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Context: House Hansard - 165 - Mar/7/23

Mar/7/23 11:18:15 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-27 Bill C-18 Bill C-11

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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Mar/7/23 11:07:39 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-27 Bill C-18 Bill C-11

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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Dec/13/22 1:23:03 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, this reminds me of a very simple thing: dad jokes. If we hear a dad joke, one person likes it, but the next person does not even find it funny, which is my point here. We cannot allow one person or one group of people to control what we see on the Internet. We have to allow a broad cross-section. Some people will like one thing; some people will like another. Some things might be true; some things might not be. However, as soon as we try to arbitrate those things, we get ourselves into trouble.

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Dec/13/22 1:20:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, we have a wonderful thing in the free market, and we need to allow companies to flourish. I mentioned one example from Saskatoon, and there are many more. We have a radio station in Saskatoon, 650 CKOM. John Gormley runs a show there, and he does a great job. He has managed to figure out how to use social media to his advantage. I am quite certain they make a great deal of money from their programs, and it is possible for this to be done. Sure, there needs to be a way to share revenue, but as I said, the concerns here come back to control and the way the government has allowed its fingers to be in this process with an ability to promote or unpromote certain things based on the whims of the Government of Canada.

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Dec/13/22 1:19:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, providing funding to all organizations big or small is a laudable goal, and it is something we need to work on, but that is not what I see here. What I see in this legislation is too much risk. The government would insert itself into this process at the risk of being able to essentially contaminate the well, as they say. There is too much ability here for the government, and frankly any future government, to manipulate things and coerce through very subtle means or very direct means. That is the concern I have. I do not think this is the right approach.

