Internet was so different than TV and radio that to treat it the same would actually stifle progress. After numerous public consultations, because there have been many done since Chrétien, here we are willing to function in a regressive way rather than maintaining the progressive stance that was taken by Jean Chrétien.
I will read what the directive stated in 1999. It said, “The commission [the CRTC] expects that the exemption of these services [Internet] will enable continued growth and development of the new media industries in Canada, thereby contributing to the achievement of the broadcasting policy objectives, including access to these services by Canadians.”
In other words, the determination was made that the Internet would not within the scope of the Broadcasting Act and that it would not be regulated. The reason for that was because there was a belief that innovation, advancement and growth would take place if it were left alone. There was a belief that that opportunity would be seized by all sorts of people from all sorts of regions with all sorts of backgrounds and different linguistic ways.
I would invite the government to consider its regressive stance and pull this legislation. On the Internet, everyone has a spot to showcase their talent. On the Internet, every single individual in this country has an opportunity to thrive, should they wish to.
Most people in this country have a smart device. One needs nothing more than that to showcase talent and make a name for oneself. The gatekeepers have been removed. In fact, it has never been easier for Canadians to succeed. It has never been easier for creators from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds to reach not just a Canadian audience but a global audience as well.
For this legislation to build walls around these individuals and keep them hemmed in within Canada is so egregious that it is hard for one to even fathom the reason for such legislation. Why would we punish our young creators? Why would we punish the next media content creators? Why would we insist that a regressive form must be kept and that progress should not be celebrated? It baffles me, but I am not the only one. It baffles Canadians from coast to coast, whether it is legal experts speaking out on this topic, digital-first creators speaking out or Canadian consumers who simply want a choice.
The fact is that the gatekeepers have been removed. A creator used to have to put together a pitch or a package and bring it to a gatekeeper, such as CBC, Corus Entertainment, Bell Media or Rogers, and they would have to plead with them to accept their package, to accept their idea and to accept their creativity. That used to be the way it was done.
With the Internet, we have now entered this magical space where creators, innovators and thought leaders get to put their content out there and allow the Canadian people themselves to determine whether they like it or not, whether they want to watch it or not. We have removed the gatekeepers. It is incredible.
Instead of celebrating how amazing that is, the government is hell-bent on putting legislation in place to make sure that we maintain these old, antiquated ways. Why is that? Is the very nature of the arts not something that should propel us into the future? It it not something that should have forward momentum? Is it not something that should be creative and innovative in nature? Is that not the whole point of the arts? Why would we hem these individuals in?
For the minister to say that this bill somehow modernizes the Broadcasting Act is incredibly disingenuous, as I have laid out. The minister is failing to account for the tremendous progress that has been made and the creativity that has been allowed to flow.
For example, let us take Justin Bieber. He went big in approximately 2013. The way he went big was because he put out a few songs on YouTube and he got discovered. He did not have to put together a big media package, though he could have. He did not have to depend on gatekeepers to either accept him or reject him. instead, he could put his talent out there. His talent was discovered, and we know that he went big. He is a Canadian artist we are proud of.
There are many more like him who are aspiring. By putting a bill like this in place, by putting Bill C-11 in place, we are saying to the new generation not to bother. We want to subject that next generation to the same rules that we subjected artists to in the 1970s. Forget progress. If one wants to engage in progress, perhaps one should consider moving to the United States of America, South Korea or the U.K., but in Canada Bill C-11 puts this massive banner up that says we are opposed to innovation, progress and celebrating artists.
Bill C-11 ultimately will do two things. First, it will censor what we can see online because the government will dictate the content that is there. Second, Bill C-11 would determine the extent to which creators are allowed to thrive. In other words, the government will go through and pick winners and losers. Some content creators will be deemed Canadian enough and other content creators will not make the cut. If they make the cut, they will be promoted. If they do not make cut, they will not be promoted.
There is nothing progressive about censorship. That is exactly what this bill is about. It is about censoring Canadians and what they can see, what they can hear and what they can post online. It is about censoring artists, whether they have access to an audience and to what extent that access is granted.
When speaking about this bill, Margaret Atwood, who is an extremely well-known Canadian author, did not mince her words. She was pretty direct about it. She called it “creeping totalitarianism”, which is pretty damning. Those are not my words, but Margaret Atwood's.
To understand this a little bit more, we have to go back to the origin. We have to go back to the origin of this bill. We have to talk about the motive because I think that is very important for Canadians to understand.
This bill, we know, started out as Bill C-10 in 2020. It has gone through a number of iterations since then, but the worst parts of this bill remain intact. In fact, one could argue that it is actually worse than ever, in part because it has had opportunity to change. The government had an opportunity to hear from witnesses. The government had an opportunity to hear from experts, and the government made a decision to ignore those voices. The government has had an opportunity to respond to the Senate amendments, which were very thoughtful and reasonable, and the government is making the decision to disregard most of those amendments. One could argue then that the government is actually wanting this bill to be as egregious as possible.
What brought us here anyway? Why is the government so hell-bent on Bill C-11 going through the way that it is? The evidence would say it is because of broadcasters wanting to maintain power and wanting to hold money. There are these large broadcasters, CBC, Bell, Corus Entertainment, etc., and they are limited by CanCon rules. A certain percentage of the content shown on their traditional streaming platforms has to be Canadian content.
Of course, this acts as a limitation to them. Those are their words. That is what they have said. They do not view that as an opportunity to show more Canadian content. They testified at committee that they view it as a limitation because they are limited. They have to show a certain percentage of Canadian content, CanCon. They say these other streaming companies should have to do the same because they want it to be the same. Further to that, these broadcasters have to pay a certain percentage into an art fund. This art fund can then be drawn from by Canadian artists who are producing CanCon and used for that material production.
Because these traditional broadcasters have to pay into this fund and the larger streamers do not, the broadcasters went knocking on the Liberals' door and said they wanted legislation to be brought into place to “level the playing field”. They wanted the Liberals to go after the streaming platforms, make sure they are showing a certain percentage of Canadian content and make sure the government is taking a certain percentage of their revenue and putting it into the art fund.
