Debates of June 14th, 2021

Government Business No. 10—Broadcasting Act

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague, who was getting all worked up because the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of the government's time allocation motion. I am still shocked to see the Conservative members, particularly those from Quebec, ignoring the consensus.

In Quebec, most of the cultural and broadcasting industries are in favour of the bill. The only areas that are expressing reservations are in western Canada. I would like my colleague to tell me whether the problem we are seeing today is ideological and whether it shows that western Canada and Quebec are unable to come together on the same issue.

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

Madam Speaker, this is a Canadian issue; this is not a Quebec issue. I can say to the hon. member from the Bloc that we talked to Mr. Péladeau, who owns several stations and media outlets in Quebec, and he is as disturbed about Bill C-10 as anyone in Quebec.

The member may have talked to certain groups that like this bill because they want the money to roll out right away, but this is a Canadian issue. Bill C-10 is disastrous. There are as many people in the province of Quebec who do not like this bill as there are in my own province of Saskatchewan.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is someone who I worked with at the heritage committee and someone who I honestly believe is trying to get us a piece of broadcasting legislation that will help our broadcasters. That said, this is not the way I see all of the members of the Conservative Party, some of whom did filibuster. It could be why we did not see the member filibuster at committee.

The job is to get a good piece of legislation to modernize our Broadcasting Act. However, the member knows that I brought forward a motion to continue to work on this into the summer. He can pretend, like his colleague from Quebec, that he did not know, but he knows that I brought it forward to continue the work to make this bill the very best it could be. He voted against it. I am wondering why that is the case.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona for all the work she has done on this bill. I am interested to find out if the NDP is going to support the Bloc and the Liberals on this gag bill, because that is what we are debating here tonight with the motion.

As far as the summers are concerned, I was not the only one who said no. The Liberals have mismanaged every committee this spring, as we have seen. It is not only the heritage committee. We can look at the national defence committee and the ethics committee too, which the Liberals have filibustered themselves. It is not really fair to point out the heritage committee as the one that should meet when others have been filibustered.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today from the opposite side of the aisle because although we are all here virtually, physically there is no one on the Liberal side. I am very happy to be here on the government side getting ready to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member knows full well that she cannot refer to individuals, nor to whether members of parties are here or not, even if she does not mention them by name.

I will let the member continue.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, everyone who is here virtually or physically is here, and I am very happy to state that. I am also really happy to be here physically on the government side to take this place.

My colleague, the Conservative member, has done such a fantastic job talking about Bill C-10 and what we can do to ensure that two things happen: that Canadian content is protected and that we have freedom of speech, with the ability to express ourselves online.

Can my colleague from Saskatchewan tell Canadians how we can protect both Canadian content and freedom of speech?

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

Madam Speaker, I would say to the House leader that freedom of speech is big in this country. It is democratic and it is fundamental to why we exist. We have seen some awful incidents in Canada in the last month and a half that show there is a lot of hate speech we need to talk about. We know as Canadians that it is not acceptable. On both sides of the House we know that.

I want to thank the hon. member for bringing this up, because what the Broadcasting Act should have looked at was conventional broadcasting and the Internet. We did neither.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be joining the debate on this bill once again, at a different stage. I am pleased that my colleague from Saskatoon—Grasswood has moved an amendment, so I am going to speak directly to it. It is about sending Bill C-10 back to committee.

Members know that he has had a 40-year career in broadcasting, which is probably longer than that of any other member in our caucus. We actually featured him in something called “member spotlight” at a caucus meeting, noting his 40-year career using different clips from different videos of his time in sports broadcasting and with CTV as well.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon—University, another one of our colleagues from Saskatchewan who will be adding to this debate.

I first spoke to this bill on February 5. I warned Canadians then that the contents of the bill were going to attack free speech, were calling into question the difference between users and programming, and were trying to jam the Internet age into a broadcasting act that was meant for before the 1990s, for a totally different time before Internet, Wi-Fi, cellphones and everything else.

At the time, I brought up the example of content creators in my riding. A few of them run YouTube channels. They run very successful businesses. Since I am splitting my time with a member from Saskatchewan and the member who spoke before me is from Saskatchewan as well, I want to bring up one of my favourite Instagram TV shows. It is called Leroy and Leroy. I hope the members from Saskatchewan know these two. There is always something to do, and indeed there is. It is a fantastic online content.

