Promotion of Safety in the Digital Age Act

An Act to enact the Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act and to amend the Criminal Code

Sponsor

Michelle Rempel  Conservative

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of Sept. 16, 2024

Subscribe to a feed (what's a feed?) of speeches and votes in the House related to Bill C-412.

Summary

This is from the published bill.

Part 1 of this enactment enacts the Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act , the purpose of which is to provide for a safe online environment for minors by requiring owners and operators of platforms such as online services or applications to put the interests of minors first and to ensure that minors’ personal data is not used in a manner that could compromise their privacy, health or well-read more

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-412s:

C-412 (2018) An Act to amend the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 (Compensation for Damage Due to Navigation and Shipping Activities Fund)
C-412 (2013) An Act to amend the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act (poverty reduction)
C-412 (2012) An Act to amend the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act (poverty reduction)
C-412 (2010) Iran Accountability Act
C-412 (2009) Iran Accountability Act
C-412 (2007) An Act to amend the Hazardous Products Act (recreational snow sport helmets)

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House AffairsPrivilegeOrders of the Day

December 3rd, 2024 / 5:25 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the outstanding constituents of Oshawa and to speak to the question of privilege. I just want to take the opportunity as well to wish members of the House and my constituents in Oshawa a very Merry Christmas. I do not know whether I will have an opportunity to rise in the House again before the break, but certainly we need some more Christmas spirit around here. I think the best Christmas gift we could get the people of Oshawa would be a carbon tax election, because the government is not worth the cost or the corruption.

My speech this evening is going to be more or less about censorship, disinformation and misinformation. The Liberal government is moving down a spiral of authoritarianism. It is a very deceptive government that is definitely not about transparency as it originally promised it would be. It is a government using every single legislative tool to censor and to control.

Around the world, government censorship is constantly being used to silence opposing opinions, suppress transparency and accountability, and consolidate power. We see this form of government censorship in several countries: Russia, China, North Korea and, yes, Canada. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, we are witnessing a new level of government censorship more than ever before in Canada. The issue today is about contempt of Parliament and about fraud.

The government's censorship threatens the very foundations of our democracy. Without the ability to demand production of documents, speak our mind, express our views and challenge the status quo, we are left with nothing but the hollow illusion of freedom. The government censorship we are witnessing here today is not about protecting Canadians from harm or ensuring public safety. Instead it is about silencing dissent, shutting down debate and consolidating power. It is about covering up corruption and fraud.

With respect to the question of privilege, we are addressing government censorship regarding the failure to produce documents ordered by the House on the scandal involving Sustainable Development Technology Canada, otherwise known as the Liberal billion-dollar green slush fund. However, while the power of the House is supposed to be supreme, the Prime Minister's personal department, the Privy Council Office, decided to execute the order by telling departments to send in documents and censor them through redaction to cover up corruption and to cover up fraud.

This form of government censorship completely breaches a member's privilege because the order from the House did not say to redact. The government has opted to defy the House and to censor information in the SDTC documents at every single step of the way, as it does not want Canadians to know that through the green slush fund, $400 million has gone to Liberal insiders. It may be twice that amount because the Auditor General could not complete the full audit.

The scandal as well, it is really important to recognize, compromises two current cabinet ministers and one former cabinet minister. I would like to say that it is a surprise that the government would behave in this manner, but based on the government's track record, government censorship and fraud are nothing but the expected. In other words, for the government, it is business as usual.

Perhaps this is a very good time for my colleagues to talk a little bit about a history lesson. Remember the Liberal sponsorship scandal? The last time the Liberals were in power, they funnelled $40 million to their friends and orchestrated a sophisticated kickback scheme. Then they got caught at fraud, corruption and cover-ups.

The best predictor of future behaviour, I would suggest, is past behaviour. Is the SDTC scandal part of the latest Liberal kickback scandal? Where did the money go? This one scandal is at least 10 times greater than the sponsorship scandal. It is another in a long list of scandals that the Liberals are trying to cover up through censorship.

I should probably define what I mean by censorship. Censorship is “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” I would suggest “politically unacceptable” is why the Liberal-NDP government champions censorship. I should probably define a few other terms. Misinformation is “the inadvertent spread of false information without intent to harm”. Disinformation is “false information designed to mislead others and is deliberately spread with the intent to confuse fact and fiction.”

Another word is a controversial new term, malinformation, used to describe the NDP-Liberal government, a “term for information which is based on fact, but removed from its original context in order to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” In other words, malinformation is “true but inconvenient” for the government and its narrative.

Under the guise of combatting disinformation and hate speech, the government has implemented policies that give it the power to silence voices, censor information and withhold documents that do not conform to its own woke ideological agenda. This censorship is spreading across Canada, through our institutions, not just here in the House of Commons.

We saw this last week when independent journalist Ezra Levant was arrested for simply filming and reporting on a pro-Hamas rally occurring in his own neighbourhood. Instead of arresting provocative pro-Hamas supporters who spewed hate, celebrating genocide while chanting “from the river to the sea”, an independent member of the press was arrested for simply doing his job, arrested by the very police who have sworn to protect his charter rights.

