Strong, Sovereign, Free and Fair: a 2025 digital policy platform for Canada

OpenMedia's new digital policy platform presents a point by point plan for our next government to build a free, fair and flourishing Canadian Internet.

Canada’s Internet status quo is a policy disaster. Basic, long overdue regulations to protect our online privacy and online safety keep failing in a distracted and disinterested Parliament. Real action to break up our domestic Big Telecom monopolists and fix market abuses by foreign Big Tech is nowhere to be seen. The few digital bills that have passed have had limited positive impact: the Online Streaming Act is tied up in court and at the CRTC, while the Online News Act has devastated small news outlets by cutting them off from Meta’s platforms. Meanwhile Canada’s news crisis is only getting worse: over 500 news outlets have closed since 2008, creating local news deserts that leave millions of Canadians uninformed in our own backyard. The CBC has been slow to fill these gaps, committing to cover only a handful of disconnected communities in 2024.

As Canadians navigate sharply growing tension with the US, we’re realizing that even our physical Internet infrastructure is thinly laid, weakly linked, and profoundly vulnerable. Canada’s under-invested physical networks route vast quantities of our data through the US, even when we’re trying to communicate with each other in our own country. Even our cloud services—essential for modern businesses—are mostly hosted by U.S. companies, meaning they could cut off access at any time.

Here’s the good news: we have the tools at hand to fix every one of Canada’s Internet problems. Our 2025 election platform lays out a plan for rebuilding our digital sovereignty and creating a free, fair and flourishing Canadian Internet. This election, we’re urging all federal parties to adopt our vision and keep lobbyists and monopolists from steering Canada’s digital future.

Check our detailed policy recommendations below:

A Strong Canadian Internet:

Canada must build resilient, secure digital infrastructure across our country, providing affordable high-speed Internet to every Canadian.

Key Recommendations

1. A secure Canadian web: No vital Canadian digital infrastructure should depend on foreign services or a single point of failure to function.
2. Guaranteed affordable home & wireless Internet: Every Canadian anywhere in Canada should be guaranteed high-speed Internet at a price we can afford.
3. Effective privacy protections: The government must finally pass strong privacy legislation that applies to corporations, political parties, and itself.
4. Cybersecurity that works: Canadians deserve world-class cybersecurity laws built on safeguards that protect our privacy and freedom of expression.

Detailed Policies

• A secure Canadian web: 
  • Keep Canadian data in Canada: The Internet is the backbone of modern Canadian life, yet our infrastructure lacks basic transparency. ISPs must accurately report on how data is obtained, processed, transmitted, and stored. The government must invest in more Canadian Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and incentivize ISPs to use them, ensuring our domestic Internet traffic stays within Canada.
  • Domestic cloud storage: Government agencies and critical infrastructure providers must use Canadian cloud services and store sensitive data within Canada, under Canadian jurisdiction. Canada should transition all government services to domestic cloud services, and invest in growing Canada’s cloud industry.
  • End foreign dependency for connectivity: Canada must ensure all rural and remote communities have secure, affordable, and high-speed access to Canadian-owned Internet services. The government should commit to not buying any Starlink services, and instead increase public funding for fibre-optic networks, Telesat service, and community broadband projects to build long-term, sovereign connectivity.

• Guaranteed affordable home & wireless Internet:
  • Guaranteed affordable connectivity: The CRTC recognizes that Internet access is a basic right. Every Canadian must have access to high speed Internet and mobile service at a price we can afford, with subsidies available for any who need it.
  • Measure our success honestly: Government reporting on how Canadian connectivity costs are performing must measure us relative to other countries, not our own dismal track record. Falling prices are good, but not good enough when prices are falling slower in Canada than anywhere else. 
  • Fibre first: Commit to fibre infrastructure as the gold standard for high-speed, high quality Internet connectivity in Canada. Canadians deserve durable, reliable long-term infrastructure, and fibre is the best means to meet that standard.

