Is the Online Harms Bill Getting Decent Reviews or is Michael Geist Jumping the Gun?

Recent comments made by by Michael Geist suggest that critics have already reached conclusions with the Online Harms Bill. Is that premature?

Yesterday, we were discussing the things we were looking out for the day the legislation was to be tabled. We obviously didn’t have access to the legislation right away, but it was something we were anticipating. When the bill would get tabled later, we, like many other experts, took to spending the day reading the legislation. Our initial reaction was that the legislation is really REALLY long. Reports we’ve seen have suggested that it is over 100 pages long.

The length of the legislation made one thing clear: reading through all of it was going to take time. Late last night, we published our first 5,000+ words of our analysis. It was a Herculean effort to get that much analysis out the door on such short notice, but it honestly felt like an accomplishment doing so. I mean, knocking out just over 5,000 words in a single day is no easy task – especially for something as complex as legislation aimed at tackling a very difficult topic. Still, the ol’ English major is pulling through anyway for me as that is a skill I had obtained during my study – fast analysis.

So, you can imagine my surprise when as I was writing that analysis, university law professor, Michael Geist, was responding to the Prime Minister, saying that the reviews are in and the legislation is getting a decent reception:

Read the room. Bill C-63 getting decent reviews because its focus is on harms, not settling scores with tech. Most criticism focuses on Human Rights Act provisions that don’t involve tech and open the door to influx of complaints.

Um, I don’t mean to nitpick a tweet like this, but I think many of us are still working our way through the legislation. I can’t speak for others, but I can speak for myself and say that I’m still working my way through the legislation. Sure, some of us have some preliminary analysis saying that it doesn’t appear to be as bad as the 2021 version, but we’re still working our way through the legislation. After all, this is an over 100 page bill. Some of us kind of need more than a day to sift through a monstrosity that large.

What’s more, there is invariably going to be nuance to this legislation to work through as well. Maybe there is a provision early on in the bill that is undone later on in the bill. This wouldn’t be unheard of to say the least.

Still, I think the assumption that people are giving this bill the thumbs up not even 24 hours after this hulking piece of legislation was tabled is premature. He may be right in these conclusions, but I, for one, haven’t gotten to that conclusion yet. What’s more, I’m not sure I’m the only one who still needs time to sift through this legislation.

I can’t speak for the rest of the room, but this part of the room needs more time to dig through this bill. I don’t think that is all that unreasonable to say.

Further reading: Bill C-63 text