44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, we will always respect hunters, sport shooters, and indigenous peoples and their traditions.
Our government has been extremely clear. We are not targeting hunting rifles. We are not targeting shotguns. This is about guns that were used at Polytechnique and the mosque attacks in Quebec City and South Simcoe. This is to create safer communities for all Canadians.
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- Dec/13/22 3:14:05 p.m.
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I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Siobhan Coady, our former colleague and current Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
The Speaker: I also would like to draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Elvis Loveless, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
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- Dec/13/22 3:14:34 p.m.
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The hon. member for Jonquière on a point of order.
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- Dec/13/22 3:15:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: That the House call on the Prime Minister to meet with the premiers of Quebec, the provinces and the territories as soon as possible regarding long-term sustainable funding for health care through the Canada health transfer.
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- Dec/13/22 3:15:23 p.m.
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All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay.
An hon. member: Nay.
The Speaker: I call the members to order for a moment.
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- Dec/13/22 3:19:39 p.m.
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Colleagues, next month, Charles Robert, Clerk of the House of Commons, will retire after 42 years of service to the Parliament of Canada.
Charles was appointed Clerk of the House of Commons in July 2017. The accomplishments over those five years under his leadership were many and they were significant. Let me underline the historic move from the House of Commons in Centre Block to our interim chamber in this place. Of course, equally historic, was the nimble and efficient move to hybrid proceedings and e-voting in response to COVID-19 pandemic.
Everyone here has benefited from his experience and excellent understanding of parliamentary procedure. He also has a knack for distilling and explaining complex procedural and administrative questions. These qualities have made him a trusted source of advice for parliamentarians.
As a Speaker, I can attest to his briefings. They are always thorough and grounded in his encyclopaedic knowledge of history, Parliament and procedure. As a colleague and friend, I find even casual conversations with Charles leave me better informed and very often laughing, thanks to his dry wit.
Charles started his career on Parliament HIll in the Library of Parliament. Over the years, he served in this House and eventually the Senate where he was appointed Clerk in 2015.
Among his many achievements in the other place are the development of the manual, Senate Procedure in Practice, and a complete revision of the rules of the Senate. In addition, Charles has written numerous articles and reviews exploring procedural aspects of our parliamentary history.
Charles, you leave a legacy of scholarship, wisdom and collegiality. Your presence and sage advice have been invaluable to all parliamentarians.
On behalf of myself and all those who have had the honour of serving the House in the chair, MPs and employees of the House of Commons administration, I would like to thank you for your rich, long-standing contribution to our institution. You have always served with dignity, humility, a strong sense of duty and a great sense of humour.
I wish you health and happiness as you begin this new chapter of your life.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to conclude my remarks by thanking members of the committee. The 16 amendments from the NDP that were adopted have improved Bill C-18 immeasurably, and we have a much better bill coming into the House.
I look forward to questions and comments from my colleagues.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the comments prior to question period that were made by the New Democratic House leader. With respect to the Facebook, YouTube and Google search engines, they have been a major benefactor of journalism here in Canada, yet the creators, the journalists and so forth of a lot of the things that appear in social media do not get the credit and, in particular, the compensation. What this bill would do, in good part, is ensure through the CRTC that there would be an appropriate compensation of sorts. I am a bit surprised that the Conservative Party would not support that and I do not quite understand why.
I wonder if the member has some thoughts in regard to the importance of passing this particular piece of legislation and if he wants to provide commentary as to why the Conservatives would not support this.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North is asking me to imagine what it is like to be in the mind of a Conservative and I have great difficulty in doing that.
I found a bit of a muddle from the Conservative side, and we have seen this before in other legislation. On the one hand, Alberta community newspapers and Saskatchewan community newspapers stepped up. These are newspapers that basically represent nearly half of the Conservative caucus. Their representatives came to committee and said that Bill C-18 has to be adopted, but to improve the aspects from journalism so that more journalists and more Canadian newspapers can benefit from this.
