Russ Harvey Consulting - Computer and Internet Services

Canadian Legislation

Dangerous & poorly executed laws that restrict freedoms

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Canadian flag waving in front of the Parliament Building on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Let's be crystal clear: this government wants to control the internet — and, by extension, control what you read, see, and think online. Their mainstream media mouthpieces are no longer the dominant force they once were, and they know it.

 

And every time they dip their incompetent fingers into the digital pie, they botch it. It's a pattern of failure, a comedy of errors, except there's nothing funny about the stakes here.
— Dan Knight
Tyrants silence their opposition.

 

Be very wary of governments "moderating content", no matter what noble justifications they have for doing so.
— Naomi Brockwell

 

One of the few silver linings with Trudeau's prorogation of Parliament is that the unpassed legislation dies on the table. However, note that the CRA continues to demand capital gains payments at 66% even though the legislation never passed (and will not unless a future government resurrects it).

Dangerous Legislation Restricts Online Content

The Liberal government has passed or is working on a series of very dangerous laws that restrict the Internet and appear to be aimed at controlling the news media and the freedom of speech.

While these may not all be Internet-related, they affect Canadians' privacy and freedoms, are poorly written, and fail to protect Canadian consumers.

When the government demands its citizens be transparent while they are not, you have a dictatorship.

The Online News Act (Bill C-18) was written by and for Canada's largest news publishers — and now YOU are paying the price. After Meta's pullout, not a single new dollar of funding is going their way, while you suffer from MASSIVE online news blocks that might put local news out of business.

 

Bill C-11 (that could STILL give the government control over your feeds) was passed DESPITE the glaring holes that leave it so open to abuse that the government was forced to issue specific instructions to the CRTC to not meddle with user content and respect our choices — instructions that a future government or minister could change at any time!

 

Online Harms legislation…could be the worst yet. Don't forget — the government's first proposal for it was designed by and for CSIS and the RCMP, giving them an unlimited surveillance web over every Canadian on online platforms — and they would have passed it into law, had an overwhelming volume of citizens and experts not spoken up demanding a reconsideration.
— OpenMedia

The Erosion of Rights & Freedom of Speech

The government has given us little reason to expect that the rights of Canadian citizens will be respected while enforcing these dangerous pieces of legislation any more than they were respected during their creation.

It should concern every Canadian that the purveyors of so much misinformation this week (the Trudeau Liberals) are the EXACT same individuals who want the power to regulate and control the internet in order to "combat misinformation and disinformation online."
— Aaron Gunn, May 1, 2024

Regular calls for genocide and terrorism on our streets. Police are more likely to arrest journalists or Jews walking on the sidewalk “to protect the peace” rather than arrest those violating Canadian law. Unlike the relatively-peaceful Freedom Convoy, the government has done little to quell rising violence while our streets are blocked by Muslims praying or protesting a foreign conflict.

In the meantime, governments at all levels have ignored rising antisemitism and attacks on Jewish temples as well as the burning of more than 100 Christian churches.

Creeping Authoritarianism

Canadian citizens have seen the erosion of many rights and the masking of government's machinery to obtain the truth.

In Canada, privacy has been used as a shield against accountability. Governments have thwarted FOIA requests.
— Journalism Professor Sean Holman

The rights of citizens are threatened by a new authoritarianism that would be comfortable in China or Russia including the be-banking experienced by those involved with the 2022 Freedom Convoy with the unreasonable use of the Emergencies Act. Courts later ruled that the Emergencies Act was unjustified, yet some of those involved have been held in prison without bail for years (essentially political prisoners) while Trudeau's “soft on crime” polices see criminals repeatedly released dozens or hundreds of times.

Listen to the testimony of Rupa Subramanya, Canada-based journalist for The Free Press, as she shares her opening statement to the House Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee on November 30, 2023, speaking about “creeping authoritarianism.” Some of her introductory remarks are disturbing, an indictment of our Liberal government's attack on freedom of speech:

I'm pleased to be able to join you today to testify on the importance of free expression.

 

I'd like all of you to think of me as a time traveler from the not too distant future coming back to the present to offer you a glimpse of what could lie ahead for America:
  • I live in a time in which in the name of fairness you can't share the stories you write for my news publication on social media.
  • I live in a time in which in the name of the common good you can be kicked out of your bank and online payment system simply for expressing the wrong political views.
  • I live in a time in which in the name of social justice you can commit a serious crime but get a more lenient sentence if you happen to be the right skin color.
  • I live in a time in which in the name of safety you can be arrested for exercising your right to peaceful protest if you happen to be protesting the wrong thing.
Of course I'm not a real time traveler. I just live in Canada.

 

Americans and perhaps those in this chamber surely think Canadians are too nice. We're too polite to embrace this sort of proto authoritarianism.

 

But it's more accurate to say that our niceness made us susceptible to the new authoritarianism undermining the foundations of our liberal democracy.
— Rupa Subramanya November 30, 2023

Government Acts Slowly, Except When it Doesn't

One of the issues is that the world is moving forward at the speed of the Internet while government acts at the same speed it did in the past — except when it wants to get sneaky legislation passed before the public can react.

By its nature, statutory law lags behind technological progress.

 

The process of passing a law is time-consuming in itself, but it does not even begin until someone recognizes a problem that needs to be addressed.

 

Once the problem is recognized, it must be defined in a way that legislators can understand, and consensus must be reached as to how to address the problem. This can be a lengthy process.
— Max Stul Oppenheimer

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Bill C-63

An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts
— Bill C-63
The bill may address an issue that is widely regarded as essential, but once Canadian privacy and civil liberties had the opportunity to review the fine print in the bill, many came away concerned.
— Michael Geist

Tell your MP: Fix Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, NOW! Online safety without sacrificing our rights.

Tell your MP: Keep the good, ditch the bad in C-63!

They said it couldn't be done. But last week…the government finally separated dangerously speech-chilling proposals — like life imprisonment for speech, or punishment with no criminal conviction — out of Online Harms Bill C-63!

What's now IN

  • Age-appropriate design that lets young Canadians use online platforms safely;
  • Removal within 24 hours of child abuse material and adult material shared without consent — so-called "revenge porn";
  • Tools to empower YOU to get what you want from platforms, like easy ways to block other users, the right to appeal take downs of your content, and the right to speak to a human when you have a problem.
What's GONE
  • Criminal code changes that threatened life in prison for an act of speech;
  • A "pre-crime" proposal that proposed massive restrictions like home confinement or drug tests if a judge thinks you could be "at risk" of hateful speech;
  • An anonymous complaints system that would have Canadians file Human Rights Tribunal complaints against each other instead of blocking trolls and moving on.
What's left is a foundation of harm reduction principles Canadians can get behind, under this government and any future government. But C-63 is FAR from done, and there are lobbyists pushing hard to undermine the best and bring back the worst.
— OpenMedia

Redefining Hate Crimes

Why are the Liberals restoring amendments that restrict free speech by Canadians in a manner that will allow them to redefine hate crimes?