We wonder why Canadians are questioning whether this is the country they grew up in. When a Jewish man gets arrested by Toronto police in his own neighbourhood while supporting a vigil for families whose loved ones were massacred and kidnapped on October 7, while members of the hateful mob are allowed to continue their mockery of the victims' suffering, we have to ask ourselves why the government condones this hateful behaviour, censors first-hand accounts of cruel anti-Semitism and supports police who discriminate. When governments and our institutions condone this behaviour, it is as if they give a stamp of approval, and that definitely is not okay.

What about the government's history of pushing through authoritative legislation? Let us take a look at that. Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, according to the NDP-Liberals, aims to modernize the Broadcasting Act. However, it harms Canadian digital creators by limiting their services and ability to reach global audiences. It also allows the government boundless powers to regulate digital content and gives it the authority to control what Canadians can and cannot access online.

This is a direct assault on the freedoms of expression and access to information that have flourished in this digital age. Instead of letting Canadians choose for themselves what to watch and listen to, the government seeks to impose its own narrative, prioritizing state-approved content over independent voices and diverse viewpoints. Our young, bright Canadian content creators are being stifled. If other jurisdictions also decide to put forward legislation like this, it will mean Canadian content will be a lower priority for the rest of the world and that could damage our entertainment exports.

The government's censorship does not stop there. Bill C-18, the Online News Act, also allows the government to get in the way of what people can see and share online. This bill requires Internet companies to distribute royalties to newspapers whose content is shared on a site. It demonstrates the government choosing to side with large corporate media while shutting down small, local and independent news, as well as giving far too much power to the government to regulate without limitation. As a result, local and independent media outlets that might challenge the government's narrative are left vulnerable, and those that conform are rewarded.

Common-sense Conservatives believe we need to find a solution in which Canadians can continue to freely access news content online, in addition to fairly compensating Canadian news outlets. However, when we offered amendments to the bill that would address these several issues, the NDP and the Liberals voted them down.

Bill C-63 is another testament to this government's continuous commitment to censorship. The online harms act would create costly censorship bureaucracy that would not make it easier for people experiencing legitimate online harassment to access justice. Instead, it would act as a regulatory process that would not start for years and would happen behind closed doors where big-tech lobbyists could pull the strings.

The common-sense Conservative alternative to the online harms act is Bill C-412, proposed by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill. It would keep Canadians safe online without infringing on their civil liberties. It would give Canadians more protections online through existing regulators and the justice system, and would outline a duty of care for online operators to keep kids safe online while prohibiting a digital ID and giving parents more tools.

For another outrageous example of withholding documents and censoring information, let us not forget the cover-up at the Winnipeg lab. The Liberals allowed scientists loyal to the Chinese Communist Party to work at our most secure lab. The Liberals gave them a Canadian taxpayer-funded salary and allowed them to send dangerous pathogens back to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they work on gain-of-function research. When exposed, the Liberals, whom we know admire the basic dictatorship of China, let these scientists escape the country without proper investigation. When Parliament asked for these documents, the Liberals actually took their own Liberal Speaker to court and then censored our ability to disclose those documents by calling an early election. We still have not found out what happened there.

On top of censoring Parliament, let us not forget about the NDP-Liberal government's track record of censoring individual expression. We have seen countless individuals, physicians, scientists and organizations being punished for simply speaking out against the current government's policies. The government froze bank accounts. People were labelled as promoting hate speech and disinformation, or as conspiracy theorists, racists and misogynists, by their own Prime Minister.

We were warned that this could happen. In one of his final interviews, esteemed scientist Carl Sagan noted, “We’ve arranged a society on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces.”

Who is running science and technology in a democracy if the people do not know anything about it? We have seen this technocracy weaponized by governments during the COVID pandemic through various unjustifiable mandates and government censorship surrounding medical research. Now, the new head of the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, Marty Makary, has said on the record that the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic was the United States government, and it is the same here in Canada.

The weaponization of medical research is not just an American issue. Dr. Regina Watteel, a Ph.D. in statistics, has written, an excellent exposé on the rise of Canadian hate science. Her books expose how the Liberal government, through repeated grants from CIHR, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, hired Dr. David Fisman, a researcher for hire from the University of Toronto medical school, to manipulate COVID statistics to support a failing government policy.

He was touted as an expert, but his only expertise was manipulating statistics to support government overreach. His sham studies were used to justify some of the most draconian COVID policies in the world and were quoted extensively by the Liberal-friendly media. Any criticism of Fisman's fraudulent statistical analysis has been shut down and censored. Again, this is a Canadian example of a result that Carl Sagan warned us about decades ago: the fall into technocracy, where government-sanctioned expert opinion trumps hard scientific data.

Sadly, the government's censorship has now extended to our judicial systems and other institutions, including the Parole Board of Canada.

