Hansard
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 31 - 45 of 319
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-14 22:53 [p.8405]
Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House for some time listening to the debate tonight, so it is an honour to finally stand and speak.
This past year, we have seen the very best and the very worst of government in our system of democracy. When all parties were working together as the committee of the whole to address the COVID-19 crisis, we saw how well the government could work together. I am going to talk about some of the ways it worked well before I get negative and talk about the ways it has not been working.
I want to make it clear it is not that all opposition party members supported everything the government did during the COVID period. I, for one, have stood in this House many times repeatedly challenging the government to do better, particularly when it came to protecting Canadians from COVID-19 and all of the detritus that came with it. I stood in the House to make sure there were public health rules in place, that there was sick leave, that Canadians could stay home if they needed to, that there were things in place to help fight the virus in Canada and around the world without having to choose between their own well-being and the health of others. I will keep doing that. I will keep standing in this House of Commons as an opposition member to urge the government to do a better job taking care of Canadians. I will stand in this House and get it to close loopholes in its legislation.
There is a company in my riding, Cessco Fabrication. I have brought up probably a dozen times in the House that the government's wage subsidy program is being used to pay for scab labour so that this company does not have to negotiate with its workers. I have brought it up time and time again, and I will continue to do that.
It is really important that I push for students, seniors and people with living with disabilities.
One thing members have heard me say so many times is that if we do not vaccinate people around the world, none of us is safe, and that I am disappointed in the government's response to that.
The government itself adopted many of the opposition solutions that were offered. The government did bring forward the 75% wage support, the CERB was $2,000 a month and there was limited support for students and paid sick leave. This is how the government should work. The government should propose and opposition members should make it better. I am proud, as a new parliamentarian, that I was able to do that. I am honoured to have been part of that effort.
However, this has not been the case with Bill C-10. In fact, the entire process, including the debate this evening, is an example of the worst forms of democracy and government. It started with an extremely flawed bill that the minister himself could not explain. When the bill was tabled in November, it was immediately apparent to everyone, the government included, that it was a flawed piece of legislation. The Yale commission clearly identified Canadians' concerns with how web giants were dominating our broadcasting and culture, but were excluded from the current Broadcasting Act and, thus not subject to oversight, not held to the same standards as Canadian companies and, worse yet, not contributing taxes or funds to the Media Fund. The bill, as it was tabled, ignored all of those issues and I stood with my colleagues in the NDP and said on the day that bill was tabled that this was going to be problem and we needed to fix this.
Facebook, YouTube, companies that make billions of dollars in revenue from Canadians and Canadian content were excluded from the bill. For anyone who was worried about what that proposed section 4.1 was, it was excluding social media. It was letting Facebook and YouTube off the hook. It was saying that they could use Canadian content and they did not have to pay for it. It was selling out our cultural sector. We needed to fix that legislation.
I was worried because we know that Facebook has lobbied the minister and the department over 100 times. Their incessant lobbying seemed to pay off. Representatives met over and over again and then, all of a sudden, they were not in the bill. The minister floundered in responses to questions about the bill and the lobbying. He was unable to answer questions about his own bill to Canadians, unable to answer questions about its application in committee and unable to defend its rationale from critics.
The result was a committee review process that at the very best of times was disorganized and at the worst was completely dysfunctional. I know that because I was there. I was on that committee.
Immediately, 121 amendments to the bill were filed. The minister has said that perhaps this is a normal number of amendments for a bill of such of complexity and the breadth and depth of this legislation means it is not surprising, but what was surprising was the number of government amendments filed. The government knew this legislation was flawed, so it was a clear indication the bill was not ready when it was tabled and that the minister was not ready to endorse and oversee it.
Still, and this is the most important point, Canadians need a broadcasting act. We have heard it time and time again in this House from everybody but the Conservative Party. We have a 30-year-old Broadcasting Act. It is well overdue for us to have legislation in this country that will fix the holes in the Broadcasting Act. Canada desperately needs an updated Broadcasting Act.
