44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for giving the calibre of speech that members of the House have come to expect from him, with many trumped-up comments. As a Conservative, I am not at all ashamed or embarrassed about the fact that our party champions freedom, freedom of speech and the freedom of individuals to make their own choices.
I want to ask the member a specific question about misinformation. We have heard a lot in this House today about RT and the problems with it, and I share those concerns. However, I have similar concerns about state-backed misinformation coming from news channels that are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. We should not forget that the issue of state-backed misinformation, even of torture and forced confession happening on air, is not just an issue coming out of Russia. It is also an issue in China. Should we not be dealing with that as well?
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Madam Speaker, we have the CRTC, which has done Canada quite well over the years. At times, we might have some concerns in regard to it. It is apolitical. It is there to ensure that industries and Canadians as a whole are represented well. There is a sense of accountability to ensure that we continue to have confidence in the CRTC and the types of things it is doing.
Just to conclude the thought I had about the word “freedom”, I would emphasize that the Liberal Party, the Government of Canada, understands and appreciates the word freedom. After all, we are the ones who brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois agree on one thing, and that does not happen often. The thing we agree on is the presence of Quebec and Canadian content on platforms.
If this is what matters, why exclude algorithms from the methods to ultimately achieve the same result?
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Madam Speaker, I personally have a bit of a problem with that. I suspect that it would be one of the issues that would be brought up at the committee stage. I am glad to hear that the Bloc supports Bill C-11. It sounds like its members will be voting in favour of its going to committee. I see that as a positive thing.
It is time that we look at the companies such as Netflix, Crave and Spotify and recognize that we need to level the playing field. That is what this legislation is attempting to do. I believe that we will be successful at doing it if we can get it passed through the House.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech attentively. I did enjoy his reference to the struggles of connecting to the Internet in the 1990s. I am thankful that my children will not know the struggle of connecting through a 28k modem and the horrible screeching sound that it made.
The member for Winnipeg North and I both served in the 42nd Parliament. At that time, the issue of web giants and their unfair competitive advantage was brought up a number of times. Why did the Liberal government wait until now? Why did it not take advantage of the majority government that it had, to pass legislation to tackle this issue? Does his government have an estimate as to how many workers in our cultural industries were negatively impacted by that delay?
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Madam Speaker, after 10 years of a Conservative government, with our coming into government, there were a number of legislative initiatives that were brought forward. This is the first major overhaul of the Canada Broadcasting Act and it had to go through a process of consultation. We do need to recognize the fine work that the departmental officials have done.
The most important thing is that we finally have the legislation here. We are in a position because we are at the beginning of our mandate. Who knows? Maybe, with the right support, we can continue on for the next three years. We have the time now. Let us see if we can pass the legislation and amend legislation that is long overdue, as I know would be very supportive to our industries.
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Madam Speaker, the crux of this legislation is that streaming platforms have access to our market in Canada, but do not have any responsibility to pay for our content creators, our artists and our performers, and this act is there to help with our performers. I have heard Conservatives across the way saying that this is the government reaching in, when really it is the government giving tools to the CRTC to be able to support our industries.
Could the member talk about how the governance actually works between the Government of Canada, the CRTC and the market?
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Madam Speaker, that is a really important question. We need to recognize that by passing the legislation, we are giving the CRTC, which is politically independent of the House, the power to ensure that there is a level playing field. As an example, for Netflix there is going to be the obligation to contribute to Canadian content and funding. Canadian content and funding have always been obligations for television networks. We are levelling the playing field so that both sides have to be able to contribute to something important to all Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, a lot has been said today about web giants. I think the member said that the Internet matters, and I agree.
The concern I have with the member for Winnipeg North is when he is talking about introducing new rules on the Internet. I am worried that he has broken previous rules. He used one of those web giants to break the Elections Act by advertising to more than 35,000 of his constituents on election day, against the Elections Act, by using a web giant. The member spent over $10,000 on advertising on Facebook, and used one of those web giants.
If the member has broken the elections law before by using one of the web giants, will he commit today to following this law if it gets passed?
