Bill C-10 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Broadcasting Act to, among other things,
(a) add online undertakings — undertakings for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet — as a distinct class of broadcasting undertakings;
(b) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of that Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should serve the needs and interests of all Canadians — including Canadians from racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds — and should provide opportunities for Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(c) specify that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) must regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a manner that
(i) takes into account the different characteristics of Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) is fair and equitable as between broadcasting undertakings providing similar services,
(iii) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities, and
(iv) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which that Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on a class of broadcasting undertakings if doing so will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(d) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(e) replace the Commission’s power to impose conditions on a licence with a power to make orders imposing conditions on the carrying on of broadcasting undertakings;
(f) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(g) authorize the Commission to provide information to the Minister responsible for that Act, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, and set out in that Act a process by which a person who submits certain types of information to the Commission may designate the information as confidential;
(h) amend the procedure by which the Governor in Council may, under section 28 of that Act, set aside a decision of the Commission to issue, amend or renew a licence or refer such a decision back to the Commission for reconsideration and hearing;
(i) specify that a person shall not carry on a broadcasting undertaking, other than an online undertaking, unless they do so in accordance with a licence or they are exempt from the requirement to hold a licence;
(j) harmonize the punishments for offences under Part II of that Act and clarify that a due diligence defence applies to the existing offences set out in that Act; and
(k) allow for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties for violations of certain provisions of that Act or of the Accessible Canada Act.
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Online Streaming Act

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by sending my regards to all of my friends and associates from the life I led before and sometimes still go back to: the artists, authors, creators and composers. It is a team and a big family that I still belong to, although to a small extent. I send them my sincere regards.

I will begin my speech with a thought, a quote from one of Quebec's great poets, Raymond Lévesque, a friend of mine whom I adored.

Keep running, good people. Don't get involved. At the end of the race, you will find a trash can and death. Tomorrow you will curse those who got you into trouble, and yet you will have let them get away with it.

Let them get away with it. That is what the two main parties that have been taking turns being in government have done over the past 15 years, when broadcasting was revolutionized and digital broadcasters invaded the broadcasting market.

The cultural sector has therefore seen its main sources of revenue swallowed by the digital world. Although it had anticipated this and looked for possible solutions, it came up against outdated federal legislation. Accordingly, as it is capable of doing, it questioned itself, it adapted and tried as best it could to make a place for itself in this miserly and opportunistic monster of a world that values nothing but its own financial interests, without caring too much about what constitutes it, which is content and artistic, cultural, media, literary and visual creation. In short, the gargantuan digital monster is happily helping itself to the buffet, and it has been doing so for a very long time.

The cultural community is losing not only the income from its content, but also the revenue from the sale of traditional media for that content—cassettes, CDs and videocassettes, which we had in my day. In another life, I wrote songs. My songs went from room to room in people's homes on cassettes and CDs. I sold some CDs.

Everyone found their share of income in these media. To keep it simple, let us think of it as a pie, cut into parts proportional to the investment in the production of the work. Copyright revenues and royalties were distributed, as well. There was also an anticipated income from subsequent distribution on social media for creators, writers and composers.

French-language content quotas on the traditional platforms were not perfect, but we managed to hang on by the skin of our teeth. Any success we had on the radio or on television simply gave us a bit of money to invest in the next project. Unfortunately, since the transition to digital, the whole profitability aspect of the exercise has disappeared. People can no longer afford productions, especially independent productions.

Nothing has been done so far to adapt the legislation to this new digital world. Election promises were made in 2015 and again in 2019. A year later, the Yale report backed the government into a corner by making it clear that delaying the exercise any further would be politically disastrous for the government and noting the frustration and desperation of the tourism industry. As a result, the Liberals finally introduced their bill to amend the Broadcasting Act in November 2020.

Better late than never, I guess. We sat down in parliamentary committee, we consulted Quebec's cultural community, and we found several major shortcomings in this bill, including the lack of protections for francophone content; the lack of discoverability, predictability and enhancement of content; and the absence of any obligation for foreign producers to prioritize Canada's cultural potential or to offer compensation if that proved impossible.

The Bloc Québécois has made the priorities of Quebec's cultural community central to its work here. The creators and broadcasters of all manner of cultural expression were pleased to see their needs reflected, first in the original Bill C‑10 and then in the current Bill C‑11. The community is satisfied and, above all, reassured by our work and our signature collaborative spirit, as we seek to come to find the balance that will make a bill the best it can be.

As Bloc members, that is our job. We did it. Eighteen months and a second attempt at the bill later, we ask only one thing, that the House pass that blessed bill.