The justice minister of Canada has framed these amendments as a way to protect the vulnerable and hold individuals accountable for spreading hatred online. But let's be clear: there's a thin line between protecting individuals and infringing upon free speech. And that line is looking blurrier by the day in Canada. And when the government starts deciding what constitutes "hate speech," you have to start wondering: Who gets to draw that line? And based on what standards?
— Dan Knight
Bill C-63 doesn't just flirt with authoritarianism; it's a full-blown courtship, and it's dressed up in the finery of "progressive" values. This bill is about establishing the Digital Safety Commission of Canada — essentially, the thought police of the digital age. And let me tell you, nothing quite spells "independent" like a government-appointed bureaucracy, their pockets lined with the potential for bonuses, all for toeing the line of those wielding the gavel.
— Dan Knight

The Criteria is Suspect

A problem arises when hate speech is defined by what's acceptable to the government rather than what is dangerous to society. The criteria cannot be selective to political beliefs.

When an out-of-control leftist government (essentially a dictatorship) wants to curb free speech, you are on dangerous ground. Notice how the government has ignored months of militant Palestinian protests calling for genocide (“from the river to the sea”) while aggressively prosecuting members of the Trucker Convoy.

Indeed, you could not have asked for a starker contrast in protests than the Freedom Convoy and the Pro-Hamas Left — or a sharper contrast in how they have been treated by Canada's government. The truckers were met with draconian measures imposed by Trudeau — while he's used kid gloves on the pro-Palestinian protests.

 

But I wouldn't hold my breath for any real consequences, despite a new Canadian bill aimed at punishing "hate crimes." Bill C-63….

 

I'm no fan of this law—but we all know who it is meant to penalize, and it's not people chanting for the death of Jews. It's people who Trudeau considers his political enemies — people like the truckers who opposed his COVID-19 regime.
— Newsweek

The fact that the Canadian media has stayed silent about such contrasts demonstrates the dangers of a controlled media — the result of Trudeau's Bill C-18.

This government quickly passed Islamophobia legislation over a few incidents but said nothing as over 100 Christian churches were burned down across Canada other than to state “it was understandable.” After the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel they continued to trust unreliable resources in Gaza rather than support the only Western democracy in the Middle East.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust — slaughtering babies, raping women, burning whole families alive, and taking hundreds of innocent civilians hostage. Since October 7, more than 1,200 Israelis have been killed. Terrorists are still holding 132 men, women, and children in captivity.
— American Jewish Committee
The question, as Europe has discovered, is whether law enforcement and political resolve will be sufficient to stuff an angry, Judeophobic genie back into a bottle most western governments blithely uncorked through their infatuation with multiculturalism, or in Quebec's case fixation on language, both of which, alas, necessitated a self-destructive indifference to the epidemiology of terrorism.
— National Post

Low Threshold; Excessive Investigative Powers

Privacy Lawyer David Fraser presents some significant concerns about the threshold for assessment and the excessive powers granted to investigators:

I think the thresholds for some of this are too low, resulting in removal by default. The new Digital Safety Commission has stunning and likely unconstitutional powers. As is often the case, there's too much left to the regulations.

The decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against Mayor Harold McQuaker and Emo Township councillors over their decision not to raise a Pride flag is a glaring example of political excess that could with Bill C-63's mechanisms.

The fact that it offers to pay people to report their neighbours reeks of the sorts of propaganda control used by the Nazi Gestapo in World War 2.

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C-293: Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act

An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness
— https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-293?view=details

This private members bill — dubbed “the Vegan Act” — has already passed through the House of Commons and is presently awaiting passage by the Senate. The fact that it is barely known is of great concern.

One of the most alarming aspects of Bill C-293 is the discretionary power it would grant to officials to shut down agricultural facilities without clear, objective criteria. Such arbitrary actions could disrupt not only meat supply chains but also the wider agricultural operations linked to them, including feed production. This threatens to destabilize related sectors and could trigger cascading effects throughout the entire food system.

 

The bill represents an unprecedented governmental intrusion into personal dietary choices and market dynamics. A detailed examination of the bill does more than sow confusion about its intentions — it reveals a troubling spirit at its core.

 

Under this bill, public health officials could have the authority to close facilities they consider "high risk," such as meatpacking plants, during pandemics and even "mandate" the consumption of vegetable proteins by Canadians — measures that border on the absurd. It's hardly surprising that the private member who introduced Bill C-293 is Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who is known for his vegan lifestyle.
— Toronto Sun
This Bill allows the World Health Organization (WHO) to make agreements with Public Health directly, attempting to eliminate jurisdiction of the courts and the constitution. It allows Public Health control over communications infrastructure, instituting interlinking surveillance.

 

Once enacted, C-293 imposes mandatory medical treatments, explicitly controls your personal autonomy, affecting your freedom of movement and privacy, can expropriate farms and other property and relocate rural and urban dwellers (to 15 minute cities), for absurd reasons like 'deforestation increases the risk of pandemics.' Even with the absurd grants of power C-293 still gives more powers 'as appropriate,' not further defined.

 

No other bill represents such a clear threat to Canada and the rule of law given the complete absence of definitions of terms coupled with its comprehensive overreach into every aspect of life.
— Stop Bill C-293

The bill is overly broad and poorly defined. It threatens Canadian sovereignty by allowing WHO, an unelected body, to directly affect Public Health regulations.

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Bill S-210: Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act

An Act to restrict young persons' online access to sexually explicit material.

This enactment makes it an offence for organizations to make sexually explicit material available to young persons on the Internet.

 

It also enables a designated enforcement authority to take steps to prevent sexually explicit material from being made available to young persons on the Internet in Canada.
— Government of Canada

The Most Dangerous Canadian Internet Bill You've Never Heard Of

Creating safeguards for underage access to inappropriate content is a laudable goal, but not at the cost of government-backed censorship, mandated face recognition, and age-approval requirements to use some of the most popular sites and services in the world.

 

Bill S-210, or the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, was passed by the Senate in April after Senators were reluctant to reject a bill framed as protecting children from online harm.

 

The same scenario appears to be playing out in the House of Commons….
— Michael Geist

Don't let the Internet get locked down! Email your MP TODAY!

The House of Commons think Bill S-210 will only affect porn sites. They're wrong.

Any bill labelled as “protecting children” makes it political suicide to oppose it — even one as badly written as Bill S-210. MPs have refused to hear a SINGLE witness from outside government, or consider ANY changes to this disastrous bill.

To understand why it is dangerous, read What's wrong with Bill S-210? An OpenMedia FAQ.

Update October 22nd from OpenMedia

We urgently need your help in the fight for REAL online safety, NOT online surveillance! Canada is on the brink of locking Canadians out of the open and surveillance-free Internet through Bill S-210.

Putting up guardrails to boost our online safety can be a good thing if done correctly. But S-210 gets it wrong, leading us down a dangerous path of surveilling our online presence EVERYWHERE!

This not only undermines the freedoms of everyday Canadians; it threatens our privacy and security. In fact, it could make us less safe online! But if we don't come in as STRONG as we can be in the next two weeks, Bill S-210 may pass.

