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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 92

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2022 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 92 - Jun/20/22
Mr. Frank Caputo (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, CPC)
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf on the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. Before I begin, I want to take care of a couple of things. First, there were three people in my riding who were tragically killed over the weekend, including a four-week-old infant. Last I heard, there was a young person as well who remained in critical condition after this tragic motor vehicle accident. I want to assure the family and loved ones who suffered through this that they are in my thoughts and prayers. I just want to take a moment of silence, given the passing of these three people. On a bit of a happier note, I want to wish my dad a happy Father's Day. I did get to see him yesterday. The last thing, I promise, before getting into Bill C-11, is that I have two friends getting married this weekend, and I want to give a shout-out on the House of Commons floor to Lucky Sharma and Aimée Marshall on their upcoming wedding. I wish them a life of happiness. Now let us get on to why we are all here, Bill C-11, and why we are all here sitting late, with Motion No. 11. I remember when the Liberals, as a third-place party, in 2015, touted themselves as the party of transparency. We were told, “Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways,” and that they would not use omnibus bills. Those are for undemocratic groups like the Conservatives to use. They would not shut down debate. No, that would not ever happen. Then we had the NDP, the party of the underdog, fighting for each and every person, being the voice for people who did not have a voice themselves, the voice for the voiceless, the party fighting vigorously for democracy above all else, supporting things like Motion No. 11, not only to curtail debate, and I cannot count how many times that has happened recently and in respect to this bill directly, but also to shut down debate. That, to me, does not sound like either is a party of transparency. I may have expected this from the Liberals. I frankly did not expect it from the NDP. Let us face it, if the Conservatives had done this when we had a majority, it would have been called high-handed. Instead, the rhetoric is, “We just want to get this done.” This is coming from a party that took months to recall Parliament after an unnecessary pandemic election. Wait, Madam Speaker, there is more. We have over 100 amendments that were moved in committee without any sort of scrutiny. To me, that is undemocratic. If I could sum up one of the issues I have with this bill, it comes down to a question that I asked the hon. parliamentary secretary. I asked him about TV shows that he had referenced and his saying, if I understood his argument correctly, that we may not have these TV shows if it were not for Canadian content. I challenged him in a question, asking, “Where in Bill C-11 do we preserve the existence of these television shows?” Somewhat predictably, he did not point to anything in particular. He said that it depends on the content of the shows. That is the interesting part. Here is the problem: this is the classic “the Liberal government knows best”. It is for the government to decide what the appropriate content is. People ask, “Well, what is the problem with this?” This is the government essentially preferring some media over others, but not only is it preferring some media over others; it goes beyond that, because we do not know exactly how the government is going to go about preferring some media over others. We really do have a compound problem there. One, why are we preferring? It is ostensibly for the reasons that have been outlined by the government, but then we have this vacuum in which we ask ourselves, well, how are we going to go about that? Rather than flesh that out and rather than spend the time at committee to do this, the government rammed through over 100 amendments. To me, that does not sound like a government that is bent on getting this right, as we have heard so often, because this needs to happen on an act that has not been updated since 1991. Make no mistake: I am not advocating for the status quo, but I am opposing what we have seen here. Frequently from the government we have heard, “Why do Conservatives not just get on board with the changing times?” That completely misses the point. The Conservatives are prepared to get on board with the changing times. Just because we are not prepared to get on board with it being done in this way does not mean we do not recognize the necessity for change. Rather, we have a bill that has been rammed through. If this bill was truly good for the country, why is the government trying to get it done so quickly? It is obviously a near copy of the deeply flawed Bill C-10, which had a number of concerns raised by experts. I do not deny that we live in an increasingly digital world. We need laws and policies that reflect the world we live in today. I am in my 40s, yet I find myself increasingly telling my family members and my mother that I need a text message rather than a phone call, because we are going back and forth constantly, living in a busy world that is increasingly dependent on electronics. I am sure I am not the only one who feels as though, while we used to fall asleep reading a book 20 or 30 years ago, we probably now fall asleep doing different things and watching different things. All that is to say that yes, the law needs to be updated. The question then becomes how Parliament appropriately intervenes, and just because Conservatives are opposed to the intervention itself, the unique intervention that has been put forward, does not mean that an intervention is unnecessary. Canada's Conservatives support creating a level playing field between large foreign streaming services and content creators, but what we have here would be giving the power to the CRTC to regulate the Internet. In my view, that is not the appropriate way to go about this. This, to me, is an exhortation for more government involvement and more power in what we do. It feels like it never ends when we see the government slowly but surely encroaching into what people will watch, but it is not even clear as to how the government would do that, and that is a really substantial concern. This bill, in my view, targets user-generated content. That has been discussed at length, and I will not go into it much more. Despite the government's assurances, companies like YouTube still identify areas of the bill that would identify user-generated content. Despite the exemption for user-generated content, this legislation would allow the CRTC to regulate any content that generates revenue, directly or indirectly. That is rather broad. When we are talking about indirect generation of revenue, where does that line end? Does it end at one person removed, one job removed or one dollar removed? How do we actually judge that? These are unanswered questions that would have been wonderful to answer at committee, and there were many witnesses who would have been prepared to answer these questions. According to the CRTC chairperson, Mr. Scott, the CRTC issues approximately 250 decisions annually. For an administrative board, that is relatively small. That is fewer than five per week, so I ask myself how we can expect the CRTC to have this capacity. Again, this is consistent with what I am saying. We are just going to grow the CRTC even bigger. That is the answer. That is the response to this. It is to make more government with more policies with more workers, which is going to cost more taxes for ultimately questionable ends. I am only four pages into a 10-page outline. I have a lot more to say, but I know my time is coming to an end. As much as others here might like to hear it, I know we are under time constraints, so I will answer any questions from my colleagues with that.
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