44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/30/23 3:20:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is now time for the Thursday question. Before I go to it, I want to wish everyone a blessed Good Friday and a happy Easter. Christians in the western world will be observing both. Easter is coming up and I know it is a time when family members will get together, visit and take a bit of a break. A lot of Canadians are going through a lot of hardships and I want them to know we are thinking of all the vulnerable Canadians who might be facing extra struggles given the current economic woes that are afflicting many hard-working Canadians across the country.
I want to wish everybody in this place, from the pages to the support staff, you, Mr. Speaker, and members of all parties a fruitful two weeks working hard in their constituencies, meeting with their constituents and taking a bit of time with their friends and families.
As it relates to House business, I would like to know if the government House leader can update us as to what the business of the House will be. We were hoping we would have more debate on Bill C-11, which would grant unprecedented powers to the government to control the Internet. I note that debate will end today because the government is stifling that debate, but I hope the member will update us as to what we will be debating when the House comes back after the Easter break.
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- Mar/30/23 3:21:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me join with my hon. colleague, the opposition House leader, in wishing everyone a joyous Easter. I hope that members who are celebrating Easter take time with their families. This is also a very busy time for many of our other faith communities as we recognize Vaisakhi. We are in the holy month of Ramadan right now and we have Passover. This is a time that is very rich, one when I know people will be visiting churches, mosques and temples in our communities to share with the rich faith traditions in our constituencies. I hope all members are able to profit from those opportunities to be with their constituents and families.
With respect to Bill C-11, I will simply state that I do not think there is any amount of time that would satisfy Conservatives. In fact, I would challenge the opposition House leader to indicate just how many days of debate he would like. I do not think there is any end. Conservatives have indicated they want to obstruct this bill. This bill has had more time in the Senate than any bill in history. It was in the last Parliament and it is in this Parliament. It is time our artists get compensated for their work and that the tech giants pay their fair share.
Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate of Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, and then we are going to be switching to Bill C-34, the Investment Canada Act.
When we return, we will continue with the budget debate on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Thursday, we will start the day with a ways and means vote relating to the budget implementation act. Following the vote, we will proceed to the debate on Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, 2022, followed by Bill C-42.
Finally, on Friday, we will commence debate on the budget bill.
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- Mar/30/23 3:23:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to add my voice to the government House leader's comments, in the spirit of recognition of events that are being acknowledged in the upcoming weeks. The Standing Orders make reference to Easter, but it is also the time for Passover for our Jewish friends and fellow Canadians. Many members will be invited to wonderful Vaisakhi events and many Iftar dinners as well during the holy month of Ramadan for our Muslim friends.
I wanted to join my voice to the government House leader's on those recognitions.
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- Mar/30/23 3:24:11 p.m.
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I want to remind both the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle and the government House leader that it is the Thursday question, not the Thursday questions and comments. I just wanted to point that out.
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- Mar/30/23 3:24:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to continue my discussion on this very important debate that I started before question period. I focused primarily on what I saw as the Conservatives' agenda and the reason for their continual interest in trying to promote the disinformation and misinformation that is out there, prior to question period. I would like to take some time to focus on the parts of this bill, and in particular the parts that would affect and help artists who are trying to make a career of it in our country.
Whenever I have had the opportunity to speak to this bill, I have specifically gone back to what I thought was a very powerful intervention in committee by Gord Sinclair, who is a bass player for The Tragically Hip. Mr. Sinclair, in his testimony, said—
Mr. Bob Zimmer: He is not biased at all.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: I got a heckle. I would not mind hearing what that heckle was.
Mr. Bob Zimmer: If you are asking me a question, I can answer.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: We will get to questions after.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear the heckle about Mr. Sinclair, if the member wants to say it a little louder.
I was going to read from his testimony, which I thought was very good. He said:
Times change. In the 30 years that the Hip were performing, we went from producing vinyl records and cassettes to CDs, videos and DATs through Napster, and to iTunes and YouTube, and now to streaming and its dominant platform, Spotify. Through it all, until recently, there have been live shows to make ends meet, but people no longer buy the physical products our industry produces. In the digital age, people haven't given up on music—just the idea of paying for it. That business model is unsustainable.
