After wasting over $600,000,000 on an election campaign that achieved nothing, the Liberals are moving swiftly to bring back a controversial Internet censorship bill.
“We promised to bring in some bills very quickly,” said new Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez this week. “C-10 is one of them. Why? Because it is fundamental.”
Bill C-10 proposed that YouTube videos intended for private viewing be regulated as public broadcasts by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Infringements to the legislation will carry penalties of up to $15 million.
“We made many promises to table important bills in the first 100 days and that includes the broadcasting bill,” said Rodriguez. “We need that bill. We have to modernize it.”
However, both Conservative and Liberal appointees in the Senate have posed staunch criticism against the bill.
Sen. David Richards (N.B.) on June 29 said the bill “needs a stake through the heart” as an attempt to “subject freedom of expression to the doldrums of government oversight”, while broadcast Hall of Famer Sen. Pamela Wallin (Sask.), on May 6 described the bill as “anti-democratic,”, and Sen. Michael MacDonald (N.S.) on June 30 predicted the bill would send Parliament “down a rabbit hole on Internet regulation”.
(Photo credit: The Toronto Star)
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