Senator hopes ‘nonpartisan’ committee study of C-11 will clear up ‘misinformation’ around Online Streaming Act

The Senate’s upcoming review of the Online Streaming Act will be a good opportunity to clear up "misinformation" circulated by opponents of the bill and dive into concerns dismissed by its proponents, according to Alberta senator Paula Simons, who added it is the Senate’s responsibility to explain to Canadians what the bill actually does and does not do. “So that people have a clearer understanding about what's actually in this legislation,” the Independent Senators Group member said. “There has been more heat than light around some of this debate. And there's so much misinformation out there, and so much disinformation about this bill, that I think that the Senate has that important responsibility.” A fresh pair of eyes will be reviewing the Liberal government’s controversial Online Streaming Act, also known as Bill C-11, as the Senate gears up to study the bill on a tight Nov. 18 deadline for its third-reading vote. The deadline was struck in a deal with Senate leadership. The Senate's Transport and Communications committee will continue its pre-study of the bill early next month, and its official study once the bill passes second reading. “The benefit of the Senate is that we are nonpartisan. I’m not running for re-election, I’m not trying to make a partisan point. We are sincerely interested in crafting a public policy without much concern with what it means politically – not completely without concern because we do live in a political universe, but it is our job to actually give the bill honest analysis without the inherent bias that comes with it,” Simons said. Simons said there has been a lot of misunderstanding over the bill, mainly an “authentic genuine belief” that C-11 is a censorship bill which will give Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the power to edit or censor Canadians’ tweets and social media posts. “And if there's any opportunity to try to alleviate some people's fear about what this bill does or doesn't do then it's also worth it from that perspective… I don't know how possible it will be – given all of the misinformation about the bill out there – to get that kind of clarity, but I'm going to try.” Simons said that some opponents of Bill C-11 have been focusing on “nonsensical” issues rather than fixing actual significant problems. She pointed to a Bill C-11 explainer video, created and posted on Twitter by former-Conservative party leader Andrew Sheer in June, in which he used the caption “I’m not sure how long the government will let this video stay up.” “That's nonsensical. There are significant problems with this bill so let's get to work fixing those actual problems in the bill and let’s not make up imaginary ones just to inflate a political base,” Simons said. Simons said the bill is about Canadian content on the internet and the regulation of the internet and “not a censorship bill.” “There are potential downstream impacts on your freedom of choice – that is different than your freedom of speech,” she said. Senator Pamela Wallin, who sits with Simons on the committee that will be studying the bill, said her main concern is in fact freedom of speech. Wallin, who is part of the Canadian Senators Group, argued that it is archaic to impose CRTC rules meant for legacy broadcasting media on the internet. “So I think there's just a fundamental problem with the concept, with the idea, and that I think it's been pointed out to them in many different ways by many different sources, but they came back with Bill C-11 and didn't really address that,” she said. “I think they’re motivated by the desire to extract more money from the platforms… but I think that they didn't need to do this in order to accomplish that.” “So it's a need or the desire to control and monitor what's on the internet,” she said. “ It flies in the face of the basic concept of free speech.” Despite all the debate which has already taken place around the bill, Canadians at large remain divided over what Bill C-11 actually means, according to the senators. Senators’ inboxes have been “bombarded” for months now according to Simons and independent senator Bernadette Clement. Clement said she has received 22,000 emails regarding Bill C-11, two dozen meeting requests from stakeholders, and higher than average engagement on her TikTok when the bill is mentioned. “People are still trying to understand how the bill works so I think it would be great to build a more common understanding about what this bill will do and does not do. So I think we need more conversation around that,” Clement said. “So I think this is an opportunity to have a lot of conversations from all different perspectives.” Clements said it is hard to predict the direction the Senate will take with the bill. Simons agreed that many amendments have to be made, and questions asked to experts which were overlooked in the House of Commons. For example, Simons wants to know how the bill will affect the pornography industry and if the appeal process should be a purely legal one or if CRTC decisions should have some ministerial or cabinet oversight. Simons said even though the issue of user generated content has been hashed out several times through committees, debates, and public discussions on the topic, there also remains room for clarity in the bill on what threshold needs to be met to be scoped in. Wallin on the other hand thinks the bill may be too broken to amend. She said given the fact the government was given advice to go back to the drawing board with C-10, but came back with a similar bill will put challenges before the Senate and the committee. “C-11 has the same flaws as C-10 so it doesn't look like the government is prepared to rethink it. So I don't know if we can amend it into function and operability. Sometimes when the concept is wrong, you can't fix it,” Wallin said. “Our job is to make legislation that is legal and functional, and that will accomplish its goal. And if we can't see a way to make that happen through amendment then I guess we'll have to consider other options.” – Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca. Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the deadline for third reading was imposed by the House of Commons. The story has been updated to correct the error.

Senator hopes ‘nonpartisan’ committee study of C-11 will clear up ‘misinformation’ around Online Streaming Act

Broadcast | August 30, 2022

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Senator hopes ‘nonpartisan’ committee study of C-11 will clear up ‘misinformation’ around Online Streaming Act

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