Debates of March 27th, 2023

Online Streaming Act

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is an absolute honour to have the opportunity to raise concerns and share my displeasure with what is going on right now with Bill C-11. It is being rammed through Parliament after having pretty substantive debates. I am going to be sharing my time with the member for Yorkton—Melville.

I want to start out by indicating that I believe Bill C-11 is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. I am not the only person who thinks so, and Conservatives are not even the only people who think so. The Prime Minister's own independent senators had so many concerns when the bill went to the Senate that they provided a series of amendments that would help make this bad bill less bad.

I applaud them for the diligent effort they put forward in calling additional witnesses and exploring other pieces of the bill. They made a number of amendments to the bill that were rejected by the government. It really showed the hand of the government that the ultimate goal of this bill is actually to allow the government to decide what does and does not count as Canadian content and what people would and would not see. It became explicit in the rejection of some of the substantive amendments that came from the Senate that this was, in fact, its modus operandi.

I share this because, until this point, the government was claiming that its intent was not to have the power to be the content regulator. However, in the rejection of one of the amendments, it actually said that it wanted the Governor in Council to regulate this content. This means that the government is giving itself the power to decide what it wants people to see online and to pick what does and does not count as Canadian content. I think it is a really scary thing for any government of any stripe.

This means that one will no longer get to pick what one wants to see online. Instead, the government gets to pick what one has a chance to see online to begin with. I do not want that power being given to any government of any political stripe. I do not think that is how things should go.

I know I am not alone in those fears and concerns. I have had countless people reach out to me. I have had average, everyday normal people who do not normally pay attention to politics reach out because they are really concerned about the contents of this bill. They are concerned that this is going too far and that this is a step towards absolute censorship.

While members opposite have made all kinds of jokes and seem to talk down the fact that we have these concerns, the concerns are real. They are legitimate, and they deserve to be addressed. Instead, we just get a whole bunch of nonsense and belittling, and that is not how this should be going. There is nothing progressive about censorship. The progressive parties are claiming that this is a progressive bill, but I am not sure how censoring anyone is progressive.

One of the pieces I really want to get into is how flawed the very definition of Canadian content is. I have a list of some things that are not considered to be Canadian content. I was kind of shocked at how vast the list was. I did not capture everything, but here is a small list of things I found in doing some research for this.

The Handmaid's Tale series that is on Hulu, and in Canada it is on Crave, is not considered to be Canadian content despite being written and based on Margaret Atwood's very famous book. It was filmed here in Canada. A part of the series was set here in Canada. It is not considered to be CanCon because the ownership is not Canadian; therefore, that is not Canadian content.

Turning Red, a Pixar film on Disney+, is set in Toronto. The main character is a 13-year-old Chinese Canadian girl. It is a really cool movie. I really liked it. It even has real superstar Canadians on the cast, like Sandra Oh. Can members guess what? It is not Canadian content. Again, it is the ownership piece.

Deadpool 2 was filmed in Vancouver. It stars Canada's number one cheerleader, Ryan Reynolds. It was even co-written by Ryan Reynolds, a Canadian who was born in Vancouver, and as I said, one of Canada's biggest cheerleaders. However, it did not have enough Canadian production, so sorry, it is not Canadian content. That is just on the film side.

Now, let us go into the music side because this is kind of fun. A good chunk of Justin Bieber's music is not Canadian content because it was recorded outside of Canada and he collaborated with artists from around the world. It is the same thing with most of Bryan Adams' music. Bryan Adams is an iconic Canadian rock star. Most of his music actually does not fit the qualifications to be CanCon because he partnered with Mutt Lange on a large part of his music. Celine Dion is an absolutely celebrated Canadian artist. Most of her newest music is not considered to be CanCon. My Heart Will Go On is not CanCon. It is crazy.

However, here is where the CanCon definition gets really fun. There are some real quirks in this. Snowbird, which was a hit by Elvis Presley, in fact does count as Canadian content because the music and lyrics were created by Canadians. Another unique one that fits into this bill is Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar. That is a great song. Growing up, we heard it a lot on the radio. We had a classic rock station in Fort McMurray, KYX 98, and it played Hit Me With Your Best Shot a lot. I am now understanding why: It met the Canadian content requirements.

I talked about the things that do not make sense in how CanCon is currently described and put out. We are now saying that the CRTC has done such a great job with film and music and defining what is and is not Canadian content that we are going to give it the whole Internet and hope that it does not screw it up. That is scary. This is a space where Internet is limitless. It is not something that can easily be kept in a little box like radio or television broadcasting because it is not technically and typically broadcasting. Anyone with a phone can produce a hit video. Anybody who has a unique idea can do this.

