44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 27, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, everything I have talked about up to this point is significant, but the one point I have not talked about is user-generated content. Make no mistake, the government had every opportunity to ensure that user-generated content or ordinary content was not scoped within this legislation, yet the government refused every opportunity it was given.
When I say ordinary content or user-generated content, I am talking about the videos that are put on Facebook. I am talking about Uncle Joe's video, Aunt Cathy's video, mom's video or a member's video. I am talking about the amateur YouTube channel that is set up in order to put out some crazy ideas or maybe do some stunts and perhaps capture an audience. That is what some Canadians wish to do. They think it is fun. It brings them joy. Perhaps they are hoping to make a go of it and make it big.
I am talking about those individuals who are taking advantage of this free space called the Internet, who are putting something out there, saying to Canadians that they can like it or not like it, but they are presenting it to them. If Canadians love it, these individuals go big. If Canadians or the global audience do not love it, then usually it does not go too big. Regardless, those individuals have the right to put it out there.
Bill C-11 would revoke that right. It would revoke that ability. It would move their content down in the system and make it undiscoverable, which means the government will be determining who wins and who loses. It will be determining what content does or does not get. It does not matter if it is from a large streaming platform or simply from an individual using Facebook. That is crazy.
Witnesses at the House of Commons committee and at the Senate committee raised this issue. Whether it is the content creators themselves, or Canadians, or legal experts or consumer groups that are incredibly concerned, there is massive concern around this scoping in of user-generated or ordinary content. In fact, some legal experts went so far as to say that it likened us to places like North Korea or China, where the government monitors, surveys and controls what can be posted online. That should be very concerning for everyone in the House. This is not Canada. This does not ascribe to the values that we call Canadian.
We have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a reason, because we at least in theory value freedom, choice and opportunity. However, when the government determines that it is going to regulate what can be posted, seen or heard online, then we are no longer functioning within that realm of freedom. At that point, we are not only taking away from consumer choice, but we are also stagnating the success of these many digital first creators and individuals who wish to make a go of it and capture an audience online, and not only for the present generation but for the next generations to come, those individuals who would come after us and wish to seek success online. The government will have already determined their future.
I am talking about the homegrown comedian Darcy Michael, a self-proclaimed pot-smoking gay man, He told us at committee that he was turned away by traditional broadcasters, but is now enjoying tremendous success on YouTube.
I am talking about a South Asian woman from Toronto who goes by the name Aunty Skates. She is in her forties and she decided to take up skateboarding during the pandemic. She thought it would be cool to bring people on her journey with her so she started posting videos, including some funny clips. People loved it; they still love it. She has done extremely well for herself. She was able to quit her job in finance and is now able to make a go of it on YouTube. She is able to invest in her family, in their quality of life, and she is enjoying it tremendously.
The freedom of the Internet and the opportunity to advance oneself within this space without needing to worry about gatekeepers has been quite magical for many. Moms have been able to stay home and enjoy a better life-work balance. Youth have been able to use their creative imaginations and skills behind a smartphone to capture an audience, and many have gone viral. It is amazing.
It is unfortunate that we have a government that does not take the opportunity to celebrate these individuals. It is unfortunate that we do not have a government that takes this opportunity to celebrate innovation and forward thinking, the momentum that is being gained within this space. Instead, we have a government that is insisting on regulating the Internet and bringing it back into the ages of radio and television.
I would be curious to know who in this place pays for a cable package. It is probably very few of us. Why? Because we do not want what we see to be controlled for us. Instead, we like on-demand streaming because at the end of the day we want to watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. For the government to bring the Internet under this umbrella of the Broadcasting Act, which incredibly outdated, is wrong.
At the end of the day, Bill C-11 would do two things. It would censor what Canadians can say so that homegrown talent and creative content in Canada would no longer succeed based on merit. Instead, content will be subject to a set of criteria that bureaucrats in Ottawa, which can be directed by cabinet, will use to determine its level of Canadianness. This will favour traditional art forms, of course, over the new creative content that is coming out. As a result, we heard at committee that many cultural groups, including BIPOC Canadians and indigenous Canadians, would be hurt.
Furthermore, Bill C-11 would censor what Canadians are able to see or, in other words, what consumers are able to access online. This legislation would effectively make the government a regulator of the Internet. The search bar would be conditioned to follow a set of algorithms that are predetermined by the government. Therefore, when Canadians go searching, they will not find the things they freely wish to find, but, rather, the things that the government wishes to show them.
