Madam Speaker, it is my first opportunity to speak to Bill C-11 and outline my significant concerns with what the Liberal government is proposing.
I will be sharing my time tonight with my fantastic colleague, the member representing South Shore—St. Margarets.
Let us make no mistake that what is contained within the legislation is extraordinary new powers for the government, through the auspices of the CRTC, to regulate wide swaths of what Canadians can create and watch on the Internet. Moreover, I have never received a letter, email or phone call from a constituent or a content creator in Canada asking the CRTC to regulate the Internet.
A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation on this bill, and one commentator said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I was taken aback for a moment. I had to fully understand why he made that reference, but it got to the crux of the matter, which is that no matter how noble the government’s intended goals may be, this legislation will be an absolute quagmire. It gives the CRTC immense powers. It will give it the power to regulate what Canadians listen to and watch on the Internet, which has never been done before. This bill would also leave the door wide open for the CRTC to even regulate content creators sometime down the road.
Millions of Canadians are rightly alarmed about the Liberal government’s intentions. Bill C-11 would give the CRTC the power to regulate the Internet, and we know the government will introduce a bill in the future to determine what people can say on the Internet. A representative from YouTube who appeared at committee said, “Our concern is that Bill C-11 gives the government control over every aspect of Canadians' experience on YouTube. It does not include effective guardrails on either the powers given to the CRTC or the content to which those powers apply.”
Before I go any further, let us just step back and contemplate the size of the CRTC bureaucracy that will need to be established to undertake what Bill C-11 is trying to achieve. The sheer magnitude of the daily content being created for audiovisual services is hard to wrap one's head around. Across online platforms such as YouTube, podcast apps, websites and everything in between, thousands of hours of content are created in Canada every day. Unlike traditional broadcasters the CRTC regulates, new apps and websites are constantly being created and released to the public. Online platforms have cut out the middleman and dramatically reduced overhead costs, which in previous generations made it difficult for content creators to find an audience. As content creators have discovered, they now have the entire world with which to share their product.
Not only have we seen an extraordinary rise in content creators, but we have also seen several new online companies and platforms emerge. I, for one, welcome this innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, all done without needing tax dollars or regulations. With this in mind, for the CRTC to keep up with all the new platforms in order to regulate them would be impossible. I can imagine it now: hundreds of new CRTC employees scouring the Internet for hours and hours as they look for new platforms they intend to regulate.
Not only is it foolhardy to think the CRTC could ever figure out a way to manage this workload, but it would also be an incredible waste of taxpayers’ dollars, and for what? What are the Liberals trying to accomplish other than to create a mountain of red tape? That question gets to the core of why this legislation is short-sighted and could have disastrous consequences. What happens if the CRTC says it cannot do the job? Does it then come back to the government and ask for legislative powers to demand online platforms apply for authorization before Canadians can access their content? Not only would that be a colossal headache for companies, but many would just walk away from the Canadian market.
Here is another big question: How can the CRTC even impose its jurisdiction on companies that operate outside Canada? Unlike TV channels or radio waves, there is no limit to the number of websites or online platforms. A company might have its headquarters in Europe, its servers in Asia and its IT developers in the United States. While the CRTC might carry a big stick at home, there is no reasonable way for it to enforce its regulations on companies that do not have a single employee in Canada. These are the questions we must be asking.
It is simply impossible to regulate the Internet, as Bill C-11 would inevitably do. As I see this legislation, there will be very limited benefit for the vast majority of Canadians who create content, the Canadians who watch that content and the companies that publish that content. The real issue is, what problem is the government trying to solve? No one, particularly the Minister of Canadian Heritage, has ever provided a solid reason for this Goliath of a bill. The ingenuity and creativity of content creators such as musicians, artists, pundits, bloggers, gamers and everyone in between have been thriving, all without needing the CRTC to regulate the platforms on which they publish.
Never before in the history of our country has there been more Canadian content being created and watched than there is today. For those who want to learn about cooking, follow their favourite folk band, watch a tutorial on how to plant a vegetable garden or listen to people debate politics, all one must do is search for it. Many of those Canadians are generating content or deriving income from their own hard work. Many of them now generate revenue and have even made a full-time job out of it.
According to a 2019 university report, there are an estimated 160,000 Canadian content creators on YouTube alone, including 40,000 who have enough of an audience to monetize their channels. I can only surmise that number has grown since then, and more Canadians have unplugged their cable boxes and now turn to the Internet and online content for their entertainment and news. The reason I am bringing this up is the fact that, through Bill C-11, the Liberals are giving the CRTC the power to regulate the platforms their content is uploaded on.
Internet expert Michael Geist, who has been following this legislation, said, “for all the talk that user generated content is out, the truth is that everything from podcasts to TikTok videos fit neatly into the new exception that gives the CRTC the power to regulate such content as a 'program'.”
This is important because Bill C-11 would give the CRTC the power to write its own regulations. It would be able to determine what is considered the program, which will then fall under its purview. Due to the vague nature of the bill, no one knows what could possibly be deemed a program.
Mr. Geist also wrote about how this bill is created, stating:
[It] is a legislative pretzel, where the government twists itself around trying to regulate certain content. In particular, it says the CRTC can create regulations that treat content uploaded to social media services as programs by considering three factors:
[First,] whether the program that is uploaded to a social media service directly or indirectly generates revenue;
[Second,] if the program has been broadcast by a broadcast undertaking that is either licensed or registered with the CRTC;
[Third,] if the program has been assigned a unique identifier under an international standards system.
The Liberals can get up to say that user-generated content is exempt, but they cannot say that with any great confidence. As a parliamentarian, I am not comfortable with giving so much power to a body that is not directly accountable to Canadians. If Bill C-11 simply wanted to regulate Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and the other large streaming services, we would be having a completely different conversation. I implore my Liberal colleagues to shelve this bill and go back to the drawing board. There are too many questions and too many concerns for it to proceed.
In closing, I want to stress how unrealistic and impractical it is to regulate the Internet. The consequences of this poorly drafted legislation would likely be to weaken consumer choice and hurt the potential of Canadian creators. I, for one, cannot and will not vote in favour of a bill that would grant the CRTC so much power. Canadians are rightly very concerned that this is overreach by the current Liberal government.