Canadian broadcasters, media companies, producers, filmmakers, writers and artists all need an updated Broadcasting Act. Canadians who value Canadian news and Canadian content need and want a broadcasting act as well. It was absolutely vital that we roll up our sleeves in committee and we fix this bill to create a broadcasting act that would work for Canadians. It was an excruciating process, because instead of working with my colleagues, many of whom I admire and who worked very hard in this committee, politics kept getting in the way.
Again, this is what I mean when I say the worst of government and democracy. The Conservatives saw a weak minister with a flawed bill, and rather than roll up their sleeves and do the work that needed to be done so we could fix this legislation, they smelled blood in the water and attacked. They took advantage of the committee process and the flaws in the bill to spread disinformation about the bill far and wide, and then they filibustered the committee so we could not even get to the amendments that would fix it. We could not even fix the things they raised as concerns because they would not stop filibustering the committee to allow us to do that.
All across Canada we were hearing the most outrageous accusations about the bill. I had one constituent tell me he had read that individual Canadians' tweets would not post until they had been reviewed for Canadian content by the CRTC. The things that were being told to Canadians by the Conservatives were absolutely outrageous.
I listened to the member for Lethbridge yell “freedom” so many times that I was in a panel with her and I thought maybe I was on a panel with Braveheart. All this did was waste time and confuse Canadians, and with a minister who could not adequately explain his bill, the disinformation campaign found oxygen it never should have had.
It brought us here to this evening to the last-second attempt to rush this bill through before the session ends. The government had six years to update the Broadcasting Act, and in the end, it served up a flawed bill that took so much work for us to fix.
As a member of the heritage committee, I worked very hard with my fellow members to close the Liberal loopholes and fix problems in the legislation. I voted in favour of a Conservative motion for a second charter review to ensure the Broadcasting Act would not infringe on personal freedoms of expression, and that review was done.
I supported a motion to force the ministers of justice and heritage to appear at committee to address concerns over freedom of expression. I proposed that the committee meet more often and for longer hours. I proposed to extend the deadline so more work could be done. I voted against closing debate and I even put forward a motion asking the committee to debate the bill through the summer months so we could get this work done. All the parties voted against that.
In the end, the Liberals closed the committee debate and we were forced to vote on amendments without even discussing them. It is not my idea of good government.
I fully welcome the attention that Bill C-10 has aroused in Canadians. The Broadcasting Act affects us all on a daily basis, and I am heartened to see so many Canadians engaged in the legislative process. It is true that many Canadians are profoundly misinformed about the bill, which is, of course, in no way their fault. I would say it falls very much on the shoulders of some of our members of Parliament who have taken great joy and have done an awful lot of fundraising off the idea, the misinformation that they are spreading and the fear that they are sowing among Canadians.
The issues addressed in Bill C-10 are complex and every country in the world is grappling with those issues right now, attempting to find a way to protect their own citizens, their own content, their own identity and their own media platforms from web giants that do not have to follow the same rules as everyone else, web giants that pull in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue without giving anything back and companies that leave a swath of local and national media and entertainment venues languishing in their wake.
While I am dismayed by the disinformation permeating the debate on this bill, some of it coming from the web giants themselves in an attempt to resist and avoid regulation, I will vote for Bill C-10 because I worked so hard to fix this legislation. I worked so hard to make sure that people's freedom of expression was protected and that in the end web giants were held to account and that they were contributing to our broadcasting sector.
I have said it before and I will say it again: It is vital that we modernize the Broadcasting Act. The current version of the act was updated in 1991, before the Internet and before streaming services. The Broadcasting Act cannot, as it stands, address the new landscape. It cannot protect Canadians or Canadian content and it must be updated.
For me and my fellow New Democrats, the goal has always been to make sure that we had a bill that would make web giants like Facebook, YouTube and Netflix follow the same rules as Canadian companies and contribute to Canadian content just like Canadian companies are required to do. We have fought both to protect freedom of expression and to ensure that web giants are on an even playing field with Canadian companies. Canadian media and content are under extreme pressure and the web giants have a competitive advantage right now. That competitive advantage must end with this legislation.