Right now, the gigantic digital world is still stuffing itself at the all-you-can-eat content buffet. As the former heritage minister from the previous Parliament said during one of his many appearances on a very popular Sunday TV show, the cultural sector has been losing more than $70 million a month since the legislation failed to pass. It has been 18 months since the bill was introduced in November 2020, so that represents $1.26 billion in losses for the creative industry, which equates to $2.33 million a day or $97,222 an hour.

I am part of this cultural sector. I know this community: It is generous, resilient and passionate. It has an ability to bounce back that is absolutely incredible. It possesses the magic of universality and perseverance, and it is used to working hard. We cannot deprive it of the income it is owed. It is unacceptable to keep drawing things out like this.

If I were to walk among my colleagues in the House and take from each of their pockets the amount of money that the cultural community has lost since November 2020, I swear that no one here would like that. That is what we do every day when we postpone passing this bill. We have been dragging our feet since 2020.

My 10‑minute speech will have cost artists and creators $16,203. What are we doing, then? Should I pass the hat?

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join in this debate tonight. I would like to thank the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands for allowing me to change the speaking order today as I have an appointment later this evening. I appreciate that very much, so my thanks to my colleague across the way.

When it comes to the CRTC and Bill C-11, I am not an expert on information, and they are experts on misinformation, or on the Internet and what the CRTC should or should not be doing, so I am going to read a couple of comments from Michael Geist, who is an expert when it comes to information, the Internet, what should be happening with it and how it should be regulated.

One of the problems that Professor Geist has with Bill C-11, which is very, very similar to Bill C-10, is this:

But dig a little deeper and it turns out that the bill is not quite as advertised. While Section 4.1 was restored, the government has added 4.1(2), which creates an exception to the exception. That exception to the exception—in effect a rule that does allow for regulation of content uploaded to a social media service—says that the Act applies to programs as prescribed by regulations that may be created by the CRTC.

It lays out three criteria that this “exception to the exception” may fall under:

The bill continues with a new Section 4.2, which gives the CRTC the instructions for creating those regulations. The result is a legislative pretzel, where the government twists itself around trying to regulate certain content. In particular, it says the CRTC can create regulations that treat content uploaded to social media services as programs by considering three factors: whether the program that is uploaded to a social media service directly or indirectly generates revenue; if the program has been broadcast by a broadcast undertaking that is either licensed or registered with the CRTC; if the program has been assigned a unique identifier under an international standards system. The law does not tell the CRTC how to weigh these factors. Moreover, there is a further exclusion for content in which neither the user nor the copyright owner receives revenue as well as for visual images only.

I think these are some of the biggest issues that we on this side have with Bill C-11. There are some hidden questions within this legislation. The exception to the exception is a big concern, and also that the CRTC has not received all of its marching orders from the Liberal government as yet. We are not quite sure what the mandate for the CRTC is when it comes to online content.

I have received some comments from constituents. Actually, one of them is from country music singer JJ Voss, who just won an award. He is concerned that we would hold this bill up because there are some things in here about Canadian content and supporting Canadian musicians, Canadian culture and Canadians who are really doing great work. That is not our practice at all. What we want to do is make sure that people are protected. Our job as the loyal opposition is to review legislation cautiously to see where there may be some traps, because there are some things in these pieces of legislation that Canadians might not think are good ideas. This, in particular, is one of those situations for sure.

I believe that a lot of people in Regina—Lewvan, the area that I represent in Saskatchewan, are a little unsure of my voting in favour of a piece of legislation if they are not even sure what the mandate to the CRTC is yet or what exactly “an exception to an exception” means. They are really not comfortable with the “just trust us” approach that the Liberal government sometimes takes to legislation. I can understand why. We have gone through a lot of situations over the past two years where “just trust me” has ended up in people not being able to go to weddings or funerals. “Just trust us. We want to have the ability to tax and spend for 18 to 22 months without having any oversight whatsoever”; that is another situation where people do not feel comfortable with the decisions the Liberal government has made.

When it comes to us deciding if this bill is something we can really support, do we not think Canadians have the ability to actually use their own discretion when they are posting online? Why can Canadians not have that freedom of expression or freedom of speech?

When it comes to Bill C-11, those are some of the questions we have had. There is also the fact that, over the last two hours in this building, when we have been talking about Bill C-11, which some people would see as censorship by the government, the Liberals brought in closure on a bill about censorship. One cannot make this up. We had had 30 minutes of questions and answers, when at one point the NDP member for Courtenay—Alberni had the audacity to say that we were holding up legislation just because we asked for a standing vote and did not pass the piece of legislation on division. That is our job. That is why people sent us to this building, to stand up and be counted.

