44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 9, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/9/23 3:12:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government has worked, since we formed government, to close tax loopholes and to ensure everyone pays their fair share. We brought in the Canada recovery dividend and increased taxes on bank profits and on those of insurance companies. We continue to work with OECD partners to make sure there is a minimum tax that is in place. These are concrete steps and the work continues.
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- Mar/9/23 3:12:32 p.m.
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I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Brad Johns, Attorney General and Minister of Justice for the Province of Nova Scotia.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
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- Mar/9/23 3:12:37 p.m.
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I would also draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Kelvin Goertzen, Minister of Justice and Attorney General for the Province of Manitoba.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
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- Mar/9/23 3:13:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the traditional Thursday question, where the government House leader updates the House as to the business for the rest of this week and for the week after next.
Next week, of course, is a constituency work week, and I would like to wish all Canadians of Irish heritage, and those who enjoy being Irish for the day, a happy Saint Patrick's Day, which will take place on the Friday of next week. Being someone of Irish descent, I will be celebrating with my friends and family.
I also want to point out to the government House leader that the last time the House leaders were given a House calendar, there two days next week that he had not informed us of what the business would be. I hope he can inform us today of that Thursday and Friday.
I would signal to the government House leader that, were the government to table legislation to establish a registry for agents working on behalf of a hostile state government, the official opposition would look upon that very favourably and work to facilitate the passage of such an act. It has been months since the Prime Minister has been briefed on the threat that poses to Canada and our democratic institutions, yet they have done nothing. I hope the government House leader will take advantage of those two days and bring forward legislation that protects Canadian democracy.
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- Mar/9/23 3:14:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will start with joining the member opposite in wishing all who are recognizing Saint Patrick's Day a very happy Saint Patrick's Day. I can say that, with some roots of mine that come from Tipperary, I will join them in celebrating that day.
Also, I hope all members have the opportunity over the constituency week to be with their constituents and their families. I hope that it is productive for them, and I look forward to seeing all members back in this place.
With respect to the question on hostile state actors, the member opposite knows of our shared commitment to repel such forces, and I look forward to working with him. I appreciate his very helpful suggestions as to where that might fall on the calendar, and I look forward to fruitful discussions as to what might take place on those two mysterious days.
However, I can say that tomorrow we will begin the debate at second reading of Bill C-33 concerning port systems and railway safety.
I would like to inform the House that Monday, March 20, and Wednesday, March 22, shall be allotted days.
Finally, on the Tuesday of that week, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-23, the historic places of Canada act.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and represent Peterborough—Kawartha.
I will start by saying that art is subjective. Art is in the eye of the beholder. What may be amazing to me and what may be amazing to members is completely subjective. How in the world could we ever allow bureaucracy to dictate what is art? That is a question I would ask as we look into Bill C-11.
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There is nothing more inclusive than the Internet. It does not matter where we live or what we look like, there is a place for us online, for now, but Bill C-11 jeopardizes this freedom. It jeopardizes this free market.
I can remember walking into a room with online content creators, mom bloggers who had created a community that literally saved the lives of women who were suffering with postpartum, who were suicidal, who were struggling with their mental health. These women were extreme introverts, meaning they otherwise would not have been able to create this medium if there were not able to flip open their computers and write something online that connected them to hundreds, thousands and millions of people, built a community and allowed their voices to be heard.
If we go to the Canadian government website, it states this about competition: “Competition pushes individuals, firms and markets to make the best use of their resources, and to think outside the box to develop new ways of doing business and winning customers. This not only drives productivity up, it also improves our own standard of living.”
Bill C-11 would go after a competitive market that needs zero government interference. Online content creators are making their own destiny. They are building communities. They are raising money for not-for-profits and charities. They are connecting people all over the world. It is a major concern when the government wants to interfere, dictate and control what it thinks people at home should be watching.
