- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Saskatoon West
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,909.92
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Abbotsford.
Today I am speaking, along with many others, about an issue fundamental to the future of our country.
Do we as Canadians live in a country that believes in the principles of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and supports free speech on the Internet, or do we deviate and support the principles of censorship and the pursuit of wokeness and conformity? What do we value as Canadians?
The fact is that the Conservative Party is the only political party in Canada that stands for freedom of speech and the rights of Canadians to express themselves freely on the Internet. Margaret Atwood called Bill C-11 “creeping totalitarianism”.
We have, and we will, fight this legislation to the bitter end. Is it a losing fight? Probably. We have heard many times, when the Prime Minister asked the leader of the NDP to jump, that the only question he gets in response is “How high?” That does not mean that Conservatives would not fight. However, it does mean that, when Conservatives form the next government under our new leader, we would repeal this horrible attack on free speech.
Much has been said about the obvious move toward censorship and government control over what we see and post. However, I want to come at this from a different angle, which is that of The Littlest Hobo. I grew up in the 1970s in rural Saskatchewan. We had colour TV, I am not that old, but our house only had two channels: CBC and CTV. It was the golden age of government censorship of what we could watch on TV.
Back then, the CRTC was not as concerned about political censorship as we would see with the result of Bill C-11, but it was very concerned that we watch Canadian programming, instead of that evil, awful American programming. Every day, after school, I had to endure a half-hour of the The Littlest Hobo, because it was literally the only thing I could watch on TV. Now some may have enjoyed the show. I did not.
This was the result of the government dictating to Canadians what it felt we needed to watch on TV. Thankfully, we eventually got U.S. TV channels in our house, and we were able to finally watch what we chose to watch and not what the CRTC told us we could watch.
Everyone who has grown up in the Internet generation has always had full control to watch whatever they want to watch on the Internet. The government has so far been unable to censor them and force them to watch the content it deems important.
With Bill C-11, the government would be throttling the Internet and forcing Canadians to watch things it deems important: The Littlest Hobo of this decade. Do not get me wrong. I am not against Canadian content in any way. I just want good content, wherever it comes from.
Canada produces some amazingly good content. For example, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was written by a Canadian author and is being filmed on Canadian soil. It stars Canadian actors and it employs Canadian producers, but it fails to make the cut. It is not considered Canadian by the CRTC.
This just demonstrates the silliness of the government trying to dictate and control our creative industries. The last thing our creative industries in Canada need is more government control.
Canada has amazing content producers, from big-name actors, producers and artists down to small content creators on YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. We must keep them free to compete in a global world, rather have the government pick who are the winners and who are the losers.
How does Bill C-11 work? How does the legislation actually strangle the freedom of individual Canadians on the Internet?
At the heritage committee, one witness, J.J. McCullough, used a metaphor that I believe captures this law in a nutshell. He said, “It's like promising not to regulate books while [simultaneously] regulating...bookstores.”
The approach of the NDP-Liberal coalition is to regulate everyday social media platforms that Canadians use: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and others.
This would directly affect every Canadian, as the platforms would be told by the government which of the content created is allowed or not. It is as if someone walked into a bookstore but would only be allowed to see the books on certain racks. They would not be allowed to see the books on other racks in the rest of the store.
The government agency overseeing this is called the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, CRTC. These are the same people who forced me to watch The Littlest Hobo as a kid. The CRTC has been around for a long time, and, in theory, it is responsible for ensuring Canadian content on radio and TV. They are the reason cable is so expensive and why many of us are cord-cutting.
Basically, the CRTC is a bunch of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa elites, appointed by the Prime Minister, whose jobs would be to decide what we consume and what we post.
This law would effectively give the CRTC the authority to set out conditions, requirements and exemptions for what is to be restricted or to be allowed. For example, the law would give the commission the authority to make orders imposing conditions affecting such things as “the proportion of programs to be broadcast” being “devoted to specific genres” and “the presentation of programs and programming”.
Despite its vague language, it is clear that the government plans to give the friends of the Prime Minister the power to decide what the people see, quite literally policing content.
They do this under the guise of promoting Canadian content, but that is just an excuse to grab more power and to limit the freedoms we enjoy. That is exactly what Bill C-11 does.
It gives the CRTC the authority over platforms like YouTube. These platforms would be forced to comply with regulations that prioritize content to be displayed to individuals over others, depending on what the CRTC deems to be the priority. That is exactly the problem.
