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Conservatives Double Down on Support for Mandated Internet Age Verification and Website Blocking: Why Can’t Canada Get Common Sense Digital Policy?

Digital policy has been the source of seemingly never-ending frustration for years in Canada. The government chose to prioritize two flawed bills on online streaming and online news, both of which sparked considerable opposition, lengthy delays, and ultimately delivered few actual benefits (Bill C-11 faces at least another year of hearings at the CRTC, Bill C-18 is a disaster that has left many media companies worse off). Its 2021 consultation on online harms was so badly received that it was quickly shelved and has required nearly three years to recover. The policies it should have prioritized such as stronger privacy and competition rules were largely left to languish with Bill C-27 still in committee and now subject to mounting opposition over the decision fold AI regulation with minimal consultation into the bill. Given that track record, it is hard to be optimistic as the online harms rules get set to take centre stage.

I’ve described the bill, which purports to restrict underage access to sexually explicit materials, as the most dangerous Internet bill you’ve never heard of since it mandates the use of age verification technologies that raise serious privacy concerns (Australia rejected a similar law on those grounds), contains no thresholds such that it covers social media (Twitter), search (Google) and chat sites (Reddit), and features a system of court-ordered blocking of lawful content. A better approach would be to focus on providing parents with filtering software, so that they could better manage their kids’ Internet use and prevent access to content they deem inappropriate. Yesterday, Poilievre reiterated his support for legislated age verification for pornography access, a decidedly off-brand approach in which the party that has championed Internet freedoms suddenly now finds itself supporting a bill that features website blocking of lawful content, subjects millions of Canadians to privacy-invasive age verification technology requirements overseen by a government agency such as the CRTC, and institutes regulations that apply to broadly used search and social media services.

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