{"id":66390,"date":"2021-06-09T03:00:57","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T07:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=66390"},"modified":"2021-06-08T13:07:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T17:07:44","slug":"bill-c-10-what-occurred-yesterday-was-far-worse-than-a-blunder-it-was-a-betrayal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2021\/06\/09\/bill-c-10-what-occurred-yesterday-was-far-worse-than-a-blunder-it-was-a-betrayal\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill C-10 – “… what occurred yesterday was far worse than a blunder. It was a betrayal.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In another country it might be a fascinating and amusing thing to watch Steven Guilbeault faff about pretending to understand what his own bill says and how it will cause havoc for ordinary Canadians, but being in Canada the humour is lacking as Michael Geist<\/a> shows:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, 3 February 2020.
Screencapure from CPAC video.<\/p><\/div>\n

Several weeks after Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault introduced Bill C-10, I started a 20 part blog post series called the Broadcasting Act Blunder<\/a> (podcast edition here<\/a>). The series examined many of concerns with the bill, including issues such as over-broad regulation and discoverability requirements that would only garner public attention many months later. I thought about that series yesterday as I watched Guilbeault try in the House of Commons to defend the indefensible: a gag order on committee review of the bill, the first such order in two decades. While the bill is in dire need of fixing, what occurred yesterday was far worse than a blunder. It was a betrayal. A betrayal of the government’s commitment to “strengthen Parliamentary committees so that they can better scrutinize legislation.” A betrayal of the promise to do things differently from previous governments. A betrayal of Canada’s values as a Parliamentary democracy.<\/p>\n

The 23 minute and 30 second question and comment period \u2013 the House Speaker ruled there could be no debate and that the period could not extend beyond 23 minutes and 30 seconds \u2013 notably featured NDP MP Peter Julian and Green MP Elizabeth May, two of the longer serving MPs in the House as among the first to speak. Julian was first elected in 2004, when Guilbeault was only a few years removed from activist stunts such as climbing the CN Tower. Meanwhile, May became the founding Executive Director of the Sierra Club in 1989, the same year Guilbeault started as a university student. It seemed to me that both had a message for an inexperienced cabinet minister elected less than two years ago, namely that some things are bigger than single bill. Bills come and go, but principles \u2013 or betrayal of those principles \u2013 endures.<\/p>\n

Guilbeault clearly did not get it, wondering how the NDP could possibly reject the gag order and effectively support potential delays to his bill. Both the NDP and the Greens may ultimately vote for Bill C-10, but both understand that defending democracy and the freedom of expression of MPs (much less the freedom of expression of all Canadians) is far more important than a delay to any single bill. As May noted, the gag order will do real long term damage. One day it will be a different government on a different issue seeking to use the same procedure to cut short committee study. And the Liberals will have no credible response with no one to blame but themselves.<\/p>\n

But we don’t need to look far into the future to see the consequences of the Guilbeault gag order. This past weekend, the Canadian government joined with other countries to criticize the Nigerian government for blocking Twitter and establishing registration requirements for social media. Yet calls for respecting freedom of expression rings hollow when you are shutting down Parliamentary debate on a bill with profound implications for freedom of expression. Indeed, Canada’s lost moral authority on Internet freedoms is an undeniable consequence of Bill C-10 and the Guilbeault gag order.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In another country it might be a fascinating and amusing thing to watch Steven Guilbeault faff about pretending to understand what his own bill says and how it will cause havoc for ordinary Canadians, but being in Canada the humour is lacking as Michael Geist shows: Several weeks after Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault introduced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,831,6,84,9,10,28,15],"tags":[459,676,480,58,458,661,593],"class_list":["post-66390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-business","category-cancon","category-government","category-law","category-liberty","category-media","category-technology","tag-censorship","tag-crtc","tag-hypocrisy","tag-internet","tag-parliament","tag-regulation","tag-socialmedia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-hgO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66391,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66390\/revisions\/66391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}