This law would “encourage the development of Canadian expression by providing a wide range of programming that reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity”.
Who will decide what content is reflective of Canadian opinions, ideas and values and exactly what those are? Of course it is the friends of the Prime Minister.
This one phrase would reprogram the algorithms of your platforms to show you what the government wants you to see, rather than having your preferences deciding what appears in your feed.
The NDP-Liberals do this under the banner of diversity and inclusivity. The truth is that, right now, open platforms allow for, and facilitate the exchange of, diverse and inclusive content better than a government with a political agenda ever could.
The party that prides itself on multiculturalism is now putting a rubber stamp on what is Canadian and what is not. Canadian culture and interests are always expanding and are being influenced by many different artists, genres, languages and the trends of the day. The government is the last organization I would want creating Canadian culture.
Ultimately this is the difference between the Conservative approach on this issue and the approach of the NDP-Liberals. They are concerned about government control and how to have power over Canadians. Conservatives are devoted to freedom. We want Canadians to be able to live their everyday normal lives on the internet. It is simple as that.
Let us talk about how this legislation would affect Canadians. As Neal Mohan, the Chief Product Officer for YouTube, has explained in countless interviews, Bill C-11 would harm Canadian content creators.
Some may argue that YouTube is a massive corporation simply looking after its own interests. Of course, on one level that is true, but YouTube contributes over a billion dollars to the Canadian economy and creates roughly 35,000 jobs in this country, so it does have a stake beyond the confines of Silicon Valley.
Bill C-11 would essentially decide who the winners and losers of this market are, based on the qualities and conditions set out by the CRTC. Rather than helping the little guy, this government plans on putting barriers that impede them from success.
By creating more red tape, we would not just harm the economy but, more importantly, we would harm each Canadian who depends upon the internet to generate income. Nowadays, that is a lot of people from all age groups and all walks of life. This law would cover any content individually generated that touches a user trying to make even the smallest dollar.
The Liberals will say that this bill would not touch personal content like cat videos but that is simply not true. Even the current Liberal-appointed chair of the CRTC told the truth by mistake and admitted that Bill C-11 would regulate content generated by individual users.
According to YouTube and others in this field, forcing content to be displayed in one’s feed may have a negative impact on content creators within Canada and would harm the very people the government claims that it wants to protect.
We all know what happens when the government tries to force-feed us content that we don’t want, like The Littlest Hobo.
We do not want to watch it, yet the government shoves it down our throats anyway. At least CBC TV shows are voluntary right now. Just wait until the algorithms are required by law to put these in our YouTube searches, then in our Facebook videos and then in our Insta stories.
There will be no escaping the government-approved content, so we will shut it off. One does not see what one wants, and the so-called Canadian content shoved down one’s throat will go unwatched. It is a lose-lose situation, like most things that this current NDP-Liberal government does.
Bill C-11 is a threat to our fundamental rights and is setting up the foundation for censorship. Whether one is a YouTube content creator, a social media influencer or even just a viewer, Bill C-11 would limit Canadians from seeing and watching the content they choose.
People in Saskatoon West are worried about what is to come if this legislation passes, and that is why we must kill Bill C-11.
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Madam Speaker, we have talked a lot about Bill C-18 and Bill C-11. There have been many comments from people outside of this place, like experts in the field. Lots of different things have been said, and the reality is this. The government is going to have gatekeepers in place who will tell Canadians what they can see and what they can hear on the Internet. That is what we as Conservatives are fighting against. We do not want the government to be the one to tell Canadians what they can see, what they can read and what they can post online.
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Madam Speaker, I have many things to say, but where to begin?
First, Google is one option. There are many other browsers that can be used. If someone does not like one of them, they can go to another. That is the beauty of the free market and companies providing services.
The other thing is that Google's response was a direct response to the government's proposed legislation. The government refuses to admit that there are consequences to what it is proposing. There are significant consequences to the government dictating what consumers in Canada can see. This will affect everybody from consumers themselves to the companies that provide content.
It is an example of the government being completely oblivious to the real implications of what it is proposing with its legislation in Bill C-11 and Bill C-18.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in this House.
Another day, another debate about an NDP-Liberal piece of legislation about Internet freedom in Canada. The good folks on the west side of Saskatoon have heard me speak in this place about Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, two bills aimed at controlling what Canadians see and post on the Internet.