Artistry and creation are not a choice. If we ask artists, they will tell us they did not choose it; it chose them. They have to create. It is what fuels them. It is simply who they are.
What someone values as art or great content is completely independent of the consumer. I may love Cat and Nat, two Toronto-based “mompreneurs” who built an empire by creating an online space for moms. They were, for the record, turned away by countless broadcast agencies and had the door slammed in their face multiple times, but because of the free market of the Internet, they were able to build an empire and connect millions of moms. They are from Toronto, Canadian content creators.
What about “Train with Joan”, made by the 70-year-old Cobourg-based woman who transformed her life using physical fitness and now reaches millions of people online? She is the inspiration so many of us need to know that it is never too late to change our mind and body. Would she have been given an opportunity on a broadcast station? Would she have been given the same opportunity that the Internet allowed her to reach the people she reached?
It is called choice. It is called the freedom to find and choose what to watch. Why in the world would we ever want the government to decide what is worthy of being seen and what is not? This is what Bill C-11 would do. It would give the Liberals the control to decide what we see and watch online.
In the online world, we often hear of a term called “organic reach”. This is the ultimate goal for a content creator. A creator puts content online and the free market decides if it is worthy of liking, sharing and commenting. We have already seen organic reach being meddled with by Facebook and other platforms because of paid reach tactics, a play-to-play system, which has caused problems, so why in the world would government want to meddle even further with this system? Why in the world do we want the government to decide what we watch and see?
Jim Morrison said that those who control the media, control the mind. I really want people to think about what this legislation is and why it is being tabled. Famed Canadian author, Margaret Atwood said it best, saying that this is not a problem that needs fixing. She said, “It is creeping totalitarianism if governments are telling creators what to create.”
The approach of how this bill has been managed is awful and simply undemocratic. In the House, for those who do not know, a bill must be approved at all three readings before it is sent to the Senate to be approved and given royal assent. The Senate should be a safeguard for Canadians when major concerns are raised. There were 26 amendments put forth by the Senate. This is a very high number and speaks volumes to the fact that this bill should be thrown out.
What is the point of the Senate and expert testimony if the Liberals refuse to listen? How is this supposed to build trust with Canadians when people are silenced? When people are silenced, that is censorship, and it is our job as elected officials to bring balance to this room, to find the common ground, to listen to both sides.
I will tell the Liberals, as somebody who has a background in broadcasting, the Broadcasting Act one hundred per cent needs to be updated, but this bill is trying to regulate a free market space of the Internet, and there is no place for the government to do that.
Simon Wiesenthal, a famous Nazi hunter and fighter for human rights, said, “Freedom is not a gift from heaven. One must fight for it every day.” The Tour for Humanity bus was here on Parliament Hill yesterday. I had the opportunity to tour it.
Censorship does not work. History has shown us this over and over again. The Liberals have refused to make the policy direction to the CRTC on how the legislation would be implemented public until after the bill is passed. Let us think about that for a second. The Liberals have refused to make the policy direction to the CRTC on how the legislation would be implemented public until after the bill is passed.
If the Liberals main intention is to promote Canadian content, why in the world would they ask us to sign first and ask questions later. This is so sketchy. Why not just tell Canadians now? What are they hiding? Why are they not being transparent?
Critics are furious, and so they should be, because the heritage minister announced a complete rejection of the senators' work that excluded user content from CRTC regulation after he said they would not. Somewhere right now there is a quirky, talented, gifted content creator who has not discovered that they fit somewhere. They have been told no. Maybe they have not found their community. Maybe they have not found their tribe. However, they hit the upload button, and all of a sudden, their world changes and so does that community's world.
There is much that is great about the Internet. For better or worse, it is here. I have to be honest, I am absolutely shocked that the NDP does not see the value of independent, free market content creators who are doing so much good for social justice and all the things they fight for in the House. It is shocking to me that we are having this fight when we are here to elevate voices of Canadians, to give them the freedom to use their voice for good. It makes no sense to me why we are fighting this bill.
