Honourable senators, I very much regret that Senator MacDonald’s amendment was defeated, but I want to believe that senators rejected it because they want every amendment that was rejected by the government to be reconsidered, which is in fact what Senator Plett’s amendment seeks to do. Above all, I want to once again deplore the situation the Leader of the Government has put us in, for no good reason.

By imposing closure on debate on Bill C-11, Senator Gold is limiting our ability to express ourselves on fundamental issues related to a bill that directly affects freedom of expression. In my opinion, he is also undermining our work as senators in the chamber of sober second thought. How can we do a full study with wisdom and perspective if we are being challenged in our work? Again, I very much deplore this, Senator Gold.

What is more, Senator Cowan, who was then the leader of the Liberal opposition and who former Senator Austin knows well, said the following during debate on a time allocation motion for the study of Bill C-19 on the firearms registry:

Honourable senators, Bill C-19 is a controversial bill. Canadians across the country feel passionately on both sides of the issue. There are strong arguments why this bill is wrong for the country. My colleagues opposite may disagree, but surely they agree that those arguments deserve to be heard and debated without having one eye on the clock.

To support his argument, Senator Cowan shared this statement:

Why is this government so afraid of free and open debate? The former United States Supreme Court Justice William Brennan wrote in a famous decision: “Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open.”

Senator Tardif, who was deputy leader of the Liberal opposition in 2012, made the following statement during consideration of Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act:

Honourable senators, the motion moved by the Deputy Leader of the Government would limit debate on the omnibus crime bill at the report and third reading stage. I find it hard to believe that the members of this government, who proudly boast that they defend freedom of expression, would use any means available to them to limit the opposition senators’ right to speak, particularly when no government senator has been able to provide a reasonable explanation as to why such a time allocation motion is necessary in this case.

This is especially true now, when we are debating the time allocation motion in response to the message from the House of Commons, which is probably a first in the Senate.

Following that little bit of history, I will return to Senator Plett’s proposed amendment.

I would remind the chamber that this amendment was intended to modify what Senator Gold was proposing, in other words, that we not insist and that we accept the message from the House of Commons as it was presented to us.

Senator Plett proposed the following:

That the motion, as amended, be further amended:

1. by replacing sub-paragraph (b) by the following:

“(b) insist on its amendments to which the House of Commons disagrees;”;

2.by adding, before the final paragraph, the following new paragraph:

“That, pursuant to rule 16-3, the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications be charged with drawing up the reasons for the Senate’s insistence on its amendments; and”; and

3.by replacing, in the final paragraph, the words “That a message be sent” by the words “That, once the reasons for the insistence have been agreed to by the Senate, a message be sent”.

In my speech on Senator MacDonald’s motion in subamendment, I succinctly addressed the elements concerning amendment 3, which would protect amateur creators of digital content. This amendment is very important to several senators, including me.

The government rejected another amendment, and, quite honestly, esteemed colleagues, I cannot believe it.

Had amendment 2(d)(ii) been adopted, it would have created paragraph 3(1)(r.1) of the Broadcasting Act.

The text of that paragraph reads as follows:

(r.1) online undertakings shall implement methods, such as age-verification methods, to prevent children from accessing programs on the Internet that are devoted to depicting, for a sexual purpose, explicit sexual activity;

I would call that the Miville-Dechêne amendment.

This amendment, which I think is essential, seeks to ensure that age verification methods are put in place to better protect children from exposure to online pornography. This amendment, which was introduced by Senator Miville-Dechêne, was adopted at the December 6, 2022 meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, thanks to the support of the Conservative senators on the committee.

I would like to remind senators that Senator Miville-Dechêne explained the reason for this amendment in the speech she gave on January 31. She said, and I quote:

The objective of Bill C-11 is to give the CRTC the power to regulate online platforms in the same way that it can regulate traditional broadcasters. The CRTC already has the ability to regulate access to sexually explicit content in traditional broadcasting, through cable or satellite, and my amendment only transfers that ability to online content.