Bill S-210 is set for its FINAL vote in the House this November with ZERO fixes in sight!

If it goes through with its current dangerously broad provisions, you'll be forced to verify your age NOT just for adult websites, but also before connecting with friends on Instagram, joining discussions on Reddit, backing up your photos on file-sharing sites, or even googling for dinner options.

So what's wrong with S-210?

The language in Bill S-210 is alarmingly broad, meaning even your Internet Service Provider (ISP) — not just social media or streaming platforms — may be required to verify your identity and monitor your online activities for age verification. And all of this is built on age-verification technology that frequently misidentifies users and leaks sensitive information about who we are and where we go, or both!

MPs are reviewing this bill for the LAST time and have the power to reshape it or drop it entirely. We MUST keep telling them that today's age verification technology is privacy-violating and not the solution we need. We need to urge them to remove the dangerous provisions and vague definitions of “adult” content that could lead to unnecessary censorship of the content Canadians cherish today.

But here's the thing: age-verification companies are lobbying HARD to get their faulty technologies REQUIRED BY LAW on your device. More than 14,000 OpenMedia community members have said NO to violating our privacy, but if we go quiet now, MPs will hear them alone, NOT the public.

Parents, Not Censorship

Australia passed legislation requiring the social media companies to ensure that no one under 16 has access to their networks or face fines. Much like Bill S-210, this is going to force companies to add privacy-destroying tracking mechanisms in place for everyone.

The following opinion piece in the Times Colonist expressed the need for parents to become involved rather than governments or social media companies:

[W]hick brings to mind the advice of 14th century philosopher and theologian William of Ockham, credited for "Occam's razor," a problem-solving principle that suggests the simplest solution is usually the best one.

 

In 2024, that "simplest solution" is not necessarily complicated difficult-to-enforce legislation, but for parents to learn about the apps and social-media platforms children are using.

 

That's right, not tech experts, not government, not content providers — parents are still the simplest way to protect kids from online danger.

 

Given the documented dangers of kids using social media unsupervised, it seems reasonable for parents to show interest and ask questions (without becoming an interrogator) about a child's online experiences.
— Geoff Johnson

Support the fight for a surveillance-free Internet!

We can't do this fight without YOU! Will you stand with us in this fight?

Keep OpenMedia in the Fight!

Canadian Youth Already Exposed in Schools

SOGI already provides this sort of information to school-age children in BC and elsewhere. These were displayed in an interview with BC Conservative leader John Rustad and CBC interviewer Stephen Quinn but this segment showing these examples has since been edited out.

Three explicit images were used to illustrate the sort of SOGI materials available in BC school libraries without parental approval including one showing a male adult masturbating a male child.

But, hey, let's lock down the Internet to protect children!

Broad Legal Definitions

Bill S-210 sets a dangerous precedent of requiring approved identity to enable visiting websites that are legally so broad that they could easily be interpreted to mean virtually any website.

There is no threshold or limit in the law that would exclude sites that may make available some sexually explicit material, but are primarily focused on other content.
— Michael Geist

I strongly recommend that you watch the legal analysis of Bill S-210 on YouTube — a candid look at these issues:

Rejecting Bill S-210 is Political Suicide

Labelling the bill as “protecting children” has made it political suicide to oppose this bill even though its mandate will certainly extend far beyond its stated purpose.

There are many, many things wrong with Bill S-210, An Act to restrict young persons' online access to sexually explicit material.

 

This discussion highlights the problems created by adopting a purpose-built definition of "sexually explicit material" from the Criminal Code, which was written for VERY different circumstances.
— David Fraser

Bill S-210 doesn't address the sort of age-inappropriate activities being promoted in schools and public libraries.

A 'sexual health educator' from Saleema Noon came to my daughter's Grade 6 class this week.

 

She taught the 11 and 12-year-olds that sometimes children aren't happy with the bodies they're born with, so they can change them!

 

Imagine telling kids they can change their bodies if they hate themselves. That's the message the kids hear.

 

They also learned about anal and oral sex, and how gender is 'assigned at birth' but sometimes they figure it out later.

 

The school then had an assembly on Friday for all kids in Grades 4 - 7, where a trans-identified female came to speak to them.
— Billboard Chris

Apparently grade 6 is the time to discuss sexual acts in detail (but don't let them see it on the Internet). Nor does it address public nudity in front of children at gay pride events or Drag Queen Story Hour for Children.

Digital IDs Required

Bill S-210 will require government-approved identification to even visit such sites — opening yourself to identity theft and enabling the government tracking of every webpage you visit.

[Bill S-210] would require adult websites to verify users' ages, but does not specify how. Options could include a digital ID system or services that can estimate age based on a webcam scan of a user's face.
— The Globe and Mail

Bill S-210 could also be used to push through the universal electronic ID proposed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to be used as a tool to control citizens.

When combined with a digital currency, any hint of privacy would be gone and governments would be handed massive powers over bank accounts and the ability to significantly restrict freedoms.

Tying metadata to a digital ID would remove any hint of privacy and provide a bonanza for corporate and government spying.

Every site that you visit, every comment you make online, every link that you click would become traceable (just like in China).

If we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated, sold, or even leaked in the event of a hack, then we lose so much more than data. We lose the freedom to be human. We deserve better. You deserve better.
— Apple CEO, Tim Cook

Privacy Threatened

Privacy is about government not being able to see what citizens are doing.
— Journalism Professor Sean Holman

You may not know who owns the sites you visit, but they'll know you.

Current technology cannot create an effective identification of legal adults without either compromising privacy or excluding those without such ID.

This is an absolute privacy nightmare.

 

While the bill pretends to shield privacy, there is no penalties for failure to comply with the destruction of said personal information. All it does is ask, pretty please, delete the sensitive information, and leave it at that.

 

There's data brokers out there buying and selling silos of this kind of information for thousands, if not, millions of dollars.

 

Given that Canada's privacy laws are simply the Privacy Commissioner sending strongly worded letters, there's no incentive to really comply with the destruction of records. The only incentive is to collect said information.
— Freezenet [emphasis mine]

The surveillance economy has corporations culling huge amounts of metadata primarily for targeted advertising (but often collected “just in case” it can be used later). Serious data breaches already threaten our privacy and security.

Trust in Government Already Lost

During the 2022 Freedom Convoy the Emergencies Act was used to lock people up and freeze the bank accounts of citizens even for providing a small donation (these frozen funds were never returned).

The courts deemed the government's use of the Emergencies Act illegal in 2024. The government is already appealing that decision while taking no action against violent masked pro-Palestinian protesters that continue to block streets across our country.

Blocking Internet

The penalties in the proposed legislation include the ability to permanently deny access to the Internet. This act of an authoritarian government and mirrors WEF proposals for digital IDs and carbon quotas.

Bill S-210 goes well beyond personal choices to limit underage access to sexually explicit material on Canadian sites.

