Canada's Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that staffing the bureaucracy needed to enforce the Trudeau government's Online Harms Act will cost $200 Million over 5 years, a number that can be expected to increase.
PBO says Liberals’ 'online harms’ act to cost $200 million; Poilievre vows to kill it | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:
July 4, 2024 - "An 'opportunity cost.' That’s how Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel Garner is describing the Trudeau government’s “Online Harms Act” — otherwise known as Bill C-63 — to regulate social media platforms. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) it will cost upwards of $200 million to impose what Rempel Garner is calling a 'censorship bureaucracy' to hire 330 people to enforce “yet-to-be defined” regulations regarding the use and management of social media platforms.
"The bill would establish three separate entities:
- the Digital Safety Commission, which is mandated to enforce the act and has the power to issue monetary penalties and fines;
- the Digital Safety Ombudsperson;
- and the Digital Safety Office, which would manage the day-to-day operations of all three.
"Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre on Thursday vowed to kill all three on arrival.
"The bill was ostensibly passed to prevent online harassment, persecution and stalking of vulnerable people in society. But Rempel Garner worries it’s morphed into a law focussed on 'banning opinions that contradict Justin Trudeau’s radical ideology'.... Canadian author Margaret Atwood called the bill 'Orwellian.' Noted American progressive news outlet The Atlantic called it 'Canada’s Extremist Attack on Free Speech.'
In her substack page, Rempel Garner noted 'the mind-blowing cost of the bill could grow.' That’s because C-63 doesn’t directly set out any structure that would allow for the recoupment of administrative expenses.... Worse still, the figures included in the PBO report would be in addition to a still-to-be-costed increase to the workload of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), which, under the scope of bill, would be tasked with policing a flood of extra-judicial 'prosecutions' over individual user social media posts....
“'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,' Rempel Garner said....
"The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is [also] criticizing the bill. 'Today’s PBO report shows the online harms bill will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions and further balloon an already bloated bureaucracy,' said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director.... For the cost of the online harms bill, the government could instead pay the salary of about 375 new police officers, according to the RCMP’s website. Instead of hiring hundreds of bureaucrats to snoop around social media, the government could hire hundreds of police officers to actually go after criminals,” Terrazzano said."
Liberals to spend $200 million on online censorship office | True North | July 4, 2024:
(Story begins at 6:40)
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