Thank you for your question.
That is indeed an issue. I'll have to be careful here, because I'm also currently sitting on the committee that is examining the new regulations on harmful online content. I will therefore keep my comments fairly general.
It's clear, Mr. Van Popta, that disinformation is a major issue. It's true that people often view violent and hateful content, and that disinformation often falls into a grey zone; fake news, for example. What we're talking about here are the parameters for freedom of expression.
But for foreign interference, it's important to point out that countries that are not interested in being nice to us, to put things prosaically, play upon the divisions that already exist in the country, and they stick a knife into an existing wound, adding noise to the noise and increasing social polarization. I think that it's essential to provide for regulatory mechanisms with more teeth, and that can—as we have seen in the Ukrainian context—monitor certain media, as has been done in Europe, and here as well. Russia Today and Sputnik are examples of propaganda media used by the Russian government.
It's true that disinformation—which surfaced during the pandemic and had a marked impact on public health and public safety—and alternative media are part of the problem. The Government of Canada is currently looking at this very closely, with the approval of all members.