I grew up in Fort McMurray, which is a melting pot of everything from around Canada and the world. So here I am standing with my Nova Scotia tartan. I am not from Nova Scotia. My grandfather lived in Nova Scotia at one point. However, I am sitting here, giving a speech and wearing a Nova Scotia tartan as someone who is not from Nova Scotia, because growing up, I got to experience Atlantic Canadian culture, Cape Breton culture and culture from B.C. and Vancouver Island, and I saw a whole bunch of variety in what Canadian culture was. The scary part is that we are now going to be letting bureaucrats in Ottawa, the “Ottawa knows best”, the ones who have probably never experienced some of what Canadian culture actually is decide what counts and what does not count and what Canadians get to see on the Internet and what they do not get to see. That is a scary spot to be in.

In my area, if someone says they are from Ottawa and they are here to fix their problem, people are typically a little concerned, probably a bit more than a little concerned. I say this because it is serious. Some of the colleagues from the other side have been really concerned that they have only been hearing the same things over and over again from Conservatives, and part of it is that some of the experts they have been quoting up to this point are experts in their field.

I am going to quote one person from the University of Calgary. She is the Canadian research chair in cybersecurity law and associate professor, Dr. Emily Laidlaw. She said:

The indirect knock-on effect of this legislation on internet users and what they seek, receive and share online is important to the analysis. If the adverse effects of the provisions on social media users are too great, then the interference with free expression is disproportionate and unconstitutional.

She said this in her transcript when she was speaking to the Senate. The government has rejected some of the Senate's amendments. The Senate amendment that made this bad piece of legislation less bad did not take into account the fact that there are serious concerns when it comes to the constitutionality of this.

I really would hope that everyone can agree that we need a bit of a pause. We need to go back to the drawing board on this and revisit so that we have the best possible legislation.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, first of all, there is nothing in the legislation that lays out what CanCon is. What the legislation does is ask platforms to make Canadian content more findable for Canadians.

What in making Canadian content more findable takes away choices from Canadians to watch whatever they want to watch? Just because people can find Schitt's Creek more easily online, that does not mean they cannot watch something else if that is what they prefer.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, the scary part about the bill is that it does leave a lot to be determined at some other point. It leaves a lot to be determined in regulation. It leaves a lot to be determined by other levels that are away from this piece of legislation, which is part of the concern that we brought up. It also means that large media streaming giants like Crave or Disney+ might decide that the regulations in Canada are too much and so they are just going to leave. Canadians would then lose all of that content that is and is not Canadian, which limits their choice.

Currently, Canadians do not have a choice about a lot of pieces of online media that other places around the world do, specifically because of our regulatory framework and the fact that some of these businesses and companies just choose not to play here. That means we have fewer options and less choice. We hear the same song on the radio over and over again, because it meets that qualification standard, and it is the same kind of thing.

The bill would actually serve to disadvantage Canadian content, Canadian artists and Canadians ultimately.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji , I am going to read a section from Bill C-11. It reads:

programming that reflects the Indigenous cultures of Canada and programming that is in Indigenous languages should be provided—including through broadcasting undertakings that are carried on by Indigenous persons—within community elements, which are positioned to serve smaller and remote communities, and other elements of the Canadian broadcasting system;

Can the member please tell me what is so scary and so concerning about this section?

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is the interesting part about the bill. It is quite a comprehensive bill that covers a lot of different subjects. One of the challenges is that it takes the Internet, something that is very large and very vague, and tries to put it into a box. Frankly, it is not something one can easily put into a box. Therefore, digital creators, whether they be indigenous or from different cultural communities, could be disadvantaged by this very legislation. The up-and-coming artists who have not quite gotten there yet, who are still using their telephone to try to put themselves out on YouTube, will be disadvantaged perhaps by this legislation unless the government decides to step in and decides that they actually do fit the qualifications of Canadian content.

This is part of the challenge here, that there are poison pills strung all throughout this legislation, which perhaps has a good intent but does it poorly.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, The Handmaid's Tale has come up a great deal in this debate, and there is time to actually dig into why. The Handmaid's Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, once adapted to the screen, did not count as Canadian. It is fairly easy to look it up. It is described on Wikipedia as “an American dystopian television series created by Bruce Miller”, an American. For the film, the screenwriter was Harold Pinter, who is British; the director, Volker Schlöndorff, is German; and the score was by a Japanese artist.

