44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/30/23 12:14:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw to your attention and the attention of this House an extreme violation of our procedures that occurred this morning.
At 11:53 a.m., the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent started to make a video within this House as they were exiting the chamber. In that video, one can clearly see that the mace is still on the table. That video also includes a link within it to the Conservative Party of Canada's website.
Not only is it a violation of the rules set out on pages 296 and 297 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, but it also goes so far as to use House of Commons resources for the purpose of politics and political fundraising specifically. That page links to a location where the Conservative Party gathers information on people and uses it to solicit funds.
I would request that you and your office look into this matter and report back on what the next steps will be in dealing with this violation.
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- Mar/30/23 12:15:48 p.m.
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I remind folks not to take videos inside the chamber. I also remind folks not to take pictures and those kinds of things.
We will review the information provided or go back and look at the time-stamp and come back to the House as soon as possible.
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- Mar/30/23 12:16:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I would ask that the Speaker's office look at getting it deleted as quickly as possible because it is not appropriate.
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- Mar/30/23 12:16:16 p.m.
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We will come back to the House as soon as practical on this matter.
The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.
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- Mar/30/23 12:16:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. By all means, I am sure you have a responsibility to look into the issue that was raised. I am not sure what happened, but nobody really appreciates a tattler or the extent to which the member piled it on there. I think we can be more reasonable about these issues.
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- Mar/30/23 12:16:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not think that we would make it to this point. Sometimes when we are expecting a quiet day, we realize that there can be a lot of excitement in the House.
I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my very entertaining colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, which means things will be relatively calm and composed for the first ten minutes and then they should get a bit more exciting once he takes the floor.
To begin, I would like to say that I am not exactly disappointed we are approaching the end of our study of Bill C-11. We are considering the amendments proposed by the Senate. I suggest that members mark the date on their calendar because, as a Bloc Québécois member, I commend the thoroughness of the work done by certain senators. I know that some of them really took to heart their task of proposing amendments and improving a bill that, I admit, could still use some tweaking. I would like to acknowledge the dedication of those who took the work seriously and tried to change things by returning a document that they believe is better. There is a reason why the government accepted a great many of the proposed amendments in its response. The amendments passed the test and will appear in the final version the House returns to the Senate. I commend this work.
I also want to acknowledge the work of all the members of Parliament who worked on Bill C-11, formerly Bill C-10. I would remind members that the bill was introduced in November 2020. That was quite a while ago. When the bill was introduced, the cultural industry and the Quebec and Canadian broadcasting system had already been awaiting it for decades. The Broadcasting Act had not been updated since the early 1990s.
I already mentioned I was working in radio back then. At the time, we had cassettes that we inserted in cassette players. We played CDs, and some stations still played vinyl records. Young people can do an online search to see what a vinyl record looks like. All this to say that, today, we no longer know what the equipment looked like, given how much the industry has changed. The technology, recording methods and ways of producing and consuming culture have changed in surprising and unexpected ways over the past three decades. There is no reason to believe things will be any different in the next three decades. That is why we need to implement a flexible broadcasting law that can handle the technological changes we will see in the years to come.
Today there is a lot of talk about artificial intelligence, and we are already questioning that technology because we are concerned about where it will lead. We do not know what broadcasting will look like in the coming years. That is why we need to implement a flexible broadcasting law that can adjust to change.
One of the Bloc Québécois's proposals was retained by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and found its way into the version of Bill C‑11 we are currently studying. It was the proposal that we should not have to wait another 30 years to revise the new act. It is a sunset clause. Every five years, we will be required to reopen the act and see whether it is still sufficiently up to date. I think that it is a responsible and intelligent provision that will make us do our job properly.
Every time I have spoken about Bill C-11, the underlying concern has always been Canadian culture. Francophone Quebec culture is what really matters to the Bloc Québécois, but we did not limit ourselves to proposing amendments and improvements to Bill C‑11 just for the benefit of Quebec culture. Of course, that is what is most important to us, since it is in our nature, but our proposals to promote Quebec culture will have an impact on all French-speaking Canadians.
We stood up for francophones across Canada, and everyone will benefit. The Bloc Québécois made substantial improvements to Bill C‑11. Thanks to these improvements, consumers will be able to find content produced by Quebec creators, artists, singers and songwriters on digital broadcasting platforms, just like they hear it on the radio. They will also see our talented creators' work on video streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney+.
That is huge, because right now, we are under-represented on those platforms.
There is a lot of disinformation circulating around the concept of discoverability. The Conservatives came up with this idea that web giants would be required to tinker with their algorithms in order to force Quebeckers and Canadians to watch one type of content rather than another, or to stop them from watching one type of content rather than another. I do not understand how Quebeckers and Canadians could swallow such claptrap.
