(LifeSiteNews) — Justin Trudeau’s internet censorship law is set to further restrict Canadians’ use of media.
Former Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) vice chair Peter Menzies revealed Tuesday that the CRTC’s new broadcasting regulations are set to censor podcasts for all Canadians.
“Going forward, all your favourite podcasts will be transmitted and overseen under the keen regulatory eye of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and its nine cabinet appointees,” he stated.
“Your days of enjoying a free and open internet are over,” Menzies warned.
On September 29, the CRTC announced that it laid out “its regulatory plan to modernize Canada’s broadcasting framework and ensure online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.”
The CRTC was granted authority over what Canadians listen to by the Online News Act passed by the Trudeau government.
Canada’s Senate passed the Online News Act in June and it quickly became law. The new law, when fully implemented, will force social media companies to pay Canadian legacy media for news content shared on their platforms and give the CRTC the power to censor what they deem appropriate for Canadians to listen to.
Menzies further warned that the new regulations will affect all Canadians, liberal or conservative, as the CRTC has declared that podcasts qualify as broadcasting, which they now have the power to censor.
“So, thanks to all that regulatory legerdemain, platforms that distribute podcasts must now register with the CRTC so that it can decide how, in the words of Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge, to ‘best support’ podcasts,” he explained.
Menzies warned while St-Onge and CRTC chair Vicky Eatride will promise that podcasts will not be censored, that will not be the case.
“They may even honestly believe that,” he added. “If they do, they are living in a world of self-delusion and denial; virtually everything the CRTC does in terms of broadcasting dictates the terms and conditions under which those programs are allowed to exist.”
Under the Online News Act, the CRTC is given the power to ensure “the programming over which a person who carries on a broadcasting undertaking has programming control should be of high standard.”
Menzies pointed out that this is “as subjective a measure as is imaginable.”
“The organization just prefers to do it [censorship] by stealth, which is why podcasters need to be afraid — very afraid — that what the CRTC is going to come up with is a set of rules governing the transmission of podcasts by the likes of YouTube, Spotify, and any other platform with revenue of more than $10 million,” he warned.
Canadians are already blocked from viewing or sharing news on Facebook and Instagram as Meta announced it would rather remove news for Canadians than pay the fees outlined in the new law.
Similarly, Google has repeated its promise to remove news content for Canadians rather than pay the $172 million mandated by the Trudeau government.
The law itself has been a point of major criticism for the prime minister and his Liberal government. In fact, a July 10 survey found that most Canadians are concerned they could lose access to news on social media as a result of the policy.
Last week, free speech advocate and entrepreneur Elon Musk criticized Trudeau for his ongoing censorship campaign, writing, “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada,” calling it “shameful.”