BILL C-10

 

BILL C-10

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU E. CHISU, CD, PMSC,
FEC, CET, P. Eng.
Former Member of Parliament
Pickering-Scarborough East
BILL C-10 An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act, leading to censorship and further limiting our freedom of speech.
As the third wave of the pandemic precipitates a real healthcare crisis in Canada, the Trudeau government is again meddling with our freedoms, instead of concentrating on handling the crisis at hand.  They are proposing to regulate the internet and censor social media, despite an apparently clear constitutional problem with doing so.
Parliament's authority over broadcasting derives from paragraph 92(10)(a) of the Constitution Act and is factually based on the use of radio waves to carry broadcast programming to listeners and viewers. The courts determined that cable television is an extension of over-the-air broadcasting. All of which was based on the notion that radio waves crossed provincial and international boundaries.
Streaming services do not use assigned radio frequencies to reach their audience. Hence, they are not, themselves, interprovincial undertakings. For the delivery of content, online streaming services depend on telecommunications carriers to transport programming across provincial and international boundaries.
The mere fact of relying on telecommunications to conduct one's business is not enough to bring an enterprise within federal legislative authority. Netflix and Spotify are not broadcasters: they are, respectively, a digital video store and digital jukebox. Federal legislation has never reached to the regulation of video stores or jukeboxes - or cinemas for that matter.
How can the mere fact of digital transmission change the fundamental nature of the underlying undertaking?
The implications of this argument are very significant.  It suggests that even if Bill C-10 makes it through the Parliamentary process, a constitutional challenge is a distinct possibility.
By proposing Bill C-10 the government is treading on dangerous ground, making a covert move in the style well known in the legislation regarding media, in former communist countries.
This Bill is definitively a covert one. Under big ideas and a pretense to help the public and tax big international entertainment corporations for the benefit of taxpayers and local entertainment and media the Bill is introducing limitations on the use of the internet and social media by individuals.
This government imposed limitations are, in plain language, called censorship. All Canadians should be aware of this alarming piece of legislation, moving forward under the radar, in which the government calls for state regulation of the internet and social media.
At the outset of the clause by-clause revisions of Bill C-10 on April 19, Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Chair Liberal MP, Scott Simms set the tone: "Buckle up, folks. This is the fundamental core of parliamentary democracy at its best. It's going to be an exciting time-so exciting that we'll probably sell the story rights to Netflix."
Of course, such a declaration should alert us to be circumspect.  Just what will we find buried under the covers if we buy into this option?…
As the discussions on the proposed bill moved forward at the parliamentary committee, with amendments introduced by parties, the government, through the voice of MP Julie Dabrusin, parliamentary secretary of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, decided to remove Bill C-10's section 4.1, which reads:
"This Act does not apply in respect of (a) programs that are uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service - who is not the provider of the service or the provider's affiliate, or the agent or mandatary of either of them - for transmission over the Internet and reception by other users of the service; and (b) online undertakings whose broadcasting consists only of such programs."
This section "seemed to have created some confusion for people as to whether or not social media is excluded or included, so we recommend actually voting against 4.1. The reason I should be recommending that is we would be making clear that social media is included if they're acting like a broadcaster," said Dabrusin.
The official line on bill C-10 is a strong attempt to dissemble. They claim that censorship was not the intent, that the government is not regulating the use of the internet and social media by individuals, and the committee has adopted clause (2.1) in C-10 on April 19 which says:
"A person who uses a social media service to upload programs for transmission over the Internet and reception by other users of the service - and who is not the provider of the service or the provider's affiliate, or the agent or mandatary of either of them - does not, by the fact of that use, carry on a broadcasting undertaking for the purposes of this Act."
However, the devil is in the details. By the verbiage and wordsmithing of the legislation and the cloudy interpretations of it, the Bill tries to give assurance that in fact the best intention of the government is not censorship.
However, these types of actions are well known for being inspired by fascist and communist type thinking; limiting democratic rights of communications by individuals and only channelling information to the public that is in line with government agenda and talking points.
If you look closely at the Bill as it has been amended by the committee, it would appear to exempt individual users from being considered broadcasters.  The catch is, that anybody can be categorized as a broadcaster at the pleasure to the government regulator….Great…
There are many other aspects of the Bill debated at the committee and soon it will come to a vote.
If the Bill is voted into legislation, there are serious questions about what it will mean for our freedom of speech.
Wake up Canada!