They are all very talented people, but Canadian artistic enterprises are trying to find work for Canadians. The wonderful and chilling dystopian novel by the brilliant Margaret Atwood had many other hands bringing it to the screen, and those hands were not Canadian. If we tried to enter it into any kind of Canadian artistic prize category, we would not get it in as a Canadian piece of work, because it is American or international with American producers and Americans own it. That is why it is not Canadian content.

We need to protect Canadian content or our writers and our screenwriters—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have to give the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake a few seconds to answer.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will keep this really short and sweet. Margaret Atwood touched on Bill C-11, saying it was “creeping totalitarianism”, period.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, during the lockdowns, and for me the lockouts, I still found myself with very little free time on my hands, but when I did have those precious few moments, I could turn to the Internet as a source of information, entertainment and comfort during uncertain times.

The Internet is an endless frontier for creativity, discovery and free thought. While the reach of radio and TV is confined largely to within our own borders, Canadian creators throughout the past few decades have been charting new pathways online. Canada’s media landscape of the 21st century has been and will continue to be defined by their artistic endeavours. Regardless of people’s background or prerequisite knowledge of their craft, Canadians have been reaching global audiences through the power of their voices, performances and words. It is our duty as legislators to celebrate and ease their efforts in reaching the world. In no instance should we be working to limit their expression at home or abroad.

We should afford the same consideration to Canadians who consume this content. The first 30 years of commercial Internet have changed the manner in which we enjoy our entertainment. While the evolution of radio, print and TV over the last century has taken place within the vacuum of Canada’s telecommunications industry, there is no such restraint on online content. Canadians are more empowered than ever to pick and choose the content they want to watch, listen to and read. The government should be working to encourage, not suppress, variety and choice within a new broadcasting reality.

Regrettably, in Canada, and in the year 2023, this bill gives us cause to rise to the defence of free expression and free choice. This debate should have all Canadians concerned, and it does. In a complicated world in which the free flow of information is more important than ever, I am pleased to speak once again to Bill C-11 from the perspective of the majority of Canadians.

When a government has been given every opportunity over the course of a year to do the right thing, is presented with Senate amendments that attempt to repair mistakes that were made and then rejects some of those amendments, Canadians are given cause to reflect and draw conclusions on the intentions of the current government.

It is clear that the Prime Minister made up his mind from the very beginning of this process. He is not interested in the appeals of civil society, industry professionals, independent content creators, and the 92% of Canadians who access an uncensored Internet for their news, opinions and entertainment. From the beginning of the debate, they have been calling on the government to stop its attempts to censor their search results.

We must not embark down the road of censorship and algorithmic control. Canada is one of the most connected countries in the world. We are the model for what a free and open Internet can achieve. In normal times, this would be seen as a net positive for civil discourse and the cultural mosaic, and any responsible government would embrace this potential. However, that is not the case with the Liberal government. It has seen fit to impose top-down regulations of the worst kind on the one true international entity that reaches beyond borders and makes Canadian culture freely available to the world.

Bill C-11 applies CRTC regulatory powers to the Internet. It effectively empowers the Prime Minister, his cabinet and bureaucrats in Ottawa to decide what Canadians see and say online. They would determine which material is given preference and would effectively have control over Internet algorithms.

The government continually claims that this legislation would have no effect on the performance of user-generated content, such as a typical cat video, but its actions tell us a different story, and Canadians are picking up on it. Despite overwhelming public pressure to back away from independent creators and to leave “the little guy” alone, the government has rejected a Senate amendment that would have protected content created by ordinary individuals. This amendment would have ensured that regulations target only commercial material. Canadians are rightly offended by this decision. To reject hard-fought-for protections for free expression in the eleventh hour reeks of a hidden agenda.

These fears are entirely justified. The Prime Minister has decided to impose his own personal brand onto the Internet, and we have to wonder why. I would argue it is because, even with his desperate attempt to control the narrative via the legacy media, which he has to do before 2024, he no longer has control over the message.

As the relevance and appeal of traditional media fades, the Internet has done more than fill the void. It has changed the media landscape forever.

To consider just a few of these statistics, every day 100,000 songs are uploaded to streaming platforms, 1.7 million books were self-published in the last year, there are now three million podcasts that put out about 30 million episodes this last year and 2,500 videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

While decades-old media empires have been implementing strategies to downsize, alternative culture is flourishing. There are nearly 40 YouTube channels with more than 50 million subscribers, which is far above the reach of any newspaper or record label in Canada. We have also seen a shift among our young people, with 86% who have expressed a desire to become online influencers.

In fact, it is our young people who are driving these numbers in large part. The Prime Minister has now ostracized 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds who are very motivated to vote in their first election, and a number of them are my grandkids. This is excellent news for them for the future of independent Canadian arts and culture, but the problem, in the Prime Minister’s view, is that not every ounce of this material will align with his government’s opinions.

