44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 8, 2023 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, it is clear the hon. member did not pay any attention to what went on during the debate. We had numerous experts, and the vast majority of them were in favour of this bill. The Conservatives cannot call one expert and one former CRTC commissioner and say everyone is against the bill by hearing from those two people. There were dozens of witnesses who were in support of this: creators and artists.
It is unfortunate the Conservatives will just parrot the talking points of Facebook and Google.
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Madam Speaker, Bill C-11 is a piece of legislation that would impact every single Canadian who has a cellphone, a television or a computer in their home and who enjoys online streaming, viewing or listening to content that is online. That is how big this legislation is. That is how dramatic its impact would be. Permit me to provide an overview of what this legislation does, and then I will dive into the intricacies of the bill and hopefully explain why Canadians would be so impacted by it.
I am going to speak to Canadians. After all, the House is theirs and theirs alone.
Through this piece of legislation, the government is about to give itself the authority to control what Canadians have access to listen to online or to watch online. For example, instead of giving a viewer more of what they want on a platform such as YouTube, things would be ranked in a way that YouTube would be forced by the government to put things in front of us according to its definition of priority. It says it would be in accordance with how Canadian the content is. I will dive into that shortly.
YouTube would be forced to give more of what the government wants us to see, rather than more of what Canadians wish to see. This is problematic, because Canadians go online to access the things they are most passionate about or most interested in. They do not go online to have things pushed at them by the government. The government claims that the bill is about “supporting Canadian culture”. It says that it is about “levelling the playing field”. It is just not true.
Bill C-11 amends the Broadcasting Act by bringing the Internet under its provisions. In the early 20th century, the act was originally put in place to regulate TV and radio. It has gone through myriad iterations since then, but its result has always remained the same. It wants to ensure that Canada's two official languages are both respected by being given airtime and that cultural diversity is upheld. Those are noble goals. This was necessary because the number of TV and radio stations were limited. This finite resource needed to be managed. It needed to be overseen in order to ensure that the platforms were shared.
Unlike these two mediums, the Internet is boundless. In other words, anyone who wants to have a presence on the Internet can have one. The government does not need to regulate which content should be given priority and which content should be demoted, because there is space for all. The success of one individual or one creator online does not take away from the success of another. Everyone can achieve success.
If there was ever a level playing field, the Internet is it. Anyone who wants a website can set up a website. Anyone who wants a channel on YouTube can set one up. Anyone who wants to set up a TikTok account can have one. People have access to platforms within the online world that is boundless. It is quite incredible.
It could be argued that it has never been easier for Canadian content creators from all linguistic and cultural backgrounds to reach a global audience with the content they wish to showcase. If they wish to set up a YouTube channel, to set up a TikTok account or to be on Twitter, they can. The traditional gatekeepers have been removed.
Creators used to have to put together media package. Basically, it was like a portfolio of sorts that showed off their skill, their talent, their ability and what they wanted to produce. They would then walk it over to CBC, to Bell Media, to Rogers or to Corus Entertainment, and would have to beg them to accept their package and to put them on the air. If one or all of these gatekeepers said no, then they were out of luck. They do not deal with that anymore. Now creators can succeed based on their own merit, rather than based on what these gatekeepers desire for them.
Today's creators do not function according to the same rules as in previous generations. That is part of what is so difficult for some to accept. We exist in a new space and we have new ideals, freedom and choice being two of them.
For the minister to say that this bill would somehow modernize the Broadcasting Act and provide support to artists is actually incredibly disingenuous. The minister fails to account for progress. Instead of meeting artists where they are at, and celebrating the tremendous success that they enjoy within the realm of freedom, the government is actually wanting to pull them back under an antiquated system where their content would be weighed and measured and creators would be made into winners or losers, based on what the government wants rather than what Canadians want.
I wish for Canadians to know that this bill would impact them in two damning ways: One, it would censor what they see; and two, it would censor what they say. With regard to what they see, if the Canadian government determines what gets promoted and what gets demoted, then that means only certain content is made available to me as the viewer. In other words, it is censorship.
Furthermore, this bill would censor what an individual can say or post online. Homegrown talent and creative content here in Canada would no longer succeed based on merit, as they do now. Instead, as mentioned, content would be subject to a list of criteria and we do not actually know what that is because the government will not be transparent about it. Through that, the government would direct that these criteria have to be weighed and measured to see if they are met by the artist, and then if they are, it would be deemed Canadian and if they are not, then it would not be. If it is Canadian, it would be discoverable. In other words, it would be bumped up toward the top of our screen. However, if it is not made discoverable, it would get bumped down to maybe page 400, 500 or 600 where nobody looks. This bill is censorship. Not only would it censor what we can see as viewers, but it would also censor what can be posted online by creators and individual users.
Content creators from across Canada, along with consumer groups, have been speaking out about this bill. They are calling it dangerous. Legal experts have called it a grotesque overreach of government. When speaking about this bill, Margaret Atwood, a fabulous Canadian author who is very famous here, did not mince her words when she called it “creeping totalitarianism”.