One of the latest very funny videos has a sign in the middle of what seems to me like nowhere, and I apologize to all the members from the Saskatchewan caucus for saying this. It is a parking sign in the middle of nowhere, and these two gentlemen turn around and show us that there is nothing there. It is unclear why there is a sign that allows people to park. I assume they can park if they want to.

They are content creators, and they will fall within the ambit of Bill C-10 and its changes to the Broadcasting Act. All of their programming will. It is not them as users, but them as programming providers, as if they were the CBC, as if they were a show like Kim's Convenience or one equivalent to it. They are incredibly funny comedians. It is great content they are producing.

Every expert I have heard, including those from OpenMedia, Michael Geist, Peter Menzies and other former commissioners, has said the exact same thing: YouTube creators, people on IGTV and all others online who are running shops, creating content and trying to get noticed by perhaps one of the large broadcasters are going to fall within the ambit of this legislation. I warned Canadians on February 5 that this was going to happen, and now it is happening.

The minister completely botched the sale job on this legislation, from the time it was before the committee to the time it got to the committee. The member who spoke before me spoke about the fact that he was unable to explain in 15 minutes, on a national TV broadcast, what the bill was about because the bill is all over the place. As I said, the bill tries to jam together the Internet era, the different content creators and the total democracy that now exists. Anybody can create content and anybody can provide it. The middle man is gone now. Anybody can go out there and entertain others, make music for others, give acting classes or provide a how-to for fixing a Jeep. Everything is out there. However, now all of it will perhaps fall within the ambit of this piece of legislation.

We have gotten to the point now where the government is trying to ram it through the House of Commons before the June sitting days are done, because it has recognized that it has botched the management of the House calendar as well. This is entirely the Liberals' fault. There was no reason to rush this through. If they did not like the fact that members of Parliament wanted to provide amendments and hear from more witnesses at the committee, they should have allocated more time. The Liberals should have run the calendar appropriately to avoid situations like the one today. Now they find themselves trying to ram the bill through using undemocratic measures, hoisting it out of committee to ram it through half finished and sending it over to the Senate side. I shudder to think what senators will think of this bill, incomplete as it is.

There is a great Yiddish proverb for this, and members will know that I find Yiddish a charming language and use it very often. It goes, “From fortune to misfortune is but a step; from misfortune to fortune is a long way.” In the case of the minister, every time he has spoken to the bill he has further confused Canadians or made them fear even more for their liberty of expression and for their ability to communicate with others freely and post their opinions and thoughts online without having the government potentially interfere with them through the CRTC.

It is an open question how the CRTC is going to apply and use these powers. It is that uncertainty that is driving so much fear and so much public attention to this bill. This is one of the bills on which I have received the most emails and correspondence and phone calls in my five and a half years in Parliament now.

The member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, who spoke before me, said this was the worst piece of legislation he has ever worked on. I disagree with him. There is a lot of competition for that title coming from the government side, so I am going to disagree with him.

The great misfortune of the minister is that he has been trying to sell a bill that does not match with his words. He has been talking about anti-hate speech legislation. He has been talking about taxing the big web giants and online content providers. As the member for Lethbridge, who spoke before me, mentioned, that is already covered. That is already coming in July. There is already legislation in the books. There is new legislation the minister is going to add, so he keeps confusing the issue, much to his own misfortune, and it is going to affect the fortunes of Canadians. It is going to affect small-time content creators like the creators of Leroy and Leroy, whom I mentioned, and budding comedians, musicians and artists out there who are just trying to provide a service and trying to advertise for themselves using social media platforms.

It is really unfortunate that we find ourselves in a situation now, in the end days of the session in June, where the government feels the urge to just ram this through, push it through as fast as it can with as few eyes as possible on it.

I am just aghast that the Bloc is helping the Liberals along, that the Bloc is helping the most centralizing, free-spending, abusing-of-federal-spending-power government there is and has been in the last 40 years. It is worse than the Chrétien government and worse than the Martin government in its centralization of power in Ottawa. The Bloc is supporting them.

I will repeat that.

It is shameful to see that the Bloc Québécois supports putting an end to the debate on Bill C‑10, forcing a vote and sending the bill to the Senate. The Bloc is helping the most centralizing government we have had in the past 30 or 40 years, one that is worse than the Chrétien and Martin governments.

