LAKELAND - "I will fight day and night for this bill not to pass because Canadian voices and freedom matter."
Fort McMurray-Cold Lake MP David Yurdiga and Lakeland MP Shannon Stubbs have voiced their thoughts on the federal government's proposed Bill C-10, otherwise known as An Act to Amend the Broadcasting Act.
"The Liberals claim their intention is to bring streaming platforms such as Netflix, Crave, Spotify and Amazon Prime under the existing regulations that apply to traditional broadcasters, which would result in online platforms having to provide financial support to Canadian content and creators," Stubbs said. "The issue with the legislation is that it gives sweeping power to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to regulate the internet, including individual users, with no clear guidelines for how that power will be used."
The most recent amendments made to the bill restrict the CRTC's power, while still allowing them to be able to ask a platform about their revenues, and request a certain percentage of those revenues be shared with Canadian cultural production funds. They also allow the CRTC to draft rules requiring a social media platform to have a certain number of Canadian artists pop up in your suggested videos.
According to Yurdiga, in a press release, Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault "has made many bold claims about the content of the bill. That it won’t affect Canadian ownership requirements."
"He claims that they are only targeting 'Web Giants' and individuals using sites were exempt from the bill. Later in the second reading of the bill, the clause that protected individuals was removed," Yurdiga continued.
Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole has called on the federal government to withdraw the bill, stating, “In a society that values freedom of speech and expression, Bill C-10 leaves the door open for a massive abuse of power on the rights of Canadians."
Yurdiga compared the bill to essentially giving the CRTC "a blank check."
"The law will give the CRTC the power to judge the content of our free media. The bill gives this power to the CRTC with no determined conditions. They need to realize that people’s voices matter and that their opinions should not be silenced," he expressed.
O'Toole said while the Conservative Party supports creating a level playing field between large foreign streaming services and Canadian broadcasters they would rather do so without compromising peoples' rights and freedoms.
Stubbs agreed, "That is why Conservatives proposed to protect individual users and smaller players in the market by exempting streaming services and social media users with lower revenues. The Liberals rejected this common-sense compromise. Bill C-10 is another unacceptable attempt by the Liberals to target individual freedoms, potentially stop content that opposes their narrative, and gives the government unnecessary and over reaching powers."
Stubbs noted, Guilbeault has promised an amendment to the bill "to clarify the impact and protections for individual Canadians on social media, to ensure that it would not regulate personal social media posts, but the changes do not give that assurance."
If passed, it's hard to know exactly what changes the public would see, something Stubbs expressed concern over.
"There is no clear direction as to what exactly those changes will be, there are glaring gaps like not even a definition of 'social media,' and no concrete protections for free expression of individual Canadians on a variety of platforms, which is why Conservative MPs and several experts are cautioning about C-10 and its implications for everyone. The legislation does not include clear guidelines defining the powers to censor, and so far, the Heritage Minister in charge of the bill has made multiple contradictory or unfounded statements when trying to justify it," she told Lakeland This Week.
The bill is currently being debated and amended in the Heritage Committee. According to Stubbs, on May 10, it was reported that the committee will pause review of the bill in order to hear testimony from ministers and panel experts.
One item Stubbs believes the public may be interested to know is three weeks ago the Liberals voted against a section of the bill "that would have at least partially exempted individual users who upload videos to social media sites like YouTube and Facebook from CRTC regulation."
"Then the Heritage Minister did a 180, promised to rework the legislation, and is vowing that the government is only planning to go after tech giants and professional online videos, music and podcasts, rather than individual’s social media, but this only came after receiving mass criticism. Yet, just this week the Liberals still cannot give guidelines or clear protections, so I think Canadians are right to be skeptical about their claims," detailed Stubbs.
Stubbs continued, "The Liberals’ ongoing repetitive rhetoric is that Conservatives are just trying to fear monger, but as usual it’s an attempt to hope that somehow the general public will miss the fact that they are targeting ordinary Canadians. Conservatives have been speaking out and using every option available to get this information to individuals, and to stand up for Canadians’ rights and freedoms, and will continue to oppose this current bill at every stage of the legislative process."
Meagan MacEachern, Bonnyville Nouvelle
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