I will not be talked down to by someone from Courtenay—Alberni when the Liberals do not want me to be doing my job. That was an actual conversation during the 30 minutes of questions and answers, when the Liberals once again used closure to try to pass this legislation faster because, quite frankly, I do not think they believe it stands up to the scrutiny that the loyal opposition has been putting it to. It does not pass the smell test. For the constituents who have sent us here, that is really our job.

I think I understand why some of the members across the way say that everyone should pay their fair share, and we agree with them, but why do they really want to get some money back from Facebook and Netflix? I have a list of how much money a few of the Liberal members have spent on advertising on Facebook. The member for Fleetwood—Port Kells, who just spoke about vinyl records, spent almost $5,000 on advertising from June 25, 2019 to May 9, 2022, and that is just coming from his member's office budget. That is $5,000 in taxpayer dollars he spent on advertising on Facebook—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Internet is an incredible invention. We have all the information in the world in the palm of our hands. Just as the creation of the printing press in the 1400s changed the course of history forever by allowing information to be disseminated to the masses, rather than just to the elites of society, bringing literacy to millions of people, so too has the Internet revolutionized how we exchange ideas and amplify our voices. It has brought freedom of knowledge and expression to billions of people.

Before the printing press, censorship of dangerous ideas by the elites was easy. All one had to do was round up the heretics who held fringe or unacceptable views, hang them high in town square and burn their handwritten notebooks. With the use of the printing press, dangerous ideas could be shared far and wide, leading to the Protestant Reformation, the scientific revolution, the French Revolution and the age of enlightenment, just to name a few.

Likewise, the Internet and social media have helped spark political revolutions and political movements. They have empowered brave resistance to foreign dictators, like our Ukrainian friends against Vladimir Putin and their courageous fight. Social media has helped empower that and allows for the exchange information at a rapid pace.

We really do live in extraordinary times. This is especially true for our online Canadian content creators. “Influencer” is now a career choice, and Canadian musicians, painters, bakers, commentators and do-it-yourselfers can access billions of people to share their ideas and creations with the click of a button. All one needs is an Internet connection and a smart phone.

Actually, one needs one more thing. They need a government that believes in their freedom to do so. Unfortunately, Canadians are experiencing a government that is trying desperately to control the Internet.

From the very wild and extreme online harms bill, to Bill C-18, the online news act, and now Bill C-11, the online streaming act, which we are debating today, Canada's Liberal government is really butting into every aspect of our online world. It is proclaiming it is here to help and that it will show those big, scary boss streaming services, such as Netflix and Spotify, who the boss is and save us all from the scary, dangerous ideas on the Internet.

In reality, these three Internet bills all have the same aim, which is to regulate what we see when we open our cell phone apps. Canadians may remember how Bill C-10 exploded in controversy last year, but it died on the Order Paper. It is back now in Bill C-11, and while the Liberals claim they have fixed the concerns we had with Bill C-10, Bill C-11 is really just a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The issue with Bill C-10 was its control of user-generated content, the posts and videos that we share and upload on social media. The Liberals say that issue was removed in Bill C-11, but experts do not agree. Notable communications law professor Michael Geist has pointed out that the CRTC has the power, with Bill C-11, to subject user-generated content to regulation, should it so choose.

If folks at home are asking what the CRTC is, it is the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which has heavily controlled what we have seen on TV and heard on the radio over the past 50 years. Bill C-11 essentially expands the CRTC's powers not only to streaming giants such as Netflix and Spotify, but also to the podcasts, audiobooks and news channels we consume online. It will not just control Canadian-produced versions of those things, but anything coming from anywhere in the world that Canadians want to consume online in Canada.

More than that, Bill C-11, in fact, provides the Liberal cabinet the power to tell the CRTC how to regulate streaming platforms, how to define what Canadian content is and the general policy direction of these Internet controls. It is important to note that cabinet does not have this power currently over TV and radio. This will be a new power. Under the existing law, the CRTC is not directed by cabinet. It is independent, so it can be free from political interference, which is very important. However, this will no longer be the case under Bill C-11. Cabinet will have power over what we see on Internet, which represents an unprecedented expansion of government power.