• Enforceable and effective privacy: 
  • Private sector privacy: Canada’s privacy rules for corporations are weak, with little enforcement– yet our government has twice failed to prioritize updating them. Our next government must commit to getting the job done, passing thorough reform that holds businesses accountable.
  • Public sector privacy: Rules for how government handles our privacy must also be updated for the age of big data and AI. Government must act on the results of their 2021 consultation and thoroughly modernize the Privacy Act.
  • Voter privacy: Unlike other OECD nations, Canada exempts political parties and nonprofits from regular privacy laws. Both should be fully included in future privacy legislation.

• Cybersecurity that works:
  • Canada’s next government must reintroduce a new version of Bill C-26, critical cybersecurity legislation that will enable the government to protect Canadians’ cybersecurity interests. However, this legislation should not pass without three key fixes: 
    • Protect encryption: Cybersecurity law must not weaken encryption or introduce backdoors that compromise Canadians’ privacy.
    • Ensure transparency: Any government orders affecting telecoms must not remain secret indefinitely, ensuring public oversight and transparency in decisions that impact Canadians' rights.
    • Prevent misuse: Data collected under cybersecurity laws must be used solely for cybersecurity purposes—not for unrelated surveillance of Canadians.

A Sovereign Canadian Internet:

A sovereign Canadian Internet must regulate technology in line with the interests and opinions of people in Canada, and no one else.

Key Recommendations

1. Break Big Tech’s power: Canada must ban surveillance-based advertising and give control of our information feeds to Canadians.
2. Fix Canada’s media crisis: Canada must adopt policies that guarantee diverse, independent private media and a capable public broadcaster that fills the gaps.
3. Regulate emerging technologies: From AI to biometric recognition, Canada must launch full public consultations on adequately regulating emerging technologies.
4. Invest in community networks: Canada must develop more community-owned broadband and mesh networks that serve local needs, not Big Telecom interests.

Detailed Policies

• Break Big Tech’s power:
  • Ban surveillance-based advertising: To disrupt the heart of Big Tech’s power, Canada should ban the surveillance-based advertising that drives their business.
  • Crack down on data brokers: Hundreds of unregulated international data brokers purchase, correlate and resell sensitive, private information about us. Canada should lead the charge on restricting and criminalizing their activities.
  • Open-source the feed: The contents and order of our online news diet is too important for tech oligarchs (or any government!) to decide. Canada should require every algorithm driven platform give users access to feed “middleware” - third parties who let us choose how we want our feeds built.
  • Defend the Digital Services Tax (DST): Big Tech should pay normal taxes on their Canadian revenue, like any other business. The DST’s simple, OECD approved approach is the best way to do it, and should not be abandoned.

• Fix Canada’s media crisis
  • Make journalism profitable again: 
    • Increase the federal tax credit for news subscriptions from 15% to 75% to encourage more Canadians to support journalism.
    • Give every adult Canadian a media voucher to support the news outlet of their choice.
  • End news deserts
    • Require the CBC fill gaps where private media has disappeared, ensuring all regions have access to local news.
  • Let Canadians share news
    • Repeal the Online News Act so Canadians and independent news outlets can once again share news on social media platforms.
  • Reform the CBC
    • Make CBC content free: License all CBC news under Creative Commons rules so Canadians can freely use and share what we already fund.
    • Remove ads from the news: drop all ads during CBC broadcasts, keeping the public broadcaster focused on quality journalism and not fighting for ad revenue.
    • Fair CBC funding: Bring CBC’s per-capita funding up to the standard of our Commonwealth peers to ensure sustainable public journalism.

• Regulate emerging technologies
  • Address AI: Launch a full public consultation to hear how Canadians want our regulations to balance the risks and opportunities of new AI technology;
  • Ban the indiscriminate use of biometric identification technology such as facial recognition in public spaces.

• Invest in community networks
  • Monopolistic companies often build thin, single point of failure networks, causing system-wide outages like 2022’s multi-day Rogers outages.
  • Distributed community-level networks are an important alternative. Canada's next government should invest in community broadband and local mesh networks as part of building locally accountable, resilient networks.

A Free Canadian Internet:

Canada must aggressively defend the online rights and freedoms of Canadians.