I want to take a step back and say that there are two things that we can agree on. One, the Broadcasting Act should be updated; that is not what this bill would do. This bill would actually make the Broadcasting Act incredibly regressive, but anyway it should be updated. Two, Canada has a rich and beautiful culture and amazing artists; homegrown talent that absolutely we should look for a myriad of ways to promote and celebrate. How we do these things is where the disagreement comes into play. While the government claims that Bill C-11 is the best way forward, we would disagree. The best way forward is actually a path that preserves individual choice and opens doors to boundless opportunity. This bill would fail to do that.
It might serve us well to just take a pause and step back and figure out where this bill came from. This bill started out as Bill C-10 in 2020 and it has gone through a number of iterations since that time. However, one thing remains true about it: It is still a terrible piece of legislation. It is a terrible piece of legislation that would hinder what Canadians can see online and what they can post online. To put it simply, it would give the government control of our search bars. We think we are searching for one thing and that we will be directed in that way and in actuality, instead, based on algorithms that would be dictated by the government, we are actually sent to something different. That is what this bill would do.
What brought us here? What brought us to this bill's being put in place? There are two groups that are involved in that: the broadcasters and the traditional art unions or guilds. For the broadcasters, we have CBC, Bell and Corus media and they contribute a certain percentage to an art fund. A certain percentage of their revenue goes into that fund and then traditional artists are able to apply for some of that funding and use it for their projects.
Traditional broadcasters, of course, are less and less popular and are contributing fewer and fewer dollars, but they feel penalized by this, so they have gone knocking on the door of the government, saying they should not be the only ones contributing to the art fund, that the government should capture the large streamers as well. Further to that, these broadcasters have to show a certain percentage of their content as CanCon. CanCon does not always sell to their audiences all that well and so, to some extent, broadcasters feel hindered by this obligation. Again, they are watching as streaming platforms are not subject to this rule, so they have gone knocking on the government's door, saying it should really impose this rule on streamers as well.
Many artists are absolutely fabulous and should be celebrated and promoted. There are those traditional artists who belong to a union. They are not at fault, but the union bosses have knocked on the door of the government, saying because the revenues for traditional broadcasters are drying up, there is not as much money going into the art fund, they do not have as much available for their production of traditional art and, therefore, they want more money to be found somewhere, some way. The government then has said it could make the streamers responsible for contributing to the art fund, and so it is.
At the end of the day, Bill C-11 is all about maintaining status quo. It is about protecting the interests of large broadcasters. The government claims, however, that it is about forcing large streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Disney, to pay into a fund that supports Canadian artists and that it is about protecting Canadian culture or levelling the playing field.
If the implication of the bill stopped there, the reality is that would be bad enough, but it actually goes even further. It goes so far as to include user-generated content, the content of ordinary Canadians and the stuff that they put on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. It does not stop at large foreign streamers. It absolutely captures individuals, Canadians. In fact, the former chair of the CRTC, Ian Scott, made this very clear at committee, not only in the House of Commons but then further at the Senate.
I will talk about this point more in just a moment, but I wish first to comment on the false foundation on which this bill is founded. First, this bill is based on the deceptive notion that Canadian content creators or artists cannot make it on their own merit. How degrading. This bill is based on the premise that they need government to step in and help them, but they are saying otherwise. This bill is based on the lie that the government needs to step in and also make sure that Canadian content is put in front of our eyeballs because, otherwise, we would not choose it. Again, how degrading can one be to Canadian artists and their ability to produce great content?
The fact of the matter is these things are not true, and I would like to explain my reasoning. The heritage minister has claimed that this bill would capture $1 billion from large streaming platforms. That is the amount that it would bring in, and that is meant to help further Canadian culture by helping to support these traditional artists. According to the government, it is forcing large streaming platforms to pay their fair share. At first blush, that might sound reasonable, but that is not actually what is happening here.
The government says that this money will save Canadian culture, but who says that Canadian culture actually needs saving? Who says that it is so fragile that it will fall apart without government intervention? Aside from all that, is Canadian culture not based on what Canadians determine it to be? The reality is the notion that large streaming platforms are not paying their fair share is a myth.
Investment in Canadian productions that would further our culture and tell our stories is not drying up, as the Liberals would like us to believe. On the contrary, huge investments are being made. It is just no longer being done through traditional broadcasters and the unions are not controlling it.
According to Wendy Noss of the Motion Picture Association Canada, who testified at the Senate committee, it spent more than $5 billion across this country in 2021 alone. The government is saying it is going to get $1 billion because of this legislation. This is one association and it is putting $5 billion per year into this country, so one cannot tell me or Canadians that somehow investment in homegrown talent is drying up. It is just not true.
If the money is being invested in talent, what is this bill really about?
An hon. member: Control.
Mrs. Rachael Thomas: Madam Speaker, perhaps it is a bit about control.
Let me talk a bit more about this. This $5 billion that was invested accounted for more than half of all production in this country and 90% of the growth this sector enjoyed over the last decade. That is significant. We are talking about an association, Motion Picture Association Canada, which hired, trained and provided opportunities for more than 200,000 Canadians, who are incredibly talented in the world of creativity. It supported more than 47,000 businesses. These numbers come from 2021 alone. That is a tremendous investment in telling Canadian stories, furthering Canadian culture and celebrating what is possible right here on home turf.
In fact, this is far greater than traditional broadcasters have proven capable of, so perhaps a little truth telling could go a long way and we could take delight in the tremendous success being achieved within our cultural sector.