The bottom line is that Canadian creators have more freedom now, before this bill comes in, than they ever did before with TV and radio. One can become a YouTube star. It is far more accessible than trying to break into network television. Why would the Liberals want to impose the same CRTC regulations they have on TV and radio onto our online platforms? It really does not make sense if we are talking about boosting our Canadian content creators. We know that over 90% of those who are watching our Canadian content are from outside of Canada.

The number of influencers online in Canada earning $100,000 a year or more is rapidly increasing every single year. I really do believe the last thing our online content creators need is the Liberal government sticking its fingers into the regulation controls and messing around with the algorithms that have facilitated the ability of our homegrown creators to share their content with the world.

YouTube, in fact, has alerted the online community and has issued strong warnings to the Liberal government about the negative impacts of Bill C-11, warning that it risks downgrading Canadian content in other countries. If we artificially bump up Canadian content here, and if for whatever reason that Canadian content is not catching the interest of Canadians, the algorithm will actually downgrade that content abroad in competing markets, such as the United States, for example, which a lot of influencers in Canada depend upon.

I do feel that Bill C-11 is not the only thing we need to be worried about. It is worrisome, but there are two other bills as well. There is Bill C-18, which is the online news act, and it has some issues. It has been criticized as interfering in the independence of our news media because it controls how we share news articles on platforms such as Facebook by forcing these platforms to pay news agencies every time we share a news article. Lots of people share news on their Facebook platforms. It is odd this bill would be needed, because this practice is great for news agencies. When one shares their content, it takes us right to their website. It is free advertising.

Australia tried to do the same thing as what is proposed in Bill C-18. Facebook played hardball and banned all sharing of news articles on Facebook until it was able to negotiate something with the Australian government. There are serious issues here. Facebook raised in committee that it is not opposed to doing the same thing in Canada.

Bill C-18 is really just more control from government, but it is not even half as bad as the online harms bill. This is a very scary Internet control bill. In the last Parliament it was known as Bill C-36, and it died on the Order Paper when that unnecessary $600-million election was called, but the Liberals are trying to bring it back again.

It is important to say I welcome a conversation on how we can better fight terrorism organizing online and better enforce existing laws concerning things that are considered fraud, libel, inciting violence, and in particular, child pornography or the sharing of intimate images online without consent. Those are all very important conversations and legitimate issues that need to be addressed.

However, the online harms bill would create a government regulator of speech on the Internet that would decide what is harmful and must be removed. It would be very subjective, depending really on who is behind the curtain dictating what is harmful. Andrew Coyne, in the Globe and Mail, said the bill is “direct state regulation of [online] content”. This is pretty significant.

Twitter said this, which is really concerning:

People around the world have been blocked from accessing Twitter and other services in a similar manner as the one proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments (China, North Korea, and Iran for example) under the false guise of ‘online safety,’ impeding peoples’ rights to access information online.

Twitter is literally comparing this online harms bill to China, North Korea and Iran. It is pretty shocking.

The Liberals are throwing around terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation” whenever they do not like something we say, and we know free speech is constantly under attack. Anything one says these days can offend someone. I am concerned about what bills like Bill C-11 and the online harms bill would do to our freedom of expression online.

Although society has evolved, before the creation of the printing press, the establishment would essentially murder heretics with unacceptable views and burn the books later on. We are not immune to authoritarian control of our freedom of expression.

We would also do well to remember rights and freedoms are not always eliminated in one fell swoop. Often governing authorities will just pick at them bit by bit under the guise of it being for our own good, telling us that they know better than us and they will keep us safe. We have seen this happen in China and it is happening in Hong Kong.

Considering that when he was asked which country in the entire world he most admires, our Liberal Prime Minister said China's basic dictatorship because of its ability to get things done, we should listen when the Prime Minister tells us who he really is. With these three Internet control and censorship bills, I do believe he has made his intentions quite clear. We should all be very, very concerned.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I remember the discussions we had about Bill C‑10 during the previous Parliament, especially with respect to potential breaches of freedom of expression and concerns about social media users being taxed. These same concerns are being raised again, even though the summary, clause 2 and clause 4.1 clearly state that users will not be taxed and even though there are no clauses that restrict freedom of expression.

I now want to talk about access to culture.

It is not right that it is easier for francophones to access Korean content than it is to access media in their first language on some sites. Out of curiosity, I watched a few of the Korean offerings suggested to me and I enjoyed the production, set design and costume quality.

Bill C‑11 will ensure that francophones have access to content that is just as good a quality in their language and will ensure that non-francophones can do what I did and watch content that is made in Quebec and in Canada. Curiosity is something to be developed.

