Ottawa, ON - John Nater, Conservative Shadow Minister for Canadian Heritage, released the following statement after notice of time allocation was given in the House of Commons regarding the 2nd reading of Bill C-11:
“Conservatives support creating a level playing field between large foreign streaming services and Canadian broadcasters while protecting the individual rights and freedoms of Canadians.
“Just as was done in the last Parliament, Liberals are trying to push through their Internet regulation bill with as little scrutiny as possible. Every Canadian who watches videos or listens to music or podcasts online could be impacted by this bill. The fact that the Liberals would move time allocation while dozens of Members of Parliament, representing hundreds of thousands of Canadians, wish to speak is unacceptable.
“The Government has failed to be transparent at every step of the process in their attempts to amend the Broadcasting Act and now they have decided to shut down debate. Thousands of digital-first creators who have found success online are now left with uncertainty about their ability to earn a livelihood.
“Legislation of this magnitude and that could pose such a tremendous threat deserves at the very least to go through the normal parliamentary procedure; not bypassed to streamline an ideological agenda.
“We are urging the Liberals, and the NDP, who have previously been highly critical of the Liberals’ time allocation measures, to do what is right and to not allow a controversial bill to be pushed through without the required parliamentary oversight and scrutiny that democracy requires.
“While Liberals continue to obfuscate on Bill C-11, Conservatives will continue to be the voice for Canadians who are rightfully concerned about the impacts this legislation poses to how Canadians access content online.”