We have to ask then, given this incredible investment, do we really have a problem? Do we really need this legislation? Is it true investments are not being made into Canada's production industry or that somehow culture is at risk? No. On the contrary, the sector is alive and well. It is simply the gatekeepers, the traditional broadcasters and the unions, do not control the outcome anymore.
Furthermore, this bill is based on the false notion that Canadian content cannot thrive without government intervention. As I have outlined, these production companies are hiring based on merit and their films are succeeding based on consumer demand. Do we really need the government then stepping in and mandating what percentage of content needs to be Canadian, as if the government were to not do that somehow Canadian content would not thrive? A $5-billion investment tells me Canadian content seems to be alive and well.
The problem is that a great deal of truly Canadian content does not meet the government's imposed definition of what it calls “CanCon”. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for example, is written by a famous Canadian author, is being filmed on Canadian soil, it stars Canadian actors and it employs Canadian producers, but it fails to meet the government's definition of CanCon.
It would be kind of funny, a bit humorous, to realize all that, except that it is incredibly damning to our cultural industry, which takes the humour out of the definition altogether and makes it antiquated and destructive.
Traditional broadcasters are forced to show a certain percentage of CanCon, and they feel stifled by this. Now the Liberals want streaming platforms and new media creators to come under the same rules, to wear the same shackles. Perhaps the government should consider taking the extra regulation off the traditional broadcasters instead of putting those same handcuffs on new media platforms. Perhaps instead of taking us back and maintaining the status quo, we should be looking forward toward a great, vibrant, creative, free future.
Make no mistake. This bill is not about supporting Canadian culture and Canadian artists. It is about protecting big broadcasters and the interests of the government.
Everything I have talked about up to this point is significant, but what makes this perhaps the most egregious piece of Liberal legislation is the fact that it does not just go after large streaming platforms or regulate traditional artists working with the support of a big union or a guild, but it actually extends to user-generated content. In other words, it is about the things that normal, everyday, average Canadians would post online, or ordinary content. Aunty Betty's cat video would be captured by this legislation. Now the government will implore the CRTC to weigh all of this material according to this definition of Canadianness, and that content will either be allowed to stand online or be moved to page 900.
It sounds like a big job. I do not know exactly how the Liberals are going to roll that out, but they seem to be very committed to it. Why do I say they are very committed to it? Well, it is because they had an opportunity to make sure user-generated content was not captured by the bill. They had an opportunity to ensure the bill really was just about the largest streaming platforms.
The Senate made an amendment. In fact, even before the bill got to the Senate, the House of Commons offered the same amendment. The government rejected the amendment here, and then the Senate, after wisely giving this legislation a sober second thought and listening to witnesses, made the same amendment to make sure that user-generated content, ordinary content, was not captured by the bill. What we have learned today is that the government is not accepting that amendment, which is very telling. It tells us that the bill is far more about the government controlling what we can see, hear and post online than it is about anything else. If it were not, then why not accept the amendment?
The bill is about censoring Canadians, all Canadians. The bill would stagnate the progress that is being achieved by modern creators such as the woman who goes by Aunty Skates. She is a South Asian woman based in Toronto. She is in her forties and learning how to skateboard. She decided, in the midst of the pandemic, to start creating videos and bringing people in on her adventure, and she is going viral. The bill would stagnate that.
The bill would also go after homegrown comedian Darcy Michael. He proclaims himself to be a pot-smoking gay man. He talks about how he was turned away from traditional broadcasters, and now he is enjoying tremendous success on YouTube. The bill would target him.
Instead of modernizing the Broadcasting Act in a meaningful way to address the complexities of the digital world, this legislation would simply target the next generation of creators, the next generation of artists and the next generation that thinks outside the box and beyond the gatekeepers. This legislation would pull them back from the future and put them in the past.
This legislation would make sure that these individuals are again put under a regulator, a gatekeeper, that would determine whether their content is sufficiently Canadian to be discoverable or it has to be buried. That is shameful. In short, this legislation is about protecting the status quo rather than allowing progress.
The Senate committee heard from many witnesses with regard to this bill: creators themselves, subject matter experts and legal experts. The thing that was said loud and clear was that a step back needed to be taken and that the content created by individuals needed to be respected, that it needed to be left alone. The government has made it clear at every turn that it does not wish to make that change.
It is scary, and today we are seeing that. We are seeing creators across this country speaking out against this bill. We have seen it for months. Today, knowing that the nail is potentially in the coffin, they are all that much louder. They are concerned about their future.
The truth is that it is not just creators who are concerned, but all Canadians. All Canadians are concerned because at the end of the day, they want to be able to watch what they want to watch. We like on-demand services for a reason. Traditional broadcasters are phasing out for a reason. It is because they take choice out of the equation and Canadians like choice. Canadians are very concerned about the censorship that this bill brings in.
The government says that it wants to remove barriers for under-represented artists. That seems noble. Unfortunately, again, that is not true. That is not what this bill does.
This was made abundantly clear in the Senate. The committee heard from BIPOC and indigenous creators, as well as francophone creators, who all said that this bill would hold them back, that it would stifle the success that they enjoy. They talked about the tremendous success they are currently able to achieve based on their own merit in the barrier-free world known as the Internet. As my colleague from the Senate, Senator Leo Housakos, said so well, “What Bill C-11 does is put limits and barriers back in place and perpetuates a system of picking winners and losers by dictating, based on factors other than individual user preference and choices, what Canadians should post and what Canadians will see.”