Today we are dealing with Bill C-27, which is aimed at protecting the online data of Canadians. This legislation is meant to put safeguards around the use of artificial intelligence and establish rules around Internet privacy. Sounds good, sounds noble and sounds like something we should support. To a certain degree I do support these initiatives.
However, I have deep reservations with this legislation as it exempts the Government of Canada from these very safeguards. Do we as Canadians need the protections in this bill from companies? Absolutely, but we also need protections from government, especially this NDP-Liberal coalition government that wants to take away some of our liberties and freedoms.
Some on the other side may accuse me of fearmongering about the NDP-Liberal suppression of civil liberties and freedoms on the Internet; I am not. Let me lay out the facts, and the people in Saskatoon West can decide for themselves.
Bill C-11 is the first piece of legislation meant to strip of us of our rights to free speech on the Internet. Conservatives such as myself and free speech advocates have been warning that the provisions put in place by the NDP-Liberals to have government-appointed gatekeepers decide what is acceptable speech or not in Canada will lead to disaster.
We have already seen that a prominent University of Toronto professor has been threatened with the revocation of his licence and livelihood for tweeting out against this legislation and the current Prime Minister. Imagine what would happen when the Prime Minister has the full weight of the law to simply muzzle this type of speech. Anyone who disagrees with him would be silenced and would be fined, lose their livelihood, and what is next, go to a re-education camp? We all know about the Prime Minister’s fondness for the basic dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China, heck, he does not even mind if the People's Republic of China funnels money to his family foundation and tilts elections towards the Liberal Party of Canada in this country.
How about the second piece of legislation meant to limit our Internet freedoms, Bill C-18? That legislation allows government-appointed gatekeepers to decide what is or is not news in Canada, and forces private companies to block content they do not like from their feeds and search engines.
If there is a story critical of the NDP-Liberal coalition and the Prime Minister, they call it fake news and ban it. If there is another fawning story by Andrew Coyne in The Globe and Mail about the Trudeau Foundation and the Chinese Communist Party, it is forced to the top of everyone’s news feed and search engine, like it or not.
When I spoke about Bill C-18 in December I warned of the consequences that this legislation would have. Specifically, I mentioned conversations I had with Google and Amazon Web Services and the impact on how they deliver services to Canadians. Google flat out told me it would simply get out of the business of delivering any and all news to Canadians as it did not want to become an instrument of the Canadian government to spread partisan messaging for the party in power. Just last month it began beta testing how it could shut down its news services for Canadians.
We need a 21st century solution to this problem, not one based on ideas from 40 years ago. Bill C-27 is supposed to protect people’s data from corporations. We need that but what we need, as well, is protection from this NDP-Liberal government when it comes to privacy.
Bill C-27 completely fails us in that area. The government has dragged its heels on Internet privacy for years, and unfortunately it has been a pattern to consistently breach our digital privacy rights. We saw it when the government waited until just last year to ban Chinese telecom giant Huawei from operating in Canada while other countries did the right thing years before us.
We saw it with the $54 million “arrive scam” app tracking Canadians border travel up until September 30, and the public bank account freezing for people who donated to the truckers last year. The list goes on and on. In the words of Alanis Morissette, “Isn’t it ironic?” when we hear the government start to talk about online privacy rights. I just hope it learns to start respecting the privacy of Canadians.
Let us take a look and see if this legislation actually protects the online privacy of the people of Saskatoon West. After all, they are rightfully distrustful of government and corporations when it comes to accessing their data
Here are some examples showing why they are distrustful: Tim Hortons tracking the movement of users after they have ordered something on their app; the RCMP using Clearview AI to access a data bank of more than three billion photos pulled from websites without user consent; and we cannot forget Telus giving the federal government access to the movements of over 33 million devices over the course of the pandemic.
When governments abuse their power, it destroys the level of faith Canadians have in their institutions. In fact, if we look at polling data, we see that the number of Canadians that have faith in their government is at an all-time low. With scandals like these, it is no wonder why.
If we want to improve the level of trust held between individuals and institutions, we must look at protecting Canadians' private data. If we dive into this legislation, it seems the intent is to create a level playing field between citizens and companies when it comes to how their data is used. However, if we look into it further, the balance between businesses using business data and the protection of our privacy is off.
