Bill C-11

Online Streaming Act

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) specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation;
(c) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of the Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should
(i) serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including Canadians from Black or other racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages, and
(ii) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(d) enhance the vitality of official language minority communities in Canada and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs in both languages;
(e) 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 English, French and Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide English, French or Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) takes into account, among other things, the nature and diversity of the services provided by broadcasting undertakings,
(iii) ensures that any broadcasting undertaking that cannot make maximum or predominant use of Canadian creative and other human resources in the creation, production and presentation of programming contributes to those Canadian resources in an equitable manner,
(iv) promotes innovation and is readily adaptable toscientific and technological change,
(v) facilitates the provision to Canadians of Canadian programs in both official languages, including those created and produced by official language minority communities in Canada, as well as Canadian programs in Indigenous languages,
(vi) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities,
(vii) facilitates the provision to Canadians of programs created and produced by members of Black or other racialized communities,
(viii) protects the privacy of individuals who aremembers of the audience of programs broadcast, and
(ix) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which the Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on any class of broadcasting undertakings if that imposition will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(f) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(g) 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;
(h) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(i) 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;
(j) 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;
(k) 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;
(l) 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
(m) 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.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Then going to the library certainly isn't a solution.

When it comes to Bill C-11, to the added bureaucracy and the CRTC, I know you've written quite extensively about that and about how that level of control certainly is problematic in terms of Canadians being able to see that content. There's this close connection between Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, and I know that quite often the government doesn't like to see that connection made.

I'm wondering if you could comment on the Bill C-11 side and on Canadians' being limited in terms of what they can see, while not being able to post content.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

I talked a little earlier about Bill C-11, so let me focus for a moment on Bill C-18.

It was predicted about Bill C-18—and it was predictable, quite frankly—that if the legislation was introduced as is, it would cause a number of potential concerns. There was a likelihood that we would see blocking of news links, which is what has happened. It was likely that it would undermine trust, because if there is more and more government regulation and government funding, this does run the risk of diminishing trust.

Now, with all due respect to my co-panellists here, there's the notion that we can solve all of this simply by giving more money to the CBC or by suggesting, with all due respect, that since Postmedia owns 80% of newspapers, somehow it's the problem, yet at the same time you note that now everybody has the ability to speak out. There are a lot of different sources. If we only think about individual media properties as somehow having a monopoly on the news, then we're missing what is actually taking place right now, which is that there is a wide range of different sources.

One of the real harms that occurred with respect to Bill C-18 was that it oftentimes excluded some of the more innovative players in the marketplace and, with a broad brush, had the effect of excluding all of those players from major platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We heard one of the witnesses suggest earlier that if Canadians couldn't view their news online, they should simply go to the library. It certainly sounded a bit like a “let them eat cake” moment when it comes to Canadians' ability to access content. In this world, whether it's on the devices we carry or on the computers we use, there's been a democratization of information that I think has been quite extraordinary, probably, in the history of the world, although I think you can look back at different points in time and see other innovations.

Certainly I hear all the time from constituents who are incredibly concerned about government overreach and about its wanting to control certain aspects of what that looks like, whether it's direct or whether it's indirect.

Mr. Geist, in terms of Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, one has had a massive impact on Canadians' ability to see news content. I've heard many companies suggest that they just want to be able to share their content on those platforms and be able to continue to get their content in front of the eyes of Canadians. Then you have Bill C-11, which is kind of like this backdoor censorship idea, a mechanism for control within the bureaucracy.

I'm wondering if you could comment specifically on those two pieces of legislation and on the chilling effect that they have on freedom of speech and on freedom of expression across this country.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

I suppose at the end of the day my concern here—and I mentioned it in my opening—was that I don't think we've taken the expression-related issues seriously enough as part of the digital policy.

I should be clear that this isn't just about Bill C-11 and Bill C-18. The opposition parties, unlike the government, have been supporting Bill S-210, which raises real concerns about expression rights as well.

I'm not sure that anybody comes here with fully clean hands about addressing some of those kinds of issues. I wish that all parties would take some of these issues more seriously.