At the end of the day, creators do not want this bill because it would hold them back. Viewers do not want this bill because it would control what they have access to online. Creators wish to succeed based on their own creativity and ability, and they are doing so phenomenally well. Most Canadian creators enjoy an audience that is 90% outside of Canada. In other words, they are reaching the world. Is that not celebration-worthy? Furthermore, it has been stated by experts that this bill is so much about censorship and control that it actually likens us to places like China, North Korea and Russia, which Canadians are rightly concerned about.
Canadians want to be able to go online and access the material they wish to access. If they wish to go on YouTube and be given the stuff they want to watch, they can do that right now. They appreciate being able to do that right now, but unfortunately, under Bill C-11, they would be given more of what the government wants them to watch, not more of what they want to watch. Does it not seem dangerous to members that we would be so regressive as a nation that under the government we would succumb to being like North Korea, China and Russia?
On behalf of Canada's amazing creators who have achieved tremendous success, based on their merit, on new media platforms, or who seek to do so, and on behalf of Canadians who value the freedom to choose what they watch and listen to online, I move the following motion. In response to the government's motion, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the first word “That” and substituting the following: “the order for the consideration of the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be discharged and the Bill be withdrawn”.
Kill Bill C-11.
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The amendment is in order.
Questions and comments. The hon. member for Lac‑Saint‑Louis.
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Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech, and I must say I found the first couple of minutes rather engaging and rigorous. It included an enunciation of principles. I did not agree with the suppositions and the line of argument, but it had rigour. Then, of course, the member lost me when she started comparing Canada to North Korea. I do not think anyone lends credence to that kind of argument.
I also found there were contradictions in the member's speech. She said the cybersphere is limitless, where everyone has a voice, and that is absolutely true. One cannot suppress the Internet, so how can one even begin to think that it could be censored? Second, the member says that Canadian culture does not need support, that it should survive on its own and that it can survive on its own, yet if we look at all the feature films that make it to the Oscars, if we look at the end of the credits, there is funding from government agencies and there are tax credits to make sure the films are done here, and that is how we are supporting Canadian culture, too.
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Madam Speaker, I suppose that perhaps the hon. member missed a good portion of my speech, so I will just remind him.
This bill would capture about a billion dollars per year. I will also remind the House that we actually do not have documents that prove that. That just seems to be some fictitious number that the government pulled out of thin air. We do not know where that came from. We asked. It has not been granted.
Let us just suppose that it is true and that it will result in $1 billion extra being put toward arts and culture in Canada. I will remind the hon. member that one private company alone invested $5 billion in 2021, supporting over 200,000 homegrown artists and more than 47,000 Canadian businesses. That is a whole lot more than what the government's wimpy $1 billion will ever do.
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Madam Speaker, I heard my colleague from Lethbridge make very glowing comments on culture and artists in general. I think she may have wanted to clarify that she was talking about digital artists, digital-first creators, because they really are the ones my colleague defended throughout the work on Bill C‑11.
I just wanted to know if her sudden affection for culture and artists extended to Quebec artists and francophone artists. I wanted to know if she stands by what she said in spring 2021 when she gave an interview to a local paper in Lethbridge.
She said that the bill in question addressed a very niche group of artists who are stuck in the early 1990s because they have not managed to be competitive on new platforms. According to her, they produce content that Canadians simply do not want. She went on to say that this group of artists comes primarily from Quebec and that they are incapable of living from what they create and are therefore calling for government subsidies. She also said that these artists were outdated.
I just wanted to know whether my colleague from Lethbridge stands by what she said in that interview at the time.
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Madam Speaker, I actually really appreciate the opportunity to extend a sincere apology. I used the word “artists”. All of that was not quoted exactly correctly, but nevertheless I will own the notion. I used the word “artists” and I really should not have. I regret that. Those artists are working hard to create fantastic content for this country, and I respect that deeply.
What this bill comes down to is actually the traditional broadcasters and the big union bosses. Unfortunately, I do not think those two entities are fighting rightly on behalf of artists, the tremendous work they are putting into developing themselves, and their incredible talent and ability to grow themselves and be successful based on their own merit. I do not think we give that enough weight. I wish we would. I wish we would—
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- Mar/8/23 6:18:28 p.m.
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I have to go to another question.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
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Madam Speaker, it appears to me that my hon. colleague from Lethbridge suggested, and I listened to all of her speech, that creators did not need this bill and that Canadian culture did not need any help from the Canadian government. The larger aspect of what she said suggested that she would like to see the Canadian government relinquish the entire space of protecting Canadian content, relinquish Canadian content to the gentle mercies of Hollywood to decide that Dudley Do-Right represents Canada and that our own authors and creators here are not to be protected.
They need protection. The Writers Guild of Canada and the Canadian Media Producers Association have said that this bill, while flawed, is essential for the industry to thrive and maybe even to survive.
I put this to my colleague. Does she think she may have taken her argument too far?
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Madam Speaker, again, I would just remind the House who said that. A big union said that, at the behest of traditional broadcasters. Of course they want this bill. It supports them. It results in dollars in their pockets. It results in keeping them alive. Of course they want this bill.
Is it artists who are saying that they want this bill? Nope, they are not. Individual artists do not want this bill.