On behalf of Canada's amazing creators who have achieved tremendous success on new media platforms or who seek to do so now or in the future and on behalf of Canadians who value the freedom to choose what they watch and listen to online, I move the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the first word “That” and substituting the following: “the order for the consideration of the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be discharged and the Bill withdrawn.”
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Madam Speaker, it is a good question; unfortunately, I do not have a precise answer for it.
However, the member hit on another important aspect of this bill, which is that it is not only about discoverability of Canadian content creators but also about levelling the playing field and making sure that streaming services pay their fair share. It is really not fair at all that traditional broadcasters have to contribute to the Canada Media Fund but the streaming services, the foreign-owned streaming services, have been able to skirt that obligation. This bill would help make things more balanced, and that is a very important point that the member has raised.
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Madam Speaker, right now traditional broadcasters have to make payments to the Canada Media Fund, which is used to help in the production of Canadian content. At some point, through regulation, the streaming services will also have to contribute a portion of the revenues they earn in this country from Canadian consumers into the Canada Media Fund in order to help with the production of Canadian content for streaming.
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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, these came in over the weekend, and this afternoon, I had an email from my constituent Bob that I will share. It has an interesting spin. He said that what is lost in this bill is that, while the government is forcing Facebook and all to pay for news, those same media of Global, CBC and CTV are taking photos from his Instagram and Facebook pages and using them without payment. There is an interesting one.
The other email is a concern from a YouTuber. He is worried about the government overreach on Bill C-11.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to get up and ask my colleague from Calgary Shepard a question, because “there's always something to do.”
The government of the day has subsidized media outlets across this country to the tune of over $600 million because these media outlets that are highly regulated by organizations like the CRTC and forced to follow these rules cannot generate the advertising revenue or the interest they need because the government is dictating to them what they can and cannot do. Does my colleague see Bill C-11 doing the same thing to digital content creators on the Internet?
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Mr. Speaker, the media bailout fund, which I think is what the member is referring to, was a $595-million fund. I remember it distinctly because I was on the Standing Committee on Finance at the time and held it up for about three to four hours asking basic questions. A government official was there from Finance Canada, and I asked whom it would cover and how one would actually obtain the funding. I said that it sounded like it was $595 million to cover politicians, and asked if that was correct. After about 15 minutes, the official said that, yes, that was basically it.
I started reading off the titles of different publications and asking if they would be eligible, and none of them were. Basically, if someone were going to cover the government and what the government was doing in current events, and obviously in flattering coverage because someone would never bite the hand that feeds them, then they would obtain the money. That has been one of the greatest problems with this. Again, this is old thinking. It is thinking from 40 years or 50 years ago to take the Broadcasting Act and impose it on online streaming services, on YouTube and online platforms. It just does not fit, and the government should abandon this.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment and his question. I think that we could have a debate and a discussion at some point on George Orwell's ideological and political views and his real objectives as a left-wing socialist.
To answer his question, I think that it is, in fact, essential that the CRTC has authority over digital broadcasters. That is the purpose of this exercise. It does not expand bureaucracy; there is absolutely nothing new about it.
The CRTC had authority over traditional media, television and radio. Over the past 30 years, no one has died because of that. Things still turned out okay. Now, the law needs to be modernized so that it also applies to web giants and digital broadcasters. I do not see how this creates a major problem. People will be able to watch whatever they want, when they want, as usual.
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Madam Speaker, the scary part about the bill is that it does leave a lot to be determined at some other point. It leaves a lot to be determined in regulation. It leaves a lot to be determined by other levels that are away from this piece of legislation, which is part of the concern that we brought up. It also means that large media streaming giants like Crave or Disney+ might decide that the regulations in Canada are too much and so they are just going to leave. Canadians would then lose all of that content that is and is not Canadian, which limits their choice.
Currently, Canadians do not have a choice about a lot of pieces of online media that other places around the world do, specifically because of our regulatory framework and the fact that some of these businesses and companies just choose not to play here. That means we have fewer options and less choice. We hear the same song on the radio over and over again, because it meets that qualification standard, and it is the same kind of thing.
The bill would actually serve to disadvantage Canadian content, Canadian artists and Canadians ultimately.
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Madam Speaker, during the lockdowns, and for me the lockouts, I still found myself with very little free time on my hands, but when I did have those precious few moments, I could turn to the Internet as a source of information, entertainment and comfort during uncertain times.
