Bill C-10 heads for second review
Controversial Bill C-10 is heading to the justice minister for a second review of whether it impacts Charter rights, a day after Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault issued contradictory statements about whether Canadians’ social media accounts will be regulated under the bill.
Konrad von Finckenstein, former chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, said the government has not been clear what the broadcasting bill, and the various amendments the government has put forward in recent weeks, will do.
“By now everybody seems confused, and I think nobody knows anymore what this is, and where this is leading and what you’re trying to achieve,” von Finckenstein said in an interview.
After a week-long impasse, Liberal and opposition MPS voted Monday to send Bill C-10 to the justice minister for a second charter review. They also agreed to ask Guilbeault as well as Justice Minister David Lametti to appear at the committee and hear additional expert testimony.
Conservative MP Rachael Harder said that testimony will help the committee members understand the bill they’re voting on, which has been subject to amendments that critics say amount to an attack on freedom of expression, a charge that the government denies.
“We can see that the Minister of Heritage himself is struggling to answer some really basic questions about this bill,” Harder said during the committee meeting. “And so, if he himself doesn’t have a full understanding of what this legislation does, and does not do, and is not able to clearly communicate on that point, then I’m confused as to why this committee would be expected to have a clearer understanding of this piece of legislation.”
On Sunday, Guilbeault said in a CTV interview that under the bill, the CRTC could impose regulations on Youtube accounts that are making money or have millions of viewers. He then said in a follow-up statement to CTV that’s not the case and that he’d used “unclear” language in the interview.
That confusion followed several weeks in which the government fumbled its communications over the bill and its impacts, according to experts.
While the bill, which sets up the CRTC to impose Canadian content regulations on digital platforms like Netflix, was introduced in November, controversy over its impact on free speech began only a few weeks ago. That’s when the government removed an amendment that had previously exempted user-generated content from CRTC regulation.
Critics said putting Canadians’ social media posts under the authority of the broadcast regulator is a violation of their free expression rights. The government maintained that wasn’t the aim of the bill and there were other safeguards in the bill to ensure Charter rights weren’t violated.
“There’s a lack of a clear concept here,” von Finckenstein said.
Von Finckenstein said the government could have structured the bill to target streamers like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video and left user-generated content out of it. “What has user-generated content got to do with broadcasting?” he asked. “Whether you are large or successful or not, what has that got to do with anything?”