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Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill S‑209, an act respecting pandemic observance day—
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- Mar/8/23 6:22:08 p.m.
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I cannot call on a member unless they stand up to be recognized, and unfortunately the hon. member did not stand up to be recognized, so I recognized the hon. member for Montcalm.
The hon. member for Montcalm has the floor.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I respect your decision, but you never called my riding by name. You looked my way, and I—
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Clearly, this was just an oversight by the member. I believe, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to return to the individual who was supposed to speak, the member for Edmonton Manning, so he can continue.
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I can look for unanimous consent, but I want to remind members that they need to stand to be recognized. If they do not stand, then I do not know that they want to speak and I cannot recognize them.
Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member for Edmonton Manning to do his speech first?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for the motion.
The text of this bill claims:
it is fitting that March 11 of each year be officially designated as “Pandemic Observance Day” in order to give the Canadian public an opportunity to commemorate the efforts to get through the pandemic, to remember its effects and to reflect on ways to prepare for any future pandemics.
Certainly, it is fitting that we take time to remember the effects COVID-19 had on our lives. More than 55,000 Canadians died COVID-related deaths. That is a sobering statistic. This number is more than die each year of heart disease and about four times the number of people who die accidentally each year.
We do not remember statistics though. We remember husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and grandparents whose lives were shortened by the disease. Each one was an individual. Each one was loved. Behind each death, there is an intensely personal story. Their loved ones remember them every day. They do not need the government to set aside a designated day for that purpose.
Do we need a pandemic observance day to give the Canadian public an opportunity to commemorate the efforts to get through the pandemic? Communities came together in innovative ways to deal with a situation no one had prepared for. It can be inspiring to think of the ways individual Canadians reached out to others for the benefit of all. It can be said that Canadians showed their resilience in the way they supported each other through that very trying period.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the Canadian people together. It was a shared experience that brought out the best in people. It also brought out the worst of the government's performance. The most memorable stories of the COVID-19 pandemic are not those of individuals coming together but of a government out of control, out of touch with reality and showing itself to be incompetent, corrupt or maybe both.
As the pandemic was unfolding, the government sent 16 tonnes of badly needed personal protective equipment to another country: 50,118 face shields, 1,101 masks, 1,820 pairs of goggles, 36,425 medical coveralls, 200,000 nitrile gloves and 3,000 aprons. In doing so, it left our country without sufficient supplies for our own medical personnel. Canada was unprepared for the pandemic. The government failed in its duty to protect the Canadian people. It apparently believed the virus was not going to come here. It kept that attitude despite the fact that it had been warned.
In 2004, the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health presented its recommendations to the government. Canada was unprepared for the SARS outbreak, it said, “because too many earlier lessons were ignored.”
SARS made hundreds of Canadians sick and killed 44. It paralyzed a major segment of Ontario's health care system for weeks, and thousands were placed in quarantine. Overworked health care workers felt mental and emotional stress. Does that not sound just like the COVID-19 pandemic?
It was sadly obvious that the Liberals were unprepared for COVID-19. If they had paid attention to the SARS report, they would not have been giving away the very materials our health care system needed.
Given the Liberal track record, Canadians have no reason to believe the government will, as this bill suggests, spend any time reflecting on ways to prepare for any future pandemics, unless it is reflecting on finding ways to enrich its friends during a time of crisis. This will happen at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
As unprepared as they were, the Liberals did see some opportunities as COVID-19 cases mounted in Canada. This is something all Canadians should remember.
We can think back to March 2020, as the first COVID cases were being reported in Canada. After giving away the PPE equipment our health care workers needed to fight the pandemic, the Liberals decided that they needed sweeping new powers to tax and spend without parliamentary scrutiny. When that did not work, they shut down Parliament to avoid being held accountable.
Faced with a global health emergency, their first response was an attack on democracy. They did not want Canadians to be informed of what was going on. They did not want to have to answer questions in Parliament.
They hoped no one would notice when an organization with financial ties to the Prime Minister’s and finance minister’s families were chosen to receive millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money through sole-sourced contracts.
The public service has considerable expertise and experience in administering government programs. Instead, the Liberals tried to funnel the money to their friends. When the wrongdoing by the former minister of finance was discovered, at least he was honourable enough to resign, unlike the Prime Minister, who has apparently never done anything wrong in his life.
Apparently, the Prime Minister has not even read the Ethics Commissioner’s reports, which is perhaps not surprising. The pandemic has shown that the Liberals are, at best, ethically challenged. They do not understand the rules, even simple ones, such as that we do not give government contracts to our friends.
After the Ethics Commissioner found that the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development had broken the rules, she apologized. However, she has not offered to repay the money that she had her department give to her friend.
There was also the former Liberal MP whose medical supply company was awarded a $237-million contract for 8,000 ventilators, at $10,000 more each than what is paid in the U.S.A. Once again, a contract was awarded without competitive bidding, this time to a company that had never made ventilators before.
The government spent $1.1 billion for 40,000 ventilators. Most of them were not needed because COVID was not as bad as forecasted, and now they are just gathering dust in warehouses.
