44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 11, 2022 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, we know how important it is to ensure that Canadian producers and Canadian creators of content resonate, not just across the country, but around the world. We have always had measures in Canada that promote Canadian music and content on Canadian TV and Canadian radio. That is something we have long had, to protect Canadian content creators. Unfortunately, once again, Conservative politicians stand against the arts community and creators. We believe in making sure Canadians can succeed around the world, and in a digital world, that is what we are doing.
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Mr. Speaker, in this country, the CRTC has always ensured that we promote Canadian creators creating Canadian content. That is what it has done on the radio waves for decades, ensuring that we have Canadian music played on radio stations. That is what it has done with TV, ensuring that Canadian content gets put on Canadian TV, not just as a way of telling our stories, but also as a way of encouraging creators and producers in Canada.
In a digital world, we need to ensure, in the same way, that Canadian producers of content are protected and upheld, and that is exactly what Bill C-11 would do.
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Madam Speaker, the member will know two things. One is that the CRTC will only impose regulations that will make material impact in achieving the goal of the bill, which is specifically to level the playing field for platforms showcasing Canadian content.
We have a circumstance today where broadcasters in more traditional lines of media have an obligation to contribute back to Canadian culture and Canadian content, and it is only reasonable in the digital space that the same expectation be held. If Netflix and Disney are profiting from the Canadian market, the expectation that they are going to contribute back to the cultural fabric of that market is absolutely essential. That is not just something we ran on as a party, but many of the parties in this House ran on it.
I heard all over Canada that we have an essential obligation to support Canadian content and Canadian culture. This means that we have world-class talent that not only enriches our lives and helps tell the Canadian story, but, frankly, enriches the planet. Our obligation to say to those Internet giants that they have to contribute to the place they draw their profits from is something that is pre-eminently reasonable and levels the playing field with more traditional media forums.
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Madam Speaker, often, the way it works is that, in order to get access to cultural programs or what have you, users have to ask for it. However, on the Internet, users are highly influenced by what the algorithms decide to show them, and that can be a bit more problematic. If broadcasters are encouraged to present more Canadian content, this will pique consumers' curiosity and interest in the excellent content that is available in Quebec and Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of concern about the fact that time allocation was moved on this bill. I also have serious hesitation about being able to trust the government members, who are saying to simply take them at their word that it is not impacting the ability of Canadians to have free expression on the Internet, especially after some of the outrageous things that the previous minister of heritage said. He said that he was not censoring the whole Internet; he was simply censoring some of the Internet.
My question, though, is very simple. Does the member support our very simple request that the government provide the terms of reference that it will be providing to the CRTC prior to the bill being passed so that members in this place can understand exactly what is being asked of the CRTC when it comes to the impacts that this bill would have on Canadian content?
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Madam Speaker, proposed section 4.2 of the bill actually provides an exception to the exception that would allow the CRTC to regulate user-generated content.
Further, proposed subsection 7(7) would provide the Liberal government's cabinet the ability to, in essence, dictate the policies of the CRTC concerning online content. Again, it is very concerning. These are new powers for the CRTC that did not exist before for radio and television, and they are powers the Liberal government is now taking for itself to dictate what we read and see online.
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Madam Speaker, I think my friend gets to the crux of the argument Conservatives have on this side, and that is having the content that is put on social media regulated by the government. Is there going to be a Liberal government czar who says what is good and what is not good for online content? That is really what Canadians are scared of, and these are the questions I get in my office, so that goes to the heart of the argument we have of why this bill is so flawed and should be scrapped.
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Mr. Speaker, like the member, I am also really looking forward to ensuring more Canadian content is accessible. Folks in my community are also asking for that.
Like her, I am also a newer member in this place. I am trying to make sense of this conversation about user-generated content, understanding exceptions to exceptions, and understanding that proposed section 4.1(2) is a bit of a concern. Could the member share her perspective on the extent to which user-generated content is not part of this bill?
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand virtually to join members this evening to contribute to this debate. I am currently in my home riding and am honoured to recognize and acknowledge the territory of the WSANEC nation. I raise my hands to all of them and say hych'ka siem, which is in the language of the traditional people of this land. I hope that Bill C-11 will actually deliver on some of the ideas to increase the indigenous content in what we see from our broadcast media in this country. We have a lot of work to do.
I want to address the bill. I have thought a lot about it, and in some of the debate, the notion that we need to do more for Canadian content has been somewhat ridiculed because there is Canadian content in things like The Handmaid's Tale. Why would we think that needed more Canadian content?
