Streaming bill passage temporarily slowed in Senate after challenge to time allocation

Bill C-11 was back in the Senate chamber Tuesday, and though a motion to cut off debate aimed to speed up the passage of the contentious streaming legislation, Senators instead sat late into the evening over a challenge to the time allocation motion itself.

At the end of Thursday’s sitting last week, Marc Gold, the representative of the government in the Senate, gave notice of a motion to be introduced Tuesday to cut off debate after another six hours. Senators finally began debate on that time allocation motion around 9:30 p.m. As of shortly before 11 p.m., they were still debating.

Earlier in the day, Sen. Don Plett, leader of the opposition in the Senate, challenged Gold’s move to bring forward the motion to cut short the debate.

Gold said he had been “unable to reach an agreement with the representatives of the recognized parties” about a timeline for wrapping up debate on the bill. But Plett said Gold never met with him to have any discussions about a timeline.

“I would note that there has been no failure to agree because there has been no discussions on the need to allocate time on the motion in question,” Plett said.

“What we have is a unilateral decision by the government’s representative in the Senate to curtail debate on a motion, which is of significant interest to many senators of all groups, as well… to all Canadians.”

Plett also argued the motion was out of order because the Senate rules on time allocation refer to representatives from recognized parties. Only Conservative senators sit as representatives of a political party, while others sit as part of Senate groups.

Gold then accused Plett of making “baseless characterizations.” He said the government wanted to see the legislation move through the Senate last week, but Plett disagreed. Gold said he did not receive a further “commitment” or response from the Conservatives.

He accused Plett of a “root and branch attack on the ability of the government to ever use the tool of time allocation.”
Gold said “the position that Senator Plett and the opposition is taking is inconsistent with both the letter and the spirit and the intent of the rules and is inconsistent with the proper functioning of the Senate.”

The speaker then ruled the motion was in order, though Plett unsuccessfully challenged the ruling.

Passage in the Senate will be the last step for Bill C-11 before receiving royal assent and becoming law, two-and-a-half years after the Liberals introduced the first version of the legislation.

The online streaming bill sets up the CRTC to regulate streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube, and require them to participate in the Canadian content system the way traditional radio and TV broadcasters and cable providers have. The bill has drawn controversy over concerns the CRTC would have too much power over user content, specifically involving recommendations — movies, TV shows, videos and music platforms suggest to their users.

The Red Chamber had previously passed an amendment that would have exempted social media from the bill, which was then rejected by the Liberal government.

Both the House of Commons and the Senate have to pass identical versions of a bill for it to become law.

When the bill went back to the Senate, Gold introduced a motion stating that is the government’s “stated intent that Bill C-11 will not apply to user-generated digital content.” Senators then changed “stated intent” to “public assurance.”

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