The bill, as it is currently written, skews toward the interests of corporations rather than the fundamental rights of individuals. There are too many exceptions granted to businesses in this legislation. Some are so broad that it is like the legislation never existed at all.
For example, business activities are exempt if a “reasonable person” would expect a business to use their data, without including the definition of what a reasonable person is. The concept of legitimate business interests has been added as an exemption to consent. How does one determine if a business interest outweighs the privacy rights of an individual? Finally, the bill does not recognize privacy as a fundamental right. This absence tips the scales away from Canadians and could affect how their privacy interests are weighed against commercial interests in the future.
Artificial intelligence comprises a major component of this legislation. AI is becoming a key tool in today's world, much like engineering was in the last century. In the past, an engineer would sit down and design a bridge, for example. Obviously, the failure of a bridge would be a huge event with the potential for major disruptions, significant costs, potential injuries and even death. Therefore, we have professional standards for engineers who build bridges, but what about artificial intelligence?
In today's modern world, AI is used more and more to perform ever more complex tasks. In its early stages, AI was used as a shortcut for repetitive tasks, but as the technology advances, it is now being used for much more. In the future, it is not unreasonable to expect AI to play a significant role in designing a bridge, for example. Artificial intelligence also needs to have standards, which is why our universities teaching AI put a big emphasis on ethics, as there are huge implications.
I know first-hand the dangers of unregulated AI systems interfering in our day-to-day lives. On the immigration committee, we have studied this issue and looked at how Canada's immigration department is using Chinook, a so-called e-tool to help IRCC bureaucrats assess applications in bulk form. This AI program was introduced in-house by these bureaucrats, which means the software's algorithms are beholden to the beliefs of its creators.
The concerning part of all of this is that there is a known culture of racism within the department, and members do not have to take my word for it. The NDP-Liberal Minister of Immigration said this of his own department at committee: The IRCC “has zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or harassment of any kind. However, we know that these problems exist throughout the public service and in our department...[and] we must first acknowledge this reality.”
There were no outside consultations done on the use or creation of this artificial intelligence application, and rejection rates have climbed since its introduction. Although I am pleased that the government is finally looking to add a framework to address concerns surrounding AI, it needs to get its own house in order first.
I will wrap up with these final thoughts.
If we are going to address concerns surrounding our digital privacy, we must listen to Canadians, and many Canadians are worried that this legislation does not protect them. I have met with Bryan Short from OpenMedia, and he said this:
Bill C-27...only plays brief lip service to privacy being a fundamental human right in its preamble; Bill C-27 fails to do the more important task of inscribing the privacy rights of people as being more important than the business interests of companies.
The bill before us is supposed to be about protecting Canadians' privacy, yet it completely avoids inscribing privacy as a fundamental right. We all know the saying “There is no point in doing something unless you do it right”, and it is quite clear that the government needs to go back to the drawing board once again on some aspects of this legislation since there is not much evidence of it consulting Canadians on how their data was actually used.
I believe the former Ontario privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, said it best in 2020 during the initial Liberal attempts to bring in privacy reform to Canada when she stated:
[With] the Liberals under [the Prime Minister], it's been extremely weak. They have not addressed repeated requests from the federal privacy commissioner to strengthen existing privacy laws.... I'm tired of that. I want a party that will walk the talk. And I'm hoping that will be the Conservatives.
Canadians can count on the Conservative Party of Canada to walk the talk when it comes to strengthening our privacy laws, and Canadians can count on the Conservative Party of Canada to respect their freedom of expression online. We will scrap the online censorship legislation put in place by this tired, worn out, costly coalition. We will allow people to choose for themselves which news they want to consume, not just what the government wants them to see. Under our new leader, we will be the voice of those left behind by the NDP-Liberal government, and we will put Canadians back in the driver's seat of their own life.
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Madam Speaker, that is a very good question.
This is kind of the heart of what we are talking about here today. Conceptually, it is easy to say this person can speak and this one cannot, but in reality it is very difficult to do that. Who is the person who is going to decide that?
We all know there is content on the Internet that is wrong and that is incorrect. We know there is content that is true. It is sometimes hard to tell. That is where we need to do some work. When we start saying that we can listen to this group and not listen to that group, this news organization is valid and this one is not, that is a very slippery slope, as the member stated. We have to be very careful as we go down this road.