It is unbelievable. The separatists are helping the Liberals. I just cannot believe that we were brought to this situation, under the guise of getting through a piece of legislation that is so defective in its content.

I have always been a believer, and I have said it many times in this House, that when the government gets it wrong and it cannot be fixed at committee, we should just send it back and make the government redo the work. There is no harm in having the justice department and the heritage department sit down once again and draft a piece of legislation that this House could support. They could just send it back. There are thousands of civil servants whose sole job is to pre-draft legislation based on stakeholder consultation, based on the feedback that they are supposed to get. That is what they exist to do. Many of them are still working from home, so they could take on this task and bring it back in the fall session. Of course, if we do not have a fall session, they will not have it. Perhaps the government is thinking of toppling itself and ensuring that it can run in an election on the free-spending budget that it had in 2021.

However, now we find ourselves again in a situation where, in the span of just a few days, we are going to rush a bill through to the Senate that is incomplete, that would attack freedom of speech and that would not protect content creators. It would protect them as users, but it would not protect any of their content. What is the point of saying “I have free speech” if I cannot say anything online lest I anger the CRTC, lest I anger people? I do not know who they are. I do not know what rules they create. The very basis of our democracy is supposed to be that we know what the rules are so we can abide by them. We do not know what the rules will be. We do not know what the CRTC will like. I truly hope, if future CRTC commissioners are listening, that they will spare Leroy and Leroy.

This is a great amendment from my colleague. We have to vote for the amendment and against Bill C-10.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, I have three questions for the member.

First, is it not true that the very day the Yale report was tabled, the Leader of the Opposition said that he would “throw it in the trash”, without even having a chance to read it?

Second, is it not also true that almost the minute Bill C-10 was tabled, the Conservative Party of Canada said it did not want this bill and it was going to vote it down?

Third, is it not true that the reason there is some controversy is that the Conservative Party created it by fundraising? No one else in this House did that, but you created a controversy, you fundraised on it, and now it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the hon. minister that he is to address all questions and comments through the Chair.

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, is it not true that the minister's own government tabled Bill C-21, the so-called anti-gun bill? When going after lawful firearms owners, the government sent an email to fundraise off the bill and it has barely moved it forward since then.

Is it not true that the minister failed to explain the bill on national TV? Is it not true that the minister failed to carry out his basic duty to make sure he tabled a bill in the House of Commons in its correct format? Is it not true that there are many voices on the left, centre and right of the spectrum that have said the bill is defective? It is not a partisan issue. When we have OpenMedia, Michael Geist, Peter Menzies and Conservatives agreeing, we know we have a defective bill.

Is it not true that the minister failed in his responsibilities?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Shepard for his speech, a few words of which he considerately delivered in what we know is his nearly impeccable French.

However, when my colleague said that it is shameful of the Bloc Québécois to support this government's time allocation motion, I would refer him to the speech I delivered earlier this evening, which would help him understand our reasons for supporting this gag order.

My colleague also talked about the centralizing government, and several members, including the member for Carleton, accused the Bloc Québécois of being centralizing. My answer to that is that the Bloc Québécois would be happy to have Quebec's own version of the CRTC so that it could make its own decisions, but until then, we have to try to do our best with what we have, with is the CRTC and federal regulations.

In answer to the question he seemed to be raising, we are not ashamed at all. We—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drummond for his first comment.

Getting back to the issue of the closure being used right now to force the passage of this bill, the content of the bill is bad for both Quebec and Albertan artists. It will be a bad thing. Our goal here is not to pass a law that will seriously and negatively impact the industry and the people who work in it, like artists and musicians, in all of our ridings.

We are not here to adopt a bill that would receive a D and have it passed by the Senate. We must ensure that the bills we adopt deserve an A+ before being sent to the Senate.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to echo something that the member mentioned about having a lot of emails and phone calls. I have noticed them going up in my own office, being a neighbouring riding. I have been hearing the most from new Canadians and immigrants. Most of them have left countries where freedom of speech is not the liberty that we are supposed to enjoy in this amazing country we live in today, much like the member is an immigrant. I would like him to speak a little more about that.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, there are a lot of people I call new Canadians who come here from other countries where freedom of speech is not taken for granted because it is a very precious right and privilege. In this House, we should be the guarantors of people's constitutional, natural-born rights.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into debate on this faulty bill. I really hope there is some soul-searching by opposition members before this bill is passed. This bill is ridiculous. The minister has done a terrible job explaining it. He cannot explain it because I do not think he fully understands what this bill would do to Canada.

