The launch of Quebec’s online gambling site Espacejeux has not significantly reduced play by province residents on illegal offshore sites and now the province’s government wants to do something about it.
The provincial government revealed in a budget statement that it plans to introduce a legislative amendment to “introduce an illegal website filtering measure.” Internet service providers (ISPs) could be ordered to block online gambling websites competing with Espacejeux.
“In accordance with this measure, Internet service providers will not be allowed to provide access to an online gaming and gambling website whose name is on a list of websites that are to be blocked, drawn up by Loto-Québec,” the government said in its economic plan.
The plan also noted that despite the launch of Espacejeux by Loto-Quebec, “the number of illegal sites has not decreased and Quebecers continue to visit them in large numbers.”
The government maintains that the offshore sites are not regulated and present a risk to residents who bet with them.
But reports of the amendment immediately brought out opposition from proponents of web neutrality.
Critics questioned whether the provincial government can censor the internet in order to protect its own business interests. Legal challenges to the amendment should be expected if it is adopted, several analysts told local media outlets.
Canada does not regularly block internet sites.
Bram Ambramson, a senior legal executive for independent ISP TekSavvy Solutions Inc., told Quebec’s Globe and Mail newspaper that his company treats providing internet access as a neutral function, and the measures in the Quebec budget would “break that model.”
“ISPs are intermediaries and we do what we do best when we act a little bit like utilities: We provide access to the Internet. We should not be put in a position of picking and choosing what people have access to,” he said. “We would want the government to think very, very carefully before taking this unprecedented move, which I have no doubt would be treated with great trepidation by consumers and by everyone who’s interested in the free flow of information.”