While the Liberal justice minister brags about appointing 800 judges out of the 957 positions, we can see the soft-on-crime consequences of his woke ideological agenda. We saw an outrageous example of this last week when the French and Mahaffy families desired to participate in the parole hearing of their daughters' brutal murderer. Locally, Lisa Freeman, a constituent in Oshawa and the inspiration behind my private member's bill, Bill C-320, was recently informed by the Parole Board of Canada that the axe murderer who brutally murdered her father while on parole at the time will be subject to a closed-door review.

In the past, Ms. Freeman has been denied her rights as a registered victim and, as a result, has been continually revictimized, only this time by the very institutions that should be putting her mental health and safety and the safety of victims first. Attending and meaningfully participating in an in-person hearing to deliver a victim statement is not only fair and reasonable, but well within Ms. Freeman's rights, as per the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights under the right of participation. It is crucial that Ms. Freeman be able to express the emotional pain and turmoil the murder of her father caused and continues to cause. She also deserves to be able to gauge for herself the accountability of the offender. This is something she has previously been unable to ascertain.

The brutal murder of her father has not only vastly impacted her life and the lives of her loved ones, but also continues to cause post-traumatic stress, which is exacerbated by the complete lack of care by the Parole Board of Canada for her rights as a victim. It is completely unacceptable that Ms. Freeman is once again being censored by the Parole Board of Canada as they plan to make a closed-door decision regarding the offender's continuation of day parole and full parole without holding a hearing.

It is shameful that the NDP-Liberal government seems to care more about censoring victims than keeping repeat offenders off the streets. What they do not understand is that government censorship does not fulfill the requirement of protecting people from harm in society. Instead, government censorship is the harm to society. It threatens our fundamental democratic values, which we should be championing. To quote the famous author, George Orwell, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

The Marxist communist Vladimir Lenin once said, “Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?”

More and more we are seeing these quotes and Marxist ideas implemented under the NDP-Liberal government. We must stand up for the idea that truth is not something that can be determined by the state. We must insist that Canadian citizens, not censoring politicians, should be the ones who decide what information they believe, what opinions and values they hold and with what content they engage. We must continue to reject the government's idea that censorship is the solution to every problem, though it may be the solution to their problems, and instead embrace the idea that freedom of expression and freedom of conscience are part of the solution of a more free and prosperous Canadian society.

Justice Potter Stewart said, “Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritative regime”. That is what we see with the tired, divisive, Liberal government of today. Canadians have indeed lost confidence in the weak Prime Minister and the corrupt Liberal Party. If we allow government to censor the rights of the people's elected representatives and the Internet; squash individuality, opinions and expression; and curtail our freedom of movement, then indeed the Marxists have won the ideological war.

In closing, Canada is not the greatest country in the world simply because I say it is. Canada is the greatest country in the world because we care and fight for our fundamental, democratic values. We have a history of that people from around the world in other countries would love to have, so these values must not be taken for granted. When we, in Oshawa, sing our national anthem, we take “The True North strong and free” to heart.

The current SDTC scandal, with the refusal of the NDP-Liberal government to release the requested unredacted documents to the people's representatives, threatens the very essence of our democracy, which generations of Canadians died to protect and must be respected and fought for. At our cenotaphs, service clubs and in the sacred House of Commons, the people's voices will be heard.

Canadians are listening today, and they have a core identity. We are proud Canadians. We are not the first post-national state. When people ask us which country we admire the most, we do not say that we admire the basic dictatorship of China. We say we admire Canada.

Hopefully, like most things that criticize the government, such as this speech, the Liberal-NDPs do not decide to censor it. Let us see what they have to say.

As spoken

Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsCommittees of the HouseConcurrence in Committee Reports

October 30th, 2024 / 7:20 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Brad Vis Conservative Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC

Madam Speaker, in fact, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who just spoke, has a private member's bill that is before the House as well, Bill C-412 which would do a better job of amending the Criminal Code to go after child predators.

What the Liberals are trying to do in Bill C-63 is create a new bureaucracy that would not be accountable to Canadians. From what we have seen with Bill C-27, I do not necessarily believe that the expertise in the Department of Industry is sufficient to manage the issues. The protection of children needs to be under the Criminal Code first and foremost, not under new regulatory bodies.

As spoken

Access to Information, Privacy and EthicsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

October 9th, 2024 / 4:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Madam Speaker, it was former prime minister Harper's government that introduced legislation to stop revenge porn. That was the first law that passed in the House of Commons in response to many terrible incidents. That was a Conservative bill that was passed. Bill C-63 does not do that.

The bill that would do what the member opposite was talking about is a bill that I wrote, Bill C-412. My bill, Bill C-412, would protect people from the non-consensual distribution of intimate images created by artificial intelligence. It includes a digital restraining order for women who are being stalked by people online and a regulated duty of care for how online operators must treat children. We would do all of that without a $200-million bureaucracy, which C-63 proposes, and without a massive impingement on Canadian speech through the reiteration of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

We in opposition did what the government should have done a long time ago. I am very proud of that. I am proud of my caucus colleagues. It is more of what Canadians can have, with the hope that they can look forward to when the Conservatives form government after the next election.