 

Instead, it envisions government-enforced global website liability for failure to block underage access, backed by website blocking and mandated age verification systems that are likely to include face recognition technologies.
— Michael Geist

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Cybersecurity Bill C-26

An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts
— Bill C-26

While the intention of Bill C-26 is probably critical to protecting the security of Canada, the use of secrecy and non-transparency place both the Canadian public and telecommunications agencies at risk.

Cybersecurity cannot thrive on secretive and shadowy government edicts. The government must amend its legislation to ensure its activities comport with Canada's democratic values and the norms of transparency and accountability.
— The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto's Munk School

Tell your MP: no spying wishlist!

As written, Bill C-26 is designed as the government's spying wish list. Canadians deserve better than this half-baked legislation.
— OpenMedia

MPs are debating key provisions in cybersecurity bill C-26. Unless ordinary people like you speak up and demand rights-respecting amendments – C-26 is going to be drowned out by a partisan tug-a-war between parties.

We need as many people as possible emailing their MPs from across political parties. Share this campaign with everyone you know.

Cybersecurity Bill C-26 claims to improve our safety — but lacks ANY of the public transparency and safeguards we depend on to protect our fundamental rights.

 

People in Canada shouldn't have to sacrifice our fundamental rights for the strong cybersecurity protections that we deserve. Email your MP to fix C-26 with appropriate, rights-protecting amendments.
— OpenMedia

Tell your MP: no spying wish list!

Cybersecurity Bill C-26 claims to improve our safety — but lacks ANY of the public transparency and safeguards we depend on to protect our rights.

New cybersecurity protections are needed to protect Canada's critical infrastructure — but must be balanced with appropriate safeguards to prevent their abuse and misuse. We rely on access to essential services, like the Internet, to participate in democratic life; Canada can't afford prolonged attacks or Internet outages. While the new cybersecurity elements of Bill C-26 are designed to safeguard essential services better – like our access to the Internet – as drafted, they lack crucial provisions that promote public transparency, accountability, and oversight. To give a few examples:

 

  • Bill C-26 empowers the executive branch of the Canadian government to permanently disconnect anyone in Canada from the Internet — in complete secrecy! This sweeping new power will allow a cabinet minister to issue a secret order to any Internet Service Provider (ISP) to permanently disconnect anyone in Canada from accessing the Internet if they believe they are connected to cybersecurity issues. The catch? Because of how modern botnets work, there's a very real risk that any of us could be secretly and indefinitely disconnected from the Internet because, unknown to us, one of our devices has been compromised.
  • Bill C-26 forces ISPs into new information-sharing arrangements with Canada's spy agencies. Currently, Canada's spy agencies are limited in how they access the sensitive, private information of people in Canada; judicial oversight is required before ISPs respond to lawful access requests for things like records related to our use of the Internet. Bill C-26 radically changes that, allowing for Canada's spy agencies to permanently implant themselves within our telecommunications infrastructure, hoovering up as much of our sensitive data as they can, and sharing it with their five-eyes spying partners around the world.
  • Power left in the dark often goes wrong. Unlike the hard-fought-for safeguards we've built into the rest of our justice and security system, Bill C-26 has no mandatory public disclosure requirements, and no requirement to assess whether steps taken have undue privacy or equity impacts for Canadians. While there is an understandable need for some degree of confidentiality in this sphere, the public needs to have a sense of how these powers are being exercised, how often, and to what effect — if decision-makers are to be held to account.
There's no reason why we can't have cybersecurity protections alongside the essential privacy and due process protections that allow us to participate in democratic life.

 

As currently written, Bill C-26 strikes the wrong balance, granting overly broad powers to the executive branch of the Canadian government without the necessary accountability, transparency, and oversight mechanisms that are required to protect our fundamental rights.
— OpenMedia

Tell your MP: no spying wish list!

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Bill C-27: The Digital Charter Implementation Act

An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts. Short title: Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
— Bill C-27

Bill C-27 aims to regulate not only privacy but also artificial intelligence (AI) via the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act.

While legislation related to consumer privacy seems an outlier in a discussion about Internet legislation, Bill C-27 will affect the future of the Internet in Canada because it is very difficult to separate the issues of consumer privacy, personal information and data, never mind artificial intelligence which is being embedded into both the software and online services faster than most people comprehend, including legislators.

Finish Bill C-27

Move Bill C-27 Forward! Privacy protections now, not later!

Get privacy done: Stop stalling on Bill C-27

The government is letting long overdue privacy protections FAIL to pass in the last days of Parliament. Every day that passes brings us closer to losing the privacy protections we all deserve!

Parliament's clock is ticking, and an election could be called at any time. If that happens, ALL bills currently in progress WILL be dropped entirely and may never see the light of day again.

Bill C-27 has been stuck in parliamentary committee since April 2023. This important bill includes both the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) and the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), a package of basic reforms and improvements to Canada's private sector privacy laws we've been waiting for more than a decade. Issues with AIDA and the government's failure to accept reasonable pro-privacy amendments have slowed everything down, holding up the CPPA and causing big delays.

 

Currently, the government is refusing to compromise with opposition MPs who are fighting for stronger privacy protections and a truly independent privacy commissioner. Result? A high risk we'll lose ALL the bill's privacy protections if Bill C-27 doesn't get passed.
— OpenMedia

Our privacy is non-negotiable! Email your MP to urge them to break the deadlock and pass a strong Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) part of Bill C-27 into law without any further delays. Write to your MP now — our privacy can't afford to wait!

The government's push to pass controversial AI regulations, which many view as prioritizing industry interests over consumer rights, is also holding up essential privacy reform.

 

Many Canadians rightly want regulations on AI. But the government skipped basic consultations on AIDA, and has repeatedly rewritten the bill even as it sits at committee, leading to chaos. As committee's consideration of AIDA amendments has not yet even started, keeping AIDA linked to privacy threatens to doom both parts of Bill C-27, meaning we risk ending up with neither meaningful privacy protections nor adequate AI regulations. This will leave us Canadians vulnerable and unprotected when we deserve so much better!
— OpenMedia

Tell your Member of Parliament Push Bill C-27 forward for privacy protections we deserve!

Because this minority parliament may not last much longer, but privacy reforms could be swiftly passed right NOW. We can't allow the government's failure to do their homework to pass strong AI regulations to drag down consumer privacy protections with it. Our privacy rights are too important to be sacrificed! That's why we're asking MPs to vote on AI regulations and privacy law reform separately, so we can secure the strong privacy protections we deserve right NOW!
— OpenMedia

The Privacy Provisions

Bill C-27 is an attempt to update the privacy laws in Canada including replacing current protections. It would repeal Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPTA) and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).

Make Our Privacy Laws Work for You

 

21st century government privacy laws now! Sign the petition.

 

When it comes to privacy, Canada's government doesn't want to play by the rules. They're passing private sector privacy reform Bill C-27, but totally ignoring urgently needed reforms to the Privacy Act — the rules that govern how THEY respect our privacy!

 

In the meantime, we're suffering careless data breaches and shady information sharing from one public agency after another, because they know our privacy laws won't penalize their mistakes.