If we want to encourage curiosity and interest, we need to make it easier to access good-quality content, and that is what Bill C‑11 will do. Some members will tell me that people who want access to francophone culture just need to seek it out like I did, but that is a troubling thought.

Why should I have to go looking for expressions of my culture when others never have to look at all to have access to expressions of their own culture?

Are those who might say such a thing really telling me that the only good culture is culture that is readily accessible, or in other words, American culture?

Could it be that they have no problem with the fact that they have no access to content about their own culture, Canadian content? Could it be that they think Canadian culture and American culture are similar?

I can almost hear those same individuals telling me that those two cultures are not one and the same. In that case, why would they not want more people to have easier access to Canadian culture? Why would they not want francophones and francophiles from Quebec, Canada and elsewhere in the world to have access to Quebec and francophone content just as as easily as they do to American or anglophone cultural content?

Bill C‑11 will allow online streamers to broadcast culture and improve access to the cultures present in Canada.

To sum up, for anyone who cares about their own culture, Bill C‑11 is a good bill that deserves to move through the legislative process in good faith on all sides. It deserves it because we should never have to let our culture be managed by a foreign culture.

Bill C-11—Time Allocation Motion

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, here is one last little plea on my part. I am always appalled to see how the government ignores the reality of our artists, artisans, content creators and those who revitalize culture in our world, our beautiful world.

Today, we are spending more time debating whether we should take even more time to debate something that already existed and is now back on the table.

In the previous Parliament, we had Bill C-10. Now it is back on the table as Bill C-11. It has been reworked and improved. The Bloc Québécois put a lot of effort into that, and the sector is happy, but here we still are, talking about the time allocated for debate.

I am rather appalled. I would like the House leader to comment on the urgent need to take action on behalf of these people who are losing money—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois does not support closure motions. We believe that democracy must take precedence over all else.

However, we must deplore the fact that the official opposition does not recognize that the current Bill C‑11 is much better crafted than the former Bill C‑10 and that it could continue to be improved in committee.

Quebec and Canadian artists have been waiting for decades for something to change. The Internet has changed everything. It seems to me that the time has come to pass this bill.

Does the hon. member not deplore the use of closure? It seems to us that the legislative agenda from now until the end of June is not that heavy and that we would have time to continue the debate.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I find it passing strange that the minister is citing as an excuse for time allocation that there was a lot of time for debating Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament, so I think Canadians would be interested to know that this is truly just a repeat of Bill C-10 from the previous Parliament.

I have a very specific question for the minister. The government is committed to providing a policy directive to the CRTC after Bill C-11 is passed. The government will decide, after this bill is passed, how it will impact things like discoverability, Canadian content and digital-first creators. That impact will happen after Bill C-11 is passed, so we are being told, “Just trust us.”

I have a very simple question to ease the minds of many opposition MPs: Would the government be willing to table the policy directive to the CRTC prior to the passage of Bill C-11?

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

Madam Speaker, I am very distressed that we are once again seeing time allocation. I understand the predicament of the House leaders not being able to properly schedule how long it takes to look at a bill.

However, it is not our fault, as opposition members of Parliament, that Bill C-10 was put back to the starting block because of the election, which we as opposition members clearly did not call.

With Bill C-11, we have had very little time in the House to debate it. We do need to have improvements made. That is clear. I do not want to appear to be in any way joining in any overheated rhetoric that the bill is about censorship, but the bill needs work. It does need to go to committee, but we need to discuss it and debate it first because that is what Parliament is for.

I would urge the hon. government House leader to consider that we enforce our own rules. We would have more well-organized debates if we had the discipline to say we would observe the rule that no member can stand up and read a pre-prepared speech. That would reduce the number of members who are truly engaged on a file and who are able to give a speech off the cuff. It should help organize our House time. I would urge the hon. member to think of that, instead of continuing to use the methods that were honed by the previous government of Stephen Harper.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, let us remember Bill C‑10 and the work my colleague from Drummond did. I helped him a few times because we were co-critics for arts and culture in the previous Parliament.

Now here we are with Bill C‑11, which covers essentially the same things. The Bloc Québécois has never stopped working with the arts community to make things better.

Here we have a bill that is basically the same and that the community is comfortable with. This is good work that has taken a lot of time and energy, and I think cultural stakeholders in Canada and Quebec are satisfied with it. The Bloc Québécois is very proud of this bill because we were very committed to it and put a lot of energy into it.