The Internet is an endless frontier for creativity, discovery and free thought. While the reach of radio and TV is confined largely to within our own borders, Canadian creators throughout the past few decades have been charting new pathways online. Canada’s media landscape of the 21st century has been and will continue to be defined by their artistic endeavours. Regardless of people’s background or prerequisite knowledge of their craft, Canadians have been reaching global audiences through the power of their voices, performances and words. It is our duty as legislators to celebrate and ease their efforts in reaching the world. In no instance should we be working to limit their expression at home or abroad.
We should afford the same consideration to Canadians who consume this content. The first 30 years of commercial Internet have changed the manner in which we enjoy our entertainment. While the evolution of radio, print and TV over the last century has taken place within the vacuum of Canada’s telecommunications industry, there is no such restraint on online content. Canadians are more empowered than ever to pick and choose the content they want to watch, listen to and read. The government should be working to encourage, not suppress, variety and choice within a new broadcasting reality.
Regrettably, in Canada, and in the year 2023, this bill gives us cause to rise to the defence of free expression and free choice. This debate should have all Canadians concerned, and it does. In a complicated world in which the free flow of information is more important than ever, I am pleased to speak once again to Bill C-11 from the perspective of the majority of Canadians.
When a government has been given every opportunity over the course of a year to do the right thing, is presented with Senate amendments that attempt to repair mistakes that were made and then rejects some of those amendments, Canadians are given cause to reflect and draw conclusions on the intentions of the current government.
It is clear that the Prime Minister made up his mind from the very beginning of this process. He is not interested in the appeals of civil society, industry professionals, independent content creators, and the 92% of Canadians who access an uncensored Internet for their news, opinions and entertainment. From the beginning of the debate, they have been calling on the government to stop its attempts to censor their search results.
We must not embark down the road of censorship and algorithmic control. Canada is one of the most connected countries in the world. We are the model for what a free and open Internet can achieve. In normal times, this would be seen as a net positive for civil discourse and the cultural mosaic, and any responsible government would embrace this potential. However, that is not the case with the Liberal government. It has seen fit to impose top-down regulations of the worst kind on the one true international entity that reaches beyond borders and makes Canadian culture freely available to the world.
Bill C-11 applies CRTC regulatory powers to the Internet. It effectively empowers the Prime Minister, his cabinet and bureaucrats in Ottawa to decide what Canadians see and say online. They would determine which material is given preference and would effectively have control over Internet algorithms.
The government continually claims that this legislation would have no effect on the performance of user-generated content, such as a typical cat video, but its actions tell us a different story, and Canadians are picking up on it. Despite overwhelming public pressure to back away from independent creators and to leave “the little guy” alone, the government has rejected a Senate amendment that would have protected content created by ordinary individuals. This amendment would have ensured that regulations target only commercial material. Canadians are rightly offended by this decision. To reject hard-fought-for protections for free expression in the eleventh hour reeks of a hidden agenda.
These fears are entirely justified. The Prime Minister has decided to impose his own personal brand onto the Internet, and we have to wonder why. I would argue it is because, even with his desperate attempt to control the narrative via the legacy media, which he has to do before 2024, he no longer has control over the message.
As the relevance and appeal of traditional media fades, the Internet has done more than fill the void. It has changed the media landscape forever.
To consider just a few of these statistics, every day 100,000 songs are uploaded to streaming platforms, 1.7 million books were self-published in the last year, there are now three million podcasts that put out about 30 million episodes this last year and 2,500 videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
While decades-old media empires have been implementing strategies to downsize, alternative culture is flourishing. There are nearly 40 YouTube channels with more than 50 million subscribers, which is far above the reach of any newspaper or record label in Canada. We have also seen a shift among our young people, with 86% who have expressed a desire to become online influencers.
In fact, it is our young people who are driving these numbers in large part. The Prime Minister has now ostracized 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds who are very motivated to vote in their first election, and a number of them are my grandkids. This is excellent news for them for the future of independent Canadian arts and culture, but the problem, in the Prime Minister’s view, is that not every ounce of this material will align with his government’s opinions.
We have seen this type of behaviour before. Liberals attempted to restrict Canada summer jobs funding through a draconian values test. Employers were permitted to offer life-changing experiences to our youth only after attesting to uphold values the Liberal Party deemed appropriate.
Their 2021 platform promises to revoke the charitable status of crisis pregnancy centres because their life-saving work flies in the face of the Liberal Party’s belief in abortion at any time and for any reason. The majority of Canadians, over 80%, actually want to see more pregnancy counselling centres, not less. The Liberals are so out of touch.
Now they are attempting to control cyberspace through Bill C-11. Once again, Liberals are attempting to pick winners and losers. In effect, this bill works to extinguish this ambition for the next generation of Canadian creators. It would destroy the creative drive that makes film, music and print material so alluring.
