The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-18 Thursday, the second part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s three-phase censorship legislation. In the process, the Conservative Party’s chief critic of the legislation was censured on Wednesday and was unable to attack the bill from the floor of the House of Commons.
C-18 will force social media companies to pay Canadian media to post news stories. In protest of the bill, Meta has already put Canada on notice that it will cease providing Canadian users with news content.
It was the second of three bills that are designed for the federal government to manage the internet. The Canadian Senate passed the Online Streaming Act, or Bill C-11, on Apr. 27 as part of what it calls its “digital agenda.” This bill demands “Canadian content” from those internet contributors.
Now the Liberals have put their sights on internet providers.
The Liberal government has advanced its agenda through Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez after initially trying to move the legislation through the justice department.
Conservative Heritage Critic Rachael Thomas may have called Rodriguez “a liar” for suggesting all Canadian media would benefit from C-18. The House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota censured Thomas for her alleged remarks, infuriating the Official Opposition.
MPs may enjoy “Parliamentary privilege” that allows them to speak without fear of legal reprisals, but they are forbidden to use “unparliamentary language” in describing a colleague.
Banned from speaking in the House, Thomas put her criticism on social media, tweeting, “Bill C-18 puts the government squarely in the center of the newsroom. Canadians deserve unbiased news coverage. Journalists deserve to function as professionals independent of government pressure.”
twitter.com/RachaelThomasMP/status/1671250319127330818?s=20
MP Michelle Rempell-Garner (CPC-Calgary-Nosehill), who has been a severe critic of Trudeau’s “digital agenda” attacked the bill in Thomas’ absence.
“All this is going to do is empower colonial voices in downtown Toronto that have controlled the media and controlled what Canadians have heard for too long and it’s going to line their pockets and the pockets of their shareholders where diverse voices suffer and that’s why it has to stop.”
Bill C-18 might be called an internet extortion bill that will force Big Tech companies that “make news content available” to pay Canadian news publishers for the privilege. This will require smaller new media outlets that are not subsidized by the Liberal government to potetnially enter into litigation that could lead to bankruptcy.
While what’s remaining of the legacy media in Canada have viewed the bill as an opportunity to benefit from big tech, new media are opposed to the bill because they fear the cost of litigating their new relationship with social media outlets will be financially onerous.
The third part of Trudeau’s internet censorship is the proposed Online Safety Act and will go further than the first two bills in regulating expression on the internet.
The legislation was first introduced exactly two years ago, on June 23, 2021 – just in time for Parliament’s summer recess and a fall election. “This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create a recognizance to keep the peace relating to hate propaganda and hate crime and to define “hatred” for the purposes of two hate propaganda offences.”
The Liberals have been meeting with like-minded people as they prepare to re-introduce the bill – which this time around will deal extensively with “disinformation.” Disinformation is another term that is ultimately both meaningless and menacing. Though disinformation is entirely in the eye of the beholder, in the government’s hand it is a lethal weapon to strangle free speech.