When Canadians remember the pandemic, they will remember the Liberals investing $130 million of taxpayers' money in a vaccine that was being developed by a Canadian firm partially owned by a tobacco company. Was there no one smart enough to ask whether such a vaccine would be acceptable to the World Health Organization? Apparently there was not. It was no surprise to anyone, except perhaps the Liberal government, when the WHO failed to approve the vaccine because of the tobacco company involvement.
Canadians do not need a special pandemic observance day to remember the most out-of-control government spending. There was billions of dollars in handouts, no accountability and no determination as to whether the funds were really needed.
Canadians will have no choice but to remember the biggest government spending spree in our history because they will be paying off the debt for decades. My unborn grandchildren will be paying off the Liberals' debt. They will wish they had nothing to remember.
Canadians remember the incompetence of the government as the pandemic became endemic. As travel became possible once more, those lucky enough to get a passport endured chaos at the airports. The Liberal government could not even figure out how to make the system work.
Inflation rose to record levels, and the government responded by tripling its carbon tax instead of providing relief for Canadians struggling to make ends meet. Canadians will remember that every day; no special day is required. Canadians do not need a pandemic observance day to remember their loved ones, nor do they need this legislation to remember just how incompetent and corrupt the Liberal government was in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Madam Speaker, I rise this evening to speak on Bill S‑209, an act respecting pandemic observance day.
This bill officially designates a day that has been recognized as a national day of observance since 2021. Indeed, the World Health Organization declared March 31, 2021, as a national day of observance.
March 11 was designated by proclamation as a national day of observance in 2021. The Quebec government chose to organize a national day of observance in 2021 and 2022.
This is an important subject, and it goes beyond any form of partisanship. We were all hit by the pandemic, regardless of where we lived or who we were.
The Bloc Québécois will support this bill since the goal is observance, which allows us to highlight and remember the solidarity, the generosity, the sense of duty and the resilience of all those who worked to get us out of the pandemic.
Additionally, it is an opportunity to never forget those who were affected in any way, shape or form by the pandemic, as well as all those taken by this disease.
I want to take this opportunity to extend my deepest condolences to all of the families who were left in mourning by COVID‑19 and its disastrous consequences. Over 16,000 people died in Quebec, 45,000 in Canada and 6.5 million around the world.
In our societies, when we institute a day of remembrance, a day of commemoration, it is usually to mark the end of a socially harmful event. To build the future, we need to remember the past. That is why Quebec wisely chose “Je me souviens” or “I remember” as its motto.
Fortunately, it is human nature to try to turn a bad situation into something good, something ugly into something beautiful and something negative into something positive. That is a survival mechanism that has allowed us to be, to exist and to move forward again and again, hardship after hardship, and grow stronger. Humanity always emerges stronger from tragedy. We always find a way to do so.
When I was young, I read history books that talked about the epidemics and pandemics that ravaged humanity as though they were novels. Sometimes my grandparents would tell me about when they were young and about how they saw a staggering number of people dead in the streets from the Spanish flu. I would listen, shivering in horror, and tell myself that, thanks to modern medicine, that sort of thing would never happen in our time. Like many other people, I was fooling myself.
When the epidemic was declared in mainland China, who would have thought that it would transform into a global pandemic and that we would experience such tragedy and horror? Who would have believed it?
Beyond the armchair quarterbacks who always know better than anyone else, after the fact of course, what should have been done, beyond all the shortcomings, blunders, the actions that did or did not succeed, which we are assessing because we must always learn from our mistakes, beyond all that, we need to simply celebrate the memory of those who passed away.
We must celebrate the courage and humanity of those who suffered, celebrate those who fought in their own way to get us through the pandemic and to let hope and light emerge from the bleak times in which we were living. We must remember all that.
It is during these pivotal moments in history, which are so brief but so intense at the time, that we see the beauty and the strength of our societies.
We also have a duty to note and highlight everyone's invaluable contributions to the fight against this pandemic.
That is why I immediately think of all the health care workers who, also struck by an unknown and devastating virus, stepped up to hold failing health care systems together with the sole purpose of saving lives, saving our loved ones, our friends, our neighbours, our spouses and partners. Health care workers are the ones who never stopped making a difference. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, ambulance attendants, cleaning staff, support staff, and so on. They have all been on the front lines, one battle at a time. We can never do enough to say “thank you”.
It is also important to acknowledge the work and dedication of our guardian angels, the asylum seekers who provided patient care at the height of the COVID‑19 pandemic and to whom our governments have committed to regularize their status. We owe them a great deal, and we must not forget them now.
Where would we have been without them, but also without the many other essential service workers, those without whom we would not have made it through this pandemic? They proudly held down the fort and ensured that our basic needs such as electricity, food and medicine were met, despite their own worries and fatigue.
Let us not forget to acknowledge the incredible resiliency of our young people and their extraordinary ability to adapt when they were asked to go against their very nature to protect the rest of our society. Even though we did not want to, we had to make them put their life on hold and they will never get back those moments that they missed. These young people suffered, but they have recovered and they now have even more lust for life than they did before. Despite it all, they remained strong and ready to fight. These young people are our future, a beautiful future.
I am talking about young people, but I also want to talk about our seniors, who suffered so much and who were the most hard hit by COVID‑19. We asked a lot of our young people, but what can we say about the sacrifices that our seniors had to make? They, who were already vulnerable, were the main victims of this pandemic. They experienced social isolation, sickness and heartbreak. Today, when I see them recovering from the effects of the pandemic, when I see them smile with their resiliency that will become legendary, I am proud. I applaud them, and this day of commemoration will make it possible to honour them for their outstanding courage and endurance.