We do need to have some controls over things, but the way this is written, it gives way too much power to the CRTC to be the gatekeepers in saying who is good and who is bad. That is not a good place for us to go. We need to be very concerned about that.
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Madam Speaker, it is up to the House to put this committee.
Last time this bill went to committee, there was a very important provision that was removed, which caused a lot of stress. It caused a lot of reactions in my office, for sure. The committee will do its work when the time comes, and would add or strengthen or do whatever needs to be done to the bill. At the end of the day, we have to be very careful that we are not limiting and constricting the ability of our content producers to actually compete in the Internet world of today.
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Madam Speaker, that is a good question. Absolutely, we want to support culture in Canada. We want to support our content creators.
There is always a fear by certain members of this House to actually let our people free in the world. Our content creators, our talent in Canada, are second to none. We have great producers, actors, everybody. We have a lot of talent. We should not be ashamed of that. We can work hard. We do not need to give them special rules and special controls. They are big people. They know how to compete on the world stage.
The world is their stage. That is the beauty of the system we have today with the wide open Internet. We just need to let our Canadians shine. We need to help them where we can, but this is not the way to do it.
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Madam Speaker, sometimes these things are hard to hear, I understand, but what Gerald Butts said is, “If you’re getting your news from outlets whose primary purpose is to divide you from your neighbours, the topic doesn’t matter. It’s long past time we figured this out.”
Is this what we can expect under Bill C-11: big government telling us what news is fact and what is misinformation when it does not match a certain narrative?
It is obvious what voices the government wants to bring to Canadians online and what voices it would like to tune out. The problem with this is that Canada is a free and democratic nation. The foundation behind this trademark of ours is freedom of speech and expression. We all have people we may disagree with, but all voices deserve to be heard, regardless of whether they align with our political views. The moment we push forward with online censorship, divisions rise and Canadian democracy declines.
We need to work on healing these wounds that have developed in our country. Leadership starts at the top. This begins with treating our fellow Canadians and members in the House with the dignity and respect they deserve. Some have lost hope in reuniting our country, but I certainly have not.
Canada is known as one of the friendliest countries in the world. We look out for our allies, neighbours and friends. Back home in Saskatchewan, we always look out for one another no matter how bad our winters are. I am proud to be from a country and a province where we are there for each other. Over the past two years, we seem to have forgotten this trademark that makes us who we are.
Bill C-11 works to divide us rather than bring us together. It would pit certain content providers against other ones. It would force Canadians to watch things they do not really want to see, and make it difficult for them to watch things they do want to see. This is unacceptable. Censoring voices online is wrong and it splits our nation even further. It is time to bring our country back together so that we get back to who we truly are: kind and friendly Canadians who are only known for heated arguments when the Stanley Cup playoffs are on.
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to be speaking on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West. We are a diverse group of citizens from many backgrounds and with a variety of different views. They have called me and emailed me over the past year, asking about stopping online censorship. They wanted to be free from government overreach back then, and they feel the same way now.
The people of Saskatoon West also want an end to the unscientific, job-killing NDP-Liberal federal mandates. Many have voiced their concerns on social media platforms. They are concerned that the government is going to block their voices.
Speaking of censorship, the current government has quite a history of shutting down opposing voices, even when it comes to members of its own caucus. We remember, of course, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott.
In the last Parliament, the government introduced its first attempt at regulating the Internet with its Bill C-10 and Bill C-36. These bills generated incredible feedback for me via telephone, written letters, emails and social media. It is safe to say that the overall response was extremely negative and many in the media, many consultants and many ordinary folks were very concerned by this legislation. I had hoped that, after seeing all of the opposition to those bills the last time around, the government would smarten up and rethink this flawed legislation. Unfortunately, smartening up is not in the wheelhouse of the current government, and instead it doubled down and reintroduced essentially the same thing.
Let us dive into Bill C-11. The minister stated that the goal of this bill was to target only big online streamers and exclude day-to-day users. It is supposedly about making Canadian content more accessible. The only problem with this argument is that Canadian content has always been accessible. Canadian producers have been able to jump onto various platforms, such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and showcase their content without a problem. Why is there the urge to regulate the Internet now?
The current government members think that the content available for users is not Canadian enough for their liking. This is where things start moving toward online censorship. Essentially, any content deemed unworthy by the NDP-Liberals would be bumped out of people's recommended feeds in exchange for government-approved content. Content that is not Canadian enough for the CRTC regulators would be sent to the back of the Internet, which leads to a question: Who reaps the benefits of this? It is the legacy media.
