With Parliament ending June 23, Bill C-10 is on the clock.
The bill was tabled on Nov. 3, purportedly to modernize Canada’s 1991 Broadcasting Act and meet challenges and opportunities presented by the global, online era. Many (including myself) assessed C-10 as lacking astute analysis and bold vision. Then things got worse. A clause that exempted user-generated content from regulation was removed, igniting debate by top experts about C-10′s impact on Canadians’ rights to free speech and an open internet. Last week, the bill was further politicized and made even more controversial when the Liberals and Bloc Québécois limited committee debate, and then, with the NDP, introduced amendments without making them public, in an attempt to rush the bill to the House of Commons, pass it and send it to the Senate.
