Poilievre to repeal online harms bill set to cost $200M in bureaucracy

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OTTAWA — Conservatives are promising to scrap the proposed federal online harms bill after the latest report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) found that it would create more than $200 million in new bureaucracy.

Bill C-63 would establish three new entities: the Digital Safety Commission, which is mandated to enforce the act and has the power to issue monetary penalties and fines, and the Digital Safety Ombudsperson, which will support social media users. Both will be supported by the Digital Safety Office, which manages the day-to-day operations.

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Put together, the Digital Safety Commission, Ombudsman and Office will have the equivalent of 300 full-time employees at full capacity, according to preliminary estimates from the Department of Canadian Heritage provided to the PBO’s office.

In a report issued Thursday, the budget watchdog estimated that the total operating costs of these new entities in the next five years will be $201 million — minus any administrative monetary penalties or fines collected from online providers that contravene the act.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner asked the PBO to calculate the costs associated with the new Online Harms Act. In a blog post, she wrote that “the opportunity cost of bill C-63 alone should be enough to send it to the (Justice) Minister’s shred pile.”

“It’s unconscionable that the Liberal government would consider dumping $200M and over 300 new staff into an ill-defined new bureaucracy that does little to materially protect Canadians from online harassment when Canada’s existing law enforcement officials are begging for support to deal with the crime waves sweeping across our nation,” she wrote.

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office told the National Post he would repeal C-63 should it become law.

“Common sense Conservatives oppose Justin Trudeau’s three headed censorship monster and new $200 million bureaucracy. Should his Liberal-NDP coalition government pass this new censorship law, a Pierre Poilievre common sense Conservative government will repeal it,” said Sebastian Skamski, director of media relations.

Justice Minister Arif Virani’s office was not immediately available to respond for comment.

In an interview, PBO Yves Giroux said that he was surprised to see such a “high number” of employees for the new Digital Safety Commission, Ombudsman and Office.

“It was indeed surprising, especially when you consider other organizations in Canada. The CRTC, for example, has more than 500 employees,” he said, adding that it has a “broad mandate” regulating broadcasting and telecommunications. “So, it’s surprising to see that the CRTC has less than double the size of the new Commission.”

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The PBO’s analysis is filled with caveats and its conclusions could vary depending on a variety of factors.

The PBO noted in his report that the preliminary staffing estimates from Canadian Heritage are based on other Canadian federal regulators and comparable international organizations for digital safety in the United Kingdom and Australia. But the final staffing levels in Canada could differ from those estimates, said Giroux.

“The Australians have a smaller office, and their economy is smaller than us and a smaller population by a multiple. And the U.K. has an office that is, when you look at comparable functions, that is bigger, but again, they have a bigger population,” he said.

The costs could also go up if the Digital Safety Commission, Ombudsman or Office use “significant” external legal, IT or consulting services, wrote the PBO. On the other hand, the Digital Safety Commission could generate revenue through administrative penalties and fines.

“There is a high degree of uncertainty in the revenues that will be generated since it depends on the willingness of outside enterprises to follow the requirements set out by the Commission and the Online Harms Act,” reads the three-page report from the PBO.

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Rempel Garner also noted that the figures in the PBO report do not account for the increase to the workload of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which is expected to receive complaints against individuals posting hate speech on social media platforms.

“So, it’s reasonable to assume today’s $200M PBO analysis is just the tip of Bill C-63’s spending iceberg,” she said.

Giroux said there will “likely” be additional costs associated to C-63 because the Canadian Human Rights Commission will likely be dealing with more complaints but would not go as far as Rempel Garner in saying that $200 million is the tip of the iceberg.

The bill aims to force social media, user-uploaded adult content and live-streaming services to reduce exposure to online content deemed harmful, to strengthen the reporting of child pornography and to better address and denounce hate propaganda and provide recourse to victims of hate online.

Online services will be forced to remove two categories of content: intimate content communicated without consent or content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor of sexual abuse.

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Rempel Garner noted that the bill has some massive loopholes, such as helping police stop online threatening or harassing behaviour or criminalizing the non-consensual distribution of “deepfaked intimate images,” and said it could infringe on civil liberties.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said after the bill was introduced earlier this year that it took issue with the “vast authority” bestowed upon the proposed Digital Safety Commission which will “serve as judge, jury, and executioner.”

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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