Thanks in part to the amendments offered by all parties, Bill C-10 now would utterly protect individual rights to freedom of expression on all platforms. The CRTC powers are limited by this bill to broadcasters and the bill specifically excludes individuals from regulation. Users who upload content to social media services would not be subject to the act. In fact, the bill now contains four sections specifically exempting individuals from the act, and this bill would protect Canadian culture and heritage.
Arts and culture are at the heart of who we are. They are what make us Canadians. It is how we listen to and understand each other better. It is how we connect across the vast distances in our country and it is how we celebrate our identities. It is how we share our incredible stories with each other, in both official languages and with the entire world. We must protect our heritage and support a strong, independent arts and culture industry. Without that protection, Canadian talent will not thrive. We need Canadians to succeed on both digital and traditional platforms. Here at home and around the world, Canadian artists should be able to earn a decent living from their art, and this bill has an important role to play in making sure that the wide range of Canadian voices with stories to tell are those stories that we see on platforms.
When Bill C-10 is enacted, the next step is to increase the funding for CBC and Radio-Canada to help reverse the damage done by decades of funding cuts and unequal rules that have favoured foreign competition.
Our public broadcaster has a remarkable legacy of connecting all points of our country, and it needs a stronger future to help make sure Canadians have access to accurate, relevant information no matter where they live and no matter what language they speak.
View Martin Champoux Profile
BQ (QC)
View Martin Champoux Profile
2021-06-14 23:11 [p.8408]
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona on her speech.
We have the pleasure of serving together on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. She and I have managed to move the bill forward and improve it, sometimes with opposing views, sometimes converging views, sometimes through excellent co-operation. It needed a little help to become a good bill.
Over the past few weeks, after the removal of clause 4.1, which actually had been strengthened with other provisions to ensure that social media users were protected, we have seen a slew of Conservative Party pundits suddenly take an interest in Bill C-10, although we have been working on it for months now. This is a complex bill that takes time to understand. It must be properly analyzed, and it is important to have a good grasp of the subject. Nevertheless, over the past few weeks, we have had a number of experts come to us to give their opinions and tell us that we have done our job all wrong.
I would like the member for Edmonton Strathcona to comment on this. How should we take this wave of insults from colleagues?
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-14 23:12 [p.8408]
Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to me that we are told that there are experts. I have a letter here that was written by 14 lawyers who have said that Bill C-10 would do none of the things that we have been accused of doing to it. We have gone through the legislation tooth and nail, and I have a document here that outlines every single time freedom of expression is protected. I could tell members exactly where in the act and where in the bill; if they want me to name it, I can. I know that is not the case with most of the members in the House this evening, but I can certainly tell them exactly how freedom of expression is protected, and I am deeply offended that any member of this House would think that my priority would not be to ensure that Canadians' freedom of expression is protected at all cost.
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-06-14 23:19 [p.8409]
Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time tonight with my hon. colleague for Langley—Aldergrove.
It is my honour to address the House this evening and to address another faulty bill being pushed through Parliament by the Liberal government: Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts. To begin, let us look at the title of this bill, which says “to make related and consequential amendments”. They are consequential in that they have consequences.
In this case, it is safe to say that this bill, if passed as written and subsequently amended at committee by the government, will have serious consequences for Canadians. We could have a discussion about net neutrality, which Canadians have enjoyed largely in their online consumption choices these past decades. This bill would, in fact, seek to upend the very nature of what Canadians can do on the web. Of course that is not the intent. No, it could not be. It has merely been written that way, and amended and partially changed through a process Canadians became aware of through the efforts of stalwart parliamentarians: my colleagues in the Conservative Party in the House of Commons and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. They identified the intrusion in not only the use of the Internet for uploads and downloads, and the overreach in regulating this activity, but the consequences it would have on the very notion of freedom of speech, one of the rights Canadians have enjoyed—
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-06-14 23:26 [p.8410]
Madam Speaker, we were talking about the very notion of the freedom of speech Canadians enjoy, one of the rights Canadians have enjoyed since being introduced by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1960 and embedded in Canada's Constitution in 1982. Freedom of expression in Canada is protected as a fundamental freedom by section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter also permits the government to enforce reasonable limits.