That is not at all what these regulations will do. What they will do is showcase our culture, our industry that generates billions of dollars annually. This will enable it to keep thriving in this new realm, which will also continue to evolve. We need to make room for our culture.
Discoverability is not a matter of imposing content on people, but of making content available. Take the playlist of someone who listens to Bryan Adams. I may be showing my age with that example. Perhaps I should have said Justin Bieber. Why not show that person some francophone artists? They are only suggestions. This is just about suggesting that culture. That is all.
Right now, the cultural industry is losing millions of dollars a month because there are no regulations requiring web giants to contribute the same way broadcasters and cable companies have contributed in the past. In addition to the tens of millions of dollars in lost advertising revenue, there are also tens of millions of dollars in royalties that artists are not receiving.
That is what Bill C-11 will fix. It will force web giants to follow the same rules as traditional broadcasters. I do not see how anyone can be against making billion-dollar companies like Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music contribute to the industry they are making their money off of.
This industry is not just made up of CEOs and big-shot producers. There are also people like self-employed cultural workers, film crew and recording studio producers. Many of them left the industry because they knew that it would take time for things to get back to the way they used to be, especially because of the pandemic. If, on top of that, we do not enact regulations to promote investment in the sector, they will never return, and we will lose an incredible valuable resource.
Remember, I am talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs in Quebec and Canada. Culture and broadcasting represent billions of dollars in revenue. To me, it is a no-brainer that those who benefit should also contribute.
We are finally approaching the end of our study. We will be sending our response to the Senate. I hope that the senators will waste no time doing what we expect them to do, that is, ratify what is coming so that the web giants have to contribute and that our cultural industry can prosper and continue to show the world what it means to be a Quebecker or a Canadian.
Our culture is not American, Chinese or European. We have our very own culture, and it is up to us to protect and showcase it. That is what this bill is all about.
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- Mar/30/23 12:26:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know members of the Bloc have been very supportive of this bill through the process and getting us to where we are today in debating it.
We hear, and I know he hears, a lot of rhetoric and lot of misinformation and disinformation, in particular that rights would be trampled upon with this legislation. I wonder if the member can comment on whether Bloc members agree with the relentless position that the Conservatives have had on this bill, as though it somehow would trample on individual rights and freedoms.
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- Mar/30/23 12:26:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have never agreed with that position. When this idea of trampling on Quebeckers' and Canadians' freedom of expression and fundamental rights was first brought up, we did our job. To borrow a popular catchphrase, I did my own research.
We checked and made sure that the wording of the bill would not endanger consumers' freedom of expression or rights.
That is disinformation, and it was probably very lucrative. I think that our Conservative friends have made money off this shameful campaign of disinformation.
The damage has been done, as we know. Artists and the cultural community are the ones paying the price.
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- Mar/30/23 12:27:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for years now, as my colleague said, companies like Netflix and Disney+ have not been paying their fair share to fund our Canadian cultural content.
Does the member think the Liberal government should have acted earlier to prevent all the job losses in our cultural sector?
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- Mar/30/23 12:28:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yes, absolutely. My colleague asked an excellent question.
It is not only the Liberal government. We had a Conservative government before this one, and we know that the Conservatives are not big on culture, so we cannot expect too much from them.
The cultural industry's alarm bells went off in the early 2000s. There was already an urgent need to regulate digital technology at that time, but the CRTC refused to do so.
Governments should have stepped up and done something long before now. It might even be too late in some sectors. Dozens of businesses in the cultural sector have unfortunately already disappeared. Radio and television stations have had to close.
In short, that is a great question, and the answer is yes.
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- Mar/30/23 12:29:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the fundamental concerns, and there are many, that we have on this side of the House would be the fact that the CRTC would be the arbiter of what is allowed online. It would be the one in control possibly of the formula.
When we look at the potential for user-generated content to be regulated, it would be the CRTC, a big government approach to this, rather than just letting it be an open environment where people can put the content that they want online so it can be discovered by anybody from any region of the country, or possibly even outside of the boundaries of our country.
Would the member not agree that it is a good thing to have more discoverability rather than having a narrow-minded focus that the CRTC and the government are going to apply to user-generated content?
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- Mar/30/23 12:29:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the premise of the question would suggest that the government and the CRTC will interfere with what people can and cannot watch. This shows that the member does not understand the bill's intent. I will leave it at that.
Discoverability is not about an open market. Discoverability is about ensuring that our culture has its place. For that, we need a framework and regulations.
This does not mean that the government is going to decide what people can or cannot watch. That is another example of the misinformation that we have been denouncing from the beginning.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of questions about what we have been hearing from the Liberal side today.
Let us forget about Bill C‑11 for a second, because I think our colleague has set the record straight. He reminded us that it was actually the Bloc Québécois that proposed fast-tracking it two years ago because of a likely election, meaning the session would end.
