Conservative leadership contender Pierre Poilievre says he would introduce the Free Speech Act if elected as prime minister, which would repeal Bill C-11, eliminate the proposed "Orwellian" Digital Safety Commissioner position, and "leave it to law enforcement to enforce the criminal code online."“Freedom of expression is one of our most precious charter rights, without which no other rights are possible," Poilievre said in a statement released Wednesday. "The current government has attempted to rob Canadians of those rights."The MP for Carleton, Ontario, said the Liberal government is "obsessed" with controlling what Canadians can see, hear, and say online. He was referring to Bill C-11, Online Streaming Act, which would expand the scope of the Broadcasting Act and allow the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) to cover all audiovisual content on the internet.Poilievre said platforms hosting Canadian content would have to make financial contributions to the “CanCon” fund and make CanCon “discoverable” on their platforms by manipulating users’ feeds and search results to meet the quota of official CanCon content, "or else face fines from the gatekeepers at the CRTC."The Liberal government has also proposed what Poilievre called an "Orwellian" Digital Safety Commissioner, who would oversee and improve online content moderation. "The idea of having a cabinet-appointed bureaucrat overseeing online content is state censorship, he said."Worse yet, according to Poilievre, is the fact that politicians would have the power to interfere with the decisions of the commissioner. According to the government’s own technical paper on the proposal, the cabinet would be given the ability to issue "binding directions on the Digital Safety Commissioner" with respect to "broad matters" relating to the purposes of the act. "So, not only would the Commissioner have powers to censor and manipulate internet content but the politicians in government could direct how he uses those powers," Poilievre said.Poilievre quoted Digital Expert Michael Geist, who has said the proposed legislation would address forms of harmful content through takedown requirements, content filtering, complaints mechanisms, and even website blocking."The implications of these provisions are enormous, raising the likelihood of creating a country-wide blocking infrastructure within all ISPs with the costs passed on to consumers in the form of higher internet and wireless bills," Geist said. Poilievre said the Liberals are attempting to "control what you see in your social media newsfeed and what you can say online."“And on top of that, they’ve teamed up with elite corporate media gatekeepers to stifle the power of the independent media," he said. When I’m Prime Minister, I’ll protect free speech online and make sure independent media have the right to cover the news”.