Conservatives should have taken their marching orders from their constituents, including the local community newspapers across Alberta and Saskatchewan who said that Bill C-18 was needed but improvement needed to be brought. The NDP brought forward that improvement. The NDP brought forward an amendment that would allow for a two-person operation, even if they are owners and operators of that business, to access the money that would come from big tech and those negotiations. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against the NDP amendment.
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Madam Speaker, later today, I certainly will have the opportunity to, in great detail, let the members of this House and all Canadians understand why the Conservatives voted against the measures in this bill.
One of the more controversial discussions was about the fact that we wanted this to benefit local news media outlets, many of whom have one person who is the owner-operator and the journalist. Although we brought amendments to include them at committee, the NDP and the Liberal members voted against that. Why did they want to exclude ethnic media and those smaller media outlets in rural communities that only have one journalist?
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly my point. Conservatives voted against the NDP amendment that opened it up for owner-operators. That is what the community newspapers in Alberta and Saskatchewan and across the country asked for: owner-operators and part-time journalists who are working.
The NDP amendment opens it up so that if a couple owns and operates a community newspaper, they would now qualify. If two part-time journalists are employed by that newspaper or that community publication, they would now qualify, even at a part-time level. Even if we are talking about one and a half journalists in terms of full-time equivalents or even one journalist in a full-time equivalent, the publications would now qualify.
That is why I find it passing strange the NDP amendment that was so successful and has been praised by a wide variety of groups was opposed by only one party, the Conservative Party.
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Madam Speaker, again, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby. As I said earlier, it is a pleasure to work with him at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
It is true that the NDP proposed many amendments and spoke for labour representatives, such as representatives from Unifor, who proposed many amendments that were championed by my colleague from the NDP. Several of these amendments were good ones, and some were adopted.
I would like to ask my colleague if there are any amendments he was disappointed did not get adopted. Would any of the amendments that did not get adopted have greatly improved the bill, in his opinion?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his work. The amendments that were adopted expanded the scope so it would apply to all indigenous communities and to indigenous journalists. Bill C‑18 now allows indigenous publications and indigenous journalists to receive funding. That is a big improvement. Transparency and accountability are in the bill now, thanks to the NDP's amendments. The member for Drummond also proposed some very valuable amendments.
As far as transparency is concerned, the most important amendment is the one that ensures that owners who operate a small publication somewhere in Saskatchewan or in Alberta are now eligible even if those operators are also journalists. Even if they work part time, they are eligible. Every party around the table voted in favour of that amendment. The only party that voted against it was the Conservative Party.
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Madam Speaker, has the member ever shared a link to a news story on Facebook or Twitter? If he has, why should Facebook have to pay the Toronto Star, or wherever the link was from, because the member shared it?
Has he ever shared a link on Twitter or Facebook? Should Facebook or Twitter have to pay a fee to the newspaper whose link he shared?
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Madam Speaker, I invite Conservative members to read the bill. It is always very important to read the bill before coming into the House.
What Bill C-18 does is provide an obligatory process of negotiation. Big tech has been vacuuming up money from communities right across the country, including Pembroke, Burnaby, New Westminster and communities across the length and breadth of this land. Big tech is now obliged, as it is in Australia, to fund local journalists and local publications. Big tech has benefited enormously from the journalism that has been done in communities across this country. It is now obliged to pay its fair share, because there is an obligatory negotiation process.
I am particularly proud of the NDP amendment that puts in a strict timeline, so big tech cannot play around. It cannot skate around in circles. It is obliged to negotiate fairly and fund local journalism. I am proud of the NDP amendments that were adopted. I am proud of the committee members for working together.
Bill C-18 is a bill that will benefit all Canadians, including indigenous people.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-18, in part because there has been so much misinformation and disinformation being spread by the government, including the minister and the NDP, about the bill.
First, let us talk about the situation that brought us the need for the bill.