There has been talk equating being in favour of proposed legislation with being in favour of using a gag order to get it done. I am very concerned about that. We are talking about rights and freedom of speech. I am also concerned about the rights of parliamentarians. We represent the people.
The fact that some are equating the two is concerning to me. Should gag orders be the norm? I believe that is what is being suggested.
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- Mar/30/23 12:31:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the question was for the Liberals, but I will answer it anyway.
The Bloc has a principle of respecting the parliamentary process. Using a gag order does the exact opposite. It upends the parliamentary process.
Of course, there are exceptions. The Bloc has voted in favour of closure motions in exceptional cases. I do not think this an exception. We are against the principle of gagging the House, but we do support the bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of rising to speak to Bill C-11 for the second time. I gave a speech about it about one year ago.
We have been talking about this for a long time. My hon. colleague from Trois-Rivières is not here today, but I often have conversations with him. He always gives very brilliant speeches, choosing his words carefully and speaking with intention. He told me about a word that aptly describes what is being done with Bill C‑11: “lantiponner”. I do not know how the interpreters are going to translate it, but it means to fool around, to hedge, to delay, to procrastinate, to quibble needlessly when the issue at hand is urgent.
I think that this word is fitting because we have been back and forth on this issue for two or three years. People have been waiting 30 years for a bill that addresses the challenges of our time in order to support our artists.
One year ago, I gave a speech in which I spoke at length about culture and also about the fact that this bill is important because it helps minority cultures, the world's small cultures, stand up to the platforms that threaten to steamroll over them. That is very important when we fight for a small culture. With respect to language, Pierre Bourgault once said that when we fight for the French language in Quebec, we fight for all the minority languages in the world.
This is the type of challenge we are facing when working on Bill C‑11. I talked about culture in that speech, but today I feel like taking a more personal approach and talking about my artist friends. Thirty years ago, before becoming a member of Parliament, I attended the National Theatre School. Artists are my friends. I love them. In fact, I do not just love them; I adore them. They are my brothers, and they have very difficult living conditions. The situation of artists is very precarious. We need to do everything we can to support them because artists are the heart of who we are. They add spice to our lives. I do not know whether my Conservative colleagues have ever tried to do the test. At one time, there was a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of culture in our lives. The test was to try to see if you could get through an entire day without listening to the radio or music or watching TV or a movie.
Let us try to see what life would be like without music, movies and television series, without all of these things that reflect our stories, our ways of living, our traditions, our values, our interests, the things that basically show who we are. Let us try that just for a day so that we can understand the value of artists and what they bring into our lives, this very special way of seeing things. These artists need our help. They need our support.
I will now talk about an artist who is famous in Quebec, Sylvie Drapeau. She is a friend of mine. She may be the greatest stage actor of all time in Quebec, and perhaps even in Canada. She is absolutely sensational, extraordinary. When you see Sylvie Drapeau on stage, you remember her. She did a solo performance at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, or TNM, a few years ago, and it was a rather personal and remarkable tour de force. There was a time Sylvie Drapeau was in five plays in Montreal a year. She performed at all the major theatres and played all the major roles. She would perform Shakespeare at TNM in the evening and rehearse Chekhov at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert during the day. She would then perform Chekhov in the evening and, the next day, rehearse Marivaux or Molière at TNM—and she always had the lead role. In the middle of all that, she would fit in a play by Racine and do a bit of television, if she had the time. Playing a lead role on stage for two or three hours and rehearsing another play every day takes a lot of energy.
We are talking about a remarkable actress. We are talking the Wayne Gretzky of theatre. We could also say Maurice Richard, as one of my colleagues mentioned.
We have heard our Conservative friends talk about culture as if it started and ended with Tom Cruise, the red carpet and the Oscars, but that is not the case. There is a whole world out there. I know some of the people in it, they are my friends. They are creating art. They are producing remarkable works that need to be seen and appreciated. With Bill C-11, we can fight for the artistic ecosystem. All of these actors, creators and writers are part of artistic life in Quebec, across Canada and around the world.
Even when she was playing the five roles I mentioned, as well as all the starring roles in the repertoire, Sylvie Drapeau was earning $35,000 a year. It is important to point that out, because there are a lot of people like that, whether we know their names or not.
The Conservatives have a rather narrow vision of the arts. I would just like to remind them that, in Quebec, 80% of the members of the Union des artistes earn less than $20,000 a year. Only 1% of those members make more than $100,000. When someone tells me that an artist’s life is all cocktails and glamourous premieres, I say no, that is not true.
I know a thing or two about it myself. When I graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1987, I wanted to change the world through theatre, and I know plenty of people who had the same goal. They dreamt of changing the world through films and plays. I am talking about actors, but there are also dancers, singers, and other artists who want to put on productions that move people, that speak, that touch the heart and soul. At the very least, we need to help these people pay the rent.