To your point about gaslighting, when there are voices—sometimes voices that aren't the typical people who appear before a committee—raising these kinds of concerns, those concerns are taken more seriously. I think there was a sense among many that this simply wasn't the case through the process in Bill C-11.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Geist, thanks for being with us today. I'd like to ask you some questions about digital policy and in particular about some of the legislation that many Canadians have called Justin Trudeau's censorship agenda. Some of it is the legislation you referred to, like Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, for example.

Bill C-11 gets misrepresented very often by Liberals here in Ottawa as an attempt to push back on big businesses, big corporations, social media companies and American influence, but you wisely pointed out that in a policy directive, they did make clear that included in Bill C-11 is a measure regulating user-generated content.

I'd like you to elaborate on why that's significant and why Canadians should be concerned about that being included in a Liberal policy directive.

[Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Michael Geist. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I appear in a personal capacity, representing only my own views.

I'd like to start by emphasizing that freedom of expression is rightly and widely recognized as foundational to robust, accountable and inclusive democracy.

That said, there's always a balance to be struck. I'm sure we would all agree that there are limits where expression is viewed as so harmful that it should be restricted or rendered unlawful. Obvious examples include child pornography, defamation and terrorism-related offences.

The difficulty generally doesn't lie with these kinds of cases. I'd like to focus on two cases that are much tougher: digital policy and the challenge of when expression chills other expression.

First I'll address digital policy.

Bill C-11, Bill C-18, Bill C-63 and Bill S-210 all intersect with expression, either directly or indirectly. The direct examples are Bill C-63 and Bill S-210. These bills, by design, have expression implications.

Bill C-63 identifies seven harms that are defined as a kind of content, but each is a form of expression. This expression can cause harm—revenge porn, inciting terror or bullying, for example. While I have some enforcement concerns, I think the bill identifies real harms and at least in part seeks to establish a balance in addressing them.

More problematic are Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Act provisions that are overbroad and that may weaponize the human rights system and have a chilling effect. Bill S-210 is even more direct in limiting expression, as it literally provides for the Federal Court to order the blocking of lawful content and envisions Canadian Internet providers as doing the blocking. This is a dangerous bill that should go back to the drawing board.

I think Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 both have indirect effects on expression.

In the case of Bill C-11, supporters were far too dismissive of the implications of regulating user content, with some going so far as to deny it was in the bill, only to later issue a policy direction that confirmed its presence.

Bill C-18 not only led to the blocking of news links but also failed to recognize that linking to content is itself expression. The net effect has been to cause harm to news-related expression in Canada. We need to do better when it comes to digital policy, as we haven't always taken the protection of expression sufficiently seriously in the digital policy debate.

Second, there is expression that chills other expression. This can occur when expression includes harassment or strikes fear in some communities, invariably leading to a chill in their ability to express themselves.

My own community, the Jewish community, is a case in point. The rise in anti-Semitism, in a manner not seen in Canada in generations, has sparked safety fears and chilled expression. No group has faced and been the target of more hate crimes than the Jewish community. On campuses, this manifests itself in students and faculty concealing their identity by hiding their religion and political beliefs, or fearing to speak out in class. I'm wearing a “bring the hostages home” pin today—a form of expression. Many would be reluctant to do so on our streets and campuses.

Encampments, graffiti, vandalism, doxing, online threats, the abandonment of institutional neutrality and the exclusion of those who believe in Zionism from classes or parts of campus have become too commonplace and have had a corrosive effect on those targeted, undermining their expression rights. Universities, workplaces and other communities have long recognized the harm of expression chilling other expression. That's why we have codes designed to ensure not just physical safety but also freedom from abusive or demeaning conduct that constitutes harassment and may limit the expression of others.

In a committee focused on protecting freedom of expression, there are many things that can be done: ensuring we have clearly defined policies, such as the IHRA definition of “anti-Semitism”; active enforcement of campus policies and codes; principled implementation of institutional neutrality; and leadership in speaking out against conduct that creates fear and chills speech.

In our broader communities, time and place restrictions—such as those included in the court ruling involving the encampment at the University of Toronto—preserve both the rights of those who want to protest and those for whom the encampment created real harms and chilled their expression. Similarly, bubble-zone legislation to safeguard schools, community centres and places of worship strikes a much-needed balance.