At first glance, that might seem reasonable, except that when we dig into it further, we realize the broadcasters and the big art unions are simply gatekeeping. They do not want to celebrate progress. They do not want to look forward to the future. They do not want new artists to succeed. They simply want to gatekeep. They want control or power, and they want money.
I want to talk about the foundation on which the bill is built, because it is a false foundation and it has to do with those who came knocking on the Liberals' door for the legislation. The bill is based on the deceptive notion that Canadian content creators or artists cannot make it on their own merit and that somehow they need this special fund in order to make a go of it. YouTubers, TikTokers and other online creators are proving this notion wrong each and every day. They are succeeding without drawing from the art fund. They are succeeding without the government mandating that Canadian content must be watched. They are succeeding because they have incredible talent to watch and incredible talent to offer, and Canadians find themselves drawn to it.
There is the idea, though, that, in order to succeed as artists in Canada, people need monetary support and that it is the government that should provide this monetary support. Furthermore, there is other misinformation being spread by the government, which is that people will not choose Canadian content unless it is forced in front of their eyeballs, and that a certain percentage of what is offered on television, radio or the Internet must be Canadian, or people will not watch it. How degrading is that? It is as if our artists do not have the ability on their own to produce content that people might want to consume. It is as if the government must rush in and rescue these poor Canadian artists because, without government intervention, they will not succeed. That is a lie and a crux. It is not the case.
Canadian artists are incredibly talented individuals who can make a go of it all on their own.
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Mr. Speaker, I am concerned. I am concerned because I listened to my Conservative colleague's speech. I have to honestly admit that if I were a poorly informed individual who relied strictly on the member's speech, I would be really scared. I would be really worried. I would think that I would no longer be able to express my views on the Internet, on Facebook. I would even be afraid to post on social media.
People need to inform themselves to discern what it really means, what Bill C-11 really is, by considering both the old and the new version. So many people brought their concerns to us. We received emails from groups of people who were worried. When we asked experts, they all told us that it was clear from reading the bill that there is no censorship.
I am therefore concerned about what the Conservatives are doing in the House of Commons, in Parliament, a place where we should elevate the debate, try to inform people, provide the facts, go further and rise above the fray. What we are actually seeing is the opposite. The Conservatives are going so low they have hit rock bottom.
We heard from the member for Winnipeg North that the Conservatives are using their opposition to Bill C‑11 to fundraise. I would like my colleague to tell us how much money the Conservatives have raised with their campaign of fear against Bill C‑11.
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Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member has left out of his statement is the fact that the Quebec government, under Premier Legault, has written an open letter to the Liberal government pointing out that it is censorship. That is an interesting fact that the hon. member might want to include next time, because his premier would like to see the bill looked at in committee. The premier is very concerned that Bill C-11 would put the CRTC and cabinet in charge of dictating what French culture is. I believe that is called “censorship”, is it not?
Further to that, Premier Legault is concerned that the CRTC and cabinet would control the extent to which the French language and culture is given space online. Quebec actually thinks that it should have the power to determine that for itself. Why does Quebec think it should have the power to do that for itself and is concerned about Bill C-11? Because it is censorship and because the Liberal government has the intent of censoring what content is and is not available online and to what extent that content is French and upholds French culture.
Therefore, in fact, it is censorship, and I would invite that hon. member to speak to his premier and understand those concerns better.
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Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to say I will be sharing my time with my very distinguished and dynamic colleague from Shefford.
Let me make a few things clear. Bill C-11 deals with culture, not censorship. Bill C-11 deals with national identity and pride. Culture is the essence of who we are. This bill does not promote censorship, it promotes and showcases our culture. I would even say that it seeks to showcase our cultures: Canadian culture, Quebec culture and indigenous cultures.
The bill seeks to give more visibility to culture. This is not about telling people they can no longer listen to certain content. Since the beginning of the debate today, we have been hearing all sorts of things. In fact, we have been hearing these things for two years, since Bill C-11 is the former Bill C-10. We hear things about cat videos, for example. Let us be serious.
The threat does not come from censorship because of Bill C-11. The threat comes from the platforms that have changed the world of telecommunications. That is the threat.
We are working on Bill C-11 to review an act that was amended for the last time in 1991. Must I remind you that, in 1991, we did not all have cellphones in our pockets? It was a completely different world, which is why we need to review the act.
The cultural community is asking for this, as is everyone else. We are not just being asked to pass the bill quickly. Quebec’s cultural community is asking us to hurry because it needs this legislation. They are losing $70 billion a week. On reflection, that may be a bit high. I will have to check the figures later in my notes. Let us say that, every week we delay the passage of this bill, they are losing a lot of money. Let us protect our people.
What does Bill C-11 do? It ensures the protection and promotion of original content. For us, that means French-language content, which is what concerns us. Of course, it also ensures the protection and promotion of original Canadian productions in English and indigenous languages and productions created by certain visible minorities. If we want to protect Canadian content and boost visibility, we need to bring in incentives. We are not talking about banning people from posting on Facebook and saying what they want. This is not about imposing choices, it is about raising their visibility. It is about ensuring discoverability.
Let us consider how small the percentage of French-language production in North America is. If we rely only on the number of times videos are viewed by users, French-language content will not be suggested very often. That is the problem. It is not about playing with algorithms. It is about giving the CRTC the power to talk to these companies and see what they can do to give local culture more visibility. It is a matter of promoting and showcasing our culture.
Let me draw a parallel here. When we look at platforms, we see that there is very little French-language content and that needs to be fixed. When we look at the boards of directors of Canadian and Quebec companies, we see that women are under-represented. In both cases, we need to take action to fix the situation. Obviously, we do not want to prevent anyone from applying, but we want to make sure that the positions are accessible to women and that women receive those kinds of job offers. The same thing applies to culture.
With Bill C-11, we want to improve the visibility, and therefore the profitability, of our local French-language productions and put in place a mandatory contribution to the Canadian and Quebec broadcasting system.
A mandatory contribution is more than just running old television shows. We want the platforms to participate in the creation of real local content. An American movie filmed in Vancouver is not local content. We certainly benefit when American filmmakers shoot in Vancouver. We support that. However, local content is something local produced by local artists who represent us. That is what culture is.
When racialized people say that they watch television and do not see themselves, that is a problem. These people should be able to see themselves and identify with the characters. That is why we are trying to increase representativeness. It is the same thing.