We have seen this type of behaviour before. Liberals attempted to restrict Canada summer jobs funding through a draconian values test. Employers were permitted to offer life-changing experiences to our youth only after attesting to uphold values the Liberal Party deemed appropriate.

Their 2021 platform promises to revoke the charitable status of crisis pregnancy centres because their life-saving work flies in the face of the Liberal Party’s belief in abortion at any time and for any reason. The majority of Canadians, over 80%, actually want to see more pregnancy counselling centres, not less. The Liberals are so out of touch.

Now they are attempting to control cyberspace through Bill C-11. Once again, Liberals are attempting to pick winners and losers. In effect, this bill works to extinguish this ambition for the next generation of Canadian creators. It would destroy the creative drive that makes film, music and print material so alluring.

Instead of relying on a tried-and-true business model to promote their content to the world, creators would be forced to manicure their output to fit within the Prime Minister’s CanCon ideal. We heard a bit about that from my colleague. This is not what arts and culture in a free society looks like.

The Liberals argue this legislation is required to ensure more Canadian content reaches our screens, but at the same time, they are killing the inventive spirit that has inspired a new generation of Canadians to express themselves.

In a piece in The Free Press, Ted Gioia writes, “...what we really need is a robust indie environment—in which many arts and culture businesses flourish and present their diverse offerings.” He also says, “...we deserve a culture in which there are hundreds or thousands of organizations doing audience development and outreach.”

“Let a thousand flowers blossom,” he says.

As colleagues on both sides of this House often say, the world needs more Canada. I wholeheartedly agree. Canadian culture is being expressed, not lost, in current and expounding methods, but this can only be maintained through an open and free Internet. Let us not limit our potential. Let us not turn back in time.

Canadians analyze this bill, and they cannot help but conclude it is an attempt to impose state censorship through the back door. Giving any government the power to manipulate online algorithms will not benefit Canadian culture. What is also clear is the threat it poses to freedom of expression in this country.

The Liberals’ time in office will end, along with that of all other future governments. Do we honestly want the government of the day, whoever it is, to impose its world view over top of what we say and do online? As a proud Canadian, I certainly do not want that.

I will end with this. If it should pass, I want Canadians to know the following. A Conservative government would appeal Bill C-11. Recognizing the richness and breadth of Canadian content in the Internet age, we would require large streaming services to invest more into producing Canadian content, and we would explain that to Canadians when we brought it forward while protecting the individual rights and freedoms of Canadians.

Through a Conservative approach to CanCon, homegrown talent would be able to compete on an equal footing with the rest of the world. When removed from the seat of power, I predict the Liberals will applaud a Conservative government’s effort to repeal this legislation. Instead of entrusting the future of Canadian culture to faceless bureaucrats in Ottawa, we will trust Canadians’ ability to promote Canada to the world and make their own decisions on what content they consume. We will allow a thousand flowers to bloom.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was very interested in the member opposite talking about the Internet being this vast place, international without borders, where one could find all this content.

I am wondering if the member honestly thinks that people, randomly on the Internet, with all of this content, find what it is that they want to watch, or does she think it is the platforms that are deciding what to put at the top of the feed, what Canadians should watch next, what maybe appeals to people. It is the platforms that are making those decisions. It is the platforms that are wielding that power.

It is our job as legislators to write laws to protect Canadians, including Canadians who work in the arts and culture sector.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate that question, because the truth of the matter is that the government has already been trying to manipulate what Canadians see on the basis of its funding of the legacy media and its expectations of them.

We are seeing this, as well, with Facebook. On this side of the floor, we connected with them because we are seeing changes in algorithms in regard to policy and politics. Of course there need to be those controls in place, but, believe me, the last thing Canadians want, and certainly this younger generation that has found their voice wants, is to see any government telling them what they can and cannot do, see or create.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville is a friend of mine, and I understand that she believes what she is saying.

I cannot see it in this bill. I see nothing in this bill where faceless bureaucrats are going to tell Canadians what they can watch. That is not the case. This bill is about ensuring that our creators in this country would have work up against what is a monolithic, multinational digital media with giants like Netflix, Disney and Crave that are producing an enormous amount of content without a concern for the Canadian voices and the Canadian artists within that content.

Bill C-11 is just updating the Broadcasting Act to deal with that reality.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, the CRTC is getting its marching orders from the government, absolutely. What it says to them will impact how the CRTC functions, and it has its hands full, quite honestly, dealing with the dynamics around the legacy media at this point in time.