I would like to ask the government House leader why he is doing this to us today.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, here we go again. The House just went through the process of debating one of the most egregious power grabs I have ever seen in my time here as a member of Parliament with government Motion No. 11, which basically seizes control of the House. We know that the government used the argument that we need more time for members of Parliament to debate legislation, yet here we find ourselves in an arrangement between the NDP and the Liberals to grab that power. They are still moving time allocation.

This House is going to sit until midnight tonight. That is fine. Conservatives are happy to show up to work. We have just received notice that the House is going to sit until midnight again tomorrow night. That is fine. Normally, this House reserves the last two weeks of the spring session to have extended hours, but we are willing to do the work. We are willing to allow Conservatives and all members of this House to speak on behalf of their constituents, the millions of constituents who have trouble with the legislation that is before the House.

Canadians have a lot of trouble with this piece of legislation. This was formerly Bill C-10. The government is now censoring the House with Motion No. 11 and censoring the House with time allocation on a bill that will censor Canadians online. Why?

Online Streaming Act

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-11 is the latest of the Liberal government's attempts to regulate the Internet and restrict what Canadians can post online.

Bill C-11, which is essentially a carbon copy of last Parliament's Bill C-10, would give sweeping powers to the CRTC to regulate the Internet and limit free expression. To make matters worse, the consequences of this poorly drafted legislation will likely be to weaken consumer choice and hurt the potential of Canadian creators.

There is no doubt that the Broadcasting Act needs to be modernized for the 21st century, but Bill C-11 is not the vehicle to do it. The heritage minister needs to scrap, today, Bill C-11 and go back to the drawing board once and for all.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House once again on behalf of the great people of Cypress Hills—Grasslands. I will begin my speech in this debate by considering the background of the bill. There is a disturbing trend happening under this NDP-Liberal coalition. They do not seem to respect the democratic process, and they do not seem to be interested in protecting it.

Among many other examples, the most recent is the passing of Motion No. 11 to give themselves the power to prematurely shut down Parliament. They do not even pretend to use COVID as an excuse anymore, but they also do not like it when the Conservatives mention that it is long overdue for them to remove restrictions on members, their staff and regular citizens from entering this place or from travelling within our own country, insinuating that they are supposedly undesirable Canadians.

Leaving those things aside though, we are here to debate yet another attempt by the government to extend its overly controlling approach to online content that people can access or publish. That is the problem with Bill C-11. The vast majority of it is a near carbon copy of its predecessor, Bill C-10, with the exception of some minor changes surrounding user generated content. To debate this legislation properly, we need to fully understand how we got from Bill C-10 to Bill C-11.

Let us refresh a few memories here. Originally, Bill C-10 had a section which excluded user-generated content from its scope. At heritage committee, that was suddenly removed. This threw the door open for the CRTC to regulate nearly anything on the Internet. The government faced severe opposition to this and rightly so. At first, it might appear that the Liberals learned something from all the embarrassment, but sadly, if we dig a little deeper, it is clear that they have not.

What is even more sad is that the NDP has sold out and is going along with it. Section 4.1 is back in Bill C-11, but it is now accompanied by section 4.1(2), which allows for an exemption on the previous exception. This creates a loophole for the CRTC to regulate any content that either directly or indirectly generates revenue. In other words, the CRTC can regulate nearly anything on the Internet.

At the heart of the bill is the lurking threat of expanding censorship. It is only a matter of time, as this new opening moves through the process of bureaucracy. We must carefully consider more than the bill in front of us as it exists on paper, otherwise we will move too close to Big Brother for comfort, and it will turn out to be just as toxic as a reality show, but without any of the entertainment value. I hope bad jokes will remain safe from censorship as well.

Liberal members, along with their neighbours in the NDP, may say that this is not the intention behind the bill. If it is not, I will remind them that good intentions can still pave the road to a very bad place, and that is why Conservatives keep on saying and trying to remind them of. We are doing our job as the official opposition because it is our duty to point out any harmful risks in legislation so Parliament can make better decisions on behalf of Canadians.

This is what every MP should keep in mind. When I took my oath of office as an MP, I swore to defend the Constitution and the fundamental rights of every Canadian. Every single MP did the same thing. We are all under that same obligation. It is entirely possible to fix the problems with the bill while achieving what the NDP-Liberals say it is supposed to do. There should absolutely be a level playing field between smaller Canadian broadcasters and larger streaming services. Canadian content creators have something unique to bring to the table, and we all want to see them in the spotlight. No issues there. We are happy to pass this part of the legislation that supports Canadian producers.

