- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Peterborough—Kawartha
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot wrap my head around what it is the Liberals do not understand. When they are saying they are going to control what Canadians see and read, it makes no sense. The critics have spoken up. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. They have said to the heritage minister that he has completely rejected the senators' amendment that would exclude user content from CRTC regulation. They said that they were going to do one thing and they are doing another. It makes no sense.
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Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in the House of Commons to represent the constituents of Peterborough—Kawartha.
Today, I am speaking to one of the most important bills that will come before this Parliament: Bill C-11, also known as the online streaming act. Bill C-11 would impact anyone who uses the Internet. Bill C-11, or the online streaming act, is a significant piece of legislation. It is long and convoluted in how it is written, but in a nutshell it would mean that the CRTC would have significant governing powers over content creators and what is uploaded to the Internet.
For those who do not know, the CRTC is the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. According to its website, it is an administrative tribunal that operates at arm's length from the federal government. This bill appears to make it even closer to the government, meaning more government overreach. As we have all experienced, more bureaucracy never equals more efficiency or equity.
In this speech, I am going to outline three key reasons why Canadians should be deeply disappointed and concerned with this bill. Number one is the lack of transparency. Number two is logistics and the fallout from not foreseeing the consequences of this poorly written bill. Number three is unnecessary urgency.
If someone Google searches Bill C-11, they will read the following: “The online streaming act does not apply to individual Canadians, whether they are users, creators, digital influencers or workers.” Just for the record, in case people at home do not know, an online content creator could perhaps be a child who has uploaded their performance at their talent show, Justin Bieber, perhaps one's favourite cook, an athlete or a musician. All of these people are considered to be online content creators. This is the biggest area of mistrust and lack of transparency when we go back and read that “the online streaming act does not apply to individual Canadians, whether they are users, creators, digital influencers or workers.”
We have heard multiple times from the heritage minister that this bill would not target content creators, but rather the platforms, which means Facebook, TikTok, Netflix, etc. However, Ian Scott, the chair of the CRTC, the entity that would be responsible for doing the regulation on the government's behalf, says that user-generated content would be fair game. Who are we to believe?
That is fairly inconsistent information and, as such, Canadians are very skeptical of the “just trust us” approach. I do not know of any contract with any reputable organization where the customer is asked to sign now and learn the details later. This approach lacks transparency and, in the absence of information, we can expect people to fill it in with misinformation. The Liberal government continues to leave out information, which leads to mistrust. Why is the government asking Canadians to just trust it? What premise has it set to deserve such blind faith?
I want to move on to my second major concern: the logistics of this bill. As I have mentioned, there are very few clear details on how this bill would impact content creators and users. What I do know is that there are thousands of videos uploaded every day, and probably even millions. How will the government plan to manage this? What is the plan? I have seen time and again the government fail to plan and constantly react instead of prepare. We have the highest wait times at passport offices that we have ever seen, because the government was not prepared. How is it going to manage the volume of content creators fairly? I would like to know these details before we pass this bill.
Rules and guidelines are extremely important when generating content. I worked in both mainstream media and as an online content creator, and it is extremely important to have guidelines that equal the playing field, but this bill would not do that. Here is a quote from Dr. Irene Berkowitz. Irene said:
Bill C-11's wrong turn starts with the notion that CRTC has jurisdiction over the whole Internet for two reasons. The first is scale. Consider the math. On YouTube alone, 500 hours of content is uploaded per minute....
Second, new media is a feature, not a bug.... Bill C-11 gets it backwards. Instead of positioning new media as a model to engage audiences, it ensnares new media in the epic fail part of our old media: disregard for audiences.
Here is another quote. It is from Darcy Michael, a comedian and digital content creator:
Bill C-11 will directly affect my ability to earn an income.
He went on:
The sheer logistics of the CRTC trying to approve Canadian content for every video uploaded to social media is impossible. Across the country, there are thousands of videos uploaded every day. There is simply no way to approve this. You are creating a logistical nightmare, with all due respect to the members, without properly understanding the industry that we're in.
He continued:
I don't want to be paying 30% to do something I don't benefit from as a digital creator. I think it's a second tax. I think that by the end of the day I'll be paying 80% tax on my income. That isn't fair.
To my third point, why the rush? This is a significant piece of legislation that needs a lot of attention and detail, so why would anyone who truly cares about democracy want this rushed? Bill C-11 would be the first major update to the Broadcasting Act in 31 years, and this government is ramming it through. Why?
Dozens of interested witnesses have yet to be heard by the heritage committee. The government has an obligation to listen to those who are directly impacted by the bill. By imposing an arbitrary deadline to return the bill to the House, the government is not allowing members to carefully consider each clause or amendment, and this will inevitably result in a flawed and incoherent Broadcasting Act, which comes back to the second point I made earlier: There is no way to work out the logistics in such a rushed approach.
I am somebody who likes things done quickly. I am always about speed and efficiency, but this is being rushed. I would ask Canadians if they would want someone regulating every book they read and every song they hear. Do they want censorship at that level? Bill C-11 would create winners and losers based on the CRTC's rule book, which is unknown at this time and will be decided on with zero transparency to Canadians.
Here are some powerful words from Oorbee Roy, a digital content creator, who said:
Not only does the bill not help me. It also hurts me and actively undermines my needs as an artist. There is no language in the bill to tell me otherwise.
Frankly, I don't qualify. I'm just not the right fit. That I'm not the right fit is a story I've been told my whole life. ... I'm too round. I'm a nerd. I'm too old. I'm female. I'm not feminine enough. I'm not the right demographic, but I've never been the right demographic. My voice has been suppressed far too many times.
That is a powerful quote from Oorbee Roy, a digital content creator.
I will wrap up my speech by saying that George Orwell warned us of the dangers of having the thought police, and I think that Bill C-11 is a potentially dangerous bill that needs a lot more attention before we can get it right. I urge everyone in this House to vote against it and take the time it needs to make sure we get it done right.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague across the way for his contribution to the arts.
As somebody who was an online content creator and able to create a business as a result of it, and who also worked in mainstream media, I am curious to have his thoughts on how he thinks the CRTC can logistically regulate the millions of videos that are uploaded to social media and YouTube every single day.
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