I would say from experience that a large amount of Canadian communication between parties, individuals, businesses and organizations of all types, even governments and their agencies, happens via the Internet. Where does the problem arise in this legislation? Bill C-10 creates a new category of web media called “online undertakings” and gives the CRTC the same power to regulate them that it has for TV and radio stations. What is an online undertaking? Whatever one uploads onto the web is an online undertaking, such as videos, podcasts, music and websites. It is a huge regulatory stretch. However, Canadians should not fret as the CRTC will not act in the way the legislation is written, or so it has said.
Let us look back at that notion of freedom of expression and how we as legislators are supposed to ensure the legislation we consider abides by this fundamental piece of protection embodied in our constitutional bill of rights and freedoms. The Department of Justice Act requires the justice minister to provide a charter statement for every government bill that explains whether it respects the charter. The charter statement for Bill C-10 directly cites the social media exemption in its assessment that the bill respects this part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then, poof, at committee the Liberals removed the cited exemption from the legislation. When my Conservative colleagues rightly asked for a new assessment based on the new wording of the legislation, the Liberals decided to shut down debate at the committee.
At this point, I think Canadians would ask where the Minister of Justice is on this issue and why he will not seek and provide the legislative charter statement from his department. I have watched the Minister of Justice and let me illustrate how he operates in my opinion.
Regarding Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), admittedly no bill is perfect, yet this bill passed through committee here in the House of Commons and members from all parties voted in a free vote to pass the legislation. The legislation passed with the input of witnesses who wanted to respect the rights of disadvantaged Canadians and it worked through this House. The minister, despite that democratic process, manipulated the legislation with an amendment at the Senate and forced an amended bill back to this House, a bill that disrespects the input he received through witnesses and parliamentarians in the process. It was pure manipulation.
Regarding Bill C-15, an act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, after one hour of debate on a bill that my indigenous constituents are asking for clarity with respect to the defined terms in Canadian law and how it affects them, the Minister of Justice shut down debate, saying it had been debated enough.
Perhaps it is unparliamentary to state openly here that the minister's remarks are completely disingenuous. I have watched him during question period while he brazenly denies that his judicial appointments have nothing to do with Liberal Party lists. That is disingenuous. I know why Canadians are losing faith in governments.
Now we have this, the refusal to provide an updated charter statement. Shame on the minister.
Coming back to the bill, if passed, Canadian content uploaders will be subject to CRTC oversight. Yes, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will be looking at uploads all day long. That is in fact who is writing the bill and in fact the government organization trying to gain some relevance with it, but Canadians do not have to worry because it will not enforce the law as it is written.
Let me quote Timothy Denton, a former national commissioner of the CRTC, who now serves as the chairman of the Internet Society of Canada, who stated:
...their fundamental [principle here] is...that freedom of speech through video or audio should be in the hands of the CRTC — including Canadians’ freedom to use the internet to reach audiences and markets as they see fit.... The freedom to communicate across the internet is to be determined by political appointees, on the basis of no other criterion than what is conducive to broadcasting policy — and, presumably, the good of our domestic industry. As always, the interests of the beneficiaries of regulation are heard first, best, and last. Consumers and individual freedoms count for little when the regulated sector beats its drums.
Finally, let me congratulate the government on this one step. We have been through 15 months of an unprecedented time in our modern history, with lockdowns, economic dislocation and devastation, and literally a pandemic. The press does not cover what happens in the House and the myriad mistakes the government has made because governments make mistakes in unforeseen, unprecedented times. Canadians have given the government some benefit of the doubt about these mistakes and so do all people of goodwill, but it is our job in opposition to do our utmost for the country in oversight and to provide solutions to make our outcomes better.
