Madam Speaker, I started my speech by quoting John F. Kennedy, who said that when the rights of one person are diminished, the rights of all men are threatened. One of the greatest rights we have in free and democratic societies is the right to speak and be heard. What this piece of legislation would do is regulate the ability for people to be heard on the Internet. It is not me saying this. All kinds of academics went to committee, and I quoted Dr. Michael Geist. The challenge is that the government is not even listening to them. It is not listening to the academics who came forward, and it is not listening to some of our greatest writers. I mentioned Margaret Atwood.
The challenge right now with this piece of legislation is that it is for future governments, and once these powers have been given to any government, ultimately they are going to be abused. We have seen the government's track record, and it is something that Canadians are not proud of.