We simply want to expand the coverage of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, to all media we interact with. We need first-run French-language content.
With this bill, we are telling the major American platforms that stream content in Canada and invade our markets that we are relatively happy because that is a good way to disseminate information, it gives more people greater access to information. Furthermore, streaming does not restrict access to cat videos; then again, it invades our market. That is where we have the right to say, as a state, that we have a culture to protect.
I often talk about the agricultural exemption in the House. This morning, I talked about the agricultural exemption. We cannot act without protecting our culture. It is important. We have the right to tell the people who come and make money in Canada that we are happy to welcome them and that it is a good thing, just as we have the right to tell them that we would like to recognize ourselves in our media. We are not asking them to ban certain content, but to showcase local productions that represent our people. That is the idea.
There is another very positive element in Bill C-11. It makes no sense that, in 2023, we are revising a broadcasting act from 1991. That is a major oversight.
The bill includes the obligation to review the act at least every five years. To those who have concerns, I would say that we are capable of being intelligent and implementing a reasonable policy. After the law is in effect for a few years, we will review it all to see how things went and what the impacts were. That is the important part.
I want to spend the last few minutes of my speech emphasizing that the Quebec and Canadian cultural community wholeheartedly supports Bill C‑11.
I just found the figure that I mentioned earlier. I should have said “millions” rather than “billions”. I thought that seemed like a lot. According to the former Canadian heritage minister, we would lose $70 million every month. I do not know whether those numbers were validated, but I am assuming that they were.
This important bill is one of three related and highly anticipated bills in this Parliament. As parliamentarians, I would like us to quickly pass them. There was Bill C‑11 to promote our local content. There is also Bill C‑18, which will complement it. Communications platforms will pay something to use news content in order to encourage our journalistic community. That is important. Finally, there is a third bill on online hate, which we need to regulate.
Once again, this is not about censorship, but about living together, being reasonable and creating a world where the Internet is a bit more representative of who we are. We need to see ourselves on television every once in a while, see ourselves reflected in the programming so that we do not forget who we are. I said television, but it is the same thing for the things we watch on a computer screen.
Let us stop wasting time and pass this essential bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not see the letter in question, but I doubt that the Premier of Quebec said he was afraid of censorship in the bill. I think that the Quebec government's concern is the same as that of all national governments, that is, to ensure that culture continues to exist, to make sure we can buy local. We talk about buying local when it comes to food, but it is also important for culture. We are our culture. We need to be represented on all the different platforms.
I am talking about Quebeckers, but I also mentioned indigenous and racialized people in my speech. People need to be visible. That is why we need to move forward with this bill, because it will spark a discussion. However, we need to be careful about the misinformation we are hearing. In this discussion, we are giving the CRTC the power to talk to companies about how they think local content should be showcased. That is the issue.
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the same question of the member for Lac-Saint-Louis as I did of the member for Timmins—James Bay, with respect to a Senate amendment that would have looked to scope out content posted on social media services coming from users who could be musicians in his community, for example. I am not asking about censorship, but just looking at whether he agrees or what his views are on whether more could have been done to ensure that the CRTC is not regulating content from a musician in his community, for example.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I just want to advise that I will be sharing my time with my little buddy from Bow River.
It is, again, an honour to rise and speak today in the House. Unfortunately, I am speaking about another oppressive piece of legislation, and with the current Liberal government that could be almost anything, to be honest. In this case, it is the Liberal online censorship bill, Bill C-11. It is known as an act that would impose restrictions on free speech and open the door to government censorship on the Internet in Canada, which is the long title of the bill, or whatever name the Liberals want to give it.
From the beginning, the Liberals have sought to force the bill through Parliament without proper deliberation or consultation. Though Canadian content creators, experts and Canadians in general have spoken out on the bill and the increased power it would give the government, they have been largely ignored. The Liberals rammed Bill C-11 through committee without leaving time for amendments, and they continue to conceal their true intentions and the very real consequences the legislation would have on the Canadian Internet, on social media and on the personal freedoms of Canadians.
If the Liberal government were to commit to getting Bill C-11 correct, as it claims it has, instead of steamrolling democracy, the Senate would not have had to do the government's work for it. It is rare that the Senate does not pass legislation that has already passed through the House. The Senate sending Bill C-11 back to the House with significant amendments, not only in quantity but also in content, shows that there is something seriously wrong with the Liberal piece of legislation before us.
Bill C-11 seeks to regulate audiovisual content on the Internet through an arm of the government called the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, commonly known as the CRTC, which has traditionally been responsible for regulating radio and television. The bill would put the CRTC in charge of creating and implementing regulations for the Internet for the very first time. Bill C-11 has been controversial since it was introduced in 2020. Disguised as an incompetent and misguided attempt to modernize Canadian content regulation, the bill is nothing more than censorship by a dictatorship.
The Liberals introduced Bill C-11 to take something old, the Broadcasting Act, and use it to try to bridle something relatively new: the Internet. In trying to doing so, the bill is the very opposite of modernization. By placing greater control in the hands of the government and granting less autonomy to individuals, Bill C-11 would create the very opposite of a free and equal society. It would be something closer to the Prime Minister's country of admiration: the basic dictatorship of China's Communist government.
Canadians who have been shut out by Canada's traditional media gatekeepers are finding their voices on places like Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and YouTube. Unfortunately, Bill C-11 would stifle the voices of digital-first creators and hinder the ability of Canadians to find the content they may like. In effect, Bill C-11 would place an Internet czar, the CRTC, which would pick what content gets moved to the top of one's search menu and what content gets pushed to the background where it ought never to be discovered.
In this way, Bill C-11 is a direct attack on digital-first creators, on our choice as viewers and on the advancement of the arts and culture in Canada in this century.
After listening to testimony from digital experts, Canadian YouTubers, indigenous creators and others, the Senate introduced an amendment, one of many, that would encourage the CRTC to exclude some user-generated content from regulation. However, not only is this amendment not guaranteed to pass in the House, but it also does not go far enough. With or without this amendment, under Bill C-11, the CRTC would still be able to compel platforms to promote CRTC-approved Canadian content.