Instead of relying on a tried-and-true business model to promote their content to the world, creators would be forced to manicure their output to fit within the Prime Minister’s CanCon ideal. We heard a bit about that from my colleague. This is not what arts and culture in a free society looks like.
The Liberals argue this legislation is required to ensure more Canadian content reaches our screens, but at the same time, they are killing the inventive spirit that has inspired a new generation of Canadians to express themselves.
In a piece in The Free Press, Ted Gioia writes, “...what we really need is a robust indie environment—in which many arts and culture businesses flourish and present their diverse offerings.” He also says, “...we deserve a culture in which there are hundreds or thousands of organizations doing audience development and outreach.”
“Let a thousand flowers blossom,” he says.
As colleagues on both sides of this House often say, the world needs more Canada. I wholeheartedly agree. Canadian culture is being expressed, not lost, in current and expounding methods, but this can only be maintained through an open and free Internet. Let us not limit our potential. Let us not turn back in time.
Canadians analyze this bill, and they cannot help but conclude it is an attempt to impose state censorship through the back door. Giving any government the power to manipulate online algorithms will not benefit Canadian culture. What is also clear is the threat it poses to freedom of expression in this country.
The Liberals’ time in office will end, along with that of all other future governments. Do we honestly want the government of the day, whoever it is, to impose its world view over top of what we say and do online? As a proud Canadian, I certainly do not want that.
I will end with this. If it should pass, I want Canadians to know the following. A Conservative government would appeal Bill C-11. Recognizing the richness and breadth of Canadian content in the Internet age, we would require large streaming services to invest more into producing Canadian content, and we would explain that to Canadians when we brought it forward while protecting the individual rights and freedoms of Canadians.
Through a Conservative approach to CanCon, homegrown talent would be able to compete on an equal footing with the rest of the world. When removed from the seat of power, I predict the Liberals will applaud a Conservative government’s effort to repeal this legislation. Instead of entrusting the future of Canadian culture to faceless bureaucrats in Ottawa, we will trust Canadians’ ability to promote Canada to the world and make their own decisions on what content they consume. We will allow a thousand flowers to bloom.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate that question, because the truth of the matter is that the government has already been trying to manipulate what Canadians see on the basis of its funding of the legacy media and its expectations of them.
We are seeing this, as well, with Facebook. On this side of the floor, we connected with them because we are seeing changes in algorithms in regard to policy and politics. Of course there need to be those controls in place, but, believe me, the last thing Canadians want, and certainly this younger generation that has found their voice wants, is to see any government telling them what they can and cannot do, see or create.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville is a friend of mine, and I understand that she believes what she is saying.
I cannot see it in this bill. I see nothing in this bill where faceless bureaucrats are going to tell Canadians what they can watch. That is not the case. This bill is about ensuring that our creators in this country would have work up against what is a monolithic, multinational digital media with giants like Netflix, Disney and Crave that are producing an enormous amount of content without a concern for the Canadian voices and the Canadian artists within that content.
Bill C-11 is just updating the Broadcasting Act to deal with that reality.
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Madam Speaker, the CRTC is getting its marching orders from the government, absolutely. What it says to them will impact how the CRTC functions, and it has its hands full, quite honestly, dealing with the dynamics around the legacy media at this point in time.
The truth of the matter is there is all kinds of production going on in Canada, from those large producers. If the member listened to the speech from the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood who was in the industry for 45 years, he talked about all across this nation, and especially in British Columbia, on the island and in the Lower Mainland, these companies are coming to Canada to make their movies and documentaries. We are gaining an incredible amount of GDP because of that influx into our nation.
We deserve the freedom as Canadians to use the Internet in the way that it has been designed and is functioning now.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. Again, we are really seeing a campaign of fear and disinformation from the Conservatives. People will be able to post whatever they want on social media. People will be able to listen to whatever they want. This will not change anything.
The Conservative Party says it would continue to give these web giants a sort of tax break where they are not required to contribute to Canadian cultural content production.
Why do my colleague and the Conservatives want to disadvantage Canadian companies by giving tax breaks to web giants such as YouTube, Disney+ and Netflix?
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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, I am not quite sure how to answer that question. The Internet is a new invention. It changes everything. Just like when the Gutenberg printing press was invented, it upset culture and completely overturned society, but it came out stronger. I think the Internet will do the same. We are too close right now to see what effect it will have, but we have already started seeing some of the effects with legacy media struggling and people like Kris Collins thriving.
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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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