Key Recommendations

1. Don’t break the Internet: Canada must oppose web censorship and defend the globally connected, open Internet against the interests of autocrats and Big Tech.
2. Protect online speech: New Internet laws must not exceed existing offline restrictions on speech, respect our Charter rights, and never be rushed without public consultation.
3. Rights-based online safety: Canadian regulation must target the worst illegal content, while respecting our privacy and free expression.
4. Advance our right to know: Canadians must have a legislated right to study online platforms, accessing necessary data without fear of frivolous Big Tech lawsuits.

Detailed Policies

• Don’t break the Internet:
  • Protect encryption: Canada should enshrine the right to encrypt in law, permanently protecting Canadians from backdoors that compromise our private communications.
  • Defend the open Internet: Canada’s next government should champion the open Internet against authoritarian governments and Big Tech by:
    • Advocating for open technical standards and protocols like email and https that serve all Internet users and creators, and unwinding Big Tech’s walled gardens;
    • Defending a single global web, not encouraging censored splinternets that separate Internet users from each other.

• Protect online speech: 
  • Charter compliance first: Any new online speech-related law must be accompanied by a detailed analysis of its Charter implications.
  • Respect offline free speech standards: Any digital regulation must not impose restrictions on online speech beyond what’s already illegal in Canada offline.
  • Consult Canadians: Every law that impacts Canada’s must go through full public consultation, followed by detailed Parliamentary study and debate.

• Rights-respecting online safety:
  • Target the worst offenders: Legislation should focus on removing the worst and most easily identifiable illegal online content from large online platforms, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and nonconsensually distributed intimate imagery (NCDII).
  • No compromising of rights: Addressing illegal online content must not diminish the online freedom of expression or privacy of Canadians.
  • Empower Canadians: Further measures should empower Canadians to secure our own online safety, including:
    • Requiring platforms provide user tools to address harassment;
    • Mandating reporting by platforms on how they mitigate risks to their users from harmful illegal content;
    • Creating a safety ombudsman and regulator who can assist Canadians address issues we experience with platforms.

• Advance our right to know:
  • Shine a light on online platforms: Canadian regulation of online spaces is occurring in the dark, with little factual information about what’s actually happening on them. Canada’s next government should pass a strong right to online platform data access, so Canadians can conduct high quality studies on our Internet.
  • Prevent legal bullying: Canada should protect our researchers from so-called “SLAPP” lawsuits that Big Tech uses to silence criticism of their practices.

A Fair Canadian Internet:

Canada must take action to limit abuses of Big Tech and strengthen Canadians’ online rights.

Key Recommendations

1. 1. Fair digital markets: Canada must investigate and ban abuses of monopoly power in digital markets by Big Tech. 
   2. Copyright that serves Canadians: Our copyright laws must be updated to serve Canadian interests and creators first, not foreign rights holders.
   3. Defend digital ownership: Canada must pass strong right of ownership legislation covering true ownership of the software and devices we purchase, including our right to repair.

Detailed Policies

• Fair digital markets: 
  • Canada should instruct our Competition Bureau to investigate and issue binding remedies to abuse of market power of tech giants, including:
    • Stop platform self-preferencing: Ban Amazon from giving its own products unfair advantages over competitors.
    • End app store price gouging: Force Apple and Google to allow fair competition by capping their exorbitant app store fees.
    • Investigate online ad monopolies: Follow the lead of the U.S. and EU in cracking down on Google and Meta’s market dominance in digital advertising.

• Copyright that serves Canadians:
  • Reasonable duration: US giants bullied Canada into accepting copyright rules that last for the life of their human creator and 70 additional years! Canada should abandon this term and revert to a far more reasonable life + 25 years standard.
  • Copyright for the Age of AI: Balancing a fair livelihood for creators and the benefits to the public of AI technology is difficult but urgently important. Canada should launch a full public consultation with Canadians on how we want our government to strike this balance.

• Defend digital ownership:
  • Entrench our right to repair: Canadians should have a strong right to repair or modify our purchased devices as we choose, with guaranteed access to repair parts and manuals for the reasonable life of a digital device.
  • True digital ownership: Canadians should have durable ownership of the digital goods we purchase, including music, movies, games and software. Canada should ban terms of service that claim we only “license” these goods, and allow companies to unilaterally change or delete our purchases.