The Liberals claim that bringing in more government intervention will boost Canadian culture. I believe this is absolutely false. As countries ruled by oppressive leaders have shown us, more government control does not lead to creativity and innovation, nor does allowing more power ever cause governments to further respect its citizens' rights and freedoms.
Under this bill, the CRTC would have the power to regulate user-generated content, in other words, anything created, posted and produced on the Internet. As such, although the government claims that this bill is geared toward supporting Canadian culture and levelling the playing field, Bill C-11 would actually remove freedom and choice away from Canadians while unfortunately, and not surprisingly, it would put more power and control in the hands of the government through the CRTC.
According to a report done by Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa expert on broadcasting and online regulations, “No other democratic nation regulates user-generated content through broadcasting rules in this manner...Canada would be unique among its allies in doing so, and not in a good way.”
This designation of the government having the power to determine what qualifies as Canadian content should alarm Canadians and members of the government alike. Bill C-11's stated purpose of promoting Canadian content would essentially give the government, through the CRTC, the power to determine what qualifies as Canadian content. Under this guise of promoting Canadian content, the government would be able to designate certain opinions, certain stances and thoughts in general as un-Canadian and thus deserving of censorship.
We have seen the Prime Minister shut down and silence Canadians who disagree with the government already, determining their opinions to be un-Canadian. We have seen him render Canadians invisible and exclude them from society, deciding that certain medical choices and beliefs are un-Canadian. Now if Bill C-11 passes, the same Prime Minister, through the CRTC, would have the power to extend his pattern of dividing, stigmatizing and silencing Canadians he disagrees with on the Internet.
Ultimately, Bill C-11 would put Canada in step with countries like North Korea, China, Iran and Russia, which is totally unacceptable and altogether dangerous. In reality, Bill C-11 is yet another attempt by the Liberal government to silence any perceived dissent and to forward only a Canada that aligns with the government: in this case, the Prime Minister's vision and ideals.
This bill is simply another in a long list of misguided and out-of-touch policies. It demonstrates that after eight years under the Prime Minister, Canada is broken. Legislation that seeks to regulate and oppress Canadians has been the norm under the Liberal government. While Canadians are facing a cost-of-living crisis, struggling to feed their families and to heat their homes, their government is focusing its resources on extending its already heavy hand into the everyday lives of its citizens.
The bottom line is that the Liberal government has failed to be transparent and continues to show contempt for democracy and parliamentary procedure by consistently using heavy-handed measures to adopt what can only be described as oppressive and unprecedented legislation without proper scrutiny.
Bill C-11 is nothing but another Liberal assault on Canadian citizens and their personal freedoms. That is why it failed in the Senate and why even a modified version ought to be voted down by the House. If it is not, I hope the Senate does the right thing and punts it back to the House with even more amendments.
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Mr. Speaker, my question for the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner is this. There are legitimate concerns with this bill. However, when words like “censorship” and “charter rights” get used inappropriately, I think that can take away from the legitimacy of those criticisms. Is he not concerned that some of that language can erode concerns that are legitimate with respect to certain aspects of the bill?
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Mr. Speaker, what needs to concern Canadians is that this, again, is another example of the government taking advantage and trying to modernize the Broadcasting Act, trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, and completely failing us and Canadians in that the CRTC would regulate what we see. Is that censorship? Should that concern us as Canadians under the charter? Yes, it should. I should decide what I want to see and what is Canadian that I want to see and not some organization controlled by the government.
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I do not know if anybody in this House has been to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London. People can stand there and express any opinion they want. There are libel laws in the Criminal Code; we understand that. However, people can stand on that corner and express their viewpoints. There is no censorship and no control. If they attract an audience, the audience might like to listen. If they do not attract an audience, so be it, but they still have the opportunity to do that.
In 1989, the World Wide Web was introduced as a tool for communication and connection, for the free flow of information no matter where one was located. One did not have to be on Speakers' Corner but could be anywhere in the world. According to Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with founding the Internet, the web was a universal linked information system that “evolved into a powerful ubiquitous tool because it was built on...principles and because thousands...have worked...to expand its capabilities based on those principles.” That is how the modern-day inventor of this particular tool stated it.
Since then, it has exploded. At least five billion people in the world are using it. I remember being on a corner in Beijing, China, and the street vendor selling a watermelon was using the Internet. It has exploded around the world. It can be used to shop, browse and communicate freely. It can be used for anything one wants at just about the click of a button. This is the power of the Internet.
The government wants Bill C-11 to level the playing field, but I do not think this is the leveller. Despite what the government says, Bill C-11 would change the way Canadians interact with the Internet, and I do not agree with the how. Bill C-11 flies directly in the face of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition Charter. The charter talks about the right to network equality, “universal and open access to the Internet’s content, free from discriminatory prioritisation, filtering or traffic control on commercial, political or other grounds.” It talks about the right to accessibility and expression, “the right to seek, receive, and impart information freely on the Internet without censorship or other interference.”
However, the heritage minister has continued to stonewall against some of our concerns. As Conservatives brought forward amendments that people were sharing with us, the government did not accept them and then went to the Senate after ignoring the amendments we wanted to make. Unfortunately, Bill C-11 stands in the way of Canadian innovation and tells Canadian creators that their aspirations can only be achieved with the help of the government. There is a phrase: “I'm here to help you. I'm from the government.” In my world, I tell people to run now and run like hell. When somebody from the government says they are here to help, people should run.
For decades, the Canadian arts and cultural sectors have reached global audiences without government choosing the next success story. In my riding, as in many rural ridings, over 40% of the people do not have access to broadband. The Auditor General stated that less than 60% of rural Canadians have broadband access. Maybe that is what the Liberals should be working on, not controlling the Internet.
When there are people in Canada who do not even have reliable Internet, we should be looking at that. However, the crux of Bill C-11 culminates in what the government has been doing since it took office. It wants to spend, regulate and control more. Enter Bill C-10 and then Bill C-11 to mandate the CRTC to regulate the Internet.
I have been on the heritage committee for a long time. There was a report with a recommendation that people should only be board members on the CRTC if they lived in the 613 area code. That was the Yale report recommendation. I am not sure about the CRTC when people have to live in Ottawa to be on the board.