In this new age, where we get most of our information online, broadcasting companies such as the government's beloved taxpayer-funded CBC have been left in the dust. At the end of the day, they want their content promoted over everyone else's. They are the ones scrambling for advertising revenues. This will throw the remaining content, Canadian or not, to the side. Many experts have raised concerns about this bill being very similar to the NDP-Liberal government's original Internet censorship bill, Bill C-10, in the sense that it would still have the power to block Canadian freedom of expression online.
The former vice-chair of the CRTC, Peter Menzies, stated, “The biggest difference is that it is called Bill C-11 instead of Bill C-10.” He added, “It is unfortunate because they are giving the CRTC enormous powers, enormous powers, and it is not in the DNA of any regulatory body to not continue to expand its turf.”
The major criticism of Bill C-10 surrounded the issue of user-generated content: those pictures, audio files and videos that many of us share daily on social media. There was a clause in Bill C-10 that exempted this from regulation, but it was removed at committee, which created a firestorm of concern. At the very least, I had expected the government to address this issue. Instead, it added an exception to allow the CRTC to regulate user content. Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce Law, stated:
...for all the talk that user-generated content is out, the truth is that everything from podcasts to TikTok videos fits neatly into the new exception that gives the CRTC the power to regulate such content as a 'program'.
In other words, user-generated content is not subject to regulation unless the CRTC decides it is subject to regulation, in which case it is subject to regulation. Are members confused yet? The truth is that the vague language in this bill opens the door for the government to abuse its power and regulate user-generated content. The Internet is our main go-to for information, and many Canadians are earning a good living by making entertaining or educational content on various platforms. The way this bill is currently written, it would limit this creativity and possibly censor a wide range of the content produced online.
Twitter issued these scathing words: “People around the world have been blocked from accessing Twitter [and other services] in a similar manner as [the one] proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments (e.g. China, North Korea and Iran) under the false guise of ‘online safety’, impeding people's rights to access...information online.” It goes on to say that Bill C-11 “sacrifices freedom of expression to the creation of a government-run system of surveillance of anyone who uses Twitter.”
Members should think about that. Twitter was comparing this government to North Korea, and that was before Elon Musk bought it.
The NDP-Liberal government is doing what we have seen time and again: dividing Canadians and stripping away our rights and freedoms one by one. Now, the government is creating a three-headed dragon to take away freedom of expression online from Canadians. These three heads are the Internet censorship Bill C-11, the news regulation Bill C-18, and the expected return of Bill C-36, which would block online content that the government does not like.
If members do not think that this government wants to shut them down, they have not been paying attention. We have seen this government target law-abiding firearms owners by seizing firearms from normal, hard-working Canadians and at the same time reduce sentences for criminals who smuggle illegal firearms into Canada. We have seen it target energy workers who work day and night in our natural resource sectors that, by the way, allow the leader of the NDP to fill up his $80,000 BMW with gas every morning. We have seen it target western Canada's entire energy sector by threatening to shut it down, calling our oil and natural gas “dirty” and at the same time importing oil from countries with horrible human rights records and next to no environmental standards. The Prime Minister still cannot figure out why there is so much division in our country. He is creating it.
In February, when the minister tabled the bill before us, he said that cat videos and social media influencers would not be covered by it. However, this week, YouTube warned Canadians that this simply was not true. A Canadian Press story reported the following:
Jeanette Patell, head of government affairs at YouTube Canada, said the draft law’s wording gives the broadcast regulator scope to oversee everyday videos posted for other users to watch. She told the National Culture Summit in Ottawa that the bill’s text appears to contradict [the] Heritage Minister’s public assurances that it does not cover amateur content, such as cat videos.
I have heard back from many people across this country since last year about their concerns, from when the bill was called Bill C-10. Since then, the calls and emails have just amplified about Bill C-11.
I have a very hard time believing that the use of the bill would only target big online streamers, especially when I have seen first-hand how far this government will go to end criticism. If we flash back a few months to the Prime Minister's trip to Europe, many politicians in the EU called out the member for Papineau's actions during the convoy, and I tweeted about this. Gerry Butts, the former chief of staff to the Prime Minister, tried to dismiss it right away. He said, “If you're getting your news from news outlets—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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