Cory Morgan: Ottawa Should Focus on Real Problems, Not Internet Regulation

The website of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on a cell phone in Ottawa on May 17, 2021. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

Commentary

In the 1990s, the internet was a nascent phenomenon and was an ungoverned wild west of interactive communication. This prompted the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to initiate a process in 1998 to determine if the internet should be regulated by the government. After spending a year studying the issue, CRTC commissioner Françoise Bertrand announced, “The commission does not believe that regulation of the new media would further the objectives of the Broadcasting Act.”

What the commissioner really meant is that they couldn’t figure out how to regulate the internet, though they dearly wanted to. The sole purpose of the CRTC is to regulate communications, and it went against the commission’s instinct to have such a large and growing platform sharing information without the steady hand of a government agency to guide it.

Now, 26 years later, the battle to regulate the internet continues as Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault plans to reintroduce an internet censorship bill—making it the third time in four years that the Liberals have tried to pass such legislation. In 2019 and 2021, elections prevented the passage of Bill C-36, which would have imposed heavy regulations upon the internet. The bill was widely panned by academics and free speech advocates as being too punitive and without clear safeguards against abuse of process. Undeterred, Guilbeault has determined that the third time’s the charm in passing this bill to regulate the internet into law.

The internet is not totally lawless, and many cases have set precedents limiting behaviour in both the criminal and civil courts. Laws against defamation apply to internet postings as well as laws against threats or fomenting violence. Posting of child pornography is illegal, and police agencies actively work to catch and charge offenders. Internet providers can be compelled to strip away the anonymity of service users with a court order, and they typically are cooperative. There are still many bad actors on the internet, but people can’t act with impunity there.

Assuming Minister Guilbeault’s new bill is like his last one, it will go much farther than trying to regulate illegal or defamatory actions on the internet. The prior bill sought to ban content deemed “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group.” Offenders could be fined as much as $70,000 and be sentenced to house arrest. Those are some serious penalties for offences as vague as “detestation or vilification.” Applied broadly, most of the people who get into heated debates on X or Meta could be charged. It will take several court cases to clarify exactly how those terms apply to internet speech and how punishable they may be.

Much like in 1998 when the CRTC tried to regulate the internet, Guilbeault will face challenges crafting a functional and enforceable system to manage this new law. Internet providers won’t be eager to take part in such micromanagement of the content of their users, and if the government tries to compel them to police content, they may simply pull out of Canadian services. When the government pushed Meta too far with its Online News Act, Meta stopped allowing links to news content on its platform. In the evolving and competitive world of digital content, Canada can’t afford to alienate service providers through regulatory overreach.

The proposed online harms bill is a solution seeking a problem. There isn’t public demand for such contentious legislation, so why is Guilbeault determined to wade into it? Is he acting independently as a minister, or does the Carney government want to continue with the path of regulatory enforcement on the internet that his predecessor began?

The Trudeau government passed the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act. The Carney government is now passing a bill that would codify and impose stronger penalties for spreading hate propaganda, including on the internet. How much more regulation does the internet need right now?

The Carney government has a massive legislative agenda in front of it. The tariff wars between China and the United States continue to pressure the economy. Canadians still see immigration as being out of control. Violent crimes are still being committed by repeat offenders on bail, and the nation is facing a massive budget deficit. The honeymoon is wearing off, and Canadians are demanding results from Prime Minister Carney. The government should avoid having too many irons in the fire so it can deliver on what matters.

Dropping the online harms bill from the legislative agenda would be a wise course of action. It would allow the government to focus on key issues, and allow Carney to put a little more distance between himself and Trudeau’s government. The government will have to resist its compulsion to control speech, however, and that won’t be easy for it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.