In closing, it is also vital to talk about everyone's resiliency. I am talking about those who had to give up their activities and stop living life to the fullest, those who lost their jobs, those who lost their business, those who had to watch their business go under or their loved ones die, suffering and alone. These are all the sacrifices, great and small, that we need to remember on this day of commemoration.
We often say it, but this time we proved it to be true: If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to stand in this place and represent the constituents of Edmonton Strathcona.
Today, we are talking about Bill S-209, an act respecting pandemic observance day, which is a bill to make every March 11 a day to remember the COVID–19 pandemic. I know all of us in this House remember the day that we were here in 2020 and it was announced that the House was rising and we were all going home. None of us expected at that point that it would be years before some of us came back, or that we would be dealing with the pandemic even to this day.
As I reflect on this bill and the need for it, it is very important, as members have said before me, for us to take a moment and remember all of the people who died. More than 5,600 Albertans have died from COVID–19 to date. I think it is also important to recognize that people are still dying from COVID–19 in this country.
In 2021, the last year that data was available, COVID killed more Albertans than heart disease, lung disease, strokes or Alzheimer's disease. More than 50,000 Canadians lost their lives across this country. Each one of those people had a family, had friends, had loved ones. It is a loss, and I think the opportunity for us and for all Canadians to acknowledge that and remember those people is very important.
Everyone we know has either lost somebody they loved or knows somebody who lost somebody they loved. I think about the grandparents who were lost, the friends and the families. In my own riding of Edmonton Strathcona, more than 100 people lost their lives, at least 50 of whom were in long-term care.
I think about what we have lost in our communities: the loss of wisdom, the loss of love and the loss of laughter. I think about Edmonton entertainers. As I have said many times, Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the entertainment sector in Edmonton. Entertainers like Victor Bird and Ricky Lam will never again step on stage. They will never enchant audiences again.
I think it is also relevant to remember that it is not over. In fact, COVID–19 continues to take lives and continues to have long-term impacts on so many people.
There is a woman in my riding named Kath. She is a powerhouse and an incredible individual. She works very hard to find homes for pets without homes through Zoe's Animal Rescue. She was incredibly active before she got COVID, and now she is facing fatigue and other symptoms and has to use a walker to get around. I think it is important that we have this moment to do this.
I also think it is important for us to take a moment to think about health care workers and teachers. Remember what we asked our teachers, educators and the staff at our schools to do, and what we asked nurses, paramedics, firefighters and doctors to do. Remember the danger we asked them to put themselves and their families in. I cannot help but think this is a wonderful opportunity for us to remember those sacrifices and what those people did to keep us safe.
It was not just those people. We also have to remember that in Alberta there were folks who put their lives on the line and lost their lives because we were not good enough at taking care of them. I do not know if members remember that at Cargill, the meat-packing plant in southern Alberta, workers lost their lives because they were not protected and we did not do enough to protect those workers.
That brings me to the next comment I want to make. The bill is an opportunity for us to remember all those whom we have lost and an opportunity for us to celebrate the heroes who helped us get through the worst days of COVID-19. It is also vitally important for us to learn so that, when we see a future pandemic, we do not make the same mistakes or do the same things wrong.
I am worried that we have not learned some of those lessons. I look at long-term care. The privatization of long-term care resulted in our loved ones, our cherished seniors in our communities, living in unbelievable conditions and dying because we have a system in place that privileges profit over the care of our loved ones. We saw what happened across the country in long-term care. None of that seems to have changed. We have not fixed those systems. If we had a pandemic tomorrow, I am not sure that anything would be different. That is very disappointing, and it is something we need to think about.
We need to think about how we provided support for people within our communities. I think the CERB was a lifeline. I remember people phoning my office desperate, and being able to provide that support was perfect. It was a lifeline for so many people.
It was not perfect, but we were trying to do what we could very quickly to get support out. We were pushing the government, and the government was trying to do things. However, as we look back on this, we have to think about the ways that it did not work for certain people. We have to think about the ways that we privileged certain groups.
Corporations were able to get money very fast, within days, but for people living with disabilities, it took much longer to get support. The House of Commons unanimously supported students not having to pay back their student loans during that time. That was a unanimous motion that I brought forward, which every member of the House supported, but the government never implemented it.
The other piece that is a worry for me is how we worked as part of a global community. I stood in this place many times and talked about vaccine equity and how we have a moral obligation to protect people around the world to ensure they have access to the same level of care as people in Canada did. It was not just a moral obligation because, of course, every single time we refused to share our vaccines with other populations, with other people in the rest of the world, variants developed. I do think that is an issue that we have.
We have not fixed the systems like the TRIPS waiver. We have not fixed things like Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. These are things that are still broken. Given another pandemic, I do not believe that the government has learned the lessons to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes.
As we go forward, a national day for pandemic observance should not only be a time to remember and honour, but also a time to plan and an opportunity to learn, because if we do not learn, if we do not take this opportunity, we are doing a disservice to the memory of those who lost their lives.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate Bill S-209, an act respecting pandemic observance day, although it would have been better if we had never gone through this dark period in our history and never needed to commemorate it.