I thank all my colleagues for the work in helping Canadians during these unprecedented times. I should thank the Liberal government for providing a coalescing issue that has Canadians from all backgrounds and political beliefs in my riding united in reaching out to make sure the bill does not pass. The bill and the government's responses to reasonable amendments to protect Canadians' rights show its ambivalence to Canadians and their rights.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-14 23:32 [p.8411]
Madam Speaker, I know my colleague is very thoughtful and careful in his language, but he spoke about amendments that have been put forward to make the bill better. I wonder what he can say about an amendment that the Conservative Party put forward. It says:
That Bill C-10, in Clause 7, be amended by adding after line 19 on page 8 the following:
9.2 An online undertaking that provides a social media service is deemed not to exercise programming control over programs uploaded by any user of the social media service who is not the provider of the service or the provider’s affiliate, or the agent or mandatary of either of them.
It seems quite clear to me that this was an excellent amendment. I voted for it and it passed. It was a Conservative amendment. I am wondering why he thinks it does not protect freedom of expression.
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-06-14 23:33 [p.8411]
Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona is always great with her questions, and I am pleased that she knows some of these amendments very well.
The issue we have is the blanket clause, whereby we are going to subject Canadians to some regulations by the CRTC when they upload videos. All kinds of amendments have been put forward at committee by my colleagues to make sure that this does not cover everyday Canadians and is only counting, as the government seems to indicate, certain web giants that have a large economic footprint, ensuring they are going to be regulated. However, the writing indicates very clearly that this applies to all Canadians. That is why we are trying to make it very clear in the amendments that they are not included. That clarity is required, and I have not seen that clarity in any of the other amendments to this point in time.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-14 23:35 [p.8411]
Madam Speaker, I have heard a lot about free speech from the Conservatives and I would like to ask if they think that social media platforms are a place of free speech.
I will point to a situation on May 5, Red Dress Day, to commemorate missing and murdered indigenous women and girls across this country. Hundreds if not thousands of posts were removed by Instagram and Facebook from people who were expressing their sorrow, rage and loss of family, friends and loved ones to this tragedy in our country.
Does the member think this is freedom of speech? When these platforms are removing this kind of content in this country are they a democratic space?
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-06-14 23:36 [p.8411]
Madam Speaker, that is a very good question, and I thoroughly agree with my colleague.
We have to look at who is actually policing the web. Whether the government is policing it or it is policed through algorithms, somebody is limiting our freedom of expression, and that limit to freedom of expression should not be compounded by this legislation. We acknowledge that there are all kinds of tools used by social media giants that we have to get in check, but putting more checks in the hands of the government, which is usually a pretty inefficient operator, does not seem to be a very viable solution to the lack of democratic representation that my colleague seems to think is being constrained on the Internet right now.
As I said, I agree with him in several respects regarding content that was somewhat censored and not put up in the proper way. We do need to find a way through that, but I would say that going to government for a solution so that it can be the arbiter is not the solution.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tako Van Popta Profile
2021-06-14 23:38 [p.8411]
Madam Speaker, I guess it should not have come as a complete surprise that the Liberal government would make strategic procedural moves to limit my freedom of speech as a member of Parliament wishing to speak up on exactly that topic: freedom of speech. I have heard from so many of my constituents that they were shocked at the government's attempt to limit their freedom by regulating the Internet, which, until now, has been a new-found tool of freedom of expression. People are starting to understand what the term “net neutrality” means and they want it protected. They are also starting to wake up to the prospect that their government wants to regulate this forum, the new public square.
The government members say they want to level the playing field. Canada's Conservatives support competition between large foreign streaming services and Canada's broadcasters, and we champion Canadian arts and culture, but a Conservative government would do so without compromising Canadians' fundamental rights and freedoms. We are calling on the Liberals to withdraw Bill C-10 or to amend it to protect freedom. If this is not done, a Conservative government would stand up for Canadians and repeal this deeply flawed legislation. While the NDP and the Bloc may be willing to look the other way on the freedom of expression, Canada's Conservatives will not.
What went wrong? The deeply flawed draft legislation, Bill C-10, became even more problematic after the Liberals had their way at committee. We have heard them say in this chamber on many occasions that user-generated content would not be regulated under the legislation, and they refer us to proposed subsection 2(2.1), which specifically exempts users from the new limiting regulations. However, proposed section 4.1 would have exempted social media sites like YouTube and TikTok, which consist of only user-uploaded programs, except that in committee the Liberals voted down this very important freedom of speech protector, even though their original draft legislation contained it.