The truth of the matter is there is all kinds of production going on in Canada, from those large producers. If the member listened to the speech from the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood who was in the industry for 45 years, he talked about all across this nation, and especially in British Columbia, on the island and in the Lower Mainland, these companies are coming to Canada to make their movies and documentaries. We are gaining an incredible amount of GDP because of that influx into our nation.

We deserve the freedom as Canadians to use the Internet in the way that it has been designed and is functioning now.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. Again, we are really seeing a campaign of fear and disinformation from the Conservatives. People will be able to post whatever they want on social media. People will be able to listen to whatever they want. This will not change anything.

The Conservative Party says it would continue to give these web giants a sort of tax break where they are not required to contribute to Canadian cultural content production.

Why do my colleague and the Conservatives want to disadvantage Canadian companies by giving tax breaks to web giants such as YouTube, Disney+ and Netflix?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, he must have missed the last part of my speech, so I will just repeat it, briefly.

A Conservative government would repeal Bill C-11 and, recognizing the richness and breadth of Canadian content in the Internet age, we would require large streaming services to invest more in producing Canadian content while protecting the individual rights and freedoms of Canadians.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.

It is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-11, a bill that the citizens of Oshawa have been very clear about. Oshawa wants us to kill this bill.

Canadians are not ignorant or dumb but the Prime Minister and the Liberal government clearly believe that Canadians are simply not smart enough to decide for ourselves what we want to see and hear.

There is a quote I have on my front door. It is from John F. Kennedy, a man that I admire. It states, “the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

This quote helps frame the debate about the bill. Does this bill expand the rights of every Canadian or does it diminish their rights and freedoms? Does this bill threaten Canadians' ability to communicate, make a living or be heard?

Some very prominent Canadians have weighed in on this unprecedented bill and how it threatens freedom of speech.

Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to free speech, which can only be effectively exercised if one has the ability to be heard.

As Professor Michael Geist explains, “to be clear, the risk with these rules is not that the government will restrict the ability for Canadians to speak, but rather that the bill could impact their ability to be heard. In other words, the CRTC will not be positioned to stop Canadians from posting content, but will have the power to establish regulations that could prioritize or de-prioritize certain content, mandate warning labels, or establish other conditions with the presentation of the content (including algorithmic outcomes). The government has insisted that isn’t the goal of the bill. If so, the solution is obvious. No other country in the world seeks to regulate user content in this way and it should be removed from the bill because it does not belong in the Broadcasting Act.“

Canadian author Margaret Atwood has a gift of boiling down rhetoric to a very specific phrase. She sees this bill as “creeping totalitarianism“ and I agree with her. Conservatives believe in freedom of speech, thought and belief. Traditionally and historically, these rights and freedoms were not considered a left- or right-wing thing. They were based on a fundamental understanding that in free societies, we have fundamental rights.

Let us review the fundamental question that this bill is forcing us to ask. This legislation is about one thing: trust. Do Canadians trust this government to respect our rights and freedoms if Liberals are given these new, unprecedented powers?

Trust is unfortunately a challenging concept for the government. Trust is a characteristic, a quality that needs to be earned. It is a belief in reliability, truth or ability of someone or something. Trust can be predicted from past behaviour and past actions. Given this government's past, we see a record of distrust and concern. Let us examine that statement. Let us take a look at the Prime Minister and his government's history and what has been said about their approach to governing and what premises and ideologies drive their behaviour, in regard to Canadians' rights and freedoms.

We could talk about Bill C-18. We could talk about the Emergencies Act, the freezing of bank accounts of Canadians who disagree with the government, or Canadians who should not be tolerated and instead punished due to their unacceptable views or we could talk about David Pugliese's exposé in the Ottawa Citizen about the Canadian military who “saw the pandemic as [a] unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on Canadians” or Swikar Oli, who wrote in the National Post. We could talk about privacy advocates raising concerns, about the Public Health Agency tracking Canadians without their permission or Susan Delacourt writing about “nudging” techniques to manipulate Canadians' behaviour. Were these government behaviours warranted? Maybe, maybe not, but it begs to the question: what else is going on that we do not know about? What direction is the government racing toward? More freedom and choice or more government control?

Our democracy is fragile and “creeping totalitarianism” can be insidious and appear to be harmless or based on noble lies or intentions.

There are so many examples but let us focus on the bill in front of us and what it means and could mean. Let us review.

Bill C-11 is an online censorship bill designed to control search engines and algorithms so that the government can control what Canadians see and hear.

What is censorship? Censorship is defined as “the suppression of speech, public communication or other information”.