This past year has served as a wake-up call for many.

Taking action against hate enhances expression rather than detracts from it, and we must all do our part in this fight.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.

[Dr. Emily Laidlaw]

Thank you for the question.

The answer is somewhat complicated, which is that one of the reasons we have the charter right to freedom of expression is to protect us also from government overreach. I think the complicating factor is that how we enjoy freedom of expression—the right to seek, receive and impart information—is happening more and more through different sources and through private parties.

We've always had laws in those spaces, both to protect freedom of expression and to protect us from harm. In the area of technology law, Canada is woefully behind other jurisdictions on all fronts. In my opinion, we do need laws, because for the issues of technology accountability, algorithmic regulation and protection of users, we do require laws, but the type of law matters. For there to be some nervousness about what government is doing and how they do it, absolutely, we should be nervous about that.

I was not supportive of Bill C-11 and the social media rules, but I am when it comes to Bill C-63. I think it depends on the law.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I appreciate the testimony offered here today.

Certainly I find it fascinating that the Liberals would try to make an issue of the fact that for, I don't know, five weeks now, they've refused to release documents, which is delaying government business from taking place in the House of Commons. Wouldn't it be simple if they would just offer a basic level of accountability?

Ms. Laidlaw, I have a question that I hope you can shed some light on. When it comes to where government is and the power the government wields, especially in terms of regulation, you mentioned in your opening statement about—I forget exactly—shadows in regard to algorithms and the lack of transparency that exists. Certainly I hear often a lack of trust from Canadians when it comes to algorithms and when it comes to government's involvement in that.

Do you share concerns that whether it's Bill C-11 or Bill C-18, there seems to be a consolidation of the ability for government to get involved in what Canadians see online? If so, could you outline a little bit what those concerns are with regard to Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 and anything else the government is proposing that would send a chill about Canadians' guaranteed rights to freedom of expression and freedom of speech?

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Dea, I'd like to start with you.

You know, a lot of Canadians are concerned right now about some of the legislation the federal government has introduced. It's often described as censorious or seeking to organize and centralize more power with the federal bureaucracy in order to determine what Canadians can see and hear online, and consequently what they can say online. I'm thinking of legislation like Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, for example.

I'm curious to know whether you empathize with Canadians who have concerns over that centralization of power here in Ottawa, which can affect how Canadians express themselves across the country.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Were you aware that Minister Bains was not pleased, according to CEO Leah Lawrence, with the criticism that the chair, Mr. Balsillie, had of Bill C-11 and other privacy-related issues around Facebook and other data breaches?

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, it will be a real joy to see all our Olympians, of whom we are so proud.

I will get back to the green slush fund scandal, which began with Navdeep Bains, who was then the minister of industry, science and economic development. He was involved in some questionable things. I want to read from one of the newspapers about the time when he stepped down:

...Bains was implicated in a questionable real estate transaction, when former Brampton mayor Linda Jeffrey's chief of staff [Mr.] Punia, shared confidential details about a land purchase with Bains and former Liberal MP Raj Grewal. When Brampton council learned about the behaviour it sent details of a third-party investigation into the matter to the RCMP, because the force was already looking into Grewal's activities involving chronic gambling in Ottawa while he served as an MP.

The City eventually paid about $1 million extra for the land it was trying to acquire, after a group of local businessmen with ties to the Liberals purchased it, then flipped it to the City, after Punia had passed on details of the original offer the City had planned to make for the property, which was owned by the Province.

There is no evidence Bains has any ties to the [business]....

Just because we could not find evidence does not mean that nothing happened. The article continues:

Grewal was charged in September by the RCMP with five counts of fraud and breach of trust for alleged misuse of his constituency office budget while he was an MP, after an extensive investigation.

This was the kind of people who started the fund and then went forward with it. It then got a bit worse, because in 2019, the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change came along. He was one of the people who approved the money for the fund in 2021. He was a member of cabinet, which approved the billion dollars going into the slush fund.

I have one other thing to say about Navdeep Bains. The article reads:

Bains was in the news again when questions were raised last year about his father's involvement with individuals implicated in a Fort Erie Gurdwara scandal. There is no evidence Bains has any ties with the plan and he denies any link.... The Sikh temple had sponsored three priests from India who were given special visas by Ottawa. It turned out the Gurdwara was not even operating and the three men disappeared after arriving in Canada.