I am first going to talk a bit about my fears about this bill. Central Canada or any governments that believe they can fix a problem with a solution often create more problems. This is what this bill would do. This bill is garbage. It has to be defeated. It has to go back to committee. I get that there is a gag order on it, and I get that the Liberals are trying to push it through, but opposition members have to start asking themselves why they are in Parliament if they do not stand up to a government that is threatening to take away our freedom to express our opinions online. This is dangerous material.

Governments will try to find a solution to a problem. We know that the CRTC needs updating, and we know that helping artists is a valuable inspirational goal. I get that, but it would question our existence as a country and whether we are truly free. If governments are there to tell us what to say, what we can post, what we can hear, what we can see, we are entering a dangerous stage in our country where I fear what this would lead to.

Failed regimes resort to censorship. This is what this bill is. It is telling the citizens of Canada what they can and cannot post, what will be shared and what, through the labyrinth of programs out there, will be heightened on search engines, on Facebook. This bill is something one would see from a failed regime. This is what we are seeing out of Ottawa lately. If we were to crack open a history book, we would see that failed regimes around the world follow a bit of a pattern, and we are seeing that with this bill. We are seeing it with other things that the Liberal government has done. In our history on this planet, a cornerstone of failed regimes is censorship. Another one would be printing money, and that is exactly what the government is doing. We have seen this story play out and it ends terribly for our society.

Maybe that is why the Bloc is supporting it. Maybe Bloc members are the smartest ones and are laughing to themselves as they support this centralizing of powers because they do not want Canada to exist anymore. That is probably why. If that is their political game in supporting this bill, and the Liberals are willing to take separatist support on this bill because it gets Canada closer to, unfortunately, breaking up, maybe that is why the Bloc is supporting it.

However, why are New Democrats supporting it? This is a troubling trend. I have had numerous calls at my office from people saying they are not supporters of mine but of the NDP, and asking what the heck is going on with Bill C-10. It is not too late for NDP members. Constituents should contact their MPs, if they are NDP members, and explain why they are passionate about this bill not proceeding. That is the only way we are going to slow this bill down.

There are elements of it that can be improved at committee. It can get to the stated goal. That is the thing; the stated goal that the Liberals put forward on this bill is nowhere near what it would actually do for the CRTC, such as where it is reporting: from reporting to Parliament, which means 338 representatives from all over Canada, to reporting to the minister's office.

Who would trust the minister? Who would trust the minister after the way he has bungled this rollout and explanation of a censorship bill? I feel sorry for him, but this has got to get scrapped for the sake of our country. I am very hopeful that maybe the parties of other members here are whipping their support on this. I urge them to take a pause, because it is not too late to have those discussions in caucus.

Members can flesh out what would need to be changed for this to work. There is no need for this to be rushed forward in the dying days of this session before summer. There is nothing in here that requires urgency during the middle of a pandemic to force Canadians to change their ability and right to post what they want.

That is what creates fear for our country. There is this march toward centralized power in the Prime Minister's Office, because that is ultimately where the CRTC will report. It will report first to the minister, but we know that he serves at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. I do not believe the minister will stand up to, and not bend over backward for, the Prime Minister.

What does that mean for Canadians? It means that our rights to share our views and our beliefs will be censored in Canada. I cannot think of a more damaging thing for unity in this country than if Canadian citizens are not able to share their views. It is a fundamental freedom that we have cherished in this country. During a pandemic, the government decided that it would like to rush through a bill that would harm our ability to interact with other Canadians.

A lot of things on the Internet are silly and trivial, but there are some truths. We saw this at the G7 convention just recently. People on different social media platforms might have been embarrassed a bit by the Prime Minister talking about newspapers being used to wrap fish and some of the ridiculous comments he made.

Maybe in the future Canadians will not see that anymore. Maybe that is the point. Maybe that is what the government would like to do. It would like to stop the Internet's ability to share what is going on, be it a finance minister who wears no shoes at an international gathering and is mocked around the world, or someone who has embarrassed themselves by wearing blackface.

