Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Saskatoon—University.
I am thankful for this opportunity to rise again and speak to the government's disastrous bill, Bill C-11, the online streaming act, which would regulate the Internet and stymie free expression. It is ironic that the government claims to be modernizing the Canadian Broadcasting Act by creating a “flexible, fair and modern” approach, when in fact the bill would punish Canadian digital creators and move Canada's cultural, creative and media industries backwards.
It is disheartening to see that the criticisms and calls for reform coming from Internet and media experts, former CRTC commissioners, and Canadian artists and creators themselves are being ignored. Bill C-11 is an example of what happens to a government that has been in power for far too long. It has forgotten who it serves. Frankly, it has grown fat on entitlement and hubris.
This bill gives unacceptable and inappropriate permission to the government, and any future government, to control Canadians' use of the Internet with respect to what they choose as content, what they watch and listen to and even how to express themselves freely online in a public square. The greater danger of Bill C-11 is that it opens the door to an increasing government manipulation of technology and algorithms for the purpose of social control. Why would any government want to limit expression in a strong, free and democratic society such as Canada? It wants to do this simply for power and to seek control.
Any government can give into the temptation of overstepping its authority when it is left in power for far too long. When there are too few checks and balances in place and when institutional legacy media begins to do the bidding of the governing party, the system breaks down and the doors for the thought police open. When that happens, all of the freedoms and liberties we take for granted in this precious country slowly disappear, even freedoms in our own homes. Government, if given the chance and opportunity, will trespass into telling us what we can watch even in our own homes by using algorithms that will determine the content we see online and the narratives we hear.
This is what we must guard against. Clause 7 of Bill C-11 specifically gives permission to cabinet to direct the CRTC with regard to this legislation. The bill requires that online platforms prioritize Canadian content over non-Canadian content. It grants the CRTC the ability to require platforms such as YouTube and Facebook to change and manipulate algorithms and search engines to meet government directives. What does this mean? It means this bill gives the government control over what Canadians see, what they post and what they watch online. Bill C-11 will also give Ottawa bureaucrats the power to regulate any content that generates revenue directly or indirectly, which could apply to most user content online.
The government had a chance to accept the Senate's amendments to narrow the scope and protect Canadian content, but it failed to do that. It failed to do the right thing and voted against the Conservative amendments. Why? I would argue it is because the government does not trust Canadians with their own thoughts and their own freedoms, and is, in fact, trying to expand its control of Canadians online, even in the privacy of their own homes.
Jeanette Patell, the head of Canada government affairs and public policy at YouTube, explained it like this: “[Bill C-11] explicitly give[s] a government regulator authority over what content is prioritized, and how and where content is presented to Canadians, handing the CRTC the power to decide who wins and who loses”.
Timothy Denton, who is a former CRTC commissioner and chair of the Canada chapter of the Internet Society, said this about Bill C-11: “C-11 makes user-generated videos or podcasts—virtually anything involving sound or video—subject to CRTC regulation. Indeed it is a wonder the government stopped there: why not regulate email as well? Nor does the regulation of speech stop at Canada’s borders. Bill C-11 permits the CRTC to exercise global authority over 'programs' in any language, from any source.” He goes on to say, “The CRTC is all about control: who gets to speak, within what limits, how often, and to what effect. Usually the control is exercised indirectly, but in this case it was overt.”
Bill C-11 would empower government-dictated algorithms to decide what one can see and which videos and sources are Canadian enough to see. Conspicuously, there is no definition of what is classified as Canadian content in the bill, which focuses on Canadian content.
Moreover, the current definition used by the CRTC is so antiquated and so narrow that it eliminates productions like the The Canadian Story and The Handmaid's Tale, which were filmed in Canada with Canadian actors and Canadian producers, or Netflix's major francophone film Jusqu'au déclin, which was made and written in Quebec.
I would argue that the bill is a form of censorship that is more insidious than a government-issued order, mandate, or sanction because, in this case, Canadians will not know what they are being censored for. If the bill passes, bureaucrats behind closed doors, subject to the will of their political masters, will issue directives to manipulate algorithms and control the search bar in people's homes. Canadians will never know what is not being allowed. In this scenario, the government could control what is presented to them and what is put in their very mind by controlling what they see.
Canadian creators would not know the reason why their content is not going viral. Canadian creators will never know when their content is being demoted by government-dictated algorithms. This is a form of technocratic control. I fear, as many Canadians do, that this technocratic control will grow as our society becomes more digitally dependent on artificial intelligence and Internet-connected smart technologies.
As parliamentarians, it is our duty and our responsibility to serve the interests of Canadians and uphold the rights and freedoms of all Canadians. The bill is an attack on freedom of choice and freedom of expression of all Canadians online. We must not allow the government to creep down a path that leads to silencing critics by promoting some voices over others that politically suit its ends.
In closing, I want to say that creativity blossoms in a culture of freedom and not control. We need to go back to the days when governments served the people. As we consider the bill, I urge all parliamentarians in the House to remember our great foundations of freedom upon which this country was built: the freedom to think, the freedom to speak, and the freedom to live without government interference.
