The House of Commons on Tuesday passed the Liberals’ controversial Online Streaming Act. Conservatives and Green Party MP Morrice Mike voted against the motion, but the Liberals were joined by the NDP and Bloc Québécois in favouring it.
The legislation still needs to pass through the Senate before it can be introduced into Canadian law. Canada’s upper house has called for a review of the Online Streaming Act in the fall.
“Given the multiple efforts to cut off debate and limit discussion of amendments, not a surprise,” said Professor Michael Geist (@mgeist), Canada Research Chair in internet and eCommerce law at the University of Ottawa.
Heritage Minister @pablorodriguez got Bill C-11 through House, but at what cost? Ignored concerns of 1/3 of witnesses, didn’t hear from indigenous broadcasters, cut off debate multiple times, and leveraged an embarrassing clause-by-clause review. 2/2https://t.co/UUujErlmjY
— Michael Geist (@mgeist) June 21, 2022
The Online Streaming Act, also known as Bill C-11, aims to give the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) authority over online streaming companies in a similar way to which the watchdog regulates traditional broadcasters.
It was tabled by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez in February as an amendment to the Broadcasting Act. While the bill has now been passed by the House of Commons, it was arguably rushed through the lower floor of the Canadian parliament.
There has been significant public and commercial pushback against Bill C-11. Canadian residents, businesses, and online platforms are all concerned the bill might give the CRTC the power to regulate user-generated content on the internet.
What’s more, CRTC chair Ian Scott has lent credence to these concerns by admitting the legislation could bring user-generated content into the regulator’s purview in hearings with the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
Scott previously told MPs that Bill C-11 would give the CRTC “some authority” over user-generated content. Section 4.2 of the bill “allows the CRTC to prescribe by regulation user uploaded content subject to very explicit criteria,” he said.
However, the Liberals insist there is no threat of regulation to users, even digital-first creators with millions of subscribers. Liberal MP Tim Louis, a member of the Standing Committee, also branded criticism of Bill C-11 as mere “misinformation.”
16 of 48 witnesses who testified before the Standing Committee in a recent hearing raised concerns over the possibility of the CRTC being able to regulate user-generated content. That amounts to 1/3 of the people who spoke at the hearing challenging the government’s claims about Bill C-11.
Unfortunately, the feds have chosen to ignore the concerns raised so far, not answer critics’ questions to satisfaction, and steamroll proposals and discussions regarding amendments to Bill C-11
In addition to CRTC regulation, Bill C-11 also seeks to push taxes onto online streaming platforms.
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China has their Great Firewall of China. Now we have Trudeau’s.
And, as expected, Singh was an obedient pet.
To harsh
Which part?
The vulgarity of nuts sniffing, insultingly equating a person to a dog…
I thought they were apt.
Maybe I strayed too far into lowbrow metaphor. Let’s see if I can make it more sophisticated, like Justin is when he is so suave in his insults towards our own deplorables.
Singh should have enough pride and dignity not to be the one dutifully carrying and helping to apply Justin’s blackface paint.
In short, I would not have expected Singh to be so occupied with stroking Justin’s ego and enabling his deranged government.
Yep, no need to go low. My thinking was that a person confident in a solidity of their argument rarely has to yell or resort to personal insults. Not never, just rarely.
To be clear, I’m not saying this particular argument is that solid because why would anyone expect that pride and dignity would govern a politician’s decisions? It’s interests and whatever either side can get out of the horse trading.
I don’t think Singh is preoccupied with pleasing Trudeau; he is keeping his end of the bargain because he expects something in return. And he will eventually withdraw his support, if not sooner out of principle (probably unlikely), then when it’s in his interest.
That’s the thing, he gets basically nothing in return to being the one person preventing the government from collapsing. It’s actually against his interests. He didn’t even get a junior partner position in a coalition because Justin wouldn’t let him call it a coalition. His own party must be wondering when they all signed up to join the LPC. He can’t withdraw on principle when he has no principles. He’ll withdraw only when Justin does.
The obedient dog seems more and more apt and not at all insulting.
He wasn’t seeking a cabinet position or the coalition. As per Toronto Star article:
“ He also said he never wanted to enter into a coalition government in which the NDP would have cabinet seats, and that if the Liberals offered one he wouldn’t have accepted it.”
The deal is that the NDP will prop up the Liberals on all confidence and budget votes until June 2025. They will get in return a commitment that the Liberals will implement certain policies that NDP wants to see: a national dental care program for low-income Canadians, something NDP has been calling for even before federal elections. Liberals are obligated to start that program this year for children under 12, and expand it to all low-income Canadians ($90,000 per year) without dental in 3 years. Also they will have to pass the legislation on national pharma-care program by the end of next year.
I wouldn’t call that an obedient dog. You may question the sincerity of his intentions but this is not the servility you are describing.
So, in effect, he got nothing. An agreement to prop up a minority gov generally means a coalition so that the junior party has some say. Instead, Singh sold out for beans. Everything he got was on the liberal agenda anyway, because it is simply new spending from a government that never met a dollar they didn’t want to go into debt to spend. The “commitment” he sold out for was no more than a pinky swear, for things they were likely to do anyway.
A more appropriate metaphor might then have been a prostitute, except a prostitute usually gets paid. Too low?
Yeah, a little bit. Your claim that he got nothing because all of that was already on the Liberal agenda and they were likely to do it anyway? Since when do you suddenly started believing Liberal promises, consider them a done deal?
But let’s not pretend we don’t know what he got out from that deal. He got to effectively block Conservatives from getting in position of power for another 3 years and they can’t do anything about that. They can just hate him for it. Well, unless the Convoy 2.0 removes Trudeau from power on Canada Day.
I’m actually holding hope it will be the RCMP that will remove Justin from power, now that he himself has confirmed that his actions met the criteria to be charged with criminal fraud.
Very disappointed but not surprised. This is yet another step in the wrong direction by this government.
Good luck regulating VPN and DNS going be hard how are they going to do that
CRTC language Trying to protect Canadians from America culture
#1 Canadian content first priority every Canadian household
#2 More Canadian Content Throw in Canadian faces that don’t want
#3 American content below the bottom
#4 VPN and DNS hold my beer
Get ready Canadians Let’s go to the GERY MARKET route
Thank God we’re living right beside the U.S access of stuff
we watch what we want to watch NOT government they can’t tell we can’t watch
This government is out of touch 😅
And the award for the stupidest government in the west goes to…
You can replace”west” with “world”. At least we’re in the Guinness Book of World Records.
I don’t know about the world, as terrible as Canada has been for the past `${enterTheAmountOfYearsTrudeauHasBeenInPower}`, I think the CCP is doing a worse job
CCP is america 2.0. They are winning as they look at the big picture for a hundred years while we only have a 4 year attention span.
In case someone confused Kanukistan with a democracy, here’s the reset. Not the “Great Reset” but still….