- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Banff—Airdrie
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,439.36
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, as I look around the chamber today, there are a few people who I think would remember my predecessor in my role as the member of Parliament, when I first was elected, for Wild Rose. His name was Myron Thompson. Myron was pretty well known. He was the guy with the cowboy hat and he was pretty outspoken.
One thing many people do not know about Myron Thompson is that back when he was a young guy he had a try-out with the New York Yankees. He was a pretty good baseball back catcher, but he did not make the team, and it was because there happened to be a future Hall of Famer at that position for the New York Yankees.
I wanted to reference that future Hall of Famer today because it is an amazing testimony to the impression he made on the culture. As an 1950s era baseball catcher, he is still famous not just for his play on the diamond but also for the gems he dropped in conversation off the diamond.
His observations have actually even found a place in English lexicon and are known as “Yogi-isms”. Of course I am talking about Yogi Berra. That is the fellow who beat out Myron Thompson for a spot on the New York Yankees way back then. He became a 1972 Hall of Fame inductee. He has 10 World Series victories to his credit, which is the most of any Major League Baseball player in history.
An hon. member: You've got to tie it in to the legislation somehow.
Mr. Blake Richards: Madam Speaker, he is certainly better known for the way his trademark mangling and misuse of words and phrases has resulted in strangely keen insights that are still widely quoted today by many. I have a few favourites. One of them is “I didn't really say everything that I said.” Another one is “We made too many wrong mistakes.” Another is “Swing at the strikes.”
When I thought about Bill C-27 and preparing to speak today, it brought to mind Yogi-isms, and not only because those examples I just cited reminded me of the Liberals' poor approach to governance but because the title of this bill is a real mouthful at 35 words long. This brought that to mind as well.
For now, I will call it the consumer privacy protection act, but it is really summed up best by what is probably the greatest Yogi-ism of all, which is “It's déjà vu all over again.” That really speaks to it. The member was looking for me to tie it back in, so there it is. There is the tie back in.
Here we are in 2023 and here I am speaking on yet another rehash of another Liberal bill from years previous. They have a real penchant for that, these Liberals. They kind of remind me of Hollywood Studios that no longer seems to be able to produce an original script so it just keeps churning out sequels. If Bill C-27 was a film, one could call it “Bill C-11, the redo”. Bill C-27 is essential a warmed-over version of previous Bill C-11, the digital charter implementation act the Liberals introduced back in 2020.
It is not to be confused with the current Bill C-11, which is also making its way through Parliament and is the online streaming act and which also poses another threat to Canadians' privacy and online freedoms.
It is really easy to see a bit of a pattern evolving here. In any case, in May 2021 the Privacy Commissioner said the digital charter act “represents a step back overall from our current law and needs significant changes if confidence in the digital economy is to be restored.” It of course died when the Prime Minister cynically called an expensive and unnecessary election nobody wanted and everybody paid for and that did not change the Prime Minister's political fortunes one iota.
Bill C-27 carries the stamp of that former digital charter proposal, which Conservatives had concerns about then, and which we still have concerns about in its new form now. Some of the text is in fact directly lifted from Bill C-11 and the text of that bill is available for all to review.
Let us talk more about the impact of the bill's content, rather than the wording itself.
The bill purports to modernize federal private sector privacy law, to create a new tribunal and new laws for AI, or artificial intelligence, systems. In doing so, it raises a number of red flags. Perhaps the most crimson of those flags, for me, is that the bill does not recognize privacy as a fundamental right. That is not actually all that surprising, because this is a Liberal bill. I hear daily from Canadians who are alarmed by how intrusive the Liberal government has become, and who are also fearful of how much more intrusive it still seems to hope to become.
It just seems just par for the course for the government that, in a bill dealing with privacy, it is failing to acknowledge that, 34 years ago, the Supreme Court said privacy is at the very heart of liberty in a modern state, individuals are worthy of it, and it is worthy of constitutional protection.
When we talk about privacy, we have to talk about consent. We have seen far too many examples of Canadians' private and mobility data being used without their consent. I think some of these examples have been cited previously, but I will cite them again.
We saw the Tim Hortons app tracking movements of people after their orders. We saw the RCMP's use of Clearview AI's illegally created facial recognition database. We saw Telus' “data for good” program giving location data to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
These were breaches of the privacy of Canadians. There needs to be a balance between use of data by businesses and that fundamental protection of Canadians' privacy. The balance in this bill is just wrong. It leans too heavily in one direction.
There are certainly issues with user content and use of collected information. For instance, there are too many exemptions from consent. Some exemptions are so broad that they can actually be interpreted as not requiring consent at all. The concept of legitimate interests has been added as an exception to consent, where a legitimate interest outweighs any potential adverse effect on the individual. Personal information would be able to be used and shared for internal research, analysis and development without consent, provided that the content is de-identified. These exemptions are too broad.