Often during committee we heard that the CRTC was the only organization capable of achieving such a wide regulatory order. This bill would lead to the addition of even more government employees and costs, which would be significant whether done in-house or contracted out. It would be a huge cost. Not only would the scope of the CRTC reach Canadian radio waves and TV screens, but now it would also reach the Internet.
In 1997, a former Liberal MP, the Hon. Roger Gallaway, said:
[T]he Internet is the system linking computers all over the world, allowing the free flow of information. Now the new chair of the CRTC...has stated that her commission intends to regulate the Internet to ensure adequate levels of Canadian content. If information is flowing freely how and why is [the commissioner} going to measure its Canadiana?
Rather than spend our money in such a fashion perhaps a suggestion of redirecting her cash to libraries, book publishing or literary programs would be infinitely more meaningful. Regulating the flow of information is in a historical sense an extraordinarily dangerous step. I would suggest that regulating the flow of information is in fact censorship.
As parliamentarians I suggest that we stop the CRTC's flight of fancy before it takes one further step.
Does it sound familiar? History repeats itself, this time at the behest of the government. In 1997, when the Internet was but a fraction of what it is today, the concerns of regulatory censorship in what is Canadian content was being raised by the Liberals.
More recently, Canadian writer-director Sarah Polley adapted a screenplay from a novel by Canadian author Miriam Toews. She won an Oscar for her film Women Talking. Will the CRTC acknowledge that this production qualifies as Canadian content? Whether productions have significant involvement by Canadians is not considered by the CRTC to qualify as Canadian content.
Turning Red is a Pixar film written and directed by a Canadian, set in Canada and with Canadian characters. Does it count? No, it does not; it is not Canadian. Under Bill C-11, that decision would fall to cabinet, its order in council, the governor. Yes, that is the one that says they are going to give the directions to the CRTC. I do not think any party should be making those decisions and directing the CRTC.
At least the previous Bill C-10, a bill that died in the last Parliament, included an explicit exemption for user-generated content. However, then the Liberals removed it from their own bill. Members of the government realized they would not be able to tighten the grip on Canadians' viewing habits should that exemption remain. Therefore, they tried again with Bill C-11 and told Canadians not to worry but to trust them. That is another phrase. It gets scary when somebody says, “Trust me”.
A careful examination revealed complicated ways in which they can still be regulated. The Senate introduced an amendment intended to explicitly rule out user-generated non-commercial content, but the government rejected that too. The Liberals rejected the Senate, Canadians and the exemption. That must say it all.
As Canadians' foremost expert on Internet and copyright law, Dr. Michael Geist said, “For months, [the Minister of Heritage] has said ‘platforms in, users out’.... We now know this was false. By rejecting the Senate amendment, the government’s real intent is clear: retain the power to regulate user content. Platforms in, user content in.”
If the CRTC is given this mandate, it may direct social media platforms and streaming services to develop the algorithms to favour and disfavour based on a certain criterion, but one we do not know. No one but the government knows. The screening occurs through discoverability. When one opens a browser on a platform, such as YouTube or Facebook, such results would be screened artificially based on a CRTC directive. This needs to stop.
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Mr. Speaker, there are few values more important to the people I represent, as they are to my colleague who just spoke, than advancing freedom and protecting individual rights and liberties, especially when it comes to the creeping, reaching, interfering and the heavy hand of government and its agencies.
I oppose Bill C-11 because it is not just about what its proponents claim. It will be a way for the Liberal cabinet and CRTC gatekeepers to control what Canadians see, say and hear online. The Liberals have ignored and ridiculed the concerns about Bill C-11’s impacts and potential unintended consequences for Canadian media of all kinds and for everyday Canadians. Thousands of Canadians, and Conservatives, have spoken out for three years, so now, at the very final stage before it becomes law, the charitable assumption that its proponents are unclear or unintentional about the risks and potential consequences can no longer be entertained.
Bill C-11 remains an attempt by the Liberals to regulate the Internet, with unprecedented powers for the CRTC and no clear guidelines or guardrails on those censorship powers.
The other parties argue for the bill on two main grounds: modernization of the Broadcasting Act and that it will enhance and expand Canadian content and culture online.
The truth is that Bill C-11 goes backwards on Canadians' successful online innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurialism by regulating it with the Broadcasting Act. Instead of promoting Canadian content as a whole, Bill C-11 will pick winners and losers, prioritize and deprioritize content, and therefore shape what Canadians see, regardless of their actual preferences, and whether Canadians can be seen or heard under its criteria, which will be decided by the CRTC and ministers. To be clear, on this point, I really do not care what party it is. This power, in particular, should not be extended to any.
Unlike the Liberals, Conservatives measure success by outcomes delivered, not money spent. The challenge of how to best expand and promote Canadian content is clearly not going to be done as well by Bill C-11 as it is already being done by the private sector, hardly a surprise. For example, the Motion Picture Association Canada is responsible for half of domestic media production and spent $5 billion in 2021 alone. That private sector investment is five times the amount allotted in Bill C-11. This is more of the costly coalition’s usual MO of spending lots of tax dollars regardless of results, despite the private sector’s obvious leadership. It is a government gatekeeping and taxpayer-funded solution in search of a problem.
The core problem with the way Bill C-11 deals with the concept of Canadian content is that, one, it does not actually define it and enables politicians to tell the CRTC what it is, and two, any person or business may be restricted since their content can be pushed up or down if it is decided that they fit or that they are not Canadian enough.
Canadians do not have to decipher the truth from our back-and-forth here. Currently, the CRTC’s definition of Canadian content often depends on copyright ownership, which big streaming services usually keep, instead of, say, Canadian staff, locations, writers, actors, compositions, art or stories.
The power granted to politicians is clear in Bill C-11. Section 7 of the Broadcasting Act states, “the Governor in Council may, by order, issue to the Commission directions of general application on broad policy matters”. Well, “Governor in Council” means a cabinet minister. Conservatives tried to remove that clause to ensure that the CRTC chair would be free from political interference, but Liberals blocked it, so the power is there.
After the costly coalition pushes through Bill C-11, Liberals will write up a set of backdoor regulations for the CRTC and then apply some sort of values test to every YouTube video, Facebook post, TV show, documentary and radio show, and it is endless. Social media is caught because of Bill C-11’s definition of “online undertakings” and “programs”, which can include images and sounds where written text is limited. That could mean videos, podcasts, photos and memes, but not written posts or news articles.