As spoken

Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 1:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-412 does three things. It provides members of law enforcement and victims of criminal online harassment with more tools to stop the harassment immediately. Victims groups of all political stripe are crying out for this. Bill C-63 does not do this.

Bill C-412 also includes an immediate legislated duty of care for online operators. Bill C-63 proposes to allow big tech companies to manipulate what would be in that duty of care five years into the future when we need justice now. Bill C-412 would also close a loophole in the Criminal Code for the non-consensual distribution of intimate images created by deepfakes.

Would the member suggest that the government adopt Bill C-412, parse out the section in Bill C-63 on strengthening reporting requirements for child pornography, pass that on unanimous consent and then abandon the rest of the bill that has had people like Margaret Atwood calling the bill Orwellian, so that we can get justice for children, women who are experiencing intimate partner violence and children in high schools who are not getting justice when nudes of them are created online?

As spoken

Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 1:15 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Eric Duncan Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the people of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry in our part of eastern Ontario. In this case it is to contribute to the debate going on today on Bill C-63, known to many Canadians, through the media or the debate on the bill, as the online harms bill.

I want to take the time I have today to lay out a case to Canadians that I think is getting clearer by the month and the year. After nine years of the NDP and the Liberals in office, crime is up significantly in this country. It is their record and it is their actions, or in some cases inactions, that have undone what was successful in keeping our streets safe.

When we looked at the metrics by Stats Canada before the Liberals came into office, we see that crime was decreasing across the country. After nine years of their legislation, their bills, their ideas and their policy proposals, here is what Stats Canada says is the record of the Prime Minister, the NDP and the Liberals working together: Violent crime has increased 50% in this country. Homicides are not down; they are up 28%. Sexual assaults are up by 75%, and gang murders have nearly doubled in this country over the course of the last nine years. A crime wave has been unleashed across this country.

I make the case. Sadly, now there is not one part of this country, a province or a region, that has not heard the stories in local media or by word of mouth in communities of crime going up: violent crime, robberies, theft and car theft. Auto theft is up 46%. The justice minister's own car in fact has been stolen three times. That is how bad crime has gotten under the Liberals' watch.

Extortion has exploded in this country under the Liberals' watch. It is up 357%. This side of the aisle, through our deputy leader from Edmonton, the member for Edmonton Mill Woods, proposed a private member's bill that would crack down and toughen up on Canadians who try to extort others. I would suggest that when there is a 357% increase, the status quo of whatever the Liberals are doing is not working. We proposed a common-sense private member's bill from this side of the aisle that was voted down, only to continue the status quo by the Liberals and NDP.

Recently, through our work in asking questions, we finally got some answers. The Liberal government was forced to admit that 256 people were killed in 2022 alone by criminals out on bail or another form of release. It is unacceptable and speaks to the many broken policies that the government has implemented in the last nine years. It is not by accident.

The province of Ontario paints a picture when it comes to the Liberals' public safety record. In Ontario, the total number of violent Criminal Code violations is up 51% to 164,723. Homicides in Ontario are up 50% to 262. Total violent firearms offences, for all the action the Liberals have claimed to have taken, and I will get to that in a bit, is up to 1,346. That is a 97% increase in violent firearms offences in Ontario alone. Extortion is up 383% in Ontario, at just under 4,000 cases.

Theft of a motor vehicle has gone up. When the Liberals came in, there were 16,600 vehicle thefts in Ontario. It has exploded 167%. Now, under their watch with their soft-on-crime approach, including Bill C-5, Bill C-75 and so forth, it is up to 44,459 thefts of a motor vehicle.

That is the Liberals' record. Bill C-75 was passed and implemented by the Liberals and the NDP, who implemented catch-and-release bail policies. Despite the legislation demanded by Conservatives and by every premier in this country, it did not go far enough, and Bill C-75 is still wreaking havoc on our law enforcement and on public safety in this country.

Bill C-5 passed, again by the Liberals and the NDP and supported by the Bloc in that case, I specifically remember as well. When it started to be implemented and Canadians saw the wacko examples of criminals of a violent, repeat nature being arrested and back out on the streets, the Bloc members tried to pretend they were not for it anymore, but they voted for Bill C-5. That bill removed mandatory minimum sentences for major crimes, ensuring again that violent criminals are out on the streets.

After all those numbers I took the time to lay out, that is the Liberals' record. They cannot go back and blame anybody else, but for the last nine years that the Liberals have been in office, it has been their government legislation that has allowed the crime wave to be unleashed across Canada, and here we have a justice minister who is touting how great the Liberals' latest solution is with Bill C-63.

Rightfully, Canadians have major distrust in the current government. Its record on public safety speaks for itself by the numbers and the examples that people are living and breathing. However, it was the current justice minister, on his first days on the job, who did a media interview and said he thought it was empirically unlikely Canada is becoming less safe. He said it is in people's minds; it is in their heads and is not really a problem. People are just envisioning that.