Where does that leave us? Well, people using the Internet, speakers, are exempted, but the platforms they use are not, so the freedom really becomes illusory. That is what people are upset about with Bill C-10, and that is why Conservatives are fighting hard against it.
We have heard the Liberals say also that they just want big tech to be paying its fair share. In principle, we support that. The Conservative members of the heritage committee proposed an amendment to Bill C-10 that would have limited these limiting regulations to online undertakings with revenue of more than $50 million a year and 250,000 or more subscribers in Canada. If that amendment had passed, Bill C-10 would apply only to large streaming services, but the Liberals rejected it. I do not know why. This is a common-sense compromise put forward by the Conservatives to save the initial intent and the integrity of this legislation while still protecting Canadians' freedom of expression.
We have heard quite a bit about this. The idea of the CRTC regulating traditional media for Canadian content is deeply entrenched and widely accepted in Canadian culture, so why not the Internet too, which arguably is becoming the new preferred media? At first blush, that may make sense, but here is the problem. The legislation would regulate Canadian content by means of discoverability regulations that would require social media sites like YouTube to change their algorithms to determine which videos are more or less Canadian, all depending on a bureaucrat's opinion as to what is sufficiently Canadian.
We say, let the market decide. This is not what the Internet is, and it is not what Canadians want. We are hearing “hands off”. We are hearing about the democratization of the freedom of speech. The Internet is a new invention and it has given people, anybody with a computer, anybody with an iPad, anybody with a smart phone, the ability to publish on the Internet and to be heard, and it has led to the success of many, many artists, including Canadian artists.
Does that mean that the Internet and the contents posted on it should not be regulated at all? Of course not. The Internet is subject to all laws of general application, such as laws against promoting hatred and laws against inciting violence. There are laws for the protection of children, and there are laws against slander and libel, just to name a few.
Our freedom of speech, as protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is not unlimited. As my law professor explained on the first day of constitutional law, freedom of expression does not give a person the right to yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre. Section 2(b) of the charter says everyone has the fundamental freedom of expression, but section 1 of the charter says that those rights and freedoms are subject to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
Until the Liberals started talking about Bill C-10, that is what everyone understood to be the nature of this new medium called the Internet. The laws of general application should apply. Every other free and democratic country in the world understands that to be the case, and only Canada would go so far as to tell user-content social media platforms what to promote and what to demote. Therein lies our contention with Bill C-10.
We do not stand alone. This is what Peter Menzies, the former commissioner of the CRTC, had to say about Bill C-10 in its current state:
It’s difficult to contemplate the levels of moral hubris, incompetence or both that would lead people to believe such an infringement of rights is justifiable.
University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist stated:
In a free, democratic society we don’t subject basic speech to regulation in this way. Of course there are limits to what people can say, but the idea that a broadcast regulator has any role to play in basic speech is, I think, anathema to free and democratic society where freedom of expression is viewed as one of the foundational freedoms.
With the support of experts such as these, the Conservative Party has been promoting its opposition to Bill C-10 aggressively and, I might say, effectively. What is the government’s response? It is to shut down debate. Last week, with the help of the Bloc and the NDP, the Liberal government shut down debate at committee, and now it wants to shut down debate in Parliament. One has to love the irony of that. Here we are debating free speech and the government is aggressively shutting down parliamentarians’ right to be the voice for their constituents: Canadians who have come to appreciate the freedom, flexibility and effectiveness of having their voices heard on this 21st-century platform. Social media platforms are the new public square, and free speech on those platforms in the form of user-generated content must not fall under the regulatory purview of the CRTC.
Only the Conservative Party is standing up to protect this fundamental right that all Canadians enjoy. The government has misled Canadians about this bill. Exempting user content was a key part of Bill C-10's limitations. It was something we accepted and that helped get it through the parliamentary reading stages and committee without more dissent, but removing that exception at the very last minute makes Bill C-10 unacceptable. It is the most breathtaking power grab over online speech we have ever seen in Canada. The Liberal government wants to limit our rights to fight against that, and that is why Conservatives are standing up.