Clauses 9 and 10 could empower the CRTC to adopt so-called discoverability rules that would force social media sites like YouTube to modify algorithms and affect how often videos are seen on social media feeds, based on the yet-to-be determined criteria for what is and is not sufficiently Canadian. Bill C-11 clearly makes the Canadian government and the agency the regulator of the Internet. The Broadcasting Act states that the regulations will prescribe “what constitutes a Canadian program”. If the content is not Canadian enough, it will get slapped with fees and taxes, and it will be censored. If it is Canadian enough, it will continue just as it does now.
Bill C-11 will also force content creators, from small YouTubers all the way to Netflix, to pay fees to the Canada Media Fund, but it does not define who will be exempted and makes creators pay based on a points system that value-tests whether their content production is Canadian enough.
The winners would be government-subsidized broadcasters, such as the already advantaged government-funded CBC, which would get even more funding with Bill C-11. The losers would be the independent innovators driving Canadian digital leadership, and often young Canadians. So much for the democratized free market of ideas that the Internet embodies.
Conservatives proposed to define discoverability and limit government algorithm manipulation, as well as amendments to ensure greater transparency of the CRTC and its decision-making, but the Liberals rejected them.
Digital entrepreneurs have grown rapidly on YouTube and Instagram. They create brands off their channels and the advertising revenues their videos generate. They are worried that they would not qualify as Canadian enough, and that small channels, with only a couple of hundred subscribers and next to no revenue, will suddenly be forced to pay government, or even get fined up to $25,000 per day, as in proposed section 32. It is crazy that a young Canadian YouTuber could get fined because they are not Canadian enough.
Conservatives also tried to remove proposed subsection 4.1(1), which may be referenced by members opposite as exempting normal Canadians from these CRTC rules, but the Liberals put in an exemption to the exemption right after, so there is actually no change.
The Liberals plan to reject the amendment that would explicitly encourage the CRTC to regulate professional, copywritten content, which seems to be their actual aim, instead of individual user-created content. Even then, it does not change the discoverability rules that would control and prioritize what Canadians see and hear, thereby controlling the content creators.
Experts warn that this will happen. Former CRTC commissioner Peter Menzies says that under Bill C-11, Canada will “become a global leader in restricting online speech and meddling with news media.” Canada’s top legal scholar and digital content expert, Michael Geist, whom the Liberals now deride when we quote him, says it will restrict who can hear Canadian voices: “the risk with these rules is not that the government will restrict the ability for Canadians to speak, but rather that the bill could impact their ability to be heard.” If Canadians do not have the freedom to hear it, then the creator does not have free expression.
Forty thousand creators from Digital First Canada signed letters calling for these rules to be removed. The Liberals ignored them. Prominent and diverse Canadian YouTubers, like J.J. McCullough, Morghan Fortier, Justin Tomchuk and Oorbee Roy, have all spoken about their concerns about what Bill C-11 would do to their viewership and their income.
J.J. McCullough said:
Given that YouTubers make videos of every genre imaginable, from fitness to architecture to political commentary, it is frankly terrifying to imagine that government may soon have a hand in determining which genres of video are more worthy of promotion than others.
In summary, anyone proud of the tremendous success of Canadians on YouTube should be deeply concerned about the damage that Bill C-11 could do to their livelihoods.
If MPs pass this bill into law, no one can say they were not warned about the potential consequences. The level of uncertainty and concern, as much about what is not defined as what is, and the potential impact on the core value of free expression should be enough for the costly coalition to hit pause and fix this bill.
That is the duty of policy-makers, the duty of MPs, to ensure that legislation does what they claim and to mitigate unintended consequences before passing laws. MPs must defend the values of Canadians' right to freely, without censorship or risk of consequences, express their views, so long as they are not inciting harm or hate, whether or not they align with the views of anyone in here. That is our job.
No government agency responsible for broadcasting in a free and democratic society should have powers to censor, control and regulate as proposed in Bill C-11. Canadians have fought and died to defend rights to free thought and expression.
I will close with these words:
you fit into melike a hook into an eyea fish hookan open eye
Margaret Atwood was talking about love and pain. That is what Bill C-11 would do to what Canadians can see and hear online. She says Bill C-11 is “creeping totalitarianism”. I would not presume but it is probably fair to say she is not a Conservative, but she is a world-renowned Canadian artist and icon, and Bill C-11 supporters should actually listen to her before it is too late.
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Mr. Speaker, the entire debate from the Conservative Party is so divorced from the reality of what Bill C-11 would do that I do not even know where to start. On the last point, we had indigenous groups coming forward, proposing amendments and seeking to move forward on Bill C-11.
I do not know where the hon. members get their idea that this bill would engage in some sort of censorship, that the three parties in support of this bill are in favour of censorship and that members on this side of the House, who stand up for charter rights, are in favour of censorship. Where does this come from?
I know the member and all Conservative members mentioned one particular academic. Can they name another one, perhaps even a constitutional expert, who is opposed to the bill and has raised concerns about charter rights in this country?
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Madam Speaker, it has been a very interesting debate on Bill C-11. I quite seriously think there is a deeply held belief that this bill is going to hurt freedom of expression that is entirely on the part of members and the Conservative caucus.
I am so grateful, and I am not going to claim that law school makes a person understand everything, but statutory interpretation is one of those things that one gets a good skill for, being able to read a piece of legislation. Where one finds freedom of expression is protected in this bill is in the Broadcasting Act, and then we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which defends freedom of expression.
Nothing in this bill could possibly reduce Canadians' freedom of expression, nor has it ever been the case that anyone, before this debate, has ever conflated protecting Canadian content with censorship.
They are completely different concepts. I am very frustrated at this hour of night that we are still debating Bill C-11 without really debating it, because there were places I wish it had been improved. There are questions of whether there is a two-tiered approach to our cultural industries. However, there is no doubt that creators in this country have been losing the opportunity to make a living because of the competition from online streaming services that are big-time—
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Madam Speaker, it might have started as a good idea, with the support of the Liberals' NDP allies, to not resist the temptation to take this opportunity to reshape Canadian culture and society in their own image, so we are here in the House of Commons this evening, late at night, talking about Bill C-11, the so-called online streaming act. This act has morphed into the Liberals' attempt to regulate the Internet, and we are hearing from so many Canadians that this is a terrible idea.