 

In today's digital age, personal information is collected, shared, and used as currency – by companies AND by governments. Now more than ever it's important that our laws keep up to protect us from changing technology. Tell our government: it's time to update and strengthen the Privacy Act so our laws start defending us from THEM.
— OpenMedia

While working on revisions for Canada's privacy laws, industry concerns were addressed rather than those of citizens or privacy advocates. That's like letting the fox design henhouse security.

Currently, companies that operate in Canada don't face significant repercussions for breaking our privacy laws. When fines for privacy violations were introduced in the European Union under their General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), companies began adjusting their business practices in order to comply with the new laws, and to avoid the potential fines.

 

But can we expect the same thing to happen in Canada? Maybe not. Canada's Bill C-27 will introduce weaker privacy protections than the EU's GDPR…and the fines will be watered down through the creation of a new tribunal slowing down the whole process.
— OpenMedia
The predecessor to Bill C-27…was condemned by former privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien as a “step backward” for privacy in Canada. Bill C-27 contains improvements…the government has listened to some concerns. However, it has clearly listened more to the concerns of industry. Human rights still take a back seat to commercial interests.

 

Privacy by design and by default are absent from the bill, which still does not cover the growing exploitation of personal data by political parties.

 

The exception for use of personal information without knowledge or consent for “socially beneficially purposes” still has major holes and scant attention is paid to the flows of personal data across Canada's borders.
— Toronto Star

The Privacy Commissioner then offered some encouragement and suggestions for improvement.

The OPC is encouraged by the introduction of Bill C-27 which is a recognition by the Government that Canadians need and expect modernized privacy laws that support innovation and enable Canadians to enjoy the many benefits of technology with the reassurance that their personal information will be protected.

 

Canadians should not have to choose between their participation in the digital economy and their fundamental rights.
— Privacy Commissioner of Canada

The Privacy Commissioner then offered 15 recommendations to improve the protections to consumers offered by Bill C-27 in an email to the chair of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology dated April 26, 2023:

  1. Recognize privacy as a fundamental right.
  2. Protect children's privacy and the best interests of the child.
  3. Limit organizations' collection, use and disclosure of personal information to specific and explicit purposes that take into account the relevant context.
  4. Expand the list of violations qualifying for financial penalties to include, at a minimum, appropriate purposes violations.
  5. Provide a right to disposal of personal information even when a retention policy is in place.
  6. Create a culture of privacy by requiring organizations to build privacy into the design of products and services and to conduct privacy impact assessments for high-risk initiatives.
  7. Strengthen the framework for be-identified and anonymized information.
  8. Require organizations to explain, on request, all predictions, recommendations, decisions and profiling made using automated decision systems.
  9. Limit the government's ability to make exceptions to the law by way of regulations.
  10. Provide that the exception for disclosure of personal information without consent for research purposes only applies to scholarly research.
  11. Allow individuals to use authorized representatives to help advance their privacy rights.
  12. Provide greater flexibility in the use of voluntary compliance agreements to help resolve matters without the need for more adversarial processes.
  13. Make the complaints process more expeditious and economical by streamlining the review of the Commissioner's decisions.
  14. Amend timelines to ensure that the privacy protection regime is accessible and effective.

Artificial Intelligence and Data Act

Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) was added to Bill C-27, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act.

The urgency was prompted by the speed at which AI is developing and becoming embedded into our systems without regulatory oversight. Companies like Microsoft and Meta have changed their agreements to protect themselves while scooping material to train their AI which leave consumers without protection if their data is misused.

However, not only was it bad to embed AI into pending consumer protection legislation, but the government seems to have once again listened to the demands of industry and ignored the recommendations of individuals and citizen-based privacy organizations. Like so many issues, the government seems determined to ignore public concerns.

There are significant issues with the 38 pages of last-minute changes to the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) released AFTER the public consultations were completed.

[O]ver 25 leading civil society organizations, experts, and academics released an open letter to the House of Commons Industry Committee, urging them to hit the reset button and fully scrutinize the government's controversial Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).

 

They recommend a full public consultation and redrafting of AIDA, starting with splitting AIDA from the other parts of Bill C-27, which deal with unrelated privacy matters, so that it can be subject to the careful democratic scrutiny it requires.

 

Highlighting what they describe as ISED's mishandling of "a process biased heavily toward narrow industry interests", the signatories call on MPs to ensure that any future public consultation is not stewarded exclusively by ISED.

 

The call comes two weeks after Industry, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) Minister François-Philippe Champagne published a beefy, 38-page package of proposed amendments to AIDA, rivaling in size the text of the original bill, and fundamentally altering its shape and implications.
— OpenMedia

AI regulation is not a simple process. Hurrying it through in the manner the Canadian government did is a red flag. Here's what OpenMedia says:

The government is currently debating Bill C-27 — a privacy reform bill that's somehow ALSO Canada's first AI regulatory bill — and might be our only AI regulation for YEARS!

 

Why the rush? Industry wants free rein to experiment with AI on us, right NOW. They're pressuring the government to pass a half-finished bill — NOT to take their time to hear from ALL Canadians and thoroughly protect our rights.

 

Regulating AI RIGHT is more important than rushing this bill through.

 

Why do we have two monumental pieces of legislation baked into one bill? Good question, one without a clear answer from our government.

 

The sneaky, secret reason? Since ChatGPT, Dall-E and all the other 'generative' AI techs started rolling out, AI industry stakeholders in Canada are demanding a loose bill with a light touch. The goal? Not so much regulating AI well; instead, they want plenty of legally permitted room to experiment on Canadians, our data, and our rights.

What's wrong with the AI rules in C-27?

Tell your MP to fix C-27!

The AI rules in C-27 simply aren't doing the job. We need vague definitions clarified and loopholes closed if they're ACTUALLY going to protect us from AI surveillance and manipulation in the years ahead.

 

Ideally, our legislators would pause and give these rules a thorough public hearing BEFORE passing them into law, with comprehensive protections. At minimum, they need to do their best to clean the AI rules in C-27 up before it passes, make sure they're as strong and specific as possible, and that they can be rapidly improved by an independent regulator as we learn more about where they work — and where they don't.

 

AI is going to keep developing for the good and for the bad. Our laws can help nudge developers towards socially beneficial, user-centered AI — AI that serves us, respects our choices, and makes our lives better.

 

But unless our laws are seriously updated with ironclad, unbreakable protections in place — a LOT could go wrong. Flimsy legislation will not protect us against the potential harms it can have. Either the government goes big or goes home.

Email your MP: We need REAL AI regulation!

 

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Bill C-51: The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act.

Bill C-51 Should Be Repealed, Not Amended

Trudeau promised to amend the controversial and Draconian anti-terrorist Bill C-51.