View Warren Steinley Profile
CPC (SK)
View Warren Steinley Profile
2021-06-14 23:48 [p.8413]
Madam Speaker, I was listening intently to my colleague and he referenced Michael Geist, one of the leading thinkers of free speech in our country and a very independent voice on this bill.
I wonder if the member could elaborate a bit on what Michael Geist has said about Bill C-10 and maybe some of the pitfalls the government has fallen into while trying to reduce free speech for Canadians across the country.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tako Van Popta Profile
2021-06-14 23:49 [p.8413]
Madam Speaker, Michael Geist is indeed a champion for free speech, particularly on the Internet. Being a law professor, he is an expert in that field and deals exactly with that area of the law. I have a great deal of respect for him and for the work he has done. He is a champion to whom we should be listening. He is a promoter of allowing the Internet to develop in a way that enhances people's ability to promote their thoughts, ideas and expressions and, in this case, also their art and their music.
View Gerald Soroka Profile
CPC (AB)
View Gerald Soroka Profile
2021-06-14 23:52 [p.8413]
Madam Speaker, tonight I will be splitting my time with the member for Regina—Lewvan.
On February 5, I spoke to Bill C-10 before it was referred to the heritage committee on February 16. Here I am speaking to Bill C-10 again, a few months later, now that the bill has returned from committee. Most times when a bill returns from committee, we see a couple of amendments here and there to fine-tune it before passing it along to the Senate, but with BIll C-10, it is not a vew changes here and there. This bill is completely different than its previous form.
What is even more abnormal about this is the fact that so many of the amendments came from the Liberals, the ones who introduced the bill in the first place. The government owes it to Canadians to explain why so many amendments were introduced after the fact and why it is pulling every trick in the book to try to push legislation through without proper debate and while ignoring legitimate concerns.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage is using tactics to make people believe that Conservatives are anticulture and standing in the way of Bill C-10, when in fact, many experts who testified at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage agree this bill is flawed and needs further review.
Protecting Canadian content is important for Canadians, but what good do rules around Canadian content do, if Canadian content is not properly defined. The minister recently demonstrated in committee that even he does not know what classic Canadian movies actually count as protected Canadian content under this legislation.
Over the past month I have received countless emails and phone calls from constituents in fear of the government's legislation. They want to know what they can do to stop it. One man even said to me that this legislation embodies the same police-state-like control he emigrated to Canada to escape.
The question I get most often is, “Why?” Why does this legislation contain an amendment giving the CRTC this much power. Why is the government trying to push this through so quickly? Why does the government think it has a mandate to police the Internet?
Conservatives recognize that the Broadcasting Act is in need of updates. No one is arguing against that. When Conservatives raise legitimate questions about user-generated content being affected by this legislation, instead of providing answers, the minister diminishes our concern and proceeds with his carefully scripted paragraph about why the Broadcasting Act needs to be updated, even though we are already agreeing that it needs to be done.
I have to point out the irony in the fact that we are being censored here in the House of Commons on a debate regarding censorship. Instead of allowing Bill C-10 to go through full and proper review, the Liberals moved a time allocation motion to shut down debate on Bill C-10 early, and effectively censored our debate on censorship.
Here we are, around midnight, mid-June, speaking for the last time to a bill that would have the power to limit our freedoms and could change the way Canadians are able to use the Internet. The government imposing time allocation on this bill, which is fundamentally flawed, is wrong because it attacks freedom of expression. The minister is attacking our freedom of expression as parliamentarians, who are just trying to do their jobs. Instead of telling us Conservatives that we are preventing work from moving forward and that we are anticulture, the government members should be explaining to Canadians how they can possibly justify this time allocation motion, when the committee still has many amendments to review. This is deeply concerning to not only me, but also to many Canadians.
I also want to talk about the precedent legislation like this could create for the future. In a society that values freedom of speech and freedom of expression, Bill C-10 would leave the door open to a massive abuse of power concerning the rights of Canadians.