This bill gives power to the Prime Minister to stop those stories and stop people from being able to broadcast to anywhere in the world what they are seeing in their part of the country. That is the power of technology that has advanced in the last 20 or 30 years, which is our ability to tell our stories directly without going through the middleman of other broadcasters. The CRTC needs to be updated so that we can make sure that we have a modern act that would cover national broadcasts and make sure that we are modernizing our act to reflect the changes in the landscape. However, this bill does not do that.

I would ask all members to please do a soul-searching exercise and reach out to their supporters and the constituents they represent. They should ask them if they want the government to have more control. That is what this bill would do. It would give the government more control. Those who would lose are Canadians and Canadian stories.

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

Madam Speaker, I read all 53 pages of Bill C-10, and when I listen to my colleagues in the official opposition, I have to wonder exactly which clauses indicate that our independent producers will be overtaxed or have the same obligations as the major broadcasters.

Even the preamble says that the CRTC will have to take into account the the variety of broadcasting undertakings and avoid imposing any obligations that could be harmful.

Which clauses are so frightening and need to be changed?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, those would be sections 2.1 and 4.1. There are a lot of examples of improvements that need to be done, and if the committee had not been shut down, as a third-world dictatorship would shut down criticisms and government and committee work, maybe we could get to the actual improvements of this bill. Unfortunately there is a gag order out there. The committee was shut down, and now we are into time allocation so that this gets rammed through with all the errors that we have highlighted.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, what I found fascinating about this speech was when the member started to come up with excuses as to why the Bloc Québécois has chosen to support this. His default, and I think that this is indicative of what Conservatives do, was to say there must be something wrong with them and that it is because they want to leave Canada. He thinks this is all about their grand plan.

Is it possible that perhaps the Bloc just does not agree with him?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, once again the member opposite is showing his hand a little too early on this one. We know that there are potential trade-offs and different arrangements with parties, and there might be something in the negotiation that the government did with that party to get them on board. I do not know. I hope they take this time right now to please think about the importance of decentralizing things in Canada, because the closer that we get to powers being concentrated in Ottawa the worse it is for all regions of this country. That is what this bill would do. It would centralize more power in the Prime Minister's Office. It would centralize more of our abilities in Ottawa versus in the regions, whether in Quebec, western Canada, the Arctic or Atlantic Canada. This bill needs to be reworked.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to be able to say that the member's speech was enlightening, but it was absurd, to be perfectly honest. I would like him to tell me exactly where in this legislation freedom of expression is put at risk, because it is not in the four places in the act where it is explicitly protected. It is not in the place within the legislation where it is explicitly protected, and it is not within the amendments that the heritage committee approved, including Conservative amendments, to protect freedom of expression.

Would he be so kind as to read exactly where that happens, instead of just saying “some places”?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is a bill that would change the way Canadians share their stories, and this is the problem. I would hope that other parliamentarians would take this time for soul searching and to ask what we are doing as parliamentarians to protect freedom of speech, because this is not it. The academic people in our country who have come out against this bill are not typical Conservatives. They are minds that are concerned with the concentration of powers in our country in a select few individuals and what that would mean to our country. I would ask members to please take this time to reconsider their position on this bill, because it would have a lasting effect on our country for many years.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time this evening with the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.

Canadians expect that legislation passed through the House has been subject to rigorous and fulsome debate, and that the members they elect to this chamber have had the opportunity to represent their voices and to be heard. It really is unfortunate that we find ourselves here once again with the Liberal government moving to shut down debate. The scary and concerning irony here is that the primary concern that has been raised on Bill C-10 is its implications for freedom of speech. The Liberal government's persistent steps to silence members of Parliament from defending free speech in this chamber certainly do not alleviate the concerns that Canadians have raised with the legislation before us, including many of my own constituents in Battlefords—Lloydminster.

Bringing forward legislation to modernize the Broadcasting Act is not without merit, and we have heard that this evening. In fact, this act has not been updated since its adoption in 1991. I was only a couple of years old in 1991, but we all know that the broadcasting landscape has changed drastically in the last three decades. There is no doubt that the Internet, technological advancements and evolving platforms certainly require some form of modernization. That is why Conservatives support creating a level playing field between large, foreign streaming services such as Amazon and Netflix and Canadian broadcasters, but Conservatives do not and certainly cannot support deeply flawed legislation that would compromise Canadians' fundamental rights and freedoms.

