The Trudeau government’s plans to regulate the global internet and interfere with Canadians’ freedom of expression continues to confuse the legislation’s proponents.

 While opponents to the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) are clear that the CRTC's authority over the online world will restrict citizens’ ability to communicate without restriction, Parliamentary hearings this week elicited the deep incoherence of its defenders.

Ian Scott, chairman of the CRTC, claims that Bill C-11, the new draft of the Broadcasting Act, will not result in user generated content being regulated.

That is not true.

 A loaded gun is not intended to be used for murder, but it remains a dangerous weapon. Likewise, the direction of a car is better determined by the way the wheels are pointed than by the turn signals. History has shown that the CRTC will regulate up to the last millimeter of its statutory authority.

Lipstick on the same old pig. I will let Peter Menzies say it for me. 

There has been a lot of talk about liberty lately. Some, like those in the truckers’ convoys and blockades, want a lot more of it. Others, startled at the prospect of mingling with the unvaccinated and unmasked, want less of it, as does the Trudeau government, which on Feb. 14 invoked the Emergencies Act.

Pamela and I dig into the reasons for promoting speech controls, as the Liberals are trying to do in their Online Harms proposals and Bill C10. We live in a time of extreme cultural insecurity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-f9WJRM1Gs&ab_channel=NoNonsensewithPamelaWallin 

My colleague Philip Palmer delivered this address to the PIAC conference. Caution - it has a large blast radius.

C-10: Three Failures

There are tomes to be written about C-10, its ambitions and its failings. I would like to make 3 points:

First, the restriction of free speech by the regulation of Internet streaming services as broadcasting cannot be justified under the Charter of Rights.

Second, section 3 of the Broadcasting Act, as amended by C-10, fails as a broadcasting policy for the Internet age.

Third, the expansion the Broadcasting Act to Internet streaming services is unconstitutional both as beyond the powers of Parliament and as contrary to the Charter of Rights.

The Basic Question

Is there something in the Internet which should inform our approach and constrain the application of broadcasting concepts to it?  I think there is: permissionless innovation. 

People think that fascism appears as gangs of thugs in black uniforms beating people up. I suspect that it first appears by thought and word, before it manifests as physical violence. 

Sir Douglas Barrett, QC, King's Bench, 1692-1764, precursor of Canada's broadcasting legal fraternity

I see that broadcasting lawyer Doug Barrett is suggesting we vote anything but Conservative because they threaten delay in the passage and implementation of the Broadcasting Act, as expressed in the late bill C10. If you care abut people's freedom to communicate across the Internet without prior permission, I would suggest that you vote for anyone who comes closest to scrapping the Broadcasting Act, and while they are at it, dismantling the CRTC and starting again.

I asked Ben Klass what this graph means. He replied:

The new Broadcasting Act, Bill C10, may be stymied in the Senate of Canada, but the actual content of its policy objectives has just been released. Heritage Canada has published “Guiding Principles on Diversity of Content online”. The Guiding Principles have several advantages over the policy objectives of section 3 of the Broadcasting Act. They are not legislated, they can be revised and adapted according to the how the technologies or the societies that adopt them evolve, and they have no legally binding force. They have only the force of the large platforms to back them, if they sign on to the Guiding Principles.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Annual General Meeting of the Internet Society, Canada Chapter.

What a year it has been! The vision of the Internet that we have is one that is open, accessible and affordable.

C10, the government’s new Broadcasting Act, is a panicked reaction of elites to the power of the Internet. All the stated rationales are inadequate to explain the totalitarian impulse to control speech that oozes from the new bill. The very excess of the proposed Act is a sure sign of darker intentions.

The purpose of this note is to draw your attention to certain features of the draft legislation that may not be apparent and that will have long term negative consequences for Canadians generally.

The Act is not about broadcasting. It is about the licensing of expression through video on the Internet. The act declares almost all such expression to be “broadcasting” so that it can regulate it.

The purpose of this note is to draw your attention to certain features of the draft legislation that may not be apparent and that will have long term negative consequences for Canadians generally.

The Act is not about broadcasting. It is about the licensing of expression through video on the Internet. The act declares almost all such expression to be “broadcasting” so that it can regulate it.

The idea that democracy can be salvaged through the sanitization of the speech that sustains it is both confused and dangerous. The Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression thinks otherwise. On Wednesday this week the Commission announced a plan for the federal government to assert a measure of control over social media platforms by imposing a Duty to Act Responsibly and creating more agencies to work out what that entails.

Chris MacDonald, lately a commissioner of the CRTC, and Peter Menzies, former Vice Chairman for Telecommunications at the same agency, recently published a paper called Building Internet Access is Job 1.We think it is a useful contribution to public discussion of matters of national importance. There is much that the Internet Society likes. Before we get on to the subject of MVNOs[1], where we differ, we want to set forth our agreements of several large issues.

Chris MacDonald, lately a commissioner of the CRTC, and Peter Menzies, former Vice Chairman for Telecommunications at the same agency, recently published a paper called Building Internet Access is Job 1.We think it is a useful contribution to public discussion of matters of national importance. There is much that the Internet Society likes. Before we get on to the subject of MVNOs[1], where we differ, we want to set forth our agreements of several large issues.

 Chris MacDonald, lately a commissioner of the CRTC, and Peter Menzies, former Vice Chairman for Telecommunications at the same agency, recently published a paper called Building Internet Access is Job 1.We think it is a useful contribution to public discussion of matters of national importance. There is much that the Internet Society likes. Before we get on to the subject of MVNOs[1], where we differ, we want to set forth our agreements of several large issues.

This was published today in the Financial Post. It represents the position of the Internet Society, Canada Chapter.

The cabinet recently sent a message to the CRTC. In substance the cabinet declined to decide upon an appeal by the large carriers against a decision on rates for interconnection by smaller ISPs. But that is not the real issue. The fundamental question is how much competition will be allowed in Canadian telecommunications. The cabinet’s non-decision constitutes an improper form of nudging the CRTC by hint and nuance rather than by a legal directive, which it could have, but did not, issue.

5G is the latest rage-o-rama of the telecom buzzword industry. It is providing the carriers with yet another excuse to fight network interconnection from smaller users. In this sense 5G is a two-fold layer of BS.