It is not enough for the minister to stand in the House of Commons and claim this bill is not meant to target ordinary Canadians. Words spoken by the minister mean nothing if they do not coincide with the wording of the actual legislation.
The amendment regarding user-generated content aside, Bill C-10 creates a regulatory mess of a streaming and broadcasting industry in Canada. There are real harms that could come with this legislation as it currently stands. This bill is far broader than many Canadians realize, and certainly broader than the minister has claimed. This has led to a lack of understanding of the consequences of the bill as it relates to the general public.
With so many amendments being brought forward in such a short timeframe, it is hard for the public to keep up and stay informed. One thing we must always remember as parliamentarians is that we work for the people. It is our duty to keep our constituents informed and to seek their input on legislative matters. With this amendment being added, and this legislation being rushed through the legislative process so quickly, I fear many members will not have adequate time to properly inform and consult their constituents on this issue.
It is with extreme disappointment that I am speaking on this legislation tonight, knowing that so many voices have been silenced and important dialogue on this bill will not be heard. The government claims that limitations are integrated into this bill, so that it is not too overreaching.
The minister said in the House of Commons, “user-generated content, news content and video games would not be subject to the new regulations. Furthermore, entities would need to reach a significant economic threshold before any regulation could be imposed.”
This claim made by the minister is false, as there is no specific economic threshold that is established by the bill, which means that all Internet streaming services carried in Canada, whether domestic or foreign owned, are subject to Canadian regulation. That would mean if someone has Canadian subscribers, this law would, regardless of where the service provider is located, apply to them.
The limitations the minister is referring to are that the bill gives the CRTC the power to exempt services from regulation. It also leaves it entirely up to the CRTC to establish thresholds for regulations once the bill is enacted. This is dangerous, and while I have confidence in the work that the good people working for the CRTC do, it is our duty to legislate, not the CRTC's, and that means properly defining the term “significant economic threshold”.
Bill C-10 now has over 120 amendments, of which about a quarter were put forward by the government itself, even though it wrote the bill. My Conservative colleagues at the heritage committee did everything they could to fix the problems with Bill C-10 in the time they had. My colleagues say that in review stage, the work at committee was going well and progress was being made. That is until the Liberals decided to bring forward an amendment to include social media.
This amendment was so large it changed the scope of the bill entirely. It was at that point people, including experts, former CRTC commissioners and thousands of Canadians across the country, starting raising objections.
As I wrap up my speech, I am thinking of all the flaws contained in this bill and worry for the future of freedom of expression. While I do not suspect this bill was brought forward with malicious intentions, the wording in this legislation could set a terrible precedent.
It is okay for the government to admit when it is wrong and when it has gone too far. Now is the time for the government to acknowledge that it needs to take a step back, re-evaluate and correct the course.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
View Julie Vignola Profile
2021-06-15 0:02 [p.8415]
Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 of the bill, where it says, “A person who uses a social media service to upload programs for transmission over the Internet...does not, by the fact of that use, carry on a broadcasting undertaking for the purposes of this Act.” Therefore, users can upload content without being subject to this legislation.
From what my colleagues are saying, one might think that eliminating a clause from the bill invalidates it. There have been almost 120 amendments.
Did the Conservatives believe that this clause carried so much weight that 120 amendments to improve the bill still do not make it an adequate bill? What would it take to satisfy the Conservative Party?
View Gerald Soroka Profile
CPC (AB)
View Gerald Soroka Profile
2021-06-15 0:04 [p.8415]
Madam Speaker, I am not disputing that there are many good points to this bill and many parts of the amendments brought forward do help give a better explanation as to what is going on. There are a lot of unknowns with the bill where it is not clear and concise as to what the regulators would or would not be able enforce.
The CRTC could potentially have quite wide-sweeping powers. That is why we are very concerned. There is not a clear definition as to how much the CRTC can be regulated. What kind of rules will there be for content providers that the CRTC may have in the future? That is what we are protecting. We are making sure that there are not these things in the legislation that can allow for many different types of content to be censored. The way it is written, it does allow that, and that is what we are opposing.
Results: 31 - 45 of 319 | Page: 3 of 22

|<
<
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data