44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is completely exhausting to hear the Conservatives continue to spread misinformation and disinformation, and then campaign and fund raise off this misinformation. This is a theme that we hear over and over again. This is most definitely the case right now.
Could the member share his thoughts on why we are not seeing the Conservatives apply the work that needs to be done to ensure we are protecting Canadian artists? What are the impacts on Canadians across the country, who are set up for failure in a system stacked against them? Instead, it could be providing opportunities for Canadian artists to show off their amazing talents across our country.
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- Mar/30/23 12:12:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, often we get emails from individuals looking for explanations on party positioning. What I have found is that there are ample amounts of misinformation being advocated, in particular from some parties inside the House of Commons, so I often need to respond to misinformation that is being espoused.
I am not trying to give the impression that the legislation is 100% supported by everyone in the country. What I am suggesting is that this legislation would modernize the act and at the end of the day would ensure that there is a fairer, more level playing field.
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Mr. Speaker, we will not have those days back because that Conservative Party is gone. Believe it or not, Stephen Harper's Conservative Party no longer exists. As extreme right as that party was, we are now dealing with something even more to the right. It is a complete engulfing of everything populous that anyone could ever imagine.
I am going to talk about disinformation in my speech, in particular disinformation from the Conservatives. The first example that comes to mind is the last interaction between the member for Calgary Nose Hill and her Conservative colleague, who asked a friendly question about Margaret Atwood. There was disinformation about what Margaret Atwood said and her intentions.
I want to read to the House what The Globe and Mail reported regarding Margaret Atwood: “The author said she had not read the bill ‘thoroughly yet’ and that there seemed to be ‘well-meaning attempts to achieve some sort of fairness in the marketplace.’” The Conservatives are not properly representing the thoughts of Margaret Atwood, yet they use her as a vehicle for disinformation repeatedly.
Unfortunately, what this issue has turned into for the Conservatives is nothing more than a fundraising cash cow. That is what this is. They are using every opportunity to raise money off this issue. They are using this House to raise money off this issue. They are promoting disinformation and misinformation to raise money off this issue.
I would like to read some of the outlandish things we have heard from Conservatives throughout this debate.
The member for Lethbridge said, “I wish for Canadians to know that this bill would impact them in two damning ways: One, it would censor what they see; and two, it would censor what they say.”
The member for Carleton himself said, “The bill is about controlling the people.”
The member for Sarnia—Lambton asked, “Could the member tell me how this legislation is different from what happens in communist countries?”
The member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes said, “it is a government that wants to control what Canadians see and control what Canadians think.”
The member for Kildonan—St. Paul, quoting Jay Goldberg, said, “If government bureaucrats get to choose what content to push on Canadians, there’s a very real risk the government will be tempted to use its filtering powers to silence its critics.”
The member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner said, “Ultimately, Bill C-11 would put Canada in step with countries like North Korea, China, Iran and Russia”.
The member for Oshawa, and this blew us away on Monday, said, “Bill C-11 is an online censorship bill designed to control search engines and algorithms so that the government can control what Canadians see and hear.” He also said:
Sadly, this legislation models practices directly from the Communist Government of China.... It blocks unacceptable views and connections that the CCP considers harmful to the Chinese public. The goal of its Internet is to reshape online behaviour and use it to disseminate new party theories and promote socialist agendas.
The House was literally in a state of disbelief when we heard the member for Oshawa say that. The first person to get up and make a comment was the well-respected member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who is not in the Liberal caucus, and she said, “Madam Speaker, as the hon. member for Oshawa was speaking, all I could think is that somewhere there is a Liberal war room clipping all of that to use in ads to make sure no one votes Conservative.”
This is the rhetoric we have been hearing from that side of the House, and it is for nothing more than to clip and create videos to put out there, to generate money and to fundraise. I have been the subject of that myself. A tweet of mine regarding this issue was used in a fundraising email sent out by the Conservatives, with a gigantic “donate now” button at the bottom.
Perhaps one of the most egregious forms of improperly utilizing House resources, which I hope the Speaker will come back to this House with a ruling on in short order, was what the member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, did with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, who, by the way, has been in this House for a very long time and is a former House leader who knows the rules inside and out. As they were walking out of the chamber, while the chamber was still in session, they held a phone and started recording a video as they walked into the lobby. They were still in the chamber. The mace is still visible on the table in their video, and the member for Carleton was talking about how the Liberals are trying to silence people. Of course, what is at the bottom? It is a big “donate now” button so people can click the link and support the Conservative Party.
This has obviously been a cash cow for them, and they are using it over and over. Of course, we rose on a point of order trying to get the Speaker to rule on this egregious act of not just filming in this House, which we are not supposed to do, but using House of Commons resources to promote something. When we rose on a point of order regarding that, what did the Leader of the Opposition do? He retweeted that tweet, saying we are trying to silence it. Of course, what is at the bottom of that retweet? It is a big “donate now” button linking people right to the Conservative Party.