Across Canada, local small media organizations have been disappearing. Many of them have gone out of business, in the hundreds. Even before the pandemic they were in disarray. The idea behind the bill was to try to help these local small media organizations.
When we look at clause 4 of Bill C-18, which I will read because it is important and it is the only clause I voted for, it states:
The purpose of this Act is to regulate digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability, including the sustainability of independent local news businesses.
That is the intent of the bill, and I am very much in favour of that. A lot of the local media outlets, like the ones in Sarnia—Lambton, are going out of business. Where else are we going to get the local news content that we all want to have?
The idea was to somehow create a fund that would then be shared among local media outlets. The problem started there, because then the idea was to make tech giants, the digital network intermediaries like Facebook, also known as Meta, and Google pay every time somebody shared a news link.
The Supreme Court in 2011 ruled that there was no value in sharing a link. In fact, the whole purpose of the Internet is the freedom to share information that is of interest to us and others and there should not be a value put on it. As soon as we start to put a value on it, for example, that we will only charge a value and give to the news intermediaries, it is a very short step to say that everybody who shares that is sharing something of value and why should it not happen with all of them. That was the problematic premise of the bill, which just got worse. The definitions with respect to who is included or excluded are being made by the government.
Freedom of the media is a fundamental principle in Canada. That means we cannot have the government determine who is in and who is out, who can participate in this and who cannot, yet that is exactly what has happened in Bill C-18.
To make it worse, there are so many vague definitions in the bill, which have been criticized by critics, people who are copyright experts and many others. They have said that a lot of these things will need to be clarified. The government's response was not to worry, that they should trust it because it would define them in regulations, with no parliamentary oversight. That is a very dangerous situation.
The reality is that Canadians do not trust the government. Polls of late show that only 22% of Canadians have trust in government or politicians. That is four out of five who do not trust the government to do what is right, and I am in the four out of five. There was no willingness to take amendments that would have clarified the definitions and put some of these things down, with the oversight of the different parties at committee. That was the first thing.
Then the Parliamentary Budget Officer did a study that said that with the money that Facebook and Google would be giving and the approximate volume of the different links that would be shared, there would be a certain pot of money to be shared. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it was $350 million and the department officials said it was more like $150 million. Therefore, it is somewhere between $150 million and $350 million.
However, the most interesting finding was that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that 75% of the money would go to Bell Media, Telus and the CBC. The whole point of this bill is to try to help the local small media outlets. If Bell, Telus and the CBC walk off with the lion's share, that leaves very little money left to share among the little ones.
Why should we be giving any more money to the CBC? The government already gives billions of dollars to the CBC. In fact, it just figured out that the CBC should not have to go looking for advertising money and, really, should be publicly funded for another $400 million.
There is CBC, which is likely to get the lion's share, already being funded and now taking away from the very individuals we want to benefit in this bill. It makes absolutely no sense.
In terms of trying to keep the government from excluding the voices it does not want to hear, we tried to bring some clarity to the definitions. At the beginning, it said there needed to be at least two journalists. Other than being recognized in the Income Tax Act, there was not a lot of clarity brought. Some of the amendments were brought to keep out foreign interference, but there were many ethnic and smaller outlets that were mom-and-pop shops, where maybe the owner was the blogger.
We were very happy to support that concept, but unfortunately it was tangled in with a bunch of things we could not support.
The government has the ability to fix that. It has since excluded any organization that does not have more than two journalists, and I think that is a problem.
The other thing is that the Governor in Council will get to decide everything, and then the CRTC, once it has decided who is eligible to play in the game, is going to provide the oversight for this process. When the CRTC officials came to committee, I asked if they had a lot of experience with regulating oversight of digital news intermediaries. They fully confessed that no, they have no experience in that area. It is ridiculous for the government to want to decide who can win and lose and play in the game and then put the CRTC, which already said it does not know anything about managing this, in charge. This is just a recipe for disaster.
Facebook, Meta and Google have been very clear that they want to help small media outlets in this country and would be very happy to donate that $350-million pot and let a consortium of small news media outlets decide among themselves how best to split it up so that there is sustainability. There needs to be fairness.