The Liberals are saying that they are just updating the Broadcasting Act, which has not been updated in 30 years and, in the meantime, since the Internet has been invented and more people are getting their news, entertainment and information off the Internet and fewer people are going to the legacy media, it is important that they now regulate the Internet. However, they are saying that this does not affect user-generated content, the things that ordinary Canadians post on the Internet.
Here is the problem. As soon as that user-generated content becomes commercial, it falls within the rules, and the CRTC is going to regulate it and impose Canadian content rules on it. The question we ask then is the obvious question: At what point does our user-generated content become commercial, and at what point do we have to start worrying about the Canadian content rules? The answer we get is that we should not worry. We should leave it up to the Liberals because they are going to do it right and are going to leave it up to the CRTC to figure out what the rules are.
We asked if we could at least see a draft of the rules, and the answer was no, that we should trust them as they are the Liberal Party and know what Canadian culture is and what Canadians want to watch. It will commission the CRTC to come up with the new rules, and they will give it a policy directive. We asked them if we could see the policy directive, and the answer was no. Therefore, we as Canadians are left in the dark.
This is very important public policy that needs to be debated here in the House of Commons. This is the people's chamber. The people want to know what is going on with something as important as the Internet, which everybody relies on and has become pervasive in our society.
The Senate, the chamber of second thought just down the road, looked at this legislation. It did not approve it. It said there was a problem with it, that we need to get rid of user-generated content altogether. However, inexplicably, the Liberal government has said that it is not going to change anything. That is why we Conservatives and so many Canadians are against Bill C-11.
We are not alone. We have received so many emails, and I am sure the members opposite have also received a lot of emails, from people who have issues and problems with Bill C-11, but we are also hearing from higher profile people such as Margaret Atwood, for example, who has been cited here by several of my colleagues. She is a famous Canadian author who was quoted in The Globe and Mail as saying that bureaucrats should not be telling creators what to write and should not decide what is Canadian.
She said, “So it is creeping totalitarianism if governments are telling creators what to [write].” Those are not my words. They are the words of Margaret Atwood. She is a very fair and balanced person and acknowledges that Bill C-11 shows some signs of what she says are “well-meaning attempts to achieve some sort of fairness in the marketplace.” She added, “But like a lot of well-meaning attempts, if people haven't thought it through, the effect might be different from what [they] thought it would be.” Is this personal for Ms. Atwood? Maybe it is. The Emmy award-winning adaptation of her famous book The Handmaid's Tale failed the Canadian content rules. Imagine that, Canada's most-famous author is not Canadian content.
A person who lives in Abbotsford, right next door to my community of Langley, is Kris Collins, a.k.a kallmekris, who through her own ingenuity, creativity and determination, has become one of Canada's most popular TikTok stars. She has 48 million followers. It is phenomenal.
She is known around the world. She has learned how to monetize her social media presence. In the process, she was making a lot of money at it, so good for her, and all of this without the help or intervention of the CRTC. Ms. Collins figured out on her own what Canadians want and what the world wants. She knows how to market herself. She did not need the government.
This is what she says about the Liberal government's attempt to change all of that: “I am scared. I have been paying really close attention to Bill C-11, a.k.a. the online streaming act. It is something my fellow Canadian creators should be paying attention to, and all the viewers as well. Bill C-11 was supposed to be promoting Canadian storytelling online. In reality, the bill has ended up so broadly worded that it lets the CRTC interfere with every part of your online life.” This is exactly what Conservatives have been talking about: Liberal overreach.
We talked about the Senate, the chamber of sober second thought, as it likes to call itself or as Canadians call it. I have a quote from one of the senators, the Hon. David Richards. This is what he had to say about Bill C-11. I will read the first two sentences of his speech: “Honourable senators, I have a good deal of problems with this bill. I think it’s censorship passing as national inclusion.”
We hear the Liberals saying that it is not censorship at all, that people are free to post and write whatever they want and that the government is not telling them what not to write or what not to post. However, here is the problem. A bureaucratic body, the CRTC, would be tasked with deciding what to promote and, consequently, what to demote on the Internet, all based on that body's idea of what is good Canadian content, keeping in mind that Margaret Atwood did not pass the test.
Senator Richards went on to talk about equality, quoting somebody who commented a lot about equality, and that is author George Orwell, who, in his novel Animal Farm, said, about the society he was talking about, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” That is the issue here. That is why so many Canadians are upset with this legislation. They are feeling like they are less equal than people who might agree with the Liberal government's idea of what is Canadian culture and what is good for our society.
I want to quote one of those ordinary Canadians. This is a person who lives in my riding, Barry Springman, who wrote me a very thoughtful email. I have gotten a lot of emails, hundreds of them, and the vast majority are clearly against Bill C-11, urging Conservatives to vote against it. There are a handful that have some reserved support for the bill. I just wanted to get that on the record, to be fair. This is what Mr. Springman said: “Our family has lived in Langley, B.C. for the past 16 years and have family ties to this city for almost 50 years. We have enjoyed the freedoms we have as Canadians to choose what we want to see on the internet, freedom of speech, freedom of expression. In the past few years, we are seeing these freedoms erode. While we are always careful to warn our kids of the potential dangers of some of the content on the internet, we are very much against the government deciding what we should have access to. Therefore, we would like to express our deep displeasure in the Federal Government's attempt to pass the Bill C-11. In no way do we support the passing of this bill.”
This is just a sample. I do not have time to read more.
When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me and my brothers, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I will grant that the government's Bill C-11 probably started with good intentions, but, in typical overreach, Bill C-11 went off the rails. I know the Liberals are not going to take advice from the Conservatives, because they always say that they do not have to, but will they take advice from ordinary Canadian citizens, experts in the field and people like the Springman family? Will they at least take advice from the Senate, which is telling them that this legislation is wrong?
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals talk about how the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals are all in coalition together and about how it is a great bill, so people do not have anything to worry about, yet the Senate also said that this is censorship. Why did the government not accept the Senate's recommendations?
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be standing up to reiterate what all my colleagues have been saying tonight: It is time to kill Bill C-11.
