SoVote

Mr. Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West, CPC)

May/30/22 1:45:42 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I would say that I would like to thank my colleague for Winnipeg North for his speech, but that would be disingenuous. The member talked a lot about support for local media, which is funny, because in the operations committee about three years ago, we actually studied government advertising in Canada. The committee came up with recommendations that the government should stop sending all its money to Google and Facebook and use government advertising to support local media, small newspapers, the Winnipeg Free Press, which he mentioned, and a lot of local ethnic newspapers. What did this government do? It took the recommendation, threw it in the garbage, and continued to push more money to Google, Facebook and these big web giants. Why, then, is the member speaking out of both sides of his face? He is saying to support local business, but when we had the chance to do so, the government gave the money to Facebook and Google.

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Context: House Hansard - 77 - May/30/22

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/30/22 1:46:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is actually good news. Let us be realistic. The federal government, as it has for many years, invests in advertising in a significant way, from community newspapers to radio programs, both urban and rural. We have ethnic advertising that takes place, and yes, there is advertising that takes place on Google and on YouTube. There are very important programs that the government has, and it is important that Canadians find out about them, whether they be programs that serve our vets or programs that advertise the greener home building program or other programs from which Canadians can really benefit if in fact they are informed about them. Governments have done advertising for many years, although not with as much money as Stephen Harper ever spent, but governments have done it for many years.

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Context: House Hansard - 77 - May/30/22

Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/30/22 1:47:55 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I organized a major public consultation during last week's constituency week. There is an airport in my riding, and I held public consultations on developing that airport. It is an important piece of infrastructure that affects the lives of 400,000 people in the region. My riding has just one local weekly newspaper, Le Courrier du Sud. We wanted the media to come and cover this event, which would affect everyone in my riding, not to mention people in neighbouring ridings, so we sent a press release to the newspaper. We were told that no journalists were available to cover this event, despite how important it was to our local community. The legislation presented for our consideration does not ensure that small local weekly newspapers will have enough bargaining power to fully participate in negotiations with web giants. Can my colleague comment on that? Can he assure us that local media will be able to get sufficient funding through the negotiations that will take place with the web giants?

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Context: House Hansard - 77 - May/30/22

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

May/30/22 1:52:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I am very troubled by what has happened to journalism in Canada. I agree, as the hon. parliamentary secretary said, that democracy itself is under assault when we lose our local journalists. In fact, there have been empirical studies that show that as parliamentary bureaus of local papers across Canada close up shop, the level of voting in those communities goes down. I agree with the diagnosis, but I do not know that we have the right prescription. What we now see in Australia are a lot of concerns after the Australian model, which we are now pursuing, has been used as a big stick to drive people to private negotiations with no transparency. There is a lot of concern about following this model. I am not saying I am against it and I want to figure out how it might work, but surely the simplest thing is to go to the source and say to Google, Twitter, Facebook and anything that is undermining our journalism that they are publishers, just like the newspapers. They are not platforms but publishers, and they have to follow all the same rules as print journalism in Canada. Would the hon. member comment on that?

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