QUEBEC – A new law requiring Quebec-based Internet service providers to block certain gambling websites has passed the province’s National Assembly and been signed into law, despite strong concerns expressed by opposition parties, ISPs and Internet policy experts.
Bill 74, an omnibus bill that implements legislative changes announced in the governing Liberal Party’s 2015 budget, includes a section giving provincial lottery board Loto-Québec the power to require ISPs to block a list of websites it determines to be allowing illegal online gambling.
“We have concerns,” Parti Québécois finance critic Nicolas Marceau told the legislature before the bill was adopted on May 17. But, he said, “the decision rests with the government, and we hope that the choice made by the government will prove judicious for, among others, small Internet service providers who, in the regions, could be saddled with high costs.”
François Bonnardel, finance critic for the Coalition Avenir Québec party, similarly expressed concerns about the burden on small providers, as well as questioning the effectiveness of the bill, predicting that companies will find a way around the law. He also criticized the government for not sitting down first with large gambling providers, including PokerStars owner Amaya Inc., which is based in Montreal.
Amaya said last year it was open to working with the government and Loto-Québec to ensure its gambling activities remained legal.
The bill passed the legislature, majority controlled by the Liberals, with an uncounted but divided voice vote. It was signed into law the next day, on May 18. Most of the provisions related to gambling take effect in six months (Nov. 18), and ISPs will have 30 days to block a website once ordered to do so by Loto-Québec.
But it will be a while longer before the blocking actually begins.
Loto-Québec told The Canadian Press on Monday that it expects the system will be in place only in 2018. It will issue a call for tenders on a system to integrate its EspaceJeux platform with third-party gambling sites to make them legal before implementing a blocking scheme.
Besides the burden on small providers, and questions about its effectiveness, other concerns have been raised about this law.
Telecommunications is a federal jurisdiction, and the federal Telecommunications Act forbids ISPs from interfering in Internet content. (The government argues this is about gambling and public health, which are under its jurisdiction.) This is also the first attempt by a province to require ISPs block traffic to specific websites. And there do not seem to be any checks or appeals processes to ensure websites are not incorrectly added to this blacklist.
ISPs haven’t been very vocal about the law, but Cogeco Cable, Quebec’s second-largest ISP after Videotron, sent a letter to the government on Nov. 27 expressing concerns about the precedent this law would set.
“The announced measure would have the effect — let’s be clear — of moving Quebec into the group of jurisdictions where free access to the Internet would be compromised in an irremediable way,” wrote Cogeco Cable President Louise St-Pierre.
There’s the not-so-small matter of government censorship as well (as we have reported previously), where a government seems to be ordering certain websites blocked just so that Quebeckers do all their gaming (and spending) only on Loto Quebec sites.