I want to begin by acknowledging International Women's Day. I congratulate the women who broke glass ceilings, and I have a special thought for those who are no longer with us as a result of the violence they suffered.
I want to come back to Bill S‑209. To give some background, the text of the bill designates March 11 as “Pandemic Observance Day”. Bill S‑209 was introduced in the Senate on November 24, 2021 by Dr. Marie‑Françoise Mégie, a senator from Quebec, and introduced in the House last June.
It is important to note that the bill does not create a new statutory holiday. March 11 was chosen as a day of commemoration because it was on March 11, 2020, that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. As we all know, this pandemic, which is still not over, has unfortunately created many victims. The current death toll is very high. There have been about 6.5 million deaths worldwide, including more than 47,000 in Canada and more than 17,000 in Quebec.
On March 11, 2023, Canada offered its condolences to the victims through statements from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health. Quebec also designated and organized days of remembrance in 2021 and 2022 to honour the victims of COVID-19, their families and their loved ones. Quebec also acknowledged the invaluable contributions of all the tradespeople and members of civil society on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19.
March 11, 2021, was marked by an invitation to observe a minute of silence at the stroke of 1 p.m. The white rose was designated as a symbol of remembrance, and commemorative ceremonies were held. The March 11, 2022, commemoration was more sombre and was marked by symbolic gestures such as the lowering of the Quebec flag to half-mast at the Quebec National Assembly and in several cities.
Memorialization is important, but we must also learn from this pandemic. Establishing a pandemic observance day is a response to the 27th recommendation of the Quebec ombudsman's special report, entitled “COVID-19 in CHSLDs during the first wave of the pandemic: Identify the causes of the crisis, act, remember”.
This report focuses on COVID‑19 in long-term care facilities. Here is the recommendation: “Propose that there be an annual day of commemoration for the COVID‑19 victims and those who worked with them directly or indirectly, in order to remember what they went through during the first wave of the pandemic and the suffering and loss experienced by these sorely affected people.”
The Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with all those in Quebec and Canada who were directly or indirectly affected by the COVID‑19 pandemic. My Bloc colleagues and I want to take this opportunity to offer our condolences to families affected, and we want to respectfully thank health care workers.
As we know, the few pandemic years we just experienced were difficult for each of us. Obviously, they were even harder for some, including health care and frontline workers; people who lost a loved one or who had to care for or are still caring for a loved one; people who were harder hit by the COVID‑19 virus.
Each day, we would wait impatiently for the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Quebec to give their press conference. Often, they would announce new guidelines to slow the spread of the virus. Things changed quickly. This was uncharted territory for us. Luckily, our scientists provided explanations, they enlightened our debates, and they answered our questions and our concerns throughout the pandemic. We are lucky to be able to rely on them, not to mention the scientists who developed a vaccine at lightening speed.
In those days, we had to get used to wearing a mask and sanitizing our hands often. We had to gather in smaller groups, which impacted our birthday and holiday celebrations. We also had to isolate during lockdowns. It was a very difficult time for single people and couples who did not live in the same home or the same country.
I really feel for the young and the old. We know kids had to make big sacrifices. They had to isolate from certain family members and friends. They had to do school at home, which was not always easy. We know how important it is for young adults to have in-person social contact during their school years. Students were less motivated to do well in school because of the pandemic. Being with parents and other family members 24-7 and, for many young people, not having access to a quiet place to study or a fast, reliable Internet connection also affected their motivation and their academic success during lockdown.
The pandemic also had an impact on young people's mental health, finances and ability to work. Teenagers were disproportionately affected by the psychological impacts of the lockdowns that were put in place to halt the spread of the virus. According to experts, they are coming out of this pandemic in pretty rough shape. Youth are experiencing higher rates of anxiety and often have symptoms of depression. We know that youth tend to get their information from social networks rather than from traditional sources.
In summary, young people have had quite a difficult time. They have experienced a great deal of sadness, isolation, loss of motivation and disruption in their daily routine. Despite the many problems they encountered during the health crisis, most young people have shown resiliency, and we can only be thankful for that.
I also want to talk about what seniors experienced during the pandemic. According to some studies, seniors who lived in retirement homes during the first year of the pandemic suffered more from the isolation than from COVID-19 itself. Seniors need social interaction and social support networks to stay healthy, maintain a sense of well-being and feel satisfied with life.
During the first wave, seniors were confined to their apartments or rooms. For several weeks, they were not allowed to eat in the cafeteria, walk around the residence or even receive visits from their loved ones. They were even prevented from taking their own cars out. Isolation and loneliness among seniors are common and have a negative effect on their physical and mental health.
I would like to talk about my mother, who passed away in 2020, during the pandemic. She was living in a residence because she had been losing her independence, and she was confined to her room. I could not even visit her, and she did not understand what was going on. I talked to her regularly on the phone. She was bored and often cried. She hated the isolation. She passed away, and her funeral was private because of the pandemic.
I could only see my children from a distance. I had to spend the holidays without them and could not celebrate their birthdays with them. We wondered if things would ever go back to normal. Who would have thought that one day the whole world would come to a standstill because of a virus?
In closing, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill S-209, in part because this bill enshrines in law a day that has already been established as a day of commemoration since 2021.
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- Mar/8/23 7:00:02 p.m.
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The hon. member for Vancouver Centre has five minutes for her right of reply.
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