That just goes to show the mindset and perspective when it comes to public safety, to protecting our streets and getting the violent crime wave down in this country. That is the perspective: It is just all in our heads and there is nothing to think about.

I have mentioned Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. The debate today is actually timely because it was just last week that we got an updated answer. Four years ago, the Prime Minister did a big stunt of a photo op and an announcement that he was going to ban assault rifles; he was going to clamp down and resolve all of this by way of the Liberals' legislation and their will. Well, the numbers are out. Four years later, after saying that, zero firearms from criminals are off our streets, and the only winner in this is the bureaucracy.

Sixty-seven million dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on a program that is not even running, not even active and has taken precisely zero firearms from criminals and gang members off our streets in this country. That is the Liberals' record. Worst of all is that we know what the Liberals are proposing to do and the reason there are all the delays. They are rightfully being called out that it will not affect the gang members and those involved in criminal enterprises who are committing the car thefts, violent crimes and firearms offences in big cities, suburbs and rural communities alike. They are not going to be participating in this terrible program, this costly, useless program, frankly.

The Liberals are targeting law-abiding firearm owners, hunters, sport shooters and indigenous communities that follow the law and have never been a public safety issue. They are going to be the ones paying the price on this, and it is taxpayer money, $67 million alone, going out.

One of the things I have said to many folks in our part of eastern Ontario and in my travels across the country is that there are not too many prerequisites to becoming a member of Parliament and sitting in the chamber. Members are democratically elected, which is obviously the right way to go. However, I feel if there were a little asterisk of what every member of Parliament must do before debating or voting on public safety legislation such as this, it would be that the member should do a ride-along with the frontline law enforcement in this country.

We are very blessed in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry to have the OPP, the Cornwall community police, a force in Akwesasne and the RCMP. One of the most rewarding events or annual visits I make is to those detachments, getting in a vehicle with a frontline law enforcement member and seeing first-hand and on the front lines what they have to go through day in and day out.

Officers are extremely frustrated after nine years of a soft-on-crime approach, a broken justice system, a broken bail system and a Liberal government that continues to make life easier for those criminals of a repeat violent nature, which takes valuable police resources and time away from important things. Instead, they are repeatedly arresting and re-arresting many of the same folks despite being out on bail.

I raise that today because under the Liberals watch and the broken bail system, where repeat violent offenders are back out on the streets within about 24 hours, on average, police are being redirected and dealing with the same percentage. The Vancouver Police Department said that in one year there were 6,000 police interactions, many of them arrests of the same 40 or 50 people. This means that every other day there was an interaction, an arrest, a bail hearing and back out on the street. That is a waste of police resources.

How much longer will it take? How many more calls from the Conservatives, premiers and law enforcement agencies will it take to fix our broken bail system? Instead, today, when we talk about the broad terms of protecting folk online, protecting children, or cracking down on Internet child pornography as the bill states, the basis of this legislation is admitting failure on the part of the government.

Our court system and existing law enforcement resources are so overloaded with the increase in crime, the broken justice system and the broken bail system, that now the government is proposing a brand new federal bureaucracy, with hundreds and hundreds of federal bureaucrats, to administer what it says cannot be done through existing means.

If we were able to go back to common sense, the way it was before the Prime Minister and the government came into office, we could revert and allow law enforcement and, in many cases, our existing laws to be enforced and protect Canadians, protect children, families, victims of child pornography, victims of all ages, and clamp down on the rising hate crime numbers happening under the government's watch.

I correlate it again to the government's record. We had legislation a couple of years ago passed under its watch, Bill C-11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act, which I basically called a censorship act, where the government would hire hundreds of new bureaucrats at the CRTC to watch and regulate the algorithms of Internet searches in Canada. At that time, the Liberals said not to worry, that it was not that big of a deal, that it would not cost that much. It is getting very expensive, and they are just getting started in the cost of the bureaucracy.

I am proud of our common-sense Conservative team on this side. Very early on, when the government came forward with Bill C-63, we asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to look at what the cost of this proposal would be, an independent look to understand the true cost to administer the government's proposal. A little while ago the analysis came forward. Posted on the website, the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that would cost a staggering $200 million to establish, the government's own data provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, 330 new bureaucrats and a brand new bureaucracy to administer this. When does this madness stop?

The Liberals keep adding new bureaucracies, new commissions and new layers, but they do not tackle the problem we have in our existing justice system and law enforcement community. Whether it be the RCMP, a provincial force or local municipal force, they are stretched thin because of the broken policies that the government has implemented. Now its proposal is to separate all that into a new bureaucracy. Worst of all, when asked, there is no time frame. A lot of the regulations and details of what it is proposing will be dealt with later, of course, behind closed doors. A lack of transparency and details, that is what the Liberals are providing to Canadians.

We know how Ottawa works. We know how the Liberals work with the NDP. They make a great, big announcement of how wonderful the legislation would be and that it would solve every problem possible. They never follow through, it is never done cost-effectively and it is delay after delay, and more and more frustration and backlog. We will see the exact same thing when it comes to the new bureaucracy proposed under Bill C-63. For context, if we took the $200 million and invested in frontline law enforcement, if we hired more police officers, we could hire over 200 more per year to work the front lines each and every year.