Just for fun, I looked up some of the things that one could think of as Canadian content that never was, like Dudley Do-Right. I grew up with Dudley Do-Right, the accident-prone Canadian Mountie who of course had nothing to do with Canada. It was produced by the people who did Rocky and Bullwinkle. It was in the 1960s that I used to watch that. In 1999, there was a Hollywood film based on the cartoon, and of course none of the people involved were Canadian, and the indigenous characters, who were played in ways that were racially and culturally inappropriate and offensive, were played by actors who were not themselves indigenous. We can go way back, if we want to look for Mounties, to find Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald from the 1930s, with a score from Oscar Hammerstein, singing Indian Love Call.
It is absurd to think for one minute that a Canadian Mountie makes a show Canadian or that the inclusion of an indigenous character makes it appropriate. It is laughable. We really do have to pay attention to raising up Canadian content.
I can share with colleagues that countries with much smaller populations than Canada has, like Norway or Denmark, have really extraordinary hit programs that people watch even if they have to put up with subtitles. They watch Borgen or watch the Occupied series. Canada has amazing talent, and it is time to make sure that we are not undermined by online streaming.
I am therefore very sympathetic to many of the goals of this bill. It has amendments to the Broadcasting Act, and because the Broadcasting Act protects freedom of expression, we are not going to lose freedom of expression. However, that does not mean I do not have some concerns that I share with other members here.
I want to thank Paul Manly, by the way, the former member of Parliament for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, because he took on all the workload of Bill C-10, which involved a lot of time developing amendments and being stuck in committee, where nothing was moving, and then we had an election. I did want to get out a public thanks to Paul.
I will turn to the things that really need work. The whole piece around the community element needs work. The broadcasters within community radio and community television that take on the role of community really want the community element definition fixed. One of the key concepts that I hope the committee will take on, in listening to community broadcasting, is to make sure that community broadcasting, by its definition in Bill C-11, is understood as fully community run. It is a really important point and we want to take that forward. I will be working in committee as a non-member of committee to get some amendments made so that the act really protects community-run content.
I am also concerned, frankly, about criticisms of the overreach of the CRTC's authority. We should really look at them. I am not sure where I come down on this yet, but Michael Geist, who is a really knowledgeable expert on media, is concerned that there would be an increased and expanded CRTC authority. I did used to practise in public interest law, and I went through some really long, mind-numbing hearings on, for instance, the review of revenue requirements for Bell and the breaking up of Bell, and all the things the CRTC did. It is a very powerful administrative body, and I wanted to mention that to colleagues.
A lot of the councils and advisory bodies to government, like regulatory agencies, generally provide advice to the government. In the case of the CRTC, it has decision-making authority and can only be overturned by a cabinet-level decision, so it is really important that we are careful. This is our one opportunity to really say what the CRTC is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. It is what we do when we are legislating, so let us make sure we get that right.
I have to say my confidence in the CRTC was shaken when I realized that it had put Russia Today, RT, on cable networks across Canada. It is a disinformation source that has undermined this country's democracy. I do not know how anyone ever concluded that this was a good idea, but I would like to make sure that we know we have given the CRTC the right instructions by legislation to make sure it is regulating and protecting Canadian content, and ensuring the survival and flourishing of our artistic community, our indigenous community and the French language.
We need to have French broadcasting. That is essential to our multicultural country. I am not convinced that Bill C‑11 has this quite right. It is not perfect, at least not yet.
The other piece I really want to mention is what we do about online content and social media. I know that the hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells made reference to this, but I really want to commend the recent work of former chief justice Beverley McLachlin and the quite brilliant academic director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill, Taylor Owen. They make a very important point: Regulate the system, not the speech.
I really think that our social media approach should not be to look for when there has been a transgression and then go out and punish. I do not think the government or the CRTC should be trying to figure out when speech is hate speech or when it is libellous. We need to create a system where social media enterprises have to themselves take on the responsibility to be fully transparent and accountable.
I am going to read this into the record, before I run out of time. It is from an article by former Supreme Court chief justice Beverley McLachlin and Taylor Owen:
For too long the issue of online harms has been erroneously framed as one of individual bad actors and the regulation of speech, but the problem is one of systemic risk and it must be addressed as such. Canada now has the chance to learn from and build on the policies attempted in other countries and get it right.
That is from the recent May 9 article “Regulate the System, Not the Speech”.