As Canadians know, whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

Canadians are storytelling creatures. We tell each other what is going on by talking, singing, dancing, creating and showing others about ourselves, our ideas and our feelings. Historically, we have been able to do this freely.

With the advent of the Internet, Canadians embraced a new way of telling these stories. We could now send birthday videos around the world, sing a new song and post it for all to see. If people liked it, they shared it. New innovations allow Canadian creators and storytellers to earn a living online, communicate, educate, debate, explore. We could choose what we wanted to see and enjoy where it sent us, but this ability is being challenged.

Bill C-11 would prevent Canadians from seeing and watching the content that they choose for themselves. The Liberals and their big government, big corporate friends would decide who is heard and who is silent.

Have colleagues ever heard the term “inverted totalitarianism”? It is a term coined by Dr. Sheldon Wolin to describe a system where big corporations corrupt or subvert democracy. Elitist politicians with their ability to control and regulate are influenced by the big players, the big corporations that have the money to lobby government officials and regulators such as the CRTC to get the rules that benefit their monopolies and their bottom lines.

Is this where the Liberal government has taken Canada? Such arrogance. Perhaps Canadians should not really be surprised. The New York Times reported that our Prime Minister once said that Canadians have no core identity and that he wanted us to become the first post-national state.

Does that sound like someone who wants to protect our unique Canadian culture, our unique Canadian values? After all, we did elect the Prime Minister who said he admires the basic dictatorship of China so much because it gets things done. Perhaps this explains why the Liberal-NDP coalition has been so focused and intent on ramming this bill through the House.

Sadly, this legislation models practices directly from the Communist Government of China. The CCP has created the great fire wall, a heavily censored Internet that directs users to approved content under the guise of protecting the public and keeping people safe. It blocks unacceptable views and connections that the CCP considers harmful to the Chinese public. The goal of its Internet is to reshape online behaviour and use it to disseminate new party theories and promote socialist agendas. It is about shaping the Communist government's values.

Could that happen in Canada? One of my constituents, Rhonda, who lived and taught in China for two years in the early 2000s recounts, “When I lived in China for two years, we always had to verify the news and Internet content with friends and families back home or in free countries, as we knew we were not receiving unaltered information. It was highly regulated by the Communist government in China. I fear we are heading in this direction in Canada and I am having a hard time understanding how this is possible when it's supposed to be a free and democratic society.”

I agree with Rhonda. This idea of creeping totalitarianism seems to be alive and well in Canada. If Canadians give governments these new powers, I believe it is just a matter of time before these powers are abused. Bill C-11 would give the current Liberal government and future governments the authority to pick and choose what individual Canadians are allowed to watch, essentially placing the government as a content regulator.

Homegrown Canadian talent and creators would no longer succeed based on merit. Bureaucrats in Ottawa would determine content based on its level of “Canadian-ness”, but the culture of minorities would be cut out. By the way, how does one define “Canadian-ness”? This bill certainly does not do it. The CRTC would have control, big government would be lobbied by big corporations to wedge the little guys out. Corporate government would grow. Entrepreneurs, creators and artists would be squashed.

Sadly, we saw Canadian content creators come to Ottawa to have their voices heard but, as expected, they were shut down. The government wholly rejected any amendments brought forward that would narrow the bill's scope and fully exempt content that Canadians post on social media. Canadians are asking the questions, asking what the government is afraid of. Is it freedom? We have had different journalists and commentators around saying that this could change the independent Youtubers' way in which they make their money. Their viewership and revenues would take a hit. That is something that I think is quite worrying.

To finish, why does the government want to cause more uncertainty, loss of income and pain to make Canadians depend on the government? Why the attack on Canadian innovators in a way that no other country does, except maybe under the Communist Government of China? Why does the government not trust Canadians to be their own directors of their own destinies? We trust Canadians. A Conservative government would repeal this horrible bill.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, as the hon. member for Oshawa was speaking, all I could think is that somewhere there is a Liberal war room clipping all of that to use in ads to make sure no one votes Conservative.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for pointing that out because I specifically used factual representations of what is going on. I am getting letters and emails from across Canada. Canadians are so worried about the direction the Liberals are taking this country in and where it will end.

