Liberals team up with Bloc to limit debate on controversial Bill C-10 – National Post

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'This kind of motion on time allocation will do real damage to this place, not just today, not just tomorrow. But in the coming years'

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The Liberals and Bloc Qubcois voted to limit debate on controversial Bill C-10 Monday, as Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault blamed critics of the broadcasting bill for delaying the introduction of his governments promised online hate legislation.

The Conservatives, NDP and Green Party opposed the time allocation motion, but were outnumbered by the Bloc and Liberals, who want to push Bill C-10 through the before summer break.

The motion gives the heritage committee, which is currently amending the bill clause-by-clause, five more hours to complete its work before C-10 heads back for a vote in the House of Commons.

That process has been delayed over the past month, after the Liberal government introduced an amendment that critics said was a violation of free expression because it gave the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulatory authority over social media posts. The government later limited that authority, stipulating the CRTCs only power was to force platforms to promote Canadian content.

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The Conservatives have been the most critical of the free speech implications of the bill since the exemption for user-generated content was removed, but on Monday the NDP and Greens took issue with the governments move to shut down debate at committee.

NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said in the House of Commons his party agrees with the aim behind C-10, which the government says is to ensure web giants like Google pay into the Canadian content system.

The minister talks about the importance of making the web giants pay their share. We agree in principle. We voted for this bill at second reading, Boulerice said in French. And thats not the issue. The debate now is the use of a gag to prevent parliamentarians from doing their work at committee.

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Time allocation has only ever been used three times to halt work at committee, Boulerice said, adding the NDP wants to let the MPs on the committee keep doing their work to fix the bill. Green Party MP Elizabeth May said the motion is the first time in 20 years that time allocation has been used to push a bill through committee, and it sets a bad precedent for Parliament.

This kind of motion on time allocation will do real damage to this place, not just today, not just tomorrow. But in the coming years, well find this used more and more and more to whip committees into shape, May said.

Guilbeault has argued time allocation is necessary to pass C-10, because otherwise it would be stuck in committee for months, time during which the Canadian cultural sector would miss out on hundreds of millions in contributions from large digital platforms. The committee has made it through more than 80 proposed amendments, including voting down a Conservative proposal to restore the exemption for social media content, with dozens more to go.

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During an appearance at the House ethics committee Monday, Guilbeault said the delay over C-10 is the reason his government hasnt yet tabled a separate bill that would tackle online harms. In early March, Guilbeault promised that bill would be introduced within weeks. Guilbeault acknowledged Monday he had initially planned the bill to be introduced even earlier.

Unfortunately, the systemic obstruction of the Conservative Party regarding Bill C-10 has prevented me from doing so. But I am still hoping to table this bill as soon as possible, he said.

Guilbeault was at committee as part of its study of allegations Montreal-based PornHub has distributed exploitative and illegal material. Though Justice Minister David Lametti told the same committee in April Canadian law may not apply to the company due to factors like the location of its servers, Guilbeault said Monday the online harms bill would cover any website accessible from Canada.

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He said the aim behind the legislation is to ensure whether or not the company is Canadian, or based in Canada or registered in Canada or its websites are housed in Canada, if they broadcast images and videos in Canada, then the law will apply to them.

That bill would require social media platforms to take down, within 24 hours, five categories of illegal posts: hate speech, terrorist content, posts that incite violence, child sexual exploitative content and intimate content that was shared without consent.

Guilbeault has said in the past the government would create a new regulator to enforce the online harms bill. On Monday his answers indicated that may have changed, as he declined to answer questions about whether the CRTC would be put in charge.

Guilbeault told the committee the goal behind the online harms bill is to develop a proposal that establishes an appropriate balance between protecting speech and preventing harm.He added that the objective is not to reduce freedom of expression, but to increase it for all users and ensure that no voices are being suppressed because of harmful content.

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Liberals team up with Bloc to limit debate on controversial Bill C-10 - National Post