I came here with an open mind, with optimism that we are here to elevate voices. This bill is censorship. It makes no sense. I appreciate and agree a hundred per cent that the Broadcasting Act needs to be updated, but this bill is not achieving that. Its intent is to control online content.
I will end with this: Enough is enough. Stop with the controlling legislation, and please, kill Bill C-11.
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Mr. Speaker, it is the Conservative members of Parliament who are spreading misinformation to Canadians. In no way and in no clause is there anything that would infringe on the rights and freedoms of Canadians. That is nowhere within the legislation, and yet we get a member of Parliament from the Conservative Party who is quite content to spread misinformation. I cannot use the word lies, so I will not say that, but the member is spreading misinformation.
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- Mar/9/23 3:28:21 p.m.
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I was distracted, but if I may interject before the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge says anything, I want to remind hon. members that they cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly in the House. I do not know if that covers it. It is a rookie mistake.
I will let the member continue.
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It was a rookie mistake, Mr. Speaker. I apologize, wholeheartedly.
The point is that there is nothing at all within the legislation that would infringe upon a person's rights and freedom, and yet the Conservative Party members continue to go out and spread information that is not accurate and it is causing a lot of anxiety in our communities.
Could the member cite something specific within the legislation that clearly says that it is an infringement on a person's rights or freedoms?
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot wrap my head around what it is the Liberals do not understand. When they are saying they are going to control what Canadians see and read, it makes no sense. The critics have spoken up. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. They have said to the heritage minister that he has completely rejected the senators' amendment that would exclude user content from CRTC regulation. They said that they were going to do one thing and they are doing another. It makes no sense.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her passionate speech.
She began by talking about art. Art certainly offers a certain perspective on nature. Something becomes art when the viewer decides that it is artistic. An author once said that to read a book is to write another. The artistic aspect certainly lies in someone viewing it more than its distribution. We know that everything in the art world is what ultimately constitutes culture.
I want to ask my colleague what impact Bill C‑11 will have on culture.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy conversing with the hon. member and I promise him that I will get better at my French one day and answer him in French. In answer to his question, culture is not force-fed by the government. Culture is created by the people.
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Madam Speaker, since the 1970s, the Government of Canada has regulated television broadcasters and radio broadcasters. When people turn on the radio, a certain amount of the content that they listen to has to be Canadian content. People may agree or disagree with those rules, but I have never heard it characterized as censorship.
I wonder if my hon. colleague down the way would consider those rules around Canadian content, which we have had since before I was born, to be censorship.
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Madam Speaker, having worked for a Canadian broadcasting company as I did for 12 years, I understand Canadian content. I understand that the Broadcasting Act needs to be updated, and I stated that clearly in my speech. However, this bill would not do that. There is an unintended intention here to control the Internet. This is a massive problem to society. That is what we are speaking about. Therefore, absolutely, that is censorship.
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Madam Speaker, I feel as though we are in a space where we are talking past each other, because nothing I am hearing about this bill being about censorship makes any sense when I read the bill. We have a Broadcasting Act, and we would now be equalizing some of the playing field, so that Canadian writers and Canadian screenwriters are not losing out because of the online streaming from the big producers of Hollywood content, and sometimes Canadian content. All I can ask is—
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- Mar/9/23 3:33:18 p.m.
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I have to give the member for Peterborough—Kawartha some seconds to answer.
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Madam Speaker, I would actually like to think we all want the same thing, but the more I am in this House, I start to doubt that. I really do, because at the end of the day Conservatives trust Canadians to decide what they want to watch, and we do not believe that the government getting in the way of what their gifts are should be what decides what Canadians should or should not do, so that is my answer to the member.
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Madam Speaker, normally, there would not be much debate in the House when we talk about making updates to the Broadcasting Act, which came into effect in 1991. At face value, most Canadians would say that a lot has changed since then. A little thing called the Internet came along, and most would agree.