To start to regulate the Internet, to decide what Canadians can see and what they can say, and, more importantly, as Professor Geist said in committee, to regulate which Canadians will be heard and which ones will not be heard is an incredibly wrong way to be moving. As I said in my final comments, Canadians can trust that a Conservative government would end this horrible bill and put decision-making back into Canadians' hands.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have heard all evening that this bill would not regulate or diminish freedom of speech. What I heard in the member's speech was that freedom of speech includes the right to be heard. I am wondering if he could expand on that. Those two concepts must go together.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I started my speech by quoting John F. Kennedy, who said that when the rights of one person are diminished, the rights of all men are threatened. One of the greatest rights we have in free and democratic societies is the right to speak and be heard. What this piece of legislation would do is regulate the ability for people to be heard on the Internet. It is not me saying this. All kinds of academics went to committee, and I quoted Dr. Michael Geist. The challenge is that the government is not even listening to them. It is not listening to the academics who came forward, and it is not listening to some of our greatest writers. I mentioned Margaret Atwood.

The challenge right now with this piece of legislation is that it is for future governments, and once these powers have been given to any government, ultimately they are going to be abused. We have seen the government's track record, and it is something that Canadians are not proud of.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, it seems obvious that members of the Conservative Party have not read Bill C-11. That is why I keep reading sections of the bill. I am going to read yet another section. It states:

provide opportunities to Black and other racialized persons in Canada by taking into account their specific needs and interests, namely, by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs by and for Black and other racialized communities

The way I interpret that is that it both gives a voice to Black and racialized communities and ensures they have opportunities to be heard. I wonder if the member can explain the dichotomy between what he is saying and what is in Bill C-11.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am actually in agreement with the member. The government should allow content from racialized Canadians to be promoted. However, maybe she missed the point in my debate and argument. This bill would allow the government to stop an individual's ability to be heard. It will decide what goes into the algorithms. It will decide what Canadians are going to be seeing. As videos and content get shared around, if the government does not like where it is going, the government will control where it goes. This is the problem. This bill may have the exact opposite effect of what the member feels it will have, and it needs to be stopped.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to join this debate, mostly to refute some of the claims that have been made by Liberals and the NDP about the Conservative position on this bill.

During debate on Bill C-11, the Liberals and the NDP have falsely claimed the Conservatives do not care about Canadian artists and that we do not care about Canadian culture. They have accused us of spreading misinformation and are insisting, falsely, that this bill is somehow necessary to protect Canadian culture.

I want to clear the air on the first part. I love Canadian culture. I am fascinated by all things Canadian, and I love travelling to new places in Canada. I love its land and people, and I am always fascinated by how Canada's history shapes its culture. I have always read Canadian authors. I have always listened to Canadian music. In my formative years, the eighties, most of my favourite bands were Canadian. In my university days in the early nineties, I went to countless live shows with emerging Canadian artists.

I have been buying Canadian books, Canadian albums and Canadian concert tickets for decades, but this bill is not about ensuring the health of Canadian culture. This bill is about giving extraordinary powers to a federal institution to influence what Canadians find, see, hear and post on the Internet.

This bill would give the CRTC powers that do not belong in a free and democratic society. This bill gives the CRTC the power to compel web platforms to favour some content over other content depending on the CRTC's preference, not the consumer's preference. This government interference with consumer preference naturally conjures up all kinds of thoughts of governmental control over the arts and access to information from both real history and literary dystopias.

When the Conservatives, or anybody, suggest that this bill is on a spectrum of governmental control that might include Goebbels' ministry of public enlightenment, the Soviet censorship system or Orwell's fictitious ministry of truth, Canadians and Conservatives who have engaged in this debate are merely raising the same concerns raised by experts, eminent Canadians and Liberal-appointed senators. These points have been made by academic experts like Michael Geist. They have been made by eminent Canadians like Margaret Atwood and David Richards. The latter happens to be a Liberal-appointed senator. They have been made by the former CRTC chair Peter Menzies.

We are raising the points made by contemporary professional digital content creators who have come to committee to say they are desperately worried that this bill is going to destroy their livelihoods. We are not making this up. This bill gives power to the CRTC to create winners and losers. It directs the CRTC to separate content the CRTC thinks Canadians should find, see, hear and post from content the CRTC thinks Canadians should not be able to find, see, hear or post. The Liberals and the NDP are welcome to make the argument that it is a good thing for the CRTC to differentiate between what Canadians should find and what they should not find on the Internet. They can make that argument, but they cannot argue that this bill does not do exactly that. That is the point of this bill.

What about Canada's 50-year history of mandatory Canadian content for broadcasters? We have heard lots about this in points when members are refuting Conservative speeches. The Liberals say that this bill is just evening the playing field by treating the Internet like old-fashioned TV and radio. Are we seriously talking about evening the playing field?

The infinity of the Internet is the ultimate level playing field. Nothing has been done to break down barriers between artists and their audience like the Internet. When the Liberals say this bill is levelling the playing field, what they really mean is they want to make the Internet every bit as uneven as the playing field the CRTC already regulates.

