Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members, for this opportunity to address you this morning.
The Internet Society Canada Chapter is an independent not-for-profit corporation that advocates for an open, accessible, safe and affordable Internet. We accept that some regulation of the Internet and its participants is necessary, and it is welcome. We have heard nothing this morning that we disagree with from the various panellists who have spoken.
However, extreme care has to be taken in formulating regulatory policies in order to obtain the best results for Canadians. The Internet is the most revolutionary societal disrupter since the invention of printing, and those disruptions are occurring at warp speed. Its reach is global, as are its impacts.
The Internet features both beacons of light and cesspools of depravity. Its more positive aspects further the goals of an enlightened humanity. Its worst aspects are a challenge to liberal democratic values and to all societal and legal norms.
Social media is often marred by shockingly bad behaviour. It can transmit misinformation and disinformation, discourage reasoned debate and constrain the participation of members of civil society as a result of racism, misogyny, threats and intimidation.
Where is Canada as the world confronts the many challenges that arise from the Internet?
Canada is a small country, economically open to the world and dependent on its relations with its peer countries. The Internet and Internet-based services are the key to Canada's continued integration into the global economy. For Canada to thrive and for her citizens to prosper, it is critical that Canada approach the Internet and its regulation with some humility.
Canada is too small in population and in wealth to establish the norms by which the Internet will be regulated or how Internet service providers will govern themselves. If Canada overreaches and imposes unrealistic economic and social costs on Internet services, it may find its businesses and its citizens cut off from the services and knowledge that are available to its peers.
Canada has already proposed or adopted counterproductive Internet-related measures, two of which were studied by this committee. The Online Streaming Act, rather than bringing Canada's Broadcasting Act in line with the world of Internet-based services, attempts to bring the Internet into the walled garden of the Canadian broadcasting regulatory system. The Online News Act attempts to extort payments from Internet platforms to subsidize news producers.
This committee's present study was inspired by its work on Bill C-18 and Google and Facebook's reactions to it. We maintain that Bill C-18 is deeply flawed. It has already had foreseeably negative impacts on Canadian news businesses and on Canadian consumers of news.
The choice of whether to provide Canadians with access to news and be subject to the act or to withdraw from the Canadian news ecosystem comes down to a business decision. Meta announced early that it would withdraw from the Canadian news market if Bill C-18 was adopted. This was not intimidation; it was a lawful and rational business decision.
The withdrawal of Meta from the Canadian news space has proven to be a hardship for Canadian news producers. If Meta's withdrawal is a hardship, Google's withdrawal from the Canadian news ecosystem would be catastrophic for Canadian news businesses and for the Canadian public.
We welcome the agreement reached between Google and Canadian Heritage. It promises to avoid that catastrophe. Nothing we say here today should be construed as approving the activities of tech giants, a term that encompasses not only the large international behemoths but also our domestic giants—Bell, Rogers and Telus—which dominate domestic markets and extract casino profits from Canadian consumers. It is good to see that Canada is focused on competition law reform.
There are a number of experiments under way in democratic societies that deal with Internet and tech regulation that Canada can learn from, emulate or co-operate with. It is critical that thoughtful policies be crafted that recognize the unique characteristics of the Internet and that they put up the full value of Internet-based services for Canadians. Poor regulatory policies will harm Canada and Canadians.
Thank you very much.