Amendment 2(d)(ii) is obviously important, according to the majority of senators who adopted it both in committee and in the Senate.

Unfortunately, a majority of MPs decided to reject this amendment to Bill C-11, even though it was quite simple. I am confused as to why members of the House would refuse to support this sensible measure proposed by the Senate, given that minors are vulnerable to the consequences of early access to online pornography.

Senator Martin described these harms quite well during her April 18 speech on another bill, Bill S-210. She pointed out that more and more children — some of them very young — are regularly exposed to pornography online. Furthermore, she made the following points:

The individual and societal consequences of children viewing sexually explicit content, particularly violent material, are becoming more and more apparent as studies continue to surface.

Girls who view porn have higher rates of self-harm and are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking.

For boys, as you may expect, the harm tends to manifest as sexual aggression toward women, dating violence in high school and a difficulty in forging intimate relationships with women in real life.

And, regardless of gender, young people who view pornography have higher rates of anxiety and depression.

The severity of this issue cannot be overstated.

One of the roles of the Senate, in studying bills such as Bill C-11, is to introduce amendments that we believe are essential to protect minorities and vulnerable groups.

I’m relying on the Supreme Court’s 2014 Reference re Senate Reform, which said the following:

Over time, the Senate also came to represent various groups that were under-represented in the House of Commons. It served as a forum for ethnic, gender, religious, linguistic, and Aboriginal groups that did not always have a meaningful opportunity to present their views through the popular democratic process . . . .

Although children and adolescents are not named in the Supreme Court passage that I just read, they are certainly an under-represented group in the House of Commons. Minors are vulnerable because they do not have the same degree of maturity or education as most adults. Furthermore, they have not reached the voting age, which makes it difficult to participate in the democratic process.

According to this logic, I am of the opinion that the Senate must send a message to the House of Commons to insist on keeping the amendments that were rejected and, especially, amendment 2(d)(ii), which would implement age-verification methods.

I am convinced that this amendment, if included in Bill C-11, would prevent vulnerable people like our youth from serious harm by viewing, at a young age, sexually explicit activities on the internet, as researchers have shown.

Let’s not forget that in their message to the Senate, MPs do recognize that this amendment seeks to legislate on a matter relating to the broadcasting system. However, they’ve rejected it on the simple grounds that these matters go beyond the policy intent of the bill.

By insisting on amendment 2(d)(ii), the Senate would be sending a loud and clear message to the House of Commons. On the one hand, senators would be expressing that we find the explanations of the MPs who rejected the Senate amendment to be grossly inadequate, given the seriousness of the societal harms that the amendment would address.

On the other hand, by insisting on this amendment, the Senate would be putting justified pressure on MPs to try to find common ground, a counterproposal to the Senate amendment to amend Bill C-11 to better protect minors from this flaw in the Broadcasting Act that currently leaves the door wide open to early and harmful exposure to online pornography.

In my final intervention on Senator Gold’s proposal — a proposal that will be amended by Senator Plett’s motion, I hope — I will address other important amendments that were adopted by the Senate after careful consideration, but were rejected.

Of course.

Thank you for your question. It is interesting, because it shows how important it is for senators to be part of a caucus, like those in the House of Commons. What you may not know is that the other place consults senators. That way, we are able to help improve bills, give our opinion even before the bill reaches the Senate, and propose amendments.

That is what I did with regard to the electoral reform. I worked with my current leader, Pierre Poilievre, who, at the time, was the minister responsible for democratic reform and the Fair Elections Act. Even before the bill reached the Senate, I proposed several amendments that were added to the initial bill. That is the advantage of having access to the prime minister and cabinet, to the government. Obviously, that’s something you don’t have, because I am still waiting for an answer to my question about Prime Minister Trudeau’s much-talked-about credit card.

I have no problem asking for five more minutes if Senator Miville-Dechêne would like to ask me a question, because she seemed to have one.