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Madam Speaker, I have addressed that issue in the past.
What is important is to recognize that at the end of the day, Netflix, Spotify, Crave and YouTube are the types of platforms that Canadians expect and want the government to ensure have a level playing field. That, in essence, protects our arts and cultural communities. It is an investment. It is the right thing to do, and I only wish the Conservatives would get on board.
If the member wanted to give me leave after I am done on the bill, I would be more than happy to talk in great detail about an incident that Conservatives and others, I believe, might have even been involved in, too.
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Madam Speaker, certainly I am pleased with Bill C-11 so far, but there are things that trouble me within it, for instance what happened in amendments to Bill C-10, in the last Parliament, to Canadian ownership of our Canadian broadcasting. That seems to be a little bit more wobbly. There is a lack of clear support for smaller producers and smaller creators, but there is this other piece of work that we need to do on broadcasting, and that is what I will ask my question about.
When will we see the government provide a comprehensive framework legislation and funding to get the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation back to what it should be doing? Ever since it put Wheel of Fortune on air and competed with private broadcasters, I have felt that the CBC, as it should be, was slipping between our fingers.
When we talk of this country not being unified, I think of Peter Gzowski, who has passed away. He and Morningside used to hold us together in the same way that watching the news with Knowlton Nash held us together. Something has gone wrong with the CBC. I am a big fan, but I feel as though competing with private broadcasters has not been the way to go, and we need to get back to a CBC that is more like the BBC.
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Madam Speaker, the member raises two issues. The first one is something that I think might be appropriate to discuss at the committee level to address her specifics. I know she is very thorough in terms of reading bills and their details and she does a lot of research. I do not want to give her any sort of misinformation, but I suggest that she raise it with the Minister of Canadian Heritage who is very open-minded on it.
In regard to the CBC, I am a big fan of the CBC. At the end of the day, I think CBC Radio, in particular, has done so much in terms of not only holding our country together, but it is listened to worldwide. Through the decades, it has had a very positive impact on Canadian identity.
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Madam Speaker, I want to rise and give my voice to this debate today. I want to note off the top that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, a long-time member here. I have served with him for as long as I have been elected, and I want to thank him for all the work that he does.
Today, I will be speaking to Bill C-11, and I want to bring to the attention of the House an article that I found online by Ramneet Bhullar. It neatly sums up the concerns that we have with the bill. The government has a new minister. It got rid of jumpsuit Steven and has a new minister on it, but it does not make the bill any better. The bill has the same problems that we have seen in the past, and we are hoping that the government would improve upon the bill rather than just bring back the same old bill.
The one dramatic improvement we see in the bill is that user-generated content is excluded. That is a dramatic improvement from the bill that came out of the last Parliament, only because that part of the bill was taken out of the bill at committee. That was something that was put in. It was something that was helpful in getting support for the bill, but there was no ability for—
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I think we all work hard and we come here to represent our constituents. I just want to make sure I did hear what I thought I heard. I think the comment the member just made was absolutely inappropriate. He likes the fact that it slid by and nobody else noticed. I would ask that he apologize and retract it from the record. It was entirely inappropriate, and it does not belong in the chamber.
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- Feb/28/22 5:21:56 p.m.
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Yes, they are terms that are extremely demeaning for other members of the House, and it would be appropriate if the hon. member apologized for calling a minister of the Crown names.
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Madam Speaker, to continue on with my speech, the online streaming bill, Bill C-11—
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- Feb/28/22 5:22:20 p.m.
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Is the hon. member apologizing for the comment? That was the purpose of the point of order and my comments.
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Madam Speaker, I did note that there was a new minister on this particular bill and I am—
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member named the minister in a derogatory form that was based on the way that he did it. You have now identified that it is inappropriate. The only course of action for him at this point is not to try to justify it but to actually apologize and withdraw the comments. Otherwise, we have to look to the House for how we deal with this situation.
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- Feb/28/22 5:23:12 p.m.
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I do recommend that the hon. member apologize, not only because the comment was derogatory but also for naming the hon. member.
I recommend highly that the hon. member apologize.
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