Trudeau vowed to amend the "problematic elements" of the law, rather than simply repeal the legislation, noted Snow den. "Because he's afraid of being politically attacked on the basis of being soft on terrorism, regardless of whether or not this law actually helps prevent any terrorist attacks," he said. "This is just the way the politics of fear work."
— Edward Snow den

Criticisms

The Bill makes 6 broad changes to national security, anti-terrorism, and privacy law:
  1. It creates a new terrorism offence that criminalizes knowingly advocating or promoting "terrorism offences in general" while aware of the possibility that someone else "may" commit such an offence;
  2. It allows the preventive arrest and detention of a person if it is "likely" to prevent a terrorist activity that a "peace officer" reasonably believes "may" be carried out;
  3. It creates the new concept of "terrorist propaganda" and allows a judge to order the deletion of such material from the internet;
  4. It gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) the power to take measures to reduce "threats to the security of Canada", even if doing so would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the "Charter") or other Canadian law;
  5. It allows government institutions to share information with each other about "activities that undermine the security of Canada"; and
  6. It codifies the Minister's ability to put Canadians on a "no-fly list".
  7. — CCLA

The CCLA examination of Bill C-51 has other more specific concerns:

  • Free speech will be "chilled" because the offence is vague and overbroad.
  • The offence undermines anti-terrorism efforts.
  • The offence is unnecessary.
  • The offence applies to private conversations and may lead to increased surveillance.
  • There is a low standard for using preventive powers and an extended period of preventive detention.
  • A low standard for preventive powers may lead to religious and ethnic profiling.
  • The definition of terrorist propaganda is too broad because it references the new vague and overbroad speech offence.
  • Without an effective and independent self-initiated review body, judicial oversight in the Bill may be circumvented.
  • Customs officials may have difficulty understanding what material should be seized as terrorist propaganda.
  • The Bill radically and unnecessarily changes the nature of CSIS without changing its broad mandate.
  • CSIS.s power to "reduce" threats is too broad and may lead to countless Charter violations.
  • The new warrant procedure fundamentally misunderstands the Canadian constitutional system by allowing judges to pre-authorize violations of any Charter right.
  • There will be very little, if any, effective defence of the rights of people affected by warrants because the proceedings are secret.
  • CSIS.s new powers may make terrorism prosecutions more difficult or even impossible.
  • Oversight and review mechanisms do not accompany the significant increase in CSIS.s powers.
  • Allowing government institutions to share information about "activities that undermine the security of Canada" is a very broad standard and a radical departure from conventional understandings of privacy.
  • There are no internal or external safeguards to ensure reliability and proper relevance of the information that is shared, which may seriously endanger or cause major difficulties for Canadians.
  • The secretive process, lack of independent review, and government immunity from civil liability may lead to unfettered information sharing.
  • There is a very low standard to be put on the no-fly list but a high standard to be taken off.
  • The procedure for appealing the Minister.s decisions violates a Charter right.
  • — CCLA

I strongly recommend reading the entire Understanding Bill C-51 in Canada: The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015 to understand these criticisms in context.

Provisions Unrelated to Terrorism

A number of the provisions of Bill C-51 are clearly obsolete or otherwise don't belong in a bill aimed at fighting terrorism because they apply to common criminal activity rather than terrorism or a threat to national security.

Provisions that have been found to be unconstitutional by the courts should no longer be enforced. However, they remain in the Criminal Code until Parliament amends or repeals them. This legislation promotes clarity in the law and would help to avoid confusion and errors by ensuring that the laws on paper reflect the laws in force.

 

Repealing provisions that are very similar to those found unconstitutional by the courts would help to avoid expensive, time-consuming litigation to achieve the same result and may prevent court delays. It recognizes the Government's responsibility for aligning the law with the requirements of the Charter.
— Department of Justice

The government's continued attacks on legitimate gun owners (farmers and hunters) while simultaneously ignoring the use of illegal weapons by criminals (Canada's “catch-and-release” justice) is concerning.

Mohammed Majidpour of Vancouver had been convicted 30 times for such offences as assault with a weapon and uttering threats but was still released on bail when arrested for assaulting a woman with a pole in September 2022. He's been released and arrested several times since. This guy gets out before the arresting officer finishes typing the report.
— National Post

The undeniable conclusion is that criminal attacks on civilians are not the reason for gun control. Rather, it is the protection of the political class.

Obsolete & Irrelevant Laws

The proposed legislation would repeal several Criminal Code offences that were enacted many years ago, but that are no longer relevant or required today, including:
  • Challenging someone to a duel (section 71);
  • Advertising a reward for the return of stolen property “no questions asked” (section 143);
  • Possessing, printing, distributing or publishing crime comics (paragraph 163(1)(b));
  • Publishing blasphemous libel(section 296);
  • Fraudulently pretending to practise witchcraft (section 365); and,
  • Issuing trading stamps (section 427).

The proposed legislation would also repeal other offences that are needlessly specific and deal with conduct that, if necessary, could be addressed effectively by other Criminal Code provisions. For example, the following offences would be repealed because the conduct they target could be addressed using other fraud provisions:

  • Impersonating someone during a university exam (section 404); and,
  • Falsely representing goods as having been made by a person holding a royal warrant (section 413).
  • — Department of Justice

Learning More

Learn more about the need to repeal Bill C-51 including issues related to unregulated surveillance.

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Bill C-11: Online Streaming Act

Bill C-11: An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Bill C-11, also known as the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020, would repeal parts of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and replace them with a new legislative regime governing the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information for commercial activity in Canada. As the core of this regime, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act would be enacted to maintain, modernize, and extend existing rules and to impose new rules on private sector organizations for the protection of personal information.
— Government of Canada

Bill C-11 & C-18 Unfair and Poorly Executed

Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 were poorly executed attempts at government control of the Internet that failed to fix the issues which they claimed to address.

In less than two months, the government has reshaped the Internet in Canada with Bills C-11 and C-18 leading to streaming services that may block Canadian users and platforms that may block news sharing. The result is a cautionary tale for Internet regulation initiatives with Canada emerging as a model for how things can go badly wrong.
— Michael Geist

Not only did Bill C-18 fail to protect local news, but Canadian news has all but disappeared from social media while most of the promised funding has dried up. Now we're seeing massive layoffs.

Instead of admitting defeat, the Liberal government funded Canada's big media companies, effectively destroying any hint of investigative journalism as well as Canadians' trust in both the government and the media.

Bill C-11 became law on April 27, 2023 without key amendments that would protect your posts and feeds from being regulated by the CRTC.

On April 27, 2023, Bill C-11 passed the Senate, as fundamentally broken as it was when it first left the House. Despite opposition from over 100,000 Canadians, the bill was passed without crucial amendments that would have protected user-generated content and online choices.
— OpenMedia

C-11 Controls What You Watch

The government told Canadians that it wanted to grab control back from big foreign Internet companies. Instead, Bill C-11 gives that control to the CRTC.

Bill C-11 will meddle with Canadians' ability to pick their own content and content creators' business, in the name of "protecting the economic interests of a niche of Canada's music and video industries," according to the Canadian arm of the Internet Society.

