Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, in your speech today on Bill C-11, you told us about user-generated content that the government made a commitment. Well, we’ve heard this “just trust us” many times before from the Trudeau government, and the number of broken promises by this government is substantial.

These include: two years of deficits at just $10 billion per year before returning to balance, that the 2015 election would be the last one under the first-past-the-post system — it goes on and on — and most recently Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland promised that the federal ratio of debt to GDP would not increase, and she called that “a line we will not cross.” Yet the Parliamentary Budget Officer has now stated that is yet another Trudeau government broken promise.

Senator Gold, when you state that your government will not put this user-generated content assurance into the actual law but instead you tell us — on this most contentious Bill C-11 — to “just trust us,” after all of the broken promises over the last eight years from this Trudeau government, why should Canadians believe that promise?

Senator Gold: Senator Batters, I guess what divides some of us is whether we believe that when a minister makes a commitment, when the Government Representative in this place makes a commitment, it is to be taken seriously and at face value.

My team and I — and I think many senators in this place — have been engaged in a serious effort to make sure that there is time here in the Senate for this bill to be studied properly and for the Senate to be able to do its work. The Government Representative Office has been respectful of the Senate every step of the way.

Timelines that were agreed to were changed when the leadership in your party changed. Timelines were not simply extended to give pleasure to Mr. Poilievre, but to give opportunities for the Senate and senators to weigh in, and we did good work.

The fact that this one clause, in a very complicated bill, is the subject of disagreement between the Senate and the majority of members of the House of Commons is, if I can reprise my comments in my speech, to focus on a tree and not the forest.

I’m going to refrain for the moment, colleagues, from reminding us that not everyone in this chamber necessarily approaches the improvement of this bill with the same end goal in sight, but the majority of senators in this place, I am convinced, are proud of the work that we have done and want to see this bill given Royal Assent, notwithstanding disagreement on this and the five other amendments that were not accepted by this government.