44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, in spite of the minister's assertions, this bill would not in any way help Canadian voices. What it would do is prop up a failing business model of other types of legacy content producers.
There is one line in a review of the bill that says, “C-11 will take money away from young entrepreneurs, funnel it back to traditional media and fund content from the established and well-connected culturati.” I believe that this is an accurate assessment of the bill. I do not believe that the government has addressed concerns that have been raised by thousands of Canadians, which is why we need more debate. We need more debate on this bill because it would impact so many Canadians in a negative way.
Given all these facts, why is the government curtailing debate on its censorship bill?
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- Mar/30/23 12:29:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the fundamental concerns, and there are many, that we have on this side of the House would be the fact that the CRTC would be the arbiter of what is allowed online. It would be the one in control possibly of the formula.
When we look at the potential for user-generated content to be regulated, it would be the CRTC, a big government approach to this, rather than just letting it be an open environment where people can put the content that they want online so it can be discovered by anybody from any region of the country, or possibly even outside of the boundaries of our country.
Would the member not agree that it is a good thing to have more discoverability rather than having a narrow-minded focus that the CRTC and the government are going to apply to user-generated content?
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- Mar/30/23 1:31:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the former CRTC chair is well known for supporting large Internet providers and being against consumers. This is one reason that we have some of the highest prices in the world for our system.
Where I come from, we are a peninsula surrounded by the United States. Therefore, Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent counties basically get inundated with U.S. content on a regular basis. If we do not do anything with respect to this right now, it will be Alphabet that controls what we see and do not see.
I wonder if the Conservatives have reached out to the artists in the border communities about their concerns with respect to being shut out by some of the structural positions the United States has taken. These not only limit them from even going into the country but also from sharing their information. Have they reached out to those artists and dealt with the fact that, with so many Canadians living on the border like us, we are being inundated?
If we look at the hearings taking place in the U.S. Senate and Congress, there have been admissions that this is not a red or blue issue. Instead, it is being called the green issue with respect to what Fox and others are showing. This is because it is all about money and not about truth. Have the Conservatives talked to the artists in the regions who are affected by the border?
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Mr. Speaker, I will point out to that member, whom I respect very much, that the Government of Quebec has spoken about this and expressed profound concern over Bill C-11. That government has actually sent a letter to the Liberal government expressing this concern and calling for further consultations before this bill goes forward. I know what those concerns are. One is that user-generated content would no longer be free. In other words, user-generated content would be regulated by the CRTC's government bureaucrats. That is something no Canadian should be supportive of.
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Mr. Speaker, the member across the way referred to this earlier when a member of the Liberal Party was talking about Bill C-11. She said that she still had a problem that user-generated content perhaps was not exempted as promised and that was the problem she had with the bill. Her Green Party colleague also said that he was concerned about this, that user-generated content was perhaps caught up in Bill C-11, and yet they said they are still going to support the bill despite their concerns.
It is not just Conservatives who are voicing their concerns about this issue. There are many issues going back to Bill C-10, when this was brought up by the current environment minister almost four years ago. This is an issue that Canadians are rightfully worried about. It would give possible control to the government to decide what CRTC can show or what it can prevent people from seeing on the Internet. Until that is laid to rest, we need to oppose the bill.
What would the member do with the concerns I have brought up?
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Mr. Speaker, if the amendments would address the concerns around user-generated content, I think we would have a whole bunch of viewers listening over here. However, the bill is flawed. We have been talking about this bill for many years, since Bill C-10. It is still flawed today, and frankly does not cut it for us on this side of the aisle.
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- Mar/30/23 5:17:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, and I thank the member for asking about what local folks and my neighbours are saying about this. I think a lot really support it, and we support freedom in this country.
We saw an example of overreach by the government not that long ago, just over a year ago, when bank accounts of some groups were shut down because people wanted to voice their freedoms, and so it leads to the next step. What if this government does not like a particular movement, a particular party or a particular message? Well, let us just make a call to the CRTC and say, “Hey, shut it down.” That is what my residents are talking about and are very worried about. They have seen examples of it already, and I think those concerns are warranted.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said during my speech, there has not been any other issue that I have been seized with other than Bill C-21, which is the firearms legislation, more than this piece of legislation.
I have heard from more people who are opposed to this piece of legislation, because of the impact it would have on user-generated content. I have listened to the voices of those people I represent. I have heard, at committee, the testimony of people. I read many of their comments about their concern about this piece of legislation. The Senate has a concern. The only sides that are not concerned about this are the Liberal and NDP side, and to some degree the Bloc. It is understandable why the Bloc is in support of this piece of legislation, but the NDP and the Liberals are not doing what they need to do, and that is to listen to those people who have expressed concerns.
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- Mar/30/23 7:55:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the last few hours we have heard a lot of talk of censorship, knowing there is no censorship in this bill. I appreciate that the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin focused his time on speaking about concerns from his constituents, which is exactly what we should be talking about in this place.
My question for him is this. Is he at all concerned with how talk about censorship could take away from and erode trust in legitimate, real concerns with the government's response to the Senate amendments?
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