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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Rachael Thomas

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Lethbridge
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $131,565.29

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 173 - Mar/27/23
Mrs. Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge, CPC)
  • Mar/27/23 12:27:16 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-11 
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made quite the accusations against this side of the House. He was, of course, borderline unparliamentary in his language. Nevertheless, he makes a few false points. He says that in the legislation, the government does not go after user-generated content. That is interesting to me because we heard from legal expert after legal expert, content creator after content creator and witness after witness, both at the House of Commons committee and at the Senate committee, that in fact the legislation in its current state does. The Senate heard those concerns and it tried to fix the legislation in that regard by taking a part of clause 4 out. It would have removed user-generated content. However, the government has decided to make sure the amendment is not accepted. Further to that, the government has decided that the amendment to remove clause 7 is not accepted. Let me explain the impact of this. Clause 7 gives cabinet the ability to direct the CRTC with regard to this legislation. That means there is obvious opportunity for political interference, which, under any government, whether this government or successive governments, is wrong and should rightly concern Canadians. Further to that, user-generated content, under clause 4, absolutely is scoped into this legislation. The government had an opportunity to accept the amendment from the Senate, but it has decided not to. If we put those two together, we can quickly see that cabinet does in fact intend to direct the CRTC to regulate Facebook videos or cat videos, as the member says. Does he have anything to say in response to that?
273 words
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  • Rabble!
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Context: House Hansard - 36 - Feb/21/22
Mrs. Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge, CPC)
  • Feb/21/22 4:34:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member from across the way made mention that the protests that took place in Ottawa could be traced back to organized crime groups or terrorist-like groups, as he accused them of being. However, he did not offer any evidence for this, and the minister just a few days ago made the same types of accusations when he was doing a media press conference. The media followed up with a number of questions in that regard. When the media asked him if he could provide evidence, he was not able to. The media then asked if it seemed like more of a hunch, or whether it was substantiated. He had to admit that it really was just a hunch, something that he felt might be a tie. I am wondering if the hon. member has evidence that he would like to present to the House of Commons that this is in fact a terrorist-like organization and a large organized crime group.
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  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
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