I want to thank the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who has been on the file of protecting women, children and all Canadians and victims of child pornography, of exposing intimate images and, in many cases, new emerging technologies of deepfakes and AI. We need to realize that this legislation is inadequate for many reasons. She, our shadow minister for justice and the Attorney General of Canada, and many other colleagues with a law enforcement background in the legal community have spoken up against the bill.

As Conservatives, we have said that, as always, the Liberals get it wrong again. They claim that we should pass this, get it to committee and just be fine with it, because for four years they have consulted experts in the field. They have tabled legislation before that they had to pull because they got it wrong. There are still many voices in the country speaking up against the bill in its current form and what it would do on the infringement of free speech. The Liberals are making decisions through regulation, through back-channel means and behind closed doors, putting the power in the hands of way too many people who do not deserve it, for example, Meta, Facebook, other tech companies that have these massive lobbying efforts they can use to pressure this new bureaucracy.

Instead, our common-sense Conservative private member's bill, Bill C-412, would enforce the existing laws in the country when it comes to hate crimes. The laws are there, but the government lacks the political will use those tools. If we are going to modernize legislation, which it does need at times, we could go after AI and deepfakes, which is not even addressed in Bill C-63.

The Liberals, like they have with Bill C-5, Bill C-75 and now with Bill C-63, talk a big game. We can look at other legislation such as their firearms confiscation program of law-abiding hunters and anglers who own firearms and so many other pieces of legislation. We can look at the Liberals' own numbers. The longer they are in office, the more they spend and the worse it gets from a financial situation, but, most important, from a public safety perspective.

Bill C-63 does not need to be as omnibus as it is. For the number of years the Liberals claim they consulted experts, they have gotten it wrong again. It is time to bring forward not this bill, but the common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-412.

Let us get to the root causes, protect children, women and all Canadians from the abuse and hate and violence seen online through child pornography and other means. Let us trust our law enforcement on the front lines, with the tools and resources, to get that job done. They do not need a new bureaucracy or to be thrown aside. Law enforcement needs to be empowered with good legislation and support from this federal government, not the record we have seen after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government.

As spoken

Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 12:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am hearing a collaborative approach between Bill C-63 and Bill C-412. The only difficulty I have with that is this. I am not opposed to that in principle, but I think there are very few measures in Bill C-63 that Conservatives could actually support, that we could actually parse out of the bill and perhaps pass with unanimous consent here in the House.

Clearly, Bill C-63 will be studied at committee. I would encourage all members on the committee to be open to the possibility of looking at significant amendments to replace some of the dangerous language and the unintended consequences in the bill with the clear, precise and immediate protections offered to Canadian families and kids in Bill C-412.

As spoken

Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 12:35 p.m.


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Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I appreciated the thoroughness of most of his comments.

Obviously, we all share the same concerns about public protection, the removal of non-consensual images, the protection of children and privacy. I understand all that quite well. If I am not mistaken, he referred a few times in his speech to Bill C‑412.

I have a question for my colleague, who seems to have a good grasp of the topic. Would he not be able to work in committee on Bill C‑63? He could suggest improvements to the bill and include parts of the other bill he was talking about to make Bill C‑63 more effective. If I understand correctly, the member has specific criticisms related to certain aspects. Could we find a way to work on that? Will he commit to doing so?

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Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 12:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, there was much to that particular question. The minister asked very forcefully why the Conservatives would be opposed to removing that material. Of course, we are not. However, Bill C-63 talks about that being taken down not immediately, but after a complaint, after it is reviewed and within 24 hours. That is insufficient.

The minister also talked about all the various groups that have applauded the government's Bill C-63. I could literally spend another 20 minutes talking about the public interest groups, and very key individuals in the legal field who have spoken against the bill as another form of censorship by the current government. Therefore, there is zero balance protecting the rights of Canadian families, their children and our civil liberties. Bill C-412 does exactly that.

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Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 12:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, Canadians cannot wait five years.

This raises serious concerns about transparency, efficiency and the potential impact on free speech. Even worse, the $200 million does not cover the additional workload for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which would have to manage a surge of complaints about social media posts in today's cancel culture. The government has no estimate of how many complaints the commission might receive, so it is very likely the $200 million is just the beginning.

To put that in perspective, the PBO's numbers reveal that the bureaucracy created solely by Bill C-63 would be about one-third larger than that of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the agency responsible for ensuring the safety of Canadians in the air and on the roads. Additionally, the PBO's analysis shows that on a per capita basis, the new bureaucracy would be vastly larger than that of any comparable agency in other peer countries.

Bill C-63 should be scrapped just on the basis of its wasteful cost. It is absurd that while Liberals underfund the RCMP, leaving almost one-third of cybercrime positions vacant, they are proposing to dump $200 million and hire 300 staff for a vague new bureaucracy.

