Mr. Speaker, in 1951, when Ray Bradbury was writing Fahrenheit 451, it was a time not unlike 2023. Fahrenheit 451 presented an American society in the year 2049 where firemen were employed to burn outlawed books, along with the houses they were hidden in, because of a government deciding what people could see and what they could say.
Ray Bradbury described his book as depicting political correctness as an allegory for the censorship in the book. He called it the real enemy and labelled it as thought control and control over freedom of speech.
When the book was written, it was a time of massive social change and technological revolution. Hearings in the U.S. investigated Americans with alleged communist ties. Nuclear warfare was fresh. The golden age of radio occurred between the 1920s and the late 1950s and the television launched into living rooms in the 1950s, which changed how people consumed media and news.
Governments took actions to make sure the news and the artists they thought should be promoted in this technological shift would be promoted, and the ones they did not like would be censored.
The house un-American activities committee held hearings to investigate alleged communist ties. The Hollywood 10, a group of influential screenwriters, were blacklisted, and of course everyone remembers the Truman Doctrine and McCarthy hearings.
The government's interference in the affairs of artists and creative types infuriated Bradbury, who was bitter and concerned about government intervention, and he then wrote Fahrenheit 451. Fast forward to 2023, and we have absolute parallels with those government interventions in Bill C-11. Just like Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury would not be impressed with the government's looking to interfere in the affairs of artists and creators at a time of immense technological change.
We have the Internet, social media and AI. We use smart phones every day and we use tablets. It is an incredible time and certainly we all, in the House, want to see our Canadian artists and content creators be successful. In fact, we want to release the shackles and ensure all creators are immensely successful.
It is not done by government intervention; it is done by breaking down barriers so artists can succeed. There is no culture without freedom of expression, but do not take it from me. Take it from the creators themselves. We have heard all week how Margaret Atwood called this “creeping totalitarianism”.
A YouTuber and TikToker named Kallmekris has said, “I am scared...Bill C-11 was supposed to promote Canadian storytelling online. In reality, the bill has ended up so broadly worded that it lets the CRTC interfere with every part of your online life. That includes manipulating your feed and search results.” Another YouTuber, J.J. McCullough, says, “What Canadians want is what Canadian culture is, not what the government says it should be.” According to a Regina TikToker named Tesher, “C-11 would limit that reach by requiring creators to prioritize government criteria for domestic distribution over making content optimized for global audiences.”
Through this legislative measure, the government is preparing to give itself the power to control what Canadians can listen to or watch online. For example, instead of offering people more content based on their interests on platforms such as YouTube, the government would force those platforms to promote content that it deems to be a priority. It argues that the order of priority would be established according to the Canadian nature of the content.
For example, instead of giving a Canadian more of what they want on platforms such as YouTube, the government would choose what it wants Canadians to see. Let us be clear: Big tech would still monopolize algorithms and government would shut down the voices of individual Canadians.
What is worse is that it would open the door for other governments to do the same. We already know how strict buy America has been for Canadian manufacturing, and we fight it every day. What would happen if they emulated the strategy against Canadian creators by emulating a “buy or view America” against Bill C-11? If we control Canadian content, sooner or later they would control America content, shutting Canadian content creators out of America. It is cultural warfare.
Another glaring fact is that people have to want to watch it, not be forced to watch it.
Let us talk about innovation and competition as an alternative to this bill. The answer to seeing increased competition and innovation is to release the shackles of Canadian content creators, and I have an idea for creators. Let us see a Canadian Netflix competitor created that plays Canadian content. We would call it “Canuck-Flix”. Does that not sound good? Canuck-Flix would have the ability to showcase Canadian talent, showcase Canadian television and, of course, have creators put that content online. That is real competition.
There is a great show in my riding, airing right now on Bell's Fibe, called Stoney Lonesome. It is filmed entirely in Belleville. It stars some really great professionals in some great local backdrops. They are 10-minute episodes that are very funny, content-created and something they want to see outside and to compete with others. That is a great example of great Canadian content, and we should be promoting it.
Tomorrow is a very special day, my eldest son Jack's 10th birthday. I look forward to his future, and all of us as parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents wish all our children, Canada's children, equality of opportunity for success in whatever each of them wants to achieve and do in this country, whether that be in sports or as researchers, volunteers or, dare I say, politicians, to be whatever they want to be. The government's role is not to tell them what to be; it is to assist in breaking down any barrier that does not allow them to be what they want to be, and this bill would not do that.
Today's creators do not function according to the same rules as previous generations did. Today's creators exist in a new space and have new ideas, freedoms and choice. Choice is a fundamental right of Canadians and an absolute necessity for competition. Competition allows Canadians to make their own choices so they themselves can choose which content goes viral and which does not. It allows Canadians to succeed or to fail, but it allows Canadians to allow the free market to dictate what success is like and what it is not.
I share the desire of the member for Lethbridge, who has been an incredible advocate for this cause and for which she deserves a round of applause, for Canadians to know that this bill would impact them in two areas. It would censor what they see and it would censor what they say. With regard to what they see, if a Canadian government determines what gets promoted and what gets demoted, it means it is censoring what Canadians can see.
Furthermore, this bill would censor what an individual can say or post online. Creative talent here in Canada would no longer succeed based on merit, as it does now. Instead, content would be subject to a list of criteria that the government has not released yet. Let us make that clear. We would have a list of criteria by which the government would determine just what Canadian content is, and yet we have not seen it. As parliamentarians, we have no idea of the content of that list or how it would determine what is Canadian or not. Therefore, it would be left up to interpretation or, as I like to say, to the greatest line I have ever heard, “I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
Through that, the government directed that those criteria have to be weighed and measured to see if they are met by the artists. If they are, they would be deemed Canadian. How do we fancy that? If they are not, they would not be discoverable, and those that are not discoverable would be bumped down the list of search engines, on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, or whatever. That is censorship, not only what viewers can see but also, for creators, what we can say.
The bill is a travesty of Canadian freedoms that needs to be replaced. Here are the alternatives: a bill that updates the Broadcasting Act, that promotes all Canadian artists and creators without censorship, what one sees and says; the promotion and development of our arts and culture in Canada, celebrating great artists, great content and the arts, which we know all do well and are incredible; and a new tax code that taxes big tech. Conservatives agree with that.
Some have said this bill is all about only taxing big tech. It is a little part of this bill. A larger part of the bill is what people can say and what they can see, but we need to also have a separate bill. If that were the case, why was this bill not separated into a tax bill that just did that? We are all about doing things we say we are going to do. If this were about Canadian creators creating more content, this would be under creative arts funding and entrepreneurship. There are a lot of great things.
I am going to leave everyone with a quote before I end. It is a great quote by Diefenbaker, because it really summarizes what we believe on the Conservative side and what we believe for Canadians. He said, “I am Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.”
Another great saying that is attributed to Voltaire is, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Fahrenheit 451 ends with the symbolism of the legendary phoenix. It is an endless cycle of long life, death in flames, rebirth and the symbolism that the phoenix must have some relationship to mankind, which constantly repeats its mistakes, but men and women have something the phoenix does not. Mankind can remember its mistakes and try to never repeat them.
Let us repeal this bill, let us come back and get it right and let us make sure we respect the fundamental right of freedom of Canadians.