The bill's default would seek consent where reasonable, rather than exempt the requirement. In fact, there are several instances where the bill vaguely defines terms that leave too much wiggle room for interpretation, rather than for the protection of Canadians. For example, there is a new section regarding the sharing of minors' sensitive information, but no definition of what “sensitive” means is given, and there would be no protection at all for adults' sensitive information. These are both problematic. De-identification is mandated when data is used or transferred, but the term is poorly defined and the possibility of data being reidentified is certainly there.
Anonymization or pseudonymization are the better methods, and the government needs to sharpen the terms in this bill to be able to sharpen those protections. An even more vague wording in the bill is that individuals would have a right to disposal, the ability to request that their data be destroyed. Clarification is certainly needed regarding anonymization and the right to delete or the right to vanish.
There are many more examples. I know my colleagues will certainly expand on some of those questions as posed in the bill. I know my time is running short. I want to speak to the individual privacy rights of Canadians briefly.
Canadians value their privacy even as their government continually seeks ways to compromise it. The Public Health Agency of Canada secretly tracked 33 million mobile devices during the COVID lockdown. The government assured them their data would not be collected, but it was collecting it through different means all along.
Public confidence is not that high when the Liberals start to mess in issues involving privacy. The onus should be on the government to provide clarity around the use and collection of Canadians' private information because, to quote another Yogi-ism, “If you don't catch the ball, you catch the bus home.”
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Mr. Speaker, freedom of speech is a fundamental right in Canada. It is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms in fact. Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:
Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
These rights are what makes Canada a modern democracy. They are not trivial principles. They should not be up for debate. Interfering with fundamental rights is the sign of a dying democracy, yet the Liberals have shown, time and time again, that they are dead set on desecrating this right by regulating and censoring the social media content that Canadians are able to see online.
I just want to go back a little with the history. This bill was first introduced back in November 2020, as Bill C-10, and by February 2021, the Liberals had removed a clause from the bill exempting user-generated content, which extended the legislation to encompass everyday social media content created by Canadians. Before the bill could pass in the last parliamentary session through both Houses of Parliament, I raised a point of order and exposed the Liberals' reckless approach to implementing this bill. I submitted in my point of order that several of the amendments to Bill C-10 that were made in committee needed to be struck down because the government's committee government members had grossly exceeded their authority in more ways than one.
This point of order, which was upheld in its ruling, effectively defeated the chances of the bill being able to proceed before the Liberals called their early election back in 2021. Then, of course, to no one's surprise, when Parliament reconvened after that election, the bill was re-introduced as Bill C-11, which we have before us.
In order to ensure its passage, the Liberals decided to pass Motion No. 11 in the House, which has allowed them to push through the passage of this legislation by bypassing standard procedure. When that was not enough, the Liberals decided to pass several motions to shorten the committee's study and to limit witnesses, and then accused Conservatives of filibustering every time we opposed one of those anti-democratic motions.
Last week, the Liberals finally moved closure through Motion No. 16 to force the bill through committee clause-by-clause consideration with limited or, in many cases, no debate. On June 14, just last week, the Canadian heritage committee was forced to sit from 11 in the morning until 12:15 at night to complete clause-by-clause of 172 pages of amendments, over 100 of which were passed without allowing for so much as one second of debate.
I would say that bypassing debate and rushing through an unprecedented bill is an insult to Canadians, and it only allows the government to avoid accountability. Parliament has a democratic responsibility to thoroughly examine the implications of Internet regulation, and Canadians deserve to know the truth about this deeply flawed bill. The Liberals are stifling freedom of speech by curtailing parliamentary process.
Ironically, by limiting MPs' ability to speak, the Liberals are symbolizing the censorship contained within this bill. The government does not just want to regulate the Internet and hinder freedom of speech, it is also determined to interfere with parliamentarians' right to speak and debate the same legislation that is looking to interfere with people's rights and freedoms.
Back to the bill itself, under the auspices of amending the Broadcasting Act, the legislation contained in Bill C-11 infringes on the rights and freedoms of every single Canadian who uses social media. This bill would give bureaucrats at the CRTC sweeping powers to regulate online social media content based on famously irrational criteria. It would allow the CRTC to decide what content it considers to be Canadian enough, and then force social media companies to promote that content and bury the so-called un-Canadian content, so it would be nearly impossible to find. This would effectively result in censorship.
Moreover, analysts are saying that the bill could allow the CRTC to automatically subscribe Canadians to a certain list of Canadian YouTube channels, such as the CBC, without even asking their permission. It already mandates that cable providers do this in the subscriptions they offer to Canadians, so for the CRTC officials, I am sure doing so online would only be the next logical step in their mind.
Essentially, the government has decided that Canadians are not responsible enough to choose for themselves what they want to see on social media, so it is turning on the parental controls. This notion that Canadians need to be made to watch certain content that has been deemed as socially and culturally appropriate by the government and discouraged from watching other content is the result of an out-of-touch, paternalistic approach to governing what seems to stem from Liberal elitism.