Once, the Soviet Union took a very dim view of western music. It banned not only American and British artists but even Canadian artists, like Rush, which was banned in the Soviet Union. It also banned the entire genres these artists popularized. There was no rock and roll, no jazz, no blues and nothing that could be associated with decadent capitalist western culture in the Soviet Union. If someone was living in the Soviet Union, all they could get was Russian classical music performed by trusty state-sanctioned and state-funded orchestras. Imagine being denied the Beatles because they did not fit in with the government's bureaucrats' ideas of what a model citizen should enjoy.

Although Bill C-11 is certainly not promising to ban foreign content from Canadians, it is proposing to gently suppress foreign or unregistered Canadian content in favour of content approved by bureaucrats at the CRTC. Let no one doubt who leads these bureaucrats. The Liberals always appoint their own when it comes to boards and commissions, including at least one defeated Liberal candidate sitting as the current CRTC commissioner.

That leads us right to the heart of why it is wrong to treat the Internet like 1970s radio and television: There is simply no way that a bunch of bureaucrats hand-picked by the Liberals can be arbiters of who and what is Canadian content. Despite what the Liberals and the NDP, and particularly its House leader, have been saying all night, there has never been a golden age of Canadian content regulation. Back in the eighties, people knew that when a song or TV show came on that nobody actually liked, it was on just because it ticked the boxes and was Canadian content. In the seventies, a checklist system was made whereby if something ticked enough boxes, it was in and was Canadian content. However, this system was always fraught with problems, like system gaming. We have heard about this tonight. Do members remember when Bryan Adams was not Canadian enough to be considered Canadian content? He was a Canadian who lived in Canada, in Vancouver, but other songs recorded by American bands in Vancouver could qualify as Canadian, maybe if the record producer slipped in a writing credit.

Bureaucrats with the power to censor, subsidize or otherwise make choices on behalf of consumers are the worst arbiters of good taste. That is why the Soviet Union could never make a decent pair of blue jeans. It is true. If we put bureaucrats in charge of something like this, they are not going to come up with what the people really want. That is why my favourite Canadian novelist, Mordecai Richler, once called the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council “mediocrity's holy trinity”. That is what he called them.

With all due respect for the Canadian artists who have testified at committee that the old rules helped their careers decades ago, I think some of them are being too modest. The Tragically Hip owe their success to their incredible talent as songwriters and performers and how hard they worked in their formative years. The Canadian content system may well have helped them, but their connection with Canadians and Canadian audiences seemed inevitable to me, just like a generation earlier when Rush produced their own album. They found an audience in Cleveland on the radio and then made their way back into Canada and throughout the world.

Bill C-11 would treat the entire Internet like it is 1971 again. The government wants to treat Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, paid streaming services and every other thing we can find, see, hear or post on the Internet like the system it is comfortable with, the one that has been around for 50 years before any of these things were invented.

The Liberals and the NDP say that opponents of the bill, from Conservative politicians to academic experts to eminent Canadian artists, are all wrong and that none of us understand. The Liberals and the NDP say that this is not about freedom of expression, censorship or regulating cat videos, but about making the web giants support Canadian artists. If that was true, why did they not say so in the bill and accept the amendment that would have truly created the exemption for user-uploaded content? They could have done that, but they chose not to because they want a bill that expands the powers of the CRTC.

The bill would not modernize the Broadcasting Act. It is Canada's first Internet regulation bill. It is wrong, and it should be defeated.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I was so glad that the member chose to explain to Canadians why The Tragically Hip is so successful. What the member probably does not know in that case, otherwise he would not have written it, is that Gord Sinclair of The Tragically Hip came before the committee. He gave the credit for The Tragically Hip's success to the fundamental rules around Canadian content and checking those boxes he talked about.

In fact, Gord Sinclair said:

Our potential as a creative nation is as vast as the country itself. Songwriters are our best cultural ambassadors. We are compelled to create, to express what we know and what we feel. We need partners in government and industry, including streaming.

That is what Gord Sinclair from The Tragically Hip said. Therefore, before the member goes and puts words in the mouth of the best rock band in Canada that we have ever produced, he should understand how its members feel about it.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, it was actually because of interventions by this member earlier in debate that I chose to mention his city's great band. There is a real Canadian value on display, which is a modest understatement. I really believe that band was so talented and connected so well with Canadians that it could have succeeded under any set of rules. That is why I mentioned them. Other Canadian artists will find their way as artists. Their talent is irrepressible and it cannot be denied.