44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, what is happening in Canada? The world is watching our nation and seeing a big, bossy government close down debate on censorship. The Liberals are censoring the debate on censorship. This is what the world is seeing. This puts us in the category of the Communists of Beijing and countries like North Korea and Russia. Putin would be envious of the ability to change the algorithms of his viewers to watch content online.
This is a dangerous time in Canada. We have all had struggles for the past three years. The division in our country has never been as great as it is today, and now we have a government that wants to take it a step further, jumping on that raw nerve in Canada that distrusts government because of its actions on this bill. We are here tonight debating because of the forcing of closure on this bill. If people are watching this online, I am going to clip this and put it out there and hopefully if Bill C-11 does not pass they will still be able to watch this. People should like and share this right now, because this might be the last opportunity. People will be able to post things, but no one will be able to find them. This is what is in this bill. This is a layering-on of effects on our freedoms.
Even this beautiful Parliament, where 338 people from across Canada are elected to bring our views here, to debate ideas and policies and directions for our country with respect to what is right and what is wrong, has been affected, even before this bill. We are taking a system of communication that has been a tool of democracies all over the world and we are taking a tool out of the tool box.
There are problems in Canada. There are problems in our democracy. We have seen it with foreign influence in our country. We have seen that the state is now sponsoring media throughout our land, and when Canadians turn on the news, they are saying that it does not reflect their views and the Canada they know. Then they come to the realization that it is being sponsored by government and so they mistrust it. This goes back to the divisions that we have in our country. We have to come up with policies and ideas and laws that bring people together and not divide them. This is the problem that I have with this bill. It is another big, bossy government wanting to divide Canadians.
Censorship has been in our history in the world. History does not always repeat itself, but it rhymes. We only have to look to the failed regimes around the world, and not even that far back in our history, to the 1940s in eastern Europe. In 1945, there was a vote in Hungary. There was democracy in Hungary in 1945. In the vote, the Communists finished sixth. By 1949, it was a Communist country. How is that possible? One of the tactics they used is called a salami tactic, where they just take a slice, and every time a little slice more and a bit more each time. Right now, this is what this bill represents. The government will tell its citizens what they can watch, what they can consume, how they should be thinking or what thoughts they should be portraying.
I send pleas to the members here tonight to think about the impact if this bill becomes law in our country and in a future Parliament there is a leader who takes these tools and censors their party and their beliefs and what they want to post. This would take us into a country of Canada that I do not want any part of for myself or for my kids.
The bill would allow one to post all one wants, and we heard this earlier tonight, but one's fellow Canadians would not be able to view it. We still have time to stop this.
Later in my speech I will have two direct asks to Canadians who are watching live tonight or who are watching this online. I ask them to please, once again, like and share this video.
I would like to go back to some of the struggles we have in Canada because our institutions such as this place, Parliament, are not functioning how they were set up to function. Everybody in here has probably had people phone their office and say that they were watching question period and that everyone was asking questions but they were not hearing any answers. The citizens of this country see this over and over. They hear questions asked that they want to hear the answers to. They phone and write and ask why the Speaker is not telling them to answer those questions.
The problem is not so much that the Speaker needs to impose new rules on this place; it is how this was set up. We have freedom of press in Canada. How this place is supposed to work is that if we have an opposition grilling a minister or a prime minister and they are giving us garbage, the media would hound that minister or prime minister until they received answers to those questions. If they did not answer, it would heighten the question of what they are trying to hide.
We are not getting that right now in Canada. We have some great journalists who are working hard on uncovering the truths of what is happening, but those stories are not being published. This is because, like I said, when states start sponsoring media, everyone questions the stories they are hearing. We know whoever pays the piper picks the tune.
That is how this place is supposed to work. We should have the galleries full of media right now. We do not. During question period, we do not have media filling the galleries. It is because there are no stories; the opposition heckles. There is nothing they want to hear.
I do not know how this is going to end. We heard the government talking about proroguing, which is cancelling or shutting down Parliament. That could kill the bill. The bill is going to be passed to the Senate, unless the Bloc and the NDP decide they are not going to vote for it later tonight. There are still chances. I am an optimist; there is still hope.
The Canadians who are watching should not give up on hope. They can search out the petition we are circulating right now. They should be sure to sign up to get updates because we do not know what YouTube is going to show people in the months or years to come if this becomes law. However, they can have confidence. We heard earlier tonight from the Leader of the Opposition that one of the first things we would do is cancel Bill C-11.
I know my time is limited. I would like to thank everyone for being here tonight. I have one last ask of the people watching online. They should please like and share. I ask them to contact their NDP member of Parliament, because they can perhaps get the courage to stand up for their convictions, vote against the government and bring the government down. We could then have an election that elects a government that will protect our freedoms.
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- Mar/30/23 6:47:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, governments have always enacted things for people's safety. It is for their benefit, and it will all be okay, my hon. colleague has pointed out. The problem is that people will not realize that they are not watching the videos that they want to watch; they are watching what the government wants them to watch. That is the problem. This is how badly written this is: People will not realize that the content they consume in the future is what the government wants them to consume, not what the viewer is looking for.
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- Mar/30/23 6:48:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe the analogy is a little bit about what is being spoken in the town square. The comment is that we cannot have people speaking their mind in the town square because it might go against other people's views. Instead, they would like to shut down town squares across Canada. That was in the past.
How we consume information right now is online. Anything that changes what people are viewing online is wrong, and it is censorship.
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- Mar/30/23 6:51:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the wacky NDP. They know what is best for Canadians. This is the elitist NDP who are so far removed from the working class that they have no idea what is going on out there in Canada.
People are suffering in our nation. They are looking for ideas and policies. They may look at an NDP platform or a speech that might be delivered in here by that member. The bill would limit Canadians' ability to actually see the content of that member.
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- Mar/30/23 6:52:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, she is misrepresenting my words. We need to watch the video again. I will post this, and she can comment on it. I will put it on Facebook. That is how freedom of speech and expression should work in Canada. Members can disagree with me. Come onto the forum, put a comment—
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