Not only does he completely disrespect the rules of this House, but he will then blatantly use the proper calling of procedure to fundraise further. This is the Leader of the Opposition. This is the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition doing this, and it is absolutely unacceptable. The Speaker knows that. I know that. Every member of this House knows that. However, the Leader of the Opposition continues, and he does not care. He does not care what gets in his way to fundraise, even if it is proper decorum and practice within this House.
The Conservatives get up and say that the Liberal Party and the Liberal government, in cahoots with the NDP, are somehow trying to give cabinet the ability to generate and write the algorithms that would shape what people see. For someone to believe that, they would also have to believe that the Bloc Québécois, a separatist party in this country, is going along with that scheme. How ludicrous is it to think that the Bloc Québécois would say it would turn over the reins to cabinet to generate and make up the algorithms? It is completely ludicrous. The Conservatives know it.
Years ago, when this bill was first introduced in the House, the Conservatives, to their credit, jumped on top of what was possibly a misstep with respect to introducing it. They sensed a little blood in the water, and the sharks were swarming around trying to generate controversy and conspiracy theories on this issue. Of course, because of the way things work on social media, it did not take long for everybody to jump on board those conspiracy theories, and the Conservatives have done nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to try to set the record straight. Instead, they have used it for political gain, they have used it for fundraising and they have used it time and time again to try to delay moving anything forward in this House.
If the Conservatives want to get up and talk about closing debate on this issue, they really have to reflect on how many times they have spoken to it. I am sure all they need to do is look at the fundraising emails, because every time this debate comes up, another fundraising email goes out.
An hon member: Thank you for your donation.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, they continue to heckle, and they are only helping my point. “Thank you for your donation” were the words heckled to me.
This is only about one thing for the Conservatives. This is about fundraising. This is about getting money, and the Leader of the Opposition knew it himself this morning when he realized his cash cow was about to dry up in a second and that he better film one more video. He could not even wait until he got outside of the chamber to film that video. He had to start doing it while walking up the aisle.
I look forward to my remaining time after question period.
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- Mar/30/23 3:35:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, because it is extremely dangerous for a political party to look at the opportunity to raise money as being more important than the consequences that come with the misinformation and what that could potentially translate into. That is what we are seeing. As I said earlier, I believe that some of the Conservatives actually are at the point where they believe their own rhetoric because they have been saying it so much.
We have a situation here where money, generating revenue, is more important. Nowhere was that clearer than earlier today when the Leader of the Opposition realized that this cash cow is about to dry up because we are about to vote on this, and that he had better start recording a video on it with a link to his donation page. He started recording a video while he was still in the chamber with the mace sitting on the table. That should tell Canadians where this issue lies for Conservatives, because it is extremely telling.
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- Mar/30/23 4:41:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate how the member put into proper context one of Canada's much-loved authors. It is important. The type of misinformation we are seeing on the legislation is causing a great deal of anxiety for many Canadians, where they feel they will lose their freedom to express themselves on the Internet or upload a simple post to Facebook. The Conservatives have been supporting that misinformation. Reflecting on the quote she read, can the member provide her thoughts on how it is unhealthy for society in general when there is that type of misinformation being talked about from elected officials?
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- Mar/30/23 6:10:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about misinformation. The industry has seen the value of the bill from every region of the country and wants to see the legislation pass through; the only political entity that is not going to be voting in favour of the legislation itself is the leader of the Conservative Party and his caucus.
There is a lot of misinformation out there. Let me give an example. Earlier today, I posed a question to one of his members, asking if they really believe that the government is trying to prevent people from being able to upload a video on Facebook. I used the example of a cat video. The member said yes.
The amount of rhetoric we get coming from the Conservative benches is spreading false information, when we know that the legislation does not limit freedom of expression or freedom to be able to upload to Facebook in any way whatsoever. However, the Conservative Party continues to spread misinformation.
Does the leader of the Conservative Party believe that the government, the Bloc, the NDP and the Green Party are trying to prevent individuals from uploading cat videos on Facebook?
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- Mar/30/23 7:06:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what is fascinating is that the Minister for Public Safety at the time based the government's decision-making on reports from the CBC that were proven to be false. They were spinning a false narrative, both about buildings allegedly lit on fire by the convoy, which did not happen, and that Russia interfered or huge foreign groups tried to fund this movement, which did not happen; FINTRAC said as much and CSIS proved as much as well.
What this member actually just did was spread misinformation about what was going on. That is shameful, and he should apologize for that.
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- Mar/30/23 7:36:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's speech. I am grateful to hear the voices of Canadians. They can rightly voice their opinions about this issue. I have received similar emails and phone calls to my office, largely after receiving fundraising emails from the Conservative Party that are filled with the misinformation that is then repeated in their correspondence back to us.
It is our duty in this House to ensure that we do our due diligence, and we respond calmly and accurately, and share information about what is actually in the content of the bill. That is what I have been doing.
I am wondering if the member has also been listening to the voices who are in support of this bill, or does he also believe that they are liars and coercive bad actors.
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