With yesterday’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meeting with experts on Bill C-10 and its implications for freedom of expression, this is a special Law Bytes episode featuring my opening statement and engagement with Members of Parliament. The discussion canvassed a wide range of issues including how regulating user generated content makes Canada an outlier worldwide, the impact on net neutrality, and why discoverability requirements constitute speech regulation. There is a second post that features my opening statement to the committee.
Post Tagged with: "guilbeault"
Debating Bill C-10 at the Canadian Heritage Committee, Part One: My Opening Statement
The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage yesterday held a special hearing with experts to discuss Bill C-10 and concerns about the freedom of expression implications of regulating user generated content. I was pleased to appear before the committee and took questions from MPs from four of the five parties (only the Liberals did not ask me any questions). I have two posts on the appearance: this post features my opening statement and a second post links to a special edition of the Law Bytes podcast with the audio of my appearance.
The full text is posted below. There are at least three points emphasizing. First, no other country in the world uses broadcast regulation in this way, making Canada a true global outlier. Second, there is no evidence of a discoverability problem for user generated content. Third, the issue of excluding Youtube from the scope of the bill is open to considerable debate and was not even raised by CIMA in its written submission to the committee.
Failing Analysis: Why the Department of Justice “Updated” Charter Statement Doesn’t Address Bill C-10’s Free Speech Risks
The Department of Justice yesterday released its updated Charter statement on Bill C-10. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the department argued that the bill is Charter compliant. That conclusion was never in doubt as the statement is quite clearly more a political document than a legal analysis. The only real questions were whether the department would seriously grapple with the freedom of expression implications of treating all user generated content as a “program” subject to regulation by the CRTC and if Minister of Justice David Lametti would come to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to answer questions on the statement. It turns out the answer is no to both questions: the statement glosses over the actual concerns with Bill C-10 and Lametti will be a no-show at the committee hearing.
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault Signals Canadian Government Abandoning Support for Net Neutrality
The Canadian government’s support for net neutrality has long stood as a foundational principle of its approach to the Internet. In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would defend net neutrality and expressed concern about the attacks on net neutrality in the U.S. That same year, Heritage Minister Melanie Joly made net neutrality a foundational part of Canadian cultural policy, stating that “as a government, we stand by the principle of net neutrality.” ISED Minister Navdeep Bains adopted the same position, stating “Net neutrality is one of the critical issues of our times, much like freedom of the press and freedom of expression before it.”
Given that freedom of expression is taking a back seat in Bill C-10 with the regulation of user generated content, perhaps it was inevitable that the government would also reverse its position on net neutrality. Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault recently gave an interview to the Toronto Star in which he appears to back away from supporting net neutrality, equating it to any Internet regulation:
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