 

In a scathing submission, the non-profit group argues that "Bill C-11 seeks to turn the Internet into a mere extension of the Canadian broadcasting system — a dying artifact of 20th Century technologies."
— The Globe and Mail

The unfair CanCon rules will be applied to the Internet and allow the industry-friendly CRTC to determine what Canadians see and hear, removing choice for consumers.

The CRTC still can ask platforms for an end result, meaning it will still be in the business of picking winners who get promoted and losers whose content is downranked and hidden on online feeds.

 

Unless and until CanCon definitions are thoroughly revised, this will mean upvoting the narrow range of legacy media content to the top of our feeds over other content we actually like.
— OpenMedia

This will have an adverse affect on Canadian content worldwide, ignoring or imperiling international copyright and other agreements.

Our Freedom of Choice Denied

We should be deciding what we watch and listen to online, not our government.

First, after assuring Canadians for months that the bill did not regulate user content or that algorithmic regulations were excluded, the draft policy direction confirms that this was false.

 

Second, many of the policies are still wide open.
— Michael Geist
While protection of our feeds and content in the law would have been better than a revocable policy direction, some protection is much better than no protection at all.
— OpenMedia

Bill C-11 Ignores the Nature of the Internet

Bill C-11 seeks to mandate changes to streaming platforms' algorithms so that specific Canadian content rises to the top of our feeds.

Fixed timetables can NEVER compete with the ability to choose your program and its viewing time nor allow bing-watching of a series (with the exception of promotional periods when specialty channels run large blocks of one program to entice guest users to purchase the channel).

It ignores the fact that, unlike cable TV, everyone could simultaneously watch different content on an open Internet. Instead, it chose to censor the Internet.

CanCon Imposed on the Internet

Bill C-11 legislated that the CRTC would rule over what online material counts as “official” Canadian Content (widely referred to as CanCon) on almost all online services.

Unfortunately, the only beneficiaries of Bill C-11 are going to the big Canadian media companies (Bell, Rogers and Telus) that already get the lion's share of CanCon money.

This legislation ignores current and historic contributions by Netflix and other online streaming options.

Under Bill C-11, streaming companies like Netflix will also be forced to pay to produce CanCon — but will be ineligible to receive funding from the Canadian Media Fund, even when producing Canadian content.

 

Result? A direct money transfer from streaming platforms Canadians like, to legacy broadcast services we increasingly don't.
— OpenMedia

Small Creators Threatened

The testimony of those opposed to Bill C-11 (mostly smaller content creators) was shamefully ignored and worse, discarded as invalid:

But the government went beyond just ignoring witness testimony yesterday in the House of Commons. It now claims those views constitute “misinformation.”
— Michael Geist

Many of these small creators have carved out a niche in international markets over the last few years, markets that Bill C-11 will destroy.

Bill C-11 trades prioritizing Canadian content for a market of 38 million people for be-prioritizing that same content for a global market that runs into the billions of viewers.
— Michael Geist

Small YouTube and other social media creators could be forced to contribute to CanCon yet prevent them from benefiting financially. They may have to move out of Canada to retain the viability of their businesses.

CRTC Unsuitable

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC even MORE power to decide that even more content should fall under their regulation:

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC authority to:
  • Dictate how and where your content appears on digital platforms.
  • Affect your discoverability by artificially promoting some creators over others. Viewers may be pushed to watch content they aren't interested in, resulting in more skips and thumbs down, which would impact how your content is exported to global audiences, lowering viewership and revenue.
  • Apply complex “CanCon” rules that require you to prove your content is “Canadian” enough. This is easy for large Canadian media companies with teams who have been following these rules for decades, and makes it harder for smaller creators to benefit from any financial or promotional gain.
  • Push your content down in feeds if it doesn't meet CanCon requirements.
  • Regulate the length and type of advertising on your channel, which could mean less money in your pocket.
  • — Digital First Canada
Bill C-11 does not contain specific thresholds or guidance. In other words, the entire audio-visual world is fair game and it will be up to the CRTC to decide whether to exempt some services from regulation.
— Michael Geist

The CRTC is an unsuitable body for such authority; more so since it listens only to big media.

Fixing the CRTC would probably require legislation banning or severely restricting the big media companies from influencing the decisions made by the CRTC. A government in love with control is unlikely to ever create such laws.

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Bill C-18: Online News Act

Bill C-18: An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada received royal assent on June 22, 2023 without any major cleanup, permanently compromising the independence and diversity of Canadian news. It led to the cancellation of all existing funding agreements with Canadian news organizations.

Bill C-18 purports to address a real crisis — the drying up of advertising funding that previously supported news organizations in the 20th century. Unfortunately, Bill C-18 misunderstands that crisis, misdiagnosing why news advertising revenue has collapsed, and who is at fault for it.
— OpenMedia

Bill C-18 a Disaster for Canadian News

Bill C-18 has been a disaster for Canadian news, resulting in 24% less national news engagement online and a staggering 58% drop for local news!

This isn't just about lost clicks or revenue; it's about protecting our democracy.

 

Access to factual, non-partisan, quality journalism is crucial for holding governments accountable and empowering citizens to make informed decisions.

 

Without it, misinformation flourishes, our conversations polarize and fall apart, and Canadians suffer.
— OpenMedia

Rather than increasing local content, our news coverage has become more centralized.

Bell began to centralize news services (closing regional news centres) even before Bill C-18 passed:

[Bell Canada is] moving to a single newsroom approach across brands, allowing for greater collaboration and efficiency.

 

It's a consolidation of news gathering, news delivery. We are combining the news production function in a horizontal way so that you have one common platform that is serving news to the relevant outlet from one management team.
— Richard Gray

Local news will all but perish in the process.

Bill C-18 is mainly affecting the small independent news services that have managed to make the transition to digital services. Once example is the Halifax Examiner which depends upon social media for most of its new subscribers, much of which is now blocked.

News Now Harder to Discover in Canada

The attack on these social media giants threatened the discoverability of Canadian news by making it dependent upon foreign media giants; later the federal government.

Earlier this year, the Trudeau Government — supported by the NDP and Bloc Quebecois — passed a bill known as C-18, which aimed to coerce social media companies, specifically Facebook and Google, to pay “government accredited media” every time one of their links was shared on the social media platforms.

 

[T]his is nothing more than an attempted government shakedown of tech companies to reward their favourite media outlets — who already remain almost universally dependent on government financing.

 

News and media companies PROFIT from the free advertising generated from social media platforms like Facebook. They use these platforms (at no cost) to distribute links to their content that directs back to their websites where they sell advertising and subscription services.

 

To then attempt to receive coerced payment for that free advertising is the height of arrogance and hubris that has rightly blown up in their face (and the government's).
— Aaron Gunn August 10, 2023

The government reacted by directly providing the funding promised by Bill C-18. This did nothing to protect local news, but results in the end of independent journalism. Effectively, the Liberals purchased the already mostly-liberal voice of Canadian media beyond the CBC. Canada now joins countries with state-controlled media like China and Russia.

Michael Geist's Unbiased Coverage

Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa, has extensive coverage on Bill C-18.