I have talked about this topic in the House before and I am pretty proud of myself. I am pretty sure that I was the first MP in Canadian history to put Boyz II Men in the parliamentary record, when talking about the legislation before us, because times have changed a little bit. Back in 1991, Boyz II Men, Bryan Adams, MC Hammer and Monty Python were on the charts. I wanted to put that in the record again, and I am glad I have done that.
The goals of the Broadcasting Act have been reasonable: respecting official languages and providing an avenue for Canadian content in the traditional media at the time of TV and radio. Here is the thing I have said in the House, sadly, on many issues over and over again: Only the NDP and the Liberals, working together, can take something so mundane and so innocuous and make a disaster out of it when it comes to policy.
Here is how I know that. Outside of the Ottawa bubble, there are not too many Canadians who know what Bill C-4 or Bill S-252 or Bill C-39 is when it comes to government legislation. We know that the government is in trouble and we know it is on the wrong side of public opinion when a bill title becomes famous. In the last couple of weeks or couple of months, Bill C-21 has become synonymous with an attack on rural Canadians, indigenous communities and hunters, when the government tried to ban commonly used hunting rifles. Here we are now, with the famous term “C-11”, known by millions of Canadians across the country today as the most blatant attempt by the Liberals and the NDP, and bureaucrats in Ottawa, to have control over what Canadians see and what they search on the Internet.
If that was not convincing enough, Bill C-11 being a household name to millions of Canadians, we know we are in trouble when Conservatives and Margaret Atwood are on the same page, pushing back against the government. She is a wonderful Canadian, one of the most regarded and successful Canadian artists and content creators this country has ever seen. Canadians do not have to take my word for it or believe this side of the bench if they do not want to. Canadians will take Margaret Atwood's word on Canadian culture and content any day of the week over that of the Liberals and the NDP.
I want to give members the dictionary version of what she said. She said some pretty harsh things, calling out the government on Bill C-11. When we break it down and use the dictionary to further define what she is calling out the government for, it is creating a centralized and dictator-like system of control that requires complete subservience to the state.
This is bad legislation. They know it. It has been ping-ponged back and forth between the House of Commons and the Senate. It is back in the House of Commons, and it is going to go back to the Senate. Every time there is a committee hearing, every time there are more witnesses testifying, there are more questions than answers about what the government is doing here with this bill. From consumer groups to legal experts to content creators, many, many groups from every walk of life and every angle on this topic are calling out the government's direction and how bad and how flawed the bill is.
I am proud to stand as a Conservative to say that when we form government, we will repeal Bill C-11. We will kill Bill C-11, as simple as that.
Let us get into the weeds and talk about some of these pieces bit by bit. One of the things we hear the Liberals and the NDP say is that we need to support Canadian content more.
When I think about that, I pull up a list and say, sure, let us support Canadian content, things like Deadpool. It was filmed in Vancouver, starring Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds, with a screenplay by Canadian Paul Wernick, based on a Canadian comic book character.
We have Canadian Bacon. Who could forget that? There is John Candy, a legendary Canadian actor, in a story involving Canada.
I talked about Margaret Atwood. We have The Handmaid's Tale, based on her book. When we look at the production, the series was filmed in Mississauga, Toronto, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Cambridge.
I think of Canadian content like All or Nothing, a series on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It is a five-part series that followed the Leafs for months during the 2020-21 season. It is narrated by a Canadian, Will Arnett. It used Canadian crews.
Is this all Canadian content? No, every one of those examples I just cited does not meet the definition and criteria for Canadian content in the definitions that we have.
Bill C-11 is currently 56 pages long, and any Canadian can go online and look at it. They can hit Ctrl+F and search. Nowhere in there does it talk about modernizing and cleaning up that definition. I will argue that this is not about Canadian content, but about something else.