Canadians are rightly concerned. In this digital age, we must strike a balance between protecting individuals from harmful content and safeguarding their rights. That is why the Conservative Party is committed to delivering common-sense solutions that would protect our children and ensure their safety online without compromising the freedoms we hold dear.

The bottom line is that Canadians are living in fear due to online harassment and it is costing lives. They need real protection, not more Liberal delays and incompetence. The Liberals should adopt the common-sense solutions in Bill C-412 or call an immediate election and let Canadians choose real, immediate protections or another costly Liberal censorship scheme.

As spoken

Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 12:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, I proudly rise today in opposition to Bill C-63.

Canadians take pride in living in a nation where justice prevails. Freedoms are upheld and our most vulnerable, especially our children, are protected. However, after nine years of this failed government, crime is rising, leaving families across the country concerned for the safety of their loved ones, both on the streets and online.

Online criminal activity continues to surge, but the Liberals' response has been to push censorship bills that would force Canadians into a false choice between their safety and free expression. Instead of addressing the real issues, this Liberal legislation silences Canadians under the guise of security, creating bloated bureaucracies led by the Prime Minister's hand-picked allies. Canadians are bearing the brunt of this government's failures.

Bill C-63 introduces a dangerous new provision for an offence “motivated by hatred”, which could impose a life sentence for even minor infractions under any act of Parliament. This broad, unchecked provision opens the door to the possibility that mere words alone could lead to life imprisonment.

While the government claims that a serious underlying act must occur for this punishment to apply, that is simply not reflected in the text of the bill. Section 320 of the Criminal Code would be amended to state, “Everyone who commits an offence under this Act or any other Act of Parliament...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.”

Laws to address the issues we are witnessing have been in place for decades, and the Supreme Court has ruled on them multiple times. We do not need new laws to govern hate speech. This government needs to grow a backbone and enforce the laws as they stand.

Earlier this year at the justice committee, the justice minister openly admitted that Bill C-63's new hate crime offence could apply to any offence as long as it is hate-motivated. He said the bill's sentencing range covers everything from minor to serious crimes, but judges, hand-picked by this government, will make sure minor offences do not receive harsh sentences. However, by leaving this to the courts, the government is being reckless. We cannot rely on vague promises that the judiciary will fix a poorly drafted bill. Parliament needs to clearly define when a life sentence should apply, not hand over broad and unchecked power.

The bill risks extreme punishments for minor infractions. As stated by a political commentator, “[The] Liberals are using the guillotine for speech violations and [on the other hand] house arrest for career criminals roaming the streets exploiting a broken bail system.” Only in Canada would that bizarre statement have application.

Widespread concern from all sides of the political spectrum had been raised about Bill C-63's introduction of a so-called hate crime peace bond, with many labelling it as a pre-crime measure for speech. The problem lies in the fact that this provision would extend the power to issue peace bonds based solely on speech-related offences without clearly defining what constitutes such crimes or ensuring that they meet the criminal standard for hate.

While the Liberals focus on banning opinions that challenge the Prime Minister's ideology, Conservatives are dedicated to keeping Canadians safe, both online and off-line and, also at the same point, upholding and defending their civil liberties, a concept that is completely unknown to this government.

This is why my colleague the member for Calgary Nose Hill introduced Bill C-412. Bill C-412 is designed to protect Canadians online through three key areas: protection from online criminal harassment, safeguarding our children and ensuring user privacy. Bill C-412 aims to empower victims of online criminal harassment who currently have limited options for quickly and permanently ending their harassment.

This legislation would allow victims to apply to a judge to identify their harasser, end the harassment and then impose conditions to stop it, as deemed appropriate by a court. It also provides legal clarity regarding when online operators such as social media platforms must disclose the identity of an alleged abuser. Additionally, the legislation introduces an aggravating factor for perpetrators who repeatedly harass anonymously using multiple burner accounts.

These measures are designed to streamline the process for victims to interact with law enforcement and receive effective protections, ultimately enabling law enforcement to de-escalate violence in a timely manner. In contrast, the Liberals' Bill C-63 contains no such provisions, representing a significant flaw for a bill that purports to protect Canadians from online harm.

Online harassment is widespread and often anonymous, yet our current laws are outdated and Bill C-63 fails to provide on this front. In addition, Bill C-63 fails our children by delaying protections and relying on an unclear regulatory process. In contrast, Bill C-412 takes proactive measures by imposing a clear duty of care on online operators. The bill seeks to establish a novel set of checks and balances between the government, operators and parents to keep children safe online.

Under Bill C-412, existing government regulators, law enforcement and the judiciary would ensure operators follow their duty of care to keep kids safe online. Operators would be formally required to ensure they keep kids safe under a clear set of guidelines. Parents, then, would have all the tools needed to understand what their kids are doing online and then make informed decisions about what types of permissions to give them for their online use.

It would provide parents with tools to protect their children online through non-invasive age verification methods and would enforce these protections with steep penalties for non-compliance. Bill C-412 would specifically safeguard children against physical harm, bullying, sexual violence and harmful online content.