We do not have any evidence of wrongdoing, but there is always suspicion. Here we are again with the same thing because the Minister of Environment and Climate Change was part of the cabinet that approved the billion dollars. One of the board members was a lady named Andrée-Lise Méthot. She was the founder and managing partner of Cycle Capital, a company that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change is invested in.

Section 119 of the Criminal Code says that no holder of public office, for example someone like the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, can take an action, for example giving a billion dollars to a slush fund that would be of benefit for themselves, for example his investment in Cycle Capital, which tripled its value through the money given to it from the green slush fund.

I certainly think that when the RCMP finishes its investigation and is able to see the documents, it could be that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change will be back in his orange pajamas again. He, as we know, was a convicted felon. In 2001 he was charged and convicted. He served a year's probation plus 100 hours of community service and paid $1,000 of restitution.

This is the calibre of corruption in the Liberal government and cabinet. It is no wonder things go awry when these kinds of people are involved. The Liberals have been trying to suggest that they need to stand up for the charter rights of Canadians. I certainly wish they would, because they have not.

One is what their record says they are, and if we look at the record of the Liberal government on the matter, we see the chill the Liberals have put on freedom of speech in this country with Bill C-11, the censorship bill. With Bill C-18, the freedom of the press was compromised. Bill C-63, the online harms bill that I just talked about, once again would violate everyone's charter rights happily.

Then there is freedom of religion. I spoke about this before, but since then, things have escalated even further in our country. Have members heard about the persecution that Hindus are facing in Brampton? People were out with knives. There were violent attacks on temples. The government has done nothing about it. Liberals wring their pearls and say that it is unacceptable, but they have done nothing to ensure that the rule of law in this country is enforced.

What is the point of having rules to protect Canadians if they are not enforced, and why has the federal government, which has the highest authority to make sure that rights are protected, done nothing? A hundred or more Christian churches were burned in our country, and again, it is crickets from the Liberals on this. It goes on and on. What has happened to Jewish Canadians is heartbreaking. They have been constantly harassed, and their synagogues and their businesses are vandalized. They have been given death treats and nothing has been done. Certainly freedom of religion in this country is in serious jeopardy.

Furthermore, there is discrimination that happens. We are supposed to be free from discrimination in this country, but it happens even in the Liberal benches. The Liberals are discriminating based on age. They decided to give seniors who are older than 75 more money than the seniors who are between 65 and 75. Similarly, there are violations in the minority language rights; the government has been proven several times in court to not have done what it should have done to protect the minority language rights of Canadians.

Let me sidebar for a moment and say how proud I am to announce that Sarnia—Lambton has the official francophone designation of Ontario.

I am very happy. I worked hard with the francophones of Sarnia—Lambton and I am very proud of our work.

The other argument we will hear from the Liberal benches is that the RCMP does not want the documents. Is it really the case that the RCMP does not want to see evidence of potential crime? The whistle-blower was clear that there was criminality going on, and it is possible that it was with more than one minister. I talked about the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, but actually there is also the current minister who was overseeing the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund.

There is an agreement that says the board members had to disclose any conflicts of interest to ISED, so the minister would have known about them and not acted. Perhaps that is what would be uncovered when the documents are released. Certainly there is an issue there.

I think that what happened in the slush fund is just another example, and we keep racking up dollars. I think about the number of scandals that have happened in the government since I came here in 2015. This one is $400 million. There was the $372 million the Liberals gave to Frank Baylis to make ventilators when he had never made ventilators before, and they never ended up using any of them. It goes on and on with the different scandals. There was the WE Charity scandal and the huge waste of money there.

Canadians are finding the current scandal particularly obscene, at a time when the number of people going to food banks is the highest it has ever been. There are also 1,400 tent encampments in Ontario alone, and they are spread across the country. At a time when people are struggling, cannot afford food and cannot afford to feed their family and heat their house, there is an incredible waste of money and people lining the pockets of insiders. It is just unacceptable.