When I left the National Theatre School of Canada, I wanted to change the world. I started a theatre company called Béton Blues. I worked for two years with two or three colleagues to start a company and apply for grants to keep it afloat. I had never done that in my life. After filling out grant applications, we needed to get to work to try to get money from major private donors.
That was something. I remember the first time I called Hydro‑Québec. We had prepared a highly researched document to tell its representatives that they should give us money because we were young creators of the future and what we were doing was very important and that our plays would really move people. It had to be sent to the person in charge of arts and donations at major corporations. Then, we had to call to ask them if they were going to give us the money. I was not prepared. I did not know what to say to these people. I remember calling a gentleman at Hydro‑Québec. I was on the phone with the person in charge who could give us $2,000 for our performances. I just asked whether he had any money or something like that. We had no idea how to do it but we did it.
Essentially, what I am saying is that this was important work to me. I worked for two years. Ultimately, we put on a show. We adapted As You Like It, a play by Shakespeare, in the Old Port of Montreal's hangar number 9, now home to an IMAX theatre.
It was a kind of like a big warehouse spread out over 300 feet. It was an absolutely stunning sight. We had nothing. Four sets were used in the show. People arrived and the show began with 20 minutes in one spot. Then, the back of the stage would open up to reveal 300 feet of space and three more sets. The audience would move around, following us.
I will talk about this show in another speech because I think it was remarkable. We really made headlines with that show in the spring of 1988. All that to say, I worked on that show for two years. Can any of my colleagues guess how much money I made? I made $1,200 for two years of work.
In that case, it was my decision. However, all my friends, all the actors, writers, directors, set designers and decorators, all these people who are planning shows in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, all these artists who are struggling to make ends meet—we have to support them.
That support begins by voting for Bill C‑11 so that it can pass as soon as possible.
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- Mar/30/23 12:42:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with almost every single passionate word that member said today. I have never heard both Shakespeare and Wayne Gretzky referenced in the same speech, but nonetheless, it was very impressive.
I cannot help but think of my own childhood. I grew up watching TVO, TV Ontario, and being exposed to shows like Today's Special and the Polka Dot Door. I look at my kids now. My youngest two are four and six, and they are watching all this YouTube content. I have no idea where it is being generated from, and there is certainly no degree of Canadian content in there. I am sure that this member can speak in the same way about what was seen back in the day on Quebec TV stations versus what young children in Quebec are being exposed to today.
Could he speak to the impact that this would have culturally on young Quebeckers and young Canadians?
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- Mar/30/23 12:43:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question.
This will have a major impact. As far as fighting for language and culture is concerned, I think that everyone in the House knows that I am here in the House because of my involvement in the fight for French in Quebec. That is how I got involved in politics.
My son is 14 and became bilingual on YouTube. I have nothing against being bilingual, but when I talk to him about fighting for the French language, for now, it does not resonate with him. Imagine how it breaks my heart to hear him say that.
By passing Bill C‑11, we will be able to work on making francophone content discoverable. This is not going to solve everything, but the chances of my son accessing francophone content on these platforms will be much higher than if it is up to me to tell him to watch it.
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- Mar/30/23 12:44:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his passion. He clearly understands the inequality that is happening right now with the web giants not paying their fair share in Canada and the impact it is having on Quebec and Canadian producers and artists.
I talked a little bit earlier about Saffron Bisiker, a local filmmaker in my riding. She created the first film festival in Qualicum Beach, which occurred for the first time ever just a couple of weeks ago and celebrated many of our local artists. We have a young filmmaker from Ahousaht in my riding, creating films with an indigenous lens.
I think it is so important that we do what we can right now to start evening out the playing field. Could my colleague speak about the impact of the delays from the Liberal government in tabling legislation to create a balanced playing field and how important it is for young people like Saffron and the young indigenous filmmakers in my riding?
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- Mar/30/23 12:45:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the 2021 election was seen as a real disaster for the cultural sector in Quebec, mainly because it delayed the previous version of the broadcasting bill. We had to start over from scratch and we were not able to pass the bill.
I agree with my colleague. There are so many people and so many creators. I cannot count the number of times I was in a short film by film students at Concordia University, the University of Montreal or UQAM. I made movies. I was not paid, but I told myself that these young creators were the filmmakers of tomorrow. They want to make a name for themselves. These are young people from all over.
I remember making a movie with a young Venezuelan director who was studying at the University of Montreal. That was around the time we were filming Octobre. When Octobre was released, this student went to see it, and he had serious questions about the independence movement in Quebec. Venezuela is a country with a lot of upheaval. We had some really extraordinary discussions.
It is extremely important to protect creators across Quebec and Canada against the hegemony of these major platforms.
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