Polling numbers are showing the federal Liberal government is losing public support. There are many reasons for this, I’m going to focus upon the impacts of the Liberal decision to expand internet regulations to support legacy media companies.

The Online Streaming Act (aka Bill C-11) and the Online News Act (aka Bill C-18) are distractions for the Liberal government.

Regulating the internet is not a priority for Canadians, especially when both Bills promise to increase the cost of online content and will decrease online choice.

Bill C-18 has dominated the news for the past few months.

Journalists are human. We navel-gaze and love to talk about ourselves.

Many questions from journalists to the government and opposition have been about Bill C-18.

This is a problem for the government because it appears C-18 is the government’s priority. [Judging from local government MP tweets, it may well be.]

Every story about C-18 is a missed opportunity for the Liberal government to discuss priorities that matter to their voters. On the contrary, C-18 stories risk losing voters who are left wondering what the government is doing for them.

Even worse for the Liberals, Facebook quickly complied with Bill C-18 by banning links to news websites. [My websites are caught up in the C-18 ban.]

The Conservative Party of Canada long ago learned how to directly reach its voters and potential voters without needing legacy media.

Small-c conservatives are very active on social media platforms and online forums.

The result is Liberal messages are significantly diminished on Facebook, whereas Conservative messaging continues to propagate.

With Facebook and Instagram being a primary information source for many Canadians, the Liberals have created a significant disadvantage for themselves.

For their part, the Conservatives are overplaying their hand with alarmist rhetorical and wild claims that Prime Minister Trudeau is an “autocratic” ruler.

There is a sound political strategy for the Conservatives to keep internet regulations in the news cycle, especially if the Liberals are baited into discussing the issue – in place of more substantive issues.

All of this is to say, the Liberals are pissing away their political capital on an issue very few people care about.

This week, the federal government’s CRTC posted its mandatory registration rules for podcasts. Prof. Michael Geist explains the how, what, and why here: What the CRTC’s New Registration Requirements Mean for Regulating Everything from Online News Services to Podcast Providers