The Conservatives are demanding that the House of Commons hold an emergency debate on Bill C-11 over concerns that the Liberal government previously attempted to have certain online content be taken down for containing misinformation or being offensive.
Thomas also posted the letter on Twitter while writing that the Liberal government is “pressuring social media platforms to remove news stories they don’t want ppl to see.”
“Bill C-11 will make this type of gov censorship legal,” she wrote.
In one of these instances, the director of communications at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) requested in September 2021 that Facebook and Twitter remove a post with a link to an article by Toronto Sun columnist Lorne Gunter for “containing serious errors of fact risking undermining public confidence in the independence of the Board as well as the integrity of the refugee determination system.”
Thomas argued in her letter that Bill C-11 will “greatly diminish the ability of media companies and social media platforms to ignore government commands concerning what information can and cannot be made available to the Canadian public.”
“News and cultural content will be at the mercy of government oversight and approvals,” she wrote.
Bill C-11 aims to amend the Broadcasting Act to give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulating authority over streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify.
The legislation will give the CRTC power to require these platforms to contribute to Canadian content standards on networks within the country or else face penalties.
However, the House voted to reject the amendment along with others, sending the legislation back to the Senate for a final vote before it can receive royal assent. Senators also have the option of recommending further amendments to Bill C-11, which would send it back to the House.
Thomas wrote that given Bill C-11 “now awaits just one final vote in the Senate—it is all the more urgent and pressing for these serious and worrying concerns to be thoroughly improperly debated in Parliament immediately.”