However, where it goes too far is that it is unnecessarily wrong for government to control what people can or cannot access online, and ironically, what type of content Canadians should or should not produce. It is extremely irresponsible to ignore the warnings we have received. Before we know it, it could completely get out of hand. If the NDP-Liberals want to deny it, they should explain to Canadians how they are leaving room for it to happen without closing the obvious loophole.

It is a failure of due diligence and there is no excuse for it. Canada stands in a long tradition of free expression. We are admired and envied around the world for a heritage of free speech among many other freedoms. For centuries and over the years in our lifetime, we have seen it practised in newspapers, letters to the editor, and people just simply writing letters to their elected officials.

Today, we all express ourselves on the Internet as a free space. We can post our opinions. We can access information and engage with other people around the whole world. We have done it as citizens, and we do it as members of Parliament communicating with our fellow Canadians. Right now, it is easy to make posts and videos with our thoughts on all kinds of issues, and it all could be subject to regulations. Bill C-11 fails to provide safeguards for our freedom as we know it.

The government could eventually control what everyday citizens post online. This is what Peter Menzies, the former CRTC vice-chair, had to say about Bill C-10 in the last Parliament: “[It] doesn't just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a full-blown assault upon it and, through it, the foundations of democracy.” That should catch all of our attention. The former CRTC vice-chair warned that this legislation is toying with a fundamental right. He is in a position to understand better than some how necessary freedom of speech is for a democratic process to remain intact.

Citizens must always be able to disagree with their governments openly and strongly. We are eroding this right so the government, through the CRTC, could have the ability to regulate what it does or does not like to hear. Quite frankly, it does not like to hear the dissent from the opposition. That said, Bill C-11 would not only give us a paternalistic government, but it might also create practical problems in the area it claims it would help.

Currently, anyone could pull out their device and head over to YouTube, where they can access any content they would like, whether it is kitchen renos, how to fix car problems or content posted by friends, family or people around the world. It works well enough for now, but with the government involved, the CRTC might decide to dictate what content people should see when they search for something specific. While government mandated algorithms analyze how Canadian the content is, what someone is looking for might get pushed to the back of the queue of their search results, if it simply does not pass the test.

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

Madam Speaker, I am of the view that we really need to get this to committee. We have so many questions. We have issues we need refining.

To the extent that the online streaming bill does not take into account how some online streaming and online services promote disinformation and misinformation, we see it more now than we did last year when we were looking at Bill C-10. I am wondering if the member would agree that it is time to get the bill to committee so we could hear the witnesses, and refine and improve the legislation.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to be speaking on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West. We are a diverse group of citizens from many backgrounds and with a variety of different views. They have called me and emailed me over the past year, asking about stopping online censorship. They wanted to be free from government overreach back then, and they feel the same way now.

The people of Saskatoon West also want an end to the unscientific, job-killing NDP-Liberal federal mandates. Many have voiced their concerns on social media platforms. They are concerned that the government is going to block their voices.

Speaking of censorship, the current government has quite a history of shutting down opposing voices, even when it comes to members of its own caucus. We remember, of course, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott.

In the last Parliament, the government introduced its first attempt at regulating the Internet with its Bill C-10 and Bill C-36. These bills generated incredible feedback for me via telephone, written letters, emails and social media. It is safe to say that the overall response was extremely negative and many in the media, many consultants and many ordinary folks were very concerned by this legislation. I had hoped that, after seeing all of the opposition to those bills the last time around, the government would smarten up and rethink this flawed legislation. Unfortunately, smartening up is not in the wheelhouse of the current government, and instead it doubled down and reintroduced essentially the same thing.

Let us dive into Bill C-11. The minister stated that the goal of this bill was to target only big online streamers and exclude day-to-day users. It is supposedly about making Canadian content more accessible. The only problem with this argument is that Canadian content has always been accessible. Canadian producers have been able to jump onto various platforms, such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and showcase their content without a problem. Why is there the urge to regulate the Internet now?

The current government members think that the content available for users is not Canadian enough for their liking. This is where things start moving toward online censorship. Essentially, any content deemed unworthy by the NDP-Liberals would be bumped out of people's recommended feeds in exchange for government-approved content. Content that is not Canadian enough for the CRTC regulators would be sent to the back of the Internet, which leads to a question: Who reaps the benefits of this? It is the legacy media.

In this new age, where we get most of our information online, broadcasting companies such as the government's beloved taxpayer-funded CBC have been left in the dust. At the end of the day, they want their content promoted over everyone else's. They are the ones scrambling for advertising revenues. This will throw the remaining content, Canadian or not, to the side. Many experts have raised concerns about this bill being very similar to the NDP-Liberal government's original Internet censorship bill, Bill C-10, in the sense that it would still have the power to block Canadian freedom of expression online.