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Dec/13/22 1:08:16 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to wish everyone in this chamber and all of the people of Saskatoon a merry Christmas and a very happy new year. This is the time of the year that many of us get to spend with family, friends and other loved ones. For some of us, it is truly a joyous season full of wonderment. For others, the holiday season reminds us of people lost and of relations lost. It is a hard time for those individuals. As we all reflect on the past year and look forward to the next year, I want to offer these words of hope to all of the good folks throughout Saskatoon. May 2023 bring new beginnings, peace, good health and prosperity to members and their families. As the member of Parliament representing the west side of Saskatoon, I will continue to work hard to raise up our city, our neighbourhoods and each of us to the best that we can be in 2023. As we get into these last days of 2022, Bill C-18 has landed back in the House of Commons for its final round of debate before being shipped off to the other place. This legislation is one of three Internet censorship laws that the NDP-Liberal government has brought in since the last election. Its goal is to ensure that voices other than its own, and news stories it does not like, are silenced in our democracy. I had the chance to speak to Bill C-11, which would have given almost dictator-like powers to a branch of the federal government to decide what people post on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and other Internet platforms. If the content is not in line with the NDP-Liberal messaging of the day, algorithms would be manipulated to remove that content from one's feeds and searches. Members do not have to take my word for it. The head of that very government agency admitted as much to the Senate committee when it took up that legislation. What is worse, the NDP-Liberals just shrug their shoulders because that was the very point of the legislation. This legislation, Bill C-18, is the second Internet censorship law that the NDP-Liberals are forcing down the throats of Canadians. Simply put, this law would force Facebook, Google and other Internet companies to prioritize CBC and other government-approved news outlets on our feed over the smaller alternative news media platforms that may be more critical of the NDP-Liberal view of the world. The third piece of legislation currently before this Parliament is Bill C-27, which I hope to address in the new year. That legislation is the so-called digital privacy legislation, which is a laughable topic from an NDP-Liberal government that tracked millions of Canadian’s cell phones during the pandemic without their consent and has been responsible for the personal data of hundreds of thousands of Canadians ending up on the dark web. The truth is that the Internet and social media are an integrated part of our lives today. Until now, they have been an unfettered part of our lives. Canadians use social media platforms to access and share a variety of different news articles and information among colleagues, family and friends. Canadians I talk to are very worried that these three laws will limit their ability to have open conversations online. For legislation that is supposedly about promoting online news, the NDP-Liberals and their allies in the CBC and traditional media have been spreading a lot of misinformation about it. The current government wants to have Bill C-18 so it can use algorithms to keep information it does not like away from our feeds and Internet searches. Bill C-18 essentially grants the government the ability to force online platforms, such as Facebook and Google, to sign deals under the duress of government penalty to promote government-approved content. These commercial agreements do not just have to be acceptable to the platform and the news organization but to the government as well. The government agency in charge of implementing Bill C-18’s censorship provisions is called the CRTC, and it would oversee every step of this process to ensure they are satisfactory to the NDP-Liberals. Surprise, surprise, all nine members of the CRTC are appointed by the Liberal Minister of Heritage. I am not the only one seeing past the government’s spin on this. Outside experts such as Michael Geist, who is the research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said this at the heritage committee in relation to Bill C-18, “Bill C-18’s dangerous approach…regulates which platforms must pay in order to permit expression from their users and dictates which sources are entitled to compensation.” The former vice-chair of the CRTC, Peter Menzies, told the committee how the government can influence news companies: You could end up with companies wishing to please the CRTC or the CRTC feeling pressure to make sure money in newsrooms is spent on certain topics, and they might be good topics, but it's frankly none of their business to have.... An independent press spends its money on whatever it wants. Who are we to believe, the independent experts or the CBC, which is already in the pockets of the NDP-Liberal government? A question that comes to mind is who benefits the most from this Internet censorship? It certainly is not the average everyday user of the Internet who is logging into their feed to keep up with the news. It is definitely not the independent journalists trying to make a living and provide accurate news. It could be no other than the legacy media, more specifically the folks at the CBC. The CBC and other legacy news organizations have been complaining for years about their inability to keep up with the modern online news media. Then they proceeded to lobby the government for $600 million in bailouts. CBC, for example, rakes in $1.2 billion in federal funding and receives $250 million in combined TV and online advertising revenue, yet it still struggles to survive in the Canadian market, as it cannot keep up with the modern tech era. This is where Bill C-18 comes to play. The government is looking to tip the scales further in CBC's favour. The government has decided that it is a bad look to continue giving more billion-dollar bailouts to the CBC, so now the government is forcing tech companies like Facebook and Google to make NDP-Liberal approved commercial deals to fund the legacy media. Instead, the legacy media should be competing on the open market, as many independent journalists are doing as we speak. At the end of the day, online platforms and Canadian taxpayers should not be footing the bill if the legacy media is unable to keep up with the times. Let us talk about how this legislation would affect the news Canadians access. Bill C-18 would prohibit digital intermediary operators from giving what the CRTC determines as “preference” in news ranking. That sounds relatively fine, does it not? No, it is not. With this unclear language added into the bill, just about anyone could call up the CRTC to contest their ranking and be brought up to the top of any search engine or platform. I think this gets to the heart of the matter. Trying to regulate content on the Internet will always introduce bias into the conversation. At best, it is an innocent hassle. At worst, it can be used by the government to suppress real information and control people. In my view, the risk of the worst case is not worth it. As they say, the juice is not worth the squeeze. Let us talk about Google, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and the Internet in general. First let me say that Elon Musk's recent purchase of Twitter has shaken up Silicon Valley and the status quo in big tech quite a bit and has perhaps breathed some fresh air into what was becoming a stale industry. His commitment to free speech and his willingness to stand up to the powers that be show how big tech can directly influence elections or stay neutral, as they should. Of course, in Canada, this legislation has the potential to tip the scales toward the NDP-Liberals during elections. Big tech recognizes that and they do not want to be tools of censorship in Canada or anywhere else. Last spring, I met the executives of Google and it was an eye-opening experience. They are concerned. They worry that Bill C-18 does not have the tools to provide relief to smaller news outlets. After all, it was not the small independent news outlets that wanted this in the first place. It was the large media networks that lobbied for this to get done and that are now foaming at the mouth to get this legislation rammed through Parliament. Members should not kid themselves. Google is not just afraid for its bottom line. It is a multi-billion dollar business and will absorb the costs associated with this legislation. Its real fear is about freedom of speech on the Internet. They may run worldwide organizations, but the Silicon Valley boys are still hackers at heart, living out of their mothers' basements playing Halo, sharing on Twitch and posting on Reddit. Google is concerned that the government is making it more difficult for Canadians to access quality information. I also met with Amazon World Services in the summer, and we talked about a variety of issues related to this legislation. I can tell members that Google and Amazon do not just meet random opposition members from Saskatoon unless they have real concerns about where this country is going. It is Canadians who are the best judge of what content they want to consume, not some government bureaucrats. We have seen Canadian content creators thrive in an open and competitive market, one being Hitesh Sharma, a Punjabi hip-hop artist from Saskatchewan who built up a large following on TikTok and later made it to the Junos. He did not need the CRTC to give him a path to fame. It is very important that we allow our creators, whether they are influencers or media, to flourish against the top creators in the world. That is not to say we should not support our local media when we can, but we should recognize the talent we already have, all of whom have succeeded without the involvement of big government interference. With Bill C-18, local Canadian content creators could be squeezed out of our newsfeeds and replaced with the CBC. I guess that is fine for the few people who tune into CBC on a regular basis, but for most people, especially younger people, the desire is for a free and open Internet where we can search for whatever we want, free of interference by government or anyone else. That is what Canadians want.

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Dec/13/22 1:07:15 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague would quickly answer a question about the arbitration process she just referenced. Is it possible for nine members appointed by the minister of the government to be truly free and fair in their decision-making? I ask her opinion on that.

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