The end result — at least for now — is a legislative mess that leaves no clear winners with Meta downgrading its platforms in Canada, Canadians cut off from their ability to share news on popular social media platforms, Canadian news outlets losing their second most important source of referral traffic, and the government looking to have made an epic miscalculation for having ignored the risks it created by establishing a mandating payments for links system with uncapped liability for the Internet companies.
— Michael Geist

The government spread misinformation, stating that these companies are “stealing Canadian news.” That is not true.

Google doesn't "use" news content — we link you to it, just like we link you to every other page on the web.
— Google blog

What both have been doing is providing links back to the news sources (i.e., the news outlets themselves). This is how the Internet works. By monetizing these links, Bill C-18 has broken consumer access to news stories on the Internet via social media.

The main beneficiaries of these links were the news organizations themselves. They post links in social media because it draws traffic to their site.

Today, producers of quality news want everyone who cares about their story to click through to their site and read all about it. That open flow of quality journalism has created the relatively robust online information system we use today.
— OpenMedia

Why News Media Monopoly Profits Are Gone

Once upon a time news media outlets had a monopoly on advertising and charged accordingly. This was before the Internet provided free and widespread access to information.

I remember paying a month's rent for a two-week classified ad (less than two column inches) in the local newspaper to attract tenants for a three-bedroom suite — twice my monthly rental income. Vacancies between tenants were common at the time.

Those local newspaper monopoly profits are gone forever, replaced with unlimited opportunities to advertise online for free.

It is true that the internet broke the business model for newspapers. Newspapers had been financially healthy for decades, but when the internet came along, the landscape shifted under their feet.

 

Sellers could now advertise on Craigslist, or put their products on eBay or Amazon, or build their own sites and market directly to consumers. That meant fewer dollars got spent on traditional advertising.

 

This development has been financially catastrophic for the news industry. But importantly, this is a tragedy without a villain.

 

It is normal for technologies to evolve and open up new capabilities, for innovation to happen as a result, players to compete, and winners and losers to emerge.

 

That's how markets work, and it's not usually deserving of intervention by the federal government.
— Sue Gardner

The Link Tax Issue

Bill C-18 essentially monetized links to news for just Google and Facebook.

Bill C-18 requires two companies (including Google) to pay for simply showing links to Canadian news publications, something that everyone else does for free.

 

The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called "link tax") breaks the way the web and search engines work, and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating access to news from Canadian publications.
— Google blog

While social media is dependent upon content, news media plays a very small part of that

C-18 Threatens a Free and Open Internet

The Internet is a wonderful source of freely available (but not necessarily free) information primarily because there is no cost to link to content elsewhere.

Social media provides the opportunity for Canadians to comment on the news — discussion that is an important component to a functioning democracy.

These links provide the ability to credit the source for quotations or other statements, much like the practice of citations at the end of an essay or other publication.

Hyperlinks thus share the same relationship with the content to which they refer as do references.

 

Both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. And they both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content.

 

The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content-neutral — it expresses no opinion, nor does it have any control over, the content to which it refers.
— Supreme Court of Canada

News Organizations Post Links on Social Media

The supporters of link taxes say that Google, Facebook and others benefit from these links. Maybe so, but so does the broadcaster.

The stated premise of C-18 is that by making links to news material available on their sites, platforms are taking value from publishers, and so they need to be forced to compensate publishers for that value to "enhance fairness" in the Canadian digital news marketplace.

 

But that premise makes no sense. We know that because news publishers have always been able to opt out of appearing in Google search results, and they don't.

 

In fact they do the opposite: they vigorously compete to maximize their presences on Google and on Facebook. News publishers want to appear on those platforms, because that's where people are finding news.

 

When someone sees a story on Google or Facebook, and clicks on it or shares it, that brings traffic to the publisher's site, increasing its reach and its revenue. Being on Facebook and Google helps publishers. If it didn't, they would just opt out.
— Sue Gardner

Link Taxes Failed Elsewhere

These policies have been tried and have failed elsewhere. The Canadian market is too small to control an increasingly diverse and internationally sourced content. Unlike Australia, we share a border with the country with the world's largest concentration of social media, television and movie conglomerates.

There is every reason to think that history is about to repeat itself in Canada. The media giants Bell, Rogers and Telus are likely to be the primary beneficiaries rather than the small local news organizations that the government insists will benefit.

Any new revenue will come at the expense of small Canadian creators like those reaching international audiences on platforms like YouTube and TikToc.

What About Local News?

We cannot fix the problem by propping up older systems whose funding model quit working when our options for information extended beyond the local newspaper.

Over the past five years, 106 local news outlets opened. While closures were majority print newspapers owned by large newspaper chains, the vast majority of the outlets that launched are digital and independently-owned.

 

Bill C-18, as currently structured, threatens these burgeoning operations.
— The Globe and Mail

Newspapers downsized their newsrooms and began to use Canada Press (CP) for news snippets rather than delving into issues that TV newscasts couldn't cover in depth.

To survive, local newspapers need focus on what they do best — cover local news and events. The print edition is all but finished because the cost of production and delivery can no longer be funded by display advertising that has already moved to TV and the Internet to get its message out.

There are already local mini online publications that focus on neighbourhoods such as the Oak Bay Local.

Not Everything is Bad

A preliminary review of the bill would not be complete without referencing one positive, namely a prohibition on discrimination, preference and disadvantage. Section 51 states:

 

In relation to news content that is produced primarily for the Canadian news marketplace by a news outlet operated by an eligible news business and that is made available by a digital news intermediary, the operator of the intermediary is prohibited from acting in any way that (a) unjustly discriminates against the business; (b) gives undue or unreasonable preference to any individual or entity, including itself; or (c) subjects the business to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage.
That is an excellent starting point for addressing the actual concerns of the platforms and news media.
— Michael Geist

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CanCon

When cable TV emerged in the 1990s, there were only so many channels and so many hours in the day available for scheduled programming.

Canadian content rules (CanCon) were put in place to ensure that Canadian TV wasn't overwhelmed with cheaper U.S. productions.

Bill C-11 imposes the twisted CanCon rules (which are based upon CAVCO CPTC certification) onto the Internet

The only beneficiaries are the big Canadian media companies and their overpriced cable packages.

Can You Identify CanCon?

The point of CanCon is to promote Canadian stories — but what stories are up to snuff, according to the government?

Your favourite movies and TV shows might not meet the official CanCon standards to be considered Canadian productions.

Take the quiz to find out if you can identify what qualifies as CanCon.

Find out which films and TV shows are certified “Canadian”?
Take the quiz!

CanCon — Not What You Think

This strict points system is choosy about which parts of a production count towards “Canadian-ness.”

The result? Content we'd all recognize as quintessentially Canadian slipping through the cracks.

Quality Not a Consideration

Unfortunately program quality was never part of the criteria. Schitt's Creek is one of the few exceptions.

Instead, CanCon rules recognized documentaries on the American Civil War and Ghandi, but not a program based upon The Handmaid's Tale by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

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