Bill C-412 offers a balanced solution that emphasizes privacy, preserving age verification methods, while explicitly prohibiting the use of digital IDs. Many Canadians are concerned about privacy and the misuse of digital IDs. Bill C-412 would ensure that digital identifiers could not be used for age verification. Meanwhile, Bill C-63 leaves privacy concerns unaddressed and lacks clear prohibitions against the misuse of digital IDs.

Bill C-63's vague regulatory framework allows for excessive bureaucratic oversight, creating opportunities for tech lobbyists to manipulate the process behind closed doors. Instead of providing immediate protections, it pushes key decisions into an opaque regulatory future, prioritizing the interests of big tech over the safety and well-being of Canadian families.

By failing to effectively tackle online harassment and leaving significant gaps in protections, Bill C-63 reflects a government more concerned about creating a facade of action than genuinely, actively safeguarding Canadians' rights and safety.

Bill C-63 seeks to reinstate section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, a provision that was removed by the Harper government and that even the Toronto Star, hardly a cheerleader for the Conservative Party of Canada, has deemed unnecessary for protecting Canadians from hate speech. Section 13, which was previously repealed for its overly broad and subjective application, allowed the government to censor speech without the need for criminal proceedings. Reintroducing this section would open the door to an extrajudicial system where vague definitions of hate speech could lead to a chilling effect on free speech.

The new section 13 would make communication of hate speech by anyone on the Internet, or other means of telecommunication, subject to the jurisdiction of the Canadian human rights complaints mechanism with the standard of proof being not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is an extremely high standard, but merely a balance of probability, 50.01%. This is not only dangerous but deeply flawed. We have already seen the consequences when the Liberals attempted to appoint an arbiter under Bill C-63, who had previously argued that "terror is not an irrational" approach. This highlights the inherent risks in giving unchecked power to unelected individuals who may interpret free speech in ways that suppress legitimate voices.

Section 13 would also pave the way for dangerous precedents, like life sentences for hate crimes without proper legal thresholds. The Liberals have failed to provide evidence that such extreme measures would be effective in preventing hate when the laws we already have are not being enforced. We need to hear from legal experts and civil liberty groups to understand the unintended consequences this could bring. What we really need is action. Action today, not years from now, and not censorship, which is exactly what Bill C-63 does.

The government should focus on enforcing existing laws and protecting ethnic minority groups by empowering the RCMP, INSET and NSES to work collaboratively and quickly with local police forces and share intelligence to protect vulnerable communities; directing CSIS to implement threat reduction measures and communicate threats to ethnic minority groups; and ensuring the security infrastructure program provides real, timely funding to help community centres improve security. Rather than reintroducing section 13 and limiting free speech, the government should enforce current laws and take meaningful action to protect Canadians.

It is no surprise that the justice minister is proud of the only piece of legislation he has managed to introduce since his appointment. Meanwhile, that is in contrast to the Conservative Party of Canada, which has put forward 10 bills that offer real solutions to the issues Canadians face today. Even the justice minister himself, the bill's biggest advocate and cheerleader to the failed Liberal government, admitted it would take years for this bureaucracy to create and enforce regulations. Members should let that sink in.

This widely hailed, very important piece of legislation is not going to protect families for years to come. That is the impact of the government. There are announcements with no effective follow-through. According to the justice minister's own logic, millions of taxpayer dollars would be wasted long before any meaningful protection or enforcement is put in place.

Canadians deserve better than half-hearted reforms. They need a government committed to real accountability and actionable solutions. It is time for the minister to stop hiding behind buzzwords and start delivering results that protect Canadians day in and day out.

As shadow minister for justice, I stand firm in criminalizing and enforcing laws that protect our most vulnerable: our children. We must criminalize and enforce penalties against those who victimize children online or bully them digitally. We must punish those who induce self-harm or incite violence in minors. We must ensure strict bans on distributing intimate content without consent, including the rise of deepfakes.

My Conservative colleagues and I believe these serious crimes must be investigated by police, be tried in court and result in a jail sentence. We will not support the creation of bureaucratic offices that do nothing to prevent crime or bring justice to victims. A Conservative government would protect our children and punish those who prey on them, not create more red tape.

This past summer, the PBO revealed the cost of the Liberal government's online harms act. It would cost $200 million to create a new 330-person bureaucracy to enforce rules that are still undefined. That is $200 million up front with no protection to create more work for a bloated bureaucracy.

As spoken

Online Harms ActGovernment Orders

September 23rd, 2024 / 12:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite was trying to pose a question to the opposition about what he wants us to explain. He will get his chance to ask questions of the government when he is sitting in opposition.

The reason we do not have any confidence in Bill C-63 is that the government would be choosing the censors, and the government has failed at everything it has attempted to do. The people have lost confidence in any boards that the government has appointed, the latest being what we are hearing on SDTC.

We do have a bill, Bill C-412, that would protect children. It actually zeros in on the protection of children and proposes specific measures to take to protect them from viewing material they should not be seeing online.

As spoken