The legislation is about giving the government more power and making sure that we have extra regulation. If we give the CRTC more regulations, that means more red tape and more gatekeepers telling us what we can and cannot watch; it also equals less opportunity for us, as Canadians, and less opportunity for creators who are using the Internet. We know that it comes with more costs.
We already heard that the government is going to ask content providers to make sure that they have the appropriate broadcast licences to go onto YouTube and other social media platforms and get their creations out there. These creations may be online programming, some of the short films being produced, animation or sharing their music. Now they are actually going to have to pay for a licence to have their own channels on social media.
We have already witnessed how government intervention has cost us as consumers. Canadians already pay the highest Internet service fees in the world. We pay the highest mobile phone bills, more than anywhere else in the developed world. To me, that is extremely disturbing. Canadians continue to pay more and more, while everybody else seems to be getting away with paying less while getting better services than we get from our phone companies or Internet service providers.
We still have lots of Canadians, including in my riding, who do not have access to high-speed broadband. They do not have that opportunity to actually see what we are talking about here on Bill C-11 because they still do not have the ability to hook up online.
As Conservatives, we believe that Canadians should be given more of what they want. However, the Liberal-NDP coalition wants the government to tell Canadians what they can watch or see on YouTube and other social media platforms.
The question here, and we are going to use a little theatre, is 2(b) or not 2(b). Of course, I am talking about section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under fundamental freedoms in section 2, it says that everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.
If we go to Justice Canada's own website, and we are talking about a department of the federal government, it says:
The protection of freedom of expression is premised upon fundamental principles and values that promote the search for and attainment of truth, participation in social and political decision-making and the opportunity for individual self-fulfilment through expression.... The Supreme Court of Canada has maintained that the connection between freedom of expression and the political process is “perhaps the linchpin” of section 2(b) protection.... Free expression is valued above all as being instrumental to democratic governance. The two other rationales for protecting freedom of expression [are] the search for truth through the open exchange of ideas, and fostering individual self-actualization, thus directly engaging individual human dignity.
Canadians who value their Charter of Rights, who understand the freedom of expression, are all the ones out there denouncing what Bill C-11 could do. That is why we are hearing from social media content creators. A lot of them have their own shows where they share their political views. They share a lot of things, from criticizing what is going on in the film industry to criticizing what is happening here in the House of Commons. They fear, and they have testified at committee, that their ability to share their thoughts online, and the costs that come with it, would undermine their freedom of speech, expression, and opinion and thought. This would happen through the excess licensing that this bill would create.
That is why, as Conservatives, we are standing so strongly in opposition to what is very much a censorship bill that we are seeing from the Liberal-NDP coalition.
We heard through the debate tonight a lot of times from the Liberals asking where the legal expertise was. All we have to do is look at Phil Palmer, who is a constitutional lawyer and former official in the Department of Justice. He argued that Bill C-11 is unconstitutional. He said:
...C-11 lacks a foundation in Canadian constitutional law. Internet streaming services do not transmit to the public by radio waves, nor do they operate telecommunications facilities across provincial boundaries. They and their audiences are the clients of telecommunications common carriers, which are subject to federal regulation. Netflix, for instance, in this case is no more a federal undertaking than a law firm such as McCarthy Tétrault or a chain store like Canadian Tire, both of which rely extensively on telecommunications services.
We are talking about a situation where we have the Government of Canada overstepping its means through Bill C-11 and infringing upon the rights of Canadians, Canadian companies, individuals and our artists. I would make the argument that Bill C-11 would actually penalize content creators, including our artists, whether they are creating music, culture, clothing or any other type of art that is out there on social media.
We already heard from the member for Sarnia—Lambton. She talked about the monetization and the ability of creators who have been able to go online and make a good living selling their music, art and any bit of their creations. Right now, if we regulate the industry, we are talking about $1 billion a year that the arts community is going to be able to earn. Today, without government interference, it is making $5 billion a year. Why would we want to limit the ability of our arts and culture industry to actually make less?
I guess there is the argument out there about having a free market versus government intervention. We know that government intervention always equals more dependency, because people are going to have to rely on grants and subsidization to be able to earn a living. I think the Liberal-NDP coalition, and I think my colleagues will agree with me, actually loves when Canadians become more dependent, because if they are more dependent, the government gets to control them.
A great example of that is the $595-million media bailout and how the government has control of our free press, supposedly.
This is a debate about freedom. This is about the debate to have freedom to create, share and earn a living. This is about freedom of Canadians to view and listen to what we as consumers choose, without the gatekeepers dictating what we see and hear. This is about the freedom to express ourselves and participate in society online without any censorship, but we should not be surprised, since we have a Prime Minister who has said that he admires basic communist dictatorships.
I have heard from hundreds of constituents and Canadians across the country who oppose Bill C-11 as well as the NDP-Liberal coalition. They are worried about censorship. The artists and content providers are worried about the red tape, the extra costs and the limited market opportunities. Matthew Hatfield, who is the campaigns director of OpenMedia, encapsulates this the best. He raises the issue I think most Canadians are concerned about. He says:
...Bill C-11 must not give the CRTC the power to manipulate the results of algorithms on platforms. We would never tolerate the government setting rules specifying which books must be placed in the front window of our bookstores or what kinds of stories must appear on the front pages of our newspapers. But that’s exactly what the discoverability provision in section 9.1(1) currently does. This dictatorial approach is not needed or appropriate.
I can tell Canadians that there is hope out there. A future Conservative government would kill Bill C-11.
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Madam Speaker, we listened to testimony, including from Peter Menzies, the former CRTC commissioner, who said that we cannot take a square peg and put it in a round hole. The bill still reads very much like the old Broadcasting Act. It is talking about applying broadcasting licences, which are meant, of course, to go to the big TV stations, to people who are trying to set up a YouTube channel. That type of over-complicated, costly and unfair system, which my colleague just said is ridiculous, is something we cannot allow to happen.
Do we have to update the Broadcasting Act? Yes, we do. Do we need to tell Canadians what they should watch? No, we do not. We want to make sure that censorship is stomped out, that Canadians and consumers can choose what they see, watch and listen to, and that all Canadian artists are allowed to put their creations online unfettered by government interference.
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