We can do this. Whether it is through this bill or the many others that are looking at social media, we have to fix this. I will close here and just say this. Let us get Bill C-11 to committee. Let us get it right.
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Mr. Speaker, absolutely, this bill is very, very important for doing just that: being able to support Canadian content.
That was a really unfortunate connection with the example that was given earlier, but whether it is Canadian TV like The Beachcombers, whether it is Canadian film or whether it is making sure that we are able to access Canadian music online, this is really, really important, just to make sure that, as we are a small country, we are able to support our artists and creators to give them that start, to allow them to have that runway to make it big. Otherwise, we are at risk of being completely dominated by a much larger media landscape in the United States. Therefore, it is very important that we support them and it is very important, given the impact of the pandemic and the change in the way that all people around the world are consuming media.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have repeatedly said that the bill regulates the platform, not content or users. However, proposed section 4.2 says that the CRTC can create regulations that treat content uploaded to social media services as programs to be regulated by considering three factors: one, whether the program that is uploaded might cause direct or indirect revenue generation; two, if the program has been broadcast by an undertaking that is either licensed or registered with the CRTC; and three, if the program has been assigned a unique identifier under a standard system.
The law does not tell the CRTC how to weigh those factors, but the bottom line is that this might apply. Michael Geist has said, “TikTok videos that are uploaded to the service may generate indirect revenue. That content is available on licensed services and the music has a unique identifier. The same is true for many YouTube or Instagram videos.”
What is my hon. colleague's response to that concern that proposed section 4.2 does permit in at least certain circumstances the regulation of content?
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Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the hon. member for a good faith question. I appreciate it.
The way I read the bill, and I have the section in front of me, is that this is how the bill defines commercial content and commercial content is part of how we define whether someone is broadcasting or not using a streaming service. In many ways, this is part of the definition of being able to determine whether Canadian content should be promoted. I think that is the intention of the bill, that broadcasters that are already promoting commercial content and distributing that are subject to the same regulations that other broadcasters are.
That intention is very clearly laid out in the bill. It is very specifically and clearly not to regulate the user-generated content.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we understand that we look far beyond Quebec. I think we have to remember that this is a bill for all of Canada.
I would ask the member to consider this for a minute. Can he imagine if Quebec artists said they had great songs or great movies and the CRTC said they do not quite meet the Canadian content? How would he feel about that? We do not know. That is the problem. The government has not supplied the directive to the CRTC yet, and that is the biggest problem with this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.
The Conservatives are using this bill as a bit of an opportunity to spread misinformation. What they are saying is false. People will still be able to post their content on social media.
They will be able to do what I did during the pandemic. I created a YouTube channel to sing to isolated seniors. On Monday and Wednesday evenings, I sang to entertain them. Seniors could choose songs from my repertoire, which I would then practice and sing to them. Nothing can stop me from continuing this. I was free to do that, and everyone will continue to be free to do that kind of thing. What the Conservatives are saying is misinformation.
We want to take on the web giants to give back to artists. The Conservatives do not agree with that, because they want to support the web giants and give them free rein on the Internet.
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Madam Speaker, the short answer is that I certainly would not consider that censorship. As I mentioned off the top, there are some very important goals set out in Bill C-11 and some important aspects of it in terms of promoting Canadian content. I know from my constituents, particularly those in the remote northern first nations of my riding, which I know are still further south than the member's, but northern as far as Ontario goes, that culture is so important, especially in the remote, isolated communities, and anything we can do to promote that and to ensure that traditional languages and practices are preserved is definitely very important.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kenora for his measured tone. I may not have agreed with everything he shared, but I do appreciate the tone he shared it in.
My question is with respect to making sense of the user-generated content provisions of the bill. My understanding of proposed subsection 4.2(2) is that it is limited to that which is revenue-generating, which would ideally cut out concerns with respect to a parent who might be posting videos on Facebook, for example.
I am looking to better understand the member's concern with respect to user-generated content. He used the term “censorship”. If it is limited to that which is revenue-generating, does that not address the concern?
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Madam Speaker, I was quite surprised to hear my colleague, whom I truly respect, say that this is lazy legislation. All of the parties took several months to negotiate, propose and table amendments, both during the previous Parliament and now.
In terms of discoverability and content, yes, the CRTC will have to decide how content is handled, but it will not deal in specifics. It will not tell users what they can do.
Am I to understand that my colleague has no problem with the fact that nearly all the content we see on social media is American?
Does this mean that he believes that English-language Canadian content and American content are the same thing, and that we have no need to see more original Canadian content?
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