As it stands now, Bill C-11 would determine what content is Canadian enough based on a famously flawed and outdated points system, which was developed in the 1980s, decades before the advent of social media. This black and white points system designed for legacy media, has resulted in a series of truly embarrassing rulings from the CRTC in recent years. For example, an Amazon Prime series focused entirely on the Toronto Maple Leafs was ruled to be not Canadian enough under this points system. The film adaptation of the famed Canadian novel The Handmaid's Tale was also deemed to be not Canadian enough, and Deadpool, the award-winning Marvel movie based on a Canadian character, filmed in Vancouver and co-written by a Canadian, was also deemed to be not Canadian enough under this system.
Maybe we should take some comfort in the fact that the minister responsible has promised to review and update these criteria for determining what is Canadian enough, but, then again, maybe not. Strangely enough, the minister boasted about a meeting with the German minister of culture to consult with her about how to update these criteria for determining what should be considered Canadian content. He decided it would be a good idea to get on a plane, fly across the Atlantic on the taxpayer dime, and talk with Europeans about the best way to approach Canadian legislation on what is Canadian content. Maybe the minister could have consulted with Canadians instead. They are the people he has actually been elected to serve. This is just an idea.
Of course, the minister has said that he will not reveal how he is planning to change the rules until after the bill passes through Parliament. By doing this, he is leaving both Canadians and parliamentarians completely in the dark about what his legislation is going to look like in practice. It begs this question: What content will the Liberal government deem to be Canadian enough on people's social media? Will it have to be made by Canadian citizens? In that event, what about permanent residents or people here on study or work permits? Will it have to be produced in Canada? What would that mean for Canadians living abroad who make social media content? Will it have to be only in an official Canadian language? What would that mean, then, for cultural groups in Canada who speak another language?
Perhaps, and I suspect this is the actual plan, the Liberal government will require that content producers subscribe to a certain set of values to be truly considered Canadian content. The Liberals already demand faith-based groups to adhere to the Liberal Party's stance on certain issues to meet the eligibility criteria for the Canada summer jobs program. Therefore, it would be fair to assume that they will likely do the same in determining what content would be considered Canadian on the Internet or on social media.
The most alarming power given in this legislation is slipped into an unassuming clause buried in the text of the legislation that quietly allows the CRTC to create regulations “respecting such other matters as it deems necessary for the furtherance of its objects”. These 14 little words give the CRTC a blank cheque to act however it likes and arbitrarily create regulations whenever it feels it is necessary. CRTC bureaucrats are not elected officials, and they do not answer to Canadians. They should not be able to unilaterally create new regulations. It would be undoubtedly undemocratic to give them such broad, sweeping powers.
Under Bill C-11, the minister responsible assured Canadians that amateur content such as cooking videos or cat videos that people upload online would not be regulated under this proposed regulation, but officials at YouTube Canada were quick to respond to this comment by asserting that they had studied the legislation and the bill certainly would give the government the power to regulate amateur content.
I certainly know who I would believe with respect to that. That means that any content posted on any social media service could be subject to these arbitrary standards. One thing is clear. The Liberals are determined to censor our social media content, and that, by itself, is wrong.
On top of that, with the legislation being this broad, it is impossible to discern why something could be censored or the motivations behind it even. The Liberals are essentially saying to Canadians that they are going to censor what social media content we can access. They will not even tell us how they are going to censor it, but that it is okay and to just trust them on this one. I do not think so. I do not think most Canadians think so. We have seen far too many examples of the government trampling on charter rights to trust it.
We have seen how, under the Prime Minister, the government tested facial recognition technology on millions of travellers at Toronto Pearson International Airport without their knowledge or their consent. What happened to freedom?
We have seen how the government has been collecting cellphone data since the beginning of the pandemic without the consent of Canadians. What happened to freedom?
We have seen how, during a largely peaceful protest in downtown Ottawa, the government invoked the Emergencies Act to use unjustified and extraordinary powers against its own citizens. What happened to freedom?
We have seen how the government has discriminated against people based on their personal medical choices to bar them from air travel, despite a complete lack of scientific evidence. What happened to freedom?
In a recently revealed submission to the Department of Canadian Heritage, Twitter protested the recent proposals that would allow the government to block website access on the Canadian Internet saying that the measure would be similar to the kind of censorship found in places like China, North Korea and Iran. The submission goes on to say that the proposed measure “sacrifices freedom of expression to the creation of a government run system of surveillance of anyone who uses Twitter”. What happened to freedom?
The government is obviously not interested in respecting the rights or freedoms of people. The alternative to Bill C-11 is freedom. The only solution is to keep the government out of the equation.
Canada has long been home to many renowned actors, film makers, artists, performers and social media icons. It is belittling of the government to think that the only way Canadian art and culture can survive is through punitive legislation that forces people to watch it. The quality of Canadian content speaks for itself. The last thing it needs is to be propped up by a Liberal censorship regime.
Without government intervention, social media can continue to be a free market of ideas, content and information. Under this system, individual Canadians are left to decide for themselves what they want to see on social media. They will watch what they want to watch and ignore what they do not. Only under this self-regulating system can freedom truly exist.
Therefore, I move, seconded by the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.”
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