Every time, we put an amendment forward to clarify. If the government wants to debunk a myth and say that what we are saying is not the case, it can clarify it and put in amendments to say what it is not, to exclude certain things. The government refused to do so. It says, “Don't worry. We are not going to determine that. It's going to be the CRTC.”
This brings me to my next point, about another fundamentally flawed part of the legislation. The CRTC is an Ottawa-based acronym. Federal acronyms go left, right and centre around here. It is an agency in Ottawa, and on the Quebec side as well, in the national capital region, full of bureaucrats who, behind closed doors, would not only set the rules for what is Canadian content, but also, through the bill, be directed to start controlling the search results we have on the Internet.
Members heard that right: “behind closed doors”. We have asked repeatedly to put some sunshine, sunlight and transparency on those protocols. There are no criteria in the bill. There is no public formula. There are no clarifications or guardrails on what those protocols are, so for Canadians, when it comes to what they search and what they want to see, whether it is searching on Google, Crave, YouTube or any other platform, as a Canadian here and now, the government will control what goes up in search results and what goes down, and we would not be able to find out the algorithms and calculations it uses, because of CRTC bureaucrats doing it behind closed doors. They never have to share their reasoning, or what I call “showing their homework”. That speaks volumes.
The Prime Minister and the NDP will say not to worry because the CRTC is an arm's-length agency of the federal government. “It is independent,” they say. Let us just debunk that right now. The CRTC reports to the Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage. Its chair and the commissioners who are working there and leading that organization are appointed directly by the Prime Minister and the Liberal cabinet.
Nobody believes it is arm's-length, and nobody believes the legislation is about Canadian artists and everyday Canadians, because if it were the right thing to do and the popular thing to do, and if there were no problems about it, the government would have made that whole process a lot more public, rather than punting it over behind closed doors.
The bill is not about sunlight. It is not about Canadian artists and content creators. I say the bill is a Trojan horse, because there are some very big cheerleaders for it. The bureaucracy at the CRTC would be exploding in size. The size of the Internet is massive. The amount of content uploaded every single day is huge. It is going to take an administrative swarm of new bureaucrats to go through, and the people who are going to hit the jackpot, the people who are doing cartwheels in downtown Ottawa, are the lobbyists who would be hired by all these groups, associations and artists to try to lobby to get them, when the CRTC goes behind closed doors, to take what is going on.
As I share my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, we will continue the commentary on this and how it works. If someone is a budding content creator in north Winnipeg, a Franco-Ontarian or an indigenous artist in northern Canada, in Nunavut, they can currently upload, and may the best content win. The cream of the crop rises. Canadians will determine what they like and what they want to watch, and that should be the most popular search result. That is the most organic way possible. Trust me, the best way is to let Canadians do their own work and let the organic way go. Good videos go to the top. We have thousands of artists who have made a living by creating content and continue to do so. We do not need to fix what is not broken.
I will wrap up by saying that Bill C-11 is bad. It is online censorship. Ottawa telling 37 million Canadians what they should watch and see is wrong. The Liberals and the NDP have had years to get this right, and now they are just being stubborn.
We oppose this bill now, and as a Conservative government, we would kill Bill C-11.
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Madam Speaker, first and foremost, the member referred to the Liberals and the NDP. It is the Liberal members of the House of Commons, the Bloc members of the House of Commons, the NDP members and the Green Party members. It is only the Conservative Party that is spreading the misinformation that is out there.
The member stood in his place and tried to give a false impression, saying that the government is trying to control what Canadians are watching. In no way whatsoever can the member cite anything within this legislation that would prevent a Canadian from watching whatever he or she wants to watch on the Internet. There is nothing there, so we would think that would stop.
The motivating factor for the Conservative Party on Bill C-11 is purely finances, feeding a frenzy of individuals it wants support from. I say “shame on the Conservative Party” for not protecting cultural industries and the arts in Canada.
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