We introduced amendments at committee to include indigenous voices. I think there are other ethnic voices in our country that have been excluded by the definitions, but if we took the money and had a panel that was looking at the local small media outlets, it could be fair in making sure there was an equitable dispersion.
Instead, Bell Media, which already shut down a whole bunch of small media outlets, is going to get part of that, 75% of it. What do we think giving it more money is going to do? It is going to continue to shut down small media outlets, and it is not going to achieve the purpose of the bill.
There were concerns expressed after Australia implemented a similar legislative model. Facebook at that time threatened to shut down content. It said it did not want to participate in this. It did not want the government regulating the Internet and regulating free speech. There was a shutdown, and then there was a renegotiation and changes were made.
When we recommended that those changes be brought to the bill and that we could learn from what was problematic in the Australian experience, we learned that it was about this phrase “undue preference”, which meant it was going to be illegal in Bill C-18 for those platforms to do what they do, which is using algorithms to upvote and downvote content. They try to keep hate speech down and things that are misinformation down, and they try to upvote things that people are interested in, things that are popular, so they need to be allowed to do that.
That was another problem we saw with this bill.
Then there are the privacy concerns of sharing information. The CRTC has a broad ability to ask people for any information it needs in order to verify that they are eligible, and then there are going to be arbitrators involved, who are not necessarily bound by the same codes of confidentiality. I have a privacy concern about that.
When it comes right down to it, we did everything we could to recommend that the government abandon this bill and instead work with the big tech giants to get a fund, get it together and divide it up among the local media outlets, so that the people who really need it will get that help.
However, here we are, in the middle of the Christmas season. Love did come down at Christmas, and not just for everyone in general but for me specifically. I am very happy to announce that I got married and so, with that, I wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
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- Dec/13/22 3:43:01 p.m.
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I congratulate the hon. member on her wedding.
Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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Madam Speaker, to add to your comment, I congratulate the member on her marriage. I wish her many years of wonderfulness.
The issue before us today is about the reality that the Conservatives do not believe, as they are showing in their actions, that the tech giants, from Google and search engines to social media giants like Facebook, should have to pay into any sort of pool that would enable fairer compensation for creators here in Canada. This issue is having a devastating impact on journalism, and the member even made reference to it closing down.
Does the Conservative Party not recognize that the message it is sending to these giants is that they do not need to make changes? The Conservatives might say there is a need for changes, but when it comes down to voting, they are going to be voting against this legislation. They might have some issues with it, but at least it would enable a fairer playing field for our journalists.
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Madam Speaker, unfortunately, no, I do not believe the bill would do what its purpose intends.
Let us be clear: Facebook, Meta and Google have publicly said they are willing to donate funds that could be split up among smaller local news media. That would involve no government bureaucracy. It would mean the government is not picking who can be in and out. There would be nobody saying something is a violation of freedom of the press or freedom of the Internet. That could still happen, and my recommendation to the government is that it ought to happen.
That being said, I certainly do not think Bill C-18 in its current form would do anything more than give the nests of CBC, Bell and Rogers more money.
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Madam Speaker, I, in turn, congratulate our colleague from Sarnia—Lambton for Saturday's happy occasion. I wish her many years of wedded bliss.
I heard my colleague express some concerns about the eligibility of news businesses. I just want to distinguish between Bill C‑21, which we have also been hearing a lot about, and Bill C‑18. Unlike the first bill, in Bill C‑18, the government did not include a list of businesses that are excluded or included.
On the contrary, the bill has a list of criteria that businesses must meet to be eligible. This clause was improved by an amendment that requires eligible businesses to also follow a code of ethics based on fundamental principles of the journalism profession.
I want to know if my colleague, who voted against this amendment with her Conservative colleagues, believes that this amendment actually guarantees that eligible businesses will be serious, rigorous news businesses. I would like to hear what she has to say about that.
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