On Thursday, the Liberal government struck down debate in the House of Commons on Bill C-11 to ram the legislation through parliament.
Liberal MPs voted to support closing debate on amendments introduced by the Senate which would protect content posted online by individuals from government regulation.
“What we just heard from the government is that they’ve moved closure on Bill C-11 and our discussion on amendments that came back from the Senate. Closure means that they’re shutting down debate,” said Conservative MP Rachel Thomas.
“I find this rather interesting because really Bill C-11 is a censorship bill. We have a government that has moved a censorship bill and now they’re moving censorship on that censorship bill. Talk about a government very committed to censorship.”
Senators Julie Miville-Dechene and Paula Simons put forward amendments that could potentially exempt user-generated content on social media platforms from being subject to regulatory scrutiny by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Those amendments were rejected by the Liberals earlier this month.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also commented on the move to close debate earlier in the day, calling it a legislative emergency.
“As you know they’ve been trying to censor the internet, in what Canadian artist Margaret Atwood has called creeping totalitarianism to give Trudeau’s woke bureaucrats at the CRTC the power to control what you see and say on the internet,” said Poilievre.
“They’re bringing in what’s called closure which shuts down debate and rams the bill through in record time.”
This isn’t the first time that the Liberals have sought to close debate on bills aimed to regular the internet.
The Liberals also attempted to push Bill C-11’s predecessor Bill C-10 without further debate in 2021.