The former vice-chair of the CRTC, Peter Menzies, stated, “The biggest difference is that it is called Bill C-11 instead of Bill C-10.” He added, “It is unfortunate because they are giving the CRTC enormous powers, enormous powers, and it is not in the DNA of any regulatory body to not continue to expand its turf.”

The major criticism of Bill C-10 surrounded the issue of user-generated content: those pictures, audio files and videos that many of us share daily on social media. There was a clause in Bill C-10 that exempted this from regulation, but it was removed at committee, which created a firestorm of concern. At the very least, I had expected the government to address this issue. Instead, it added an exception to allow the CRTC to regulate user content. Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce Law, stated:

...for all the talk that user-generated content is out, the truth is that everything from podcasts to TikTok videos fits neatly into the new exception that gives the CRTC the power to regulate such content as a 'program'.

In other words, user-generated content is not subject to regulation unless the CRTC decides it is subject to regulation, in which case it is subject to regulation. Are members confused yet? The truth is that the vague language in this bill opens the door for the government to abuse its power and regulate user-generated content. The Internet is our main go-to for information, and many Canadians are earning a good living by making entertaining or educational content on various platforms. The way this bill is currently written, it would limit this creativity and possibly censor a wide range of the content produced online.

Twitter issued these scathing words: “People around the world have been blocked from accessing Twitter [and other services] in a similar manner as [the one] proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments (e.g. China, North Korea and Iran) under the false guise of ‘online safety’, impeding people's rights to access...information online.” It goes on to say that Bill C-11 “sacrifices freedom of expression to the creation of a government-run system of surveillance of anyone who uses Twitter.”

Members should think about that. Twitter was comparing this government to North Korea, and that was before Elon Musk bought it.

The NDP-Liberal government is doing what we have seen time and again: dividing Canadians and stripping away our rights and freedoms one by one. Now, the government is creating a three-headed dragon to take away freedom of expression online from Canadians. These three heads are the Internet censorship Bill C-11, the news regulation Bill C-18, and the expected return of Bill C-36, which would block online content that the government does not like.

If members do not think that this government wants to shut them down, they have not been paying attention. We have seen this government target law-abiding firearms owners by seizing firearms from normal, hard-working Canadians and at the same time reduce sentences for criminals who smuggle illegal firearms into Canada. We have seen it target energy workers who work day and night in our natural resource sectors that, by the way, allow the leader of the NDP to fill up his $80,000 BMW with gas every morning. We have seen it target western Canada's entire energy sector by threatening to shut it down, calling our oil and natural gas “dirty” and at the same time importing oil from countries with horrible human rights records and next to no environmental standards. The Prime Minister still cannot figure out why there is so much division in our country. He is creating it.

In February, when the minister tabled the bill before us, he said that cat videos and social media influencers would not be covered by it. However, this week, YouTube warned Canadians that this simply was not true. A Canadian Press story reported the following:

Jeanette Patell, head of government affairs at YouTube Canada, said the draft law’s wording gives the broadcast regulator scope to oversee everyday videos posted for other users to watch. She told the National Culture Summit in Ottawa that the bill’s text appears to contradict [the] Heritage Minister’s public assurances that it does not cover amateur content, such as cat videos.

I have heard back from many people across this country since last year about their concerns, from when the bill was called Bill C-10. Since then, the calls and emails have just amplified about Bill C-11.

I have a very hard time believing that the use of the bill would only target big online streamers, especially when I have seen first-hand how far this government will go to end criticism. If we flash back a few months to the Prime Minister's trip to Europe, many politicians in the EU called out the member for Papineau's actions during the convoy, and I tweeted about this. Gerry Butts, the former chief of staff to the Prime Minister, tried to dismiss it right away. He said, “If you're getting your news from news outlets—

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

Madam Speaker, as to the issue of creators, we had a debate around Bill C-10 on this: When is a product Canadian, even if it is called Canadian something or other? I happen to have family in the film business. They are are actors. A lot of what the U.S. productions that are filmed in Canada do is pay scale to Canadian actors. We all love Ryan Reynolds, and who does not? However, he lives in the States and gets the big bucks. He deserves them, but consider our actors in Deadpool and other films that are filmed in Canada. If they are not getting paid at the same rates and are not getting their careers boosted, we are undermining Canadian content by having a kind of Canadian gloss over U.S. productions, even The Handmaid's Tale.

I put that to him for comment.