Bill C-10, in its current form, leaves the door open for a massive abuse of power and abuse of the rights of Canadians. This proposed legislation would allow the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, to regulate user-generated content uploaded to social media platforms. The CRTC's regulatory power would go beyond television, radio and digital platforms if this legislation passes. It would extend the CRTC's power to regulate the free speech of individual Canadians on social media.

This legislation at the outset started with clear exemptions for social media that, due to amendments brought forward by the Liberal members on the heritage committee, are no longer included. If the intention of this legislation was not to regulate individual Canadians or to leave the door open to the possibility of restricting Internet content, then what was the motivation to remove the exemptions?

The Minister of Heritage has failed to provide Canadians with a sufficient answer to that question. The minister has also failed to provide Canadians with clear guidelines on how this power would be used. Giving unelected bureaucrats the authority to censor the Internet and regulate what Canadians post on social media is a radical change.

In our modern digital world, social media plays many roles. Social media is a powerful tool. It is a tool to speak truth to power, to raise opposition, to bring attention to issues and so many more items. The freedom to do that should be unencumbered in a free and democratic society. Those actions should not be subject to abuses of power. Around the world, countries that do not share our values may see fit to enforce such restrictions or regulations, but to move in that direction and to enshrine this power grab is simply unacceptable.

As it is currently drafted, this legislation does not belong in a society that values freedoms. It really is shameful that Conservatives are the only ones in this chamber who are fighting this attack on free speech and opposing Bill C-10. However, to be clear, it is not just Conservatives who are deeply concerned by the implications of this legislation.

The former CRTC commissioner, Peter Menzies, has called the Liberals' Bill C-10 a, “full-blown assault upon...the foundations of democracy”.

Timothy Denton, the former national commissioner of the CRTC has also said, “Forget about 'broadcasting': C-10 is clearly intended to allow speech control at the government's discretion”.

Those powerful and informed criticisms are not to be taken lightly. Free speech is a fundamental Canadian right. Why even leave the door open for any sort of abuse? Many of my constituents in Battlefords—Lloydminster have expressed grave concerns to me about the bill. Many have questioned the Liberal government's intention with the bill.

It has been promoted by the Liberals as a levelling of the playing field between traditional and digital broadcasters, but a look at the details reveals that it goes far beyond that. Will the criticisms of my constituents ultimately be silenced if this legislation is passed?

If those with any sort of following express discontentment with the Prime Minister's repeated attack on our energy sector, the government's failure to support our farmers and our farm families, or any other government policy, will they be subject to these regulations?

Ultimately, the question that gets raised in this debate is the question of whether this legislation is simply a tool to allow the Prime Minister to silence opposition and those who reject his agenda. If that is not the intention, why are we not taking the time to amend and draft the legislation so there is no question?

The concerns that have been raised about this legislation are very serious and the potential impact of this legislation's passage is wide-sweeping. Not only is it completely reasonable for Conservatives on this side of the House to want fulsome consideration of this legislation, I would suggest legislation of this magnitude demands it. That is not where we find ourselves.

The motion is not at the end of fulsome debate, extensive consultation and careful clause-by-clause consideration. In fact, we have not even considered the legislation at this stage, yet we find ourselves considering a motion this evening to limit and to once again shut down debate.

We find ourselves once again at odds with the Liberal government members as they act to silence the voices of those who disagree with them in the House of Commons, actions that will in turn give them the ability to silence the voices of those who disagree with them online.

Canadians can be confident that if this legislation is rammed through Parliament with the support of the NDP and the Bloc, Conservatives are committed to repealing it. However, I would sincerely hope that the Prime Minister and his government would recognize the need to withdraw this legislation and not to rush it.

Given this motion before us, it is clear that the Liberal government is doubling down on its efforts to ram this legislation through Parliament. The stifling of debate is becoming an all-too-common practice under the Liberal government.

First, the Liberals shut down debate on the legislation at committee, limiting the committee's ability to carefully consider every individual clause in this comprehensive bill and now without any debate, at report stage or third reading the Liberals are moving a motion to silence opposition to their flawed bill.

This motion pre-emptively shuts down debate on this legislation before this parliamentary stage, allowing only two hours of debate before sending it to the Senate. I urge my colleagues in the House to seriously consider the impact of this motion. I urge them to consider the serious concerns raised with the proposed legislation and I urge them to reject efforts to hurry it along without proper consideration.