When I look at some of the previous things that have happened, I ask myself what we need to do to put in place some accountability so that this sort of thing does not happen. What kind of protection can we provide to whistle-blowers? If it is going on in one department, what is going on in all the other funds?

It is said that the fish rots from the head. The Prime Minister has already been violating ethics laws in the billionaire island fiasco, and he is also under suspicion in the SNC-Lavalin scandal for pressuring a criminal prosecution, which the RCMP is investigating. In the WE Charity scandal, the Prime Minister took an action, by awarding money to the organization, that benefited himself and his family: his brother, his mother and his wife. As I said before, under subsection 119(1) of the Criminal Code, that is illegal. It is not just a mistake.

Therefore we really have to clean up the government, and it does not look to me like we can change the spots on the leopards. Over here on the Conservative benches, we believe in the rule of law. We believe in transparency. We believe in accountability and we believe in trying to be prudent with the use of taxpayer dollars for the benefit of all Canadians.

I think that Canadians are looking for a change. They cannot take the continual rise in taxes that they have seen under the current government, such as the carbon tax, which it is going to increase to 61¢ a litre at a time when people are already struggling. The Liberals want to quadruple it and quadruple the misery.

EI premiums, CPP premiums and all of these things are going in the wrong direction at a time when there is going to be increasing competitiveness from the U.S.; President-elect Trump has clearly put America as a priority, and we are not on competitive ground. We have taxes and a regulatory burden that are going to drive millions of dollars and millions of jobs to the U.S.

The Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund is the tip of the iceberg. We have to get to the bottom of it. As much as everybody would like to move on from this, until the documents are produced unredacted and we can give them to the RCMP so we can get to the bottom of what happened, the Conservatives are going to continue to do what is our job. We are His Majesty's loyal opposition, and our job is to hold the government to account, which means not just saying, “Oh, there's nothing to see here.” It means asking for the documents, doing the hard work to get to the bottom of it and going to committees.

I understand that once the documents are produced, the PROC committee is supposed to look at them. However, I have a little bit of skepticism about that, because with every other scandal that has gone to any committee, NDP members, partners of the Liberals, work together with them. They are still doing it, even though the leader of the NDP made a big deal of ripping up the agreement, effectively saying, “Oh, the Liberals are too weak and they can't be trusted. We're not going work with them anymore.”

The New Democrats are still supporting the Liberals today at committee. What they do is shut down the committee. They filibuster so they do not have to produce the documents, and that is exactly what would happen if this thing went to committee, which is why we have to hold on and wait until the Liberals deliver the documents.

Why will they not deliver the documents? The Auditor General has seen them, although she was not auditing criminality. The documents exist and need to be produced, but what are they hiding? Are people going to go to jail? That is what it is starting to look like. However, we will not know until we see the documents, so the Liberals need to produce them, the sooner the better.

Canadian Heritage

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

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand in the House today on behalf of the Conservative members on the Standing Committee of Canadian Heritage. We submit this dissenting report on the tech giants' use of intimidation tactics to evade regulation in Canada and across the world. The main report failed to adequately explore the state of censorship in Canada, as well as the roles played by tech giants and the current federal government. This dissenting report is required.

I should say that the committee got to hear from 18 witnesses over the course of the study. Many of those testimonies expressed the censorship of Canadians by the government and tech giants in terms of what they can see, hear and say online, with specific nods to the hindrances being caused by both Bill C-11 and Bill C-18.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

We have Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, and I know you mentioned Bill C-63 as well—direct threats to Canadians and the freedoms that Canadians are guaranteed through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That certainly seems like a censorship agenda to me that needs to be fought against.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for coming today.

[Christine Van Geyn]

I do have issues with Bill C-11, particularly the ability of the CRTC to regulate user-generated content. That, I think, is the biggest concern. The analogy that a lot of us who are online content creators, Canadians, have given is this: If a bookstore is ordered by the government to put certain books in the window and certain books at the back, would we view that as a censorious government act?

That is the analogy that a lot of us in that ecosystem have been using with regard to what the Bill C-11 CRTC power to put its thumb on the algorithm is doing.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Canadians can judge for themselves.

Ms. Van Geyn, when it comes to Bill C-11, do you see it in conflict with the basic freedoms that Canadians are guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?