With the cabinet picks now out in the open, what’s next to look for? That would be the speech from the throne which is the next big step.
The other day, we covered the cabinet picks for the new Canadian government. While it was unsurprisingly not promising, it did throw the curve ball with the creation of a Digital Innovation and AI minister, leading to questions like what the new role would entail as it relates to digital rights.
So, the next question is this: what is there to look forward to? Unless a minister gets out ahead of the government and offers hints in advance, the next step is basically a speech from the throne. The speech from the throne is basically what the Canadian government intends on doing moving forward, covering abroad range of topics. Generally, there isn’t much in the way of specific details, but it can offer some broad strokes and serve as an indication of where the government intends on heading.
Indeed, this is the same party that was in power last time around. The previous government is widely considered among actual experts as one of the most, if not, most anti-internet government in Canadian history. This was thanks to a series of horrific pieces of legislation such as the Online News Act and Online Streaming Act. Really, the focus of the last government was how best to cripple the Canadian internet, demolish online innovation within the country, and prop up legacy media companies who are just as anti-internet (if not, more anti-internet) as the Canadian government.
One thing we do know is that the next government will very likely (it is, after all, a minority government again) oversee the implementation of the ticking time bomb that is the Online Streaming Act – a law aimed at cracking down on Canadian digital first creators by downranking them on various platforms while promoting government certified speech. It’s basically a constitutional challenge waiting to happen among other nasty things. The question is, when the legal and trade challenges come down the pipe, the question is, how will the new government react? That definitely remains to be seen.
Then there is other bills that the previous government has tabled previously, but never passed. This includes the notorious Online Harms legislation which could either finally have all the problems fixed or be just as deadly as the consultation version to online innovation.
Another bill that was tabled was privacy reform. Since the previous government hated the idea of protecting ordinary Canadians in every way shape and form since most of them aren’t their lobbyist pals, the government slow walked the legislation to death, proving that they had precisely zero interest in looking out for ordinary Canadians. This while negligently leaving Canadian’s personal information in the hands of shady data brokers and uncaring corporations who are more likely to sell that information off for a profit or let hackers break through their poor security measures so they can help themselves to that information as they have for the last decade or so.
Then there is the Conservative party’s push to implement their own internet censorship law in the form of age verification. Very likely, they’ll be wanting to make another push to crack down on online speech, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Liberals continue to push back against what they’ve termed ‘digital ID laws’ (not an inaccurate description, really).
Other important issues that the last government completely neglected include tackling obscenely high cell phone and internet rates, the problem of the telecom triopoly in Canada, increasing broadband access in rural and indigenous communities, and programs to help support digital innovators in Canada (there really isn’t any right now). Because the last government was stuck in the 1960s, these issues were largely just foreign concepts to them as they react with that deer in headlights look when you bring it up with them.
So, there are a lot of issues that can be tackled and the first opportunity to indicate that the government is serious about anything will come from the speech from the throne. We’ll be looking at what, if anything, gets mentioned. Weirdly enough, King Charles will be delivering the speech (typically a job for the Canadian governor general who is someone the Prime Minister hand picks). So, that’ll be different this time around.
At any rate, this will be delivered on the 27th of this month, so there’s a bit of time between now and then to wonder what will crop up then. No doubt political observers already have that day marked on their calendars as they, too, look towards this for a sign of where the government intends on heading.