Mr. Sinclair goes on to later say:
Our potential as a creative nation is as vast as the country itself. Songwriters are our best cultural ambassadors. We are compelled to create, to express what we know and what we feel. We need partners in government and industry, including streaming.
Right now, somewhere in Canada, a young artist is searching for their voice, the right bit of melody to go with the perfect words. We need your help to hear those voices.
I thought it was really interesting in the speech by the member who spoke before me, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, when she said in her comments that the only people who are interested in this bill and seeing it go through who are artists are those who have made it and those who are successful, and I can only assume she is putting The Tragically Hip in that category. I would remind that member that The Tragically Hip specifically has done countless things in our community and in our country to help build up various different charities. They have given back tremendously, and one of the ways they have given back is to new and emerging artists. They were trying to lend their stardom to those who are trying to make it.
When Gord Sinclair comes before committee and pleads with the committee that this is necessary for young struggling artists, reflecting on how CanCon and the rules in the nineties, in particular, helped The Tragically Hip get to where they are, he is not doing it because he thinks there is some advantage to The Tragically Hip. They have made it. He is doing it because he wants to see new emerging artists not just survive, but flourish and see their full potential.
The reality is, when we live next to an economy that is 10 times our size, there is a tremendous amount of influence being projected into Canada from the United States. We see it on a daily basis, and it shapes the culture of Canada. If we want to ensure we can keep our unique Canadian identity, as it relates to English, French and indigenous culture, it is critically important that we invest and help. We will be swallowed up by the impacts and the effects from the United States.
I asked a question earlier, and I will repeat it.
When I grew up in the 1980s, I watched TV Ontario, or TVO. It was channel 2, which we watched after dinner. I would watch Today's Special, the Polka Dot Door and all those other shows a five-, six- or seven-year-old would watch. Now, for my two youngest children, my six-year-old and four-year-old, it is a fight over who gets to use my wife's iPad to watch YouTube, and the content they are watching is not influenced by Canadian culture and Canadian identity like the shows I watched in the 1980s were.
Conservatives can come in here and try to mislead, and to misrepresent the reality of this bill. I actually think they are so caught up in the rhetoric that many of them actually believe it. They actually believe what they are saying, which I think is even more alarming, because the reality is that, when we look at the content of the bill, members will see that this is not about government trying to impose its own views. It is not about government propaganda, as it has been conflated, by several Conservative MPs, with what happens in communist dictatorships. This is about ensuring Canadian content can survive when we live next to a cultural, social and economic superpower, the United States, which is 10 times the size of our country. I think Conservatives know that.
I think Canadians understand what this is really about, unless they are living in the bubble of the Conservatives and Michael Geist, who, I am sure, is tweeting all of this. Let me say “hi” to Michael and ask how he is doing. Unless they are living in that bubble, I think Canadians really get what this is all about. It is not about control; it is about trying to ensure Canadian content survives into the future. From my perspective, it is most important with young people, who are being influenced for the first time, like my children, in watching all of these videos.
Canadians might have concerns and be thinking, “Well, I don't know where to land on this. I don't know, because I'm not getting all the information. Are the Liberals telling the truth? Are the Conservatives telling the truth? Who is really telling the truth?”
I would tell them to look at who supports this bill in this chamber. The Liberals support it, the NDP supports it and the separatist party supports it. Can members imagine the separatist party going along with the government and cabinet to create algorithms on what people could see in Quebec? It is probably the most ludicrous suggestion, and it is coming from Conservatives, but they have no problem doing it.
The Conservatives have no problem doing it, because it all goes back to the way I opened this speech before question period: It all goes back to fundraising. It all goes back to stirring their base and generating more fundraising for political gain. It is extremely unfortunate that Conservatives have taken an issue so incredibly important for Canadian culture and turned it into a cash cow, and they have successfully done that. I tip my hat to them. If that was their objective, they succeeded. However, they are not helping Canadians, they are not helping Canadian culture and they are not helping Canadian artists the way Gord Sinclair and The Tragically Hip, along with countless other Canadians, are trying to help them.
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- Mar/30/23 3:33:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I love that conversation. I appreciate it, and I am pleased to respond to it.
Speaking of the youth in this nation, never before in the history of this country have young people engaged in choosing a leader and joining a party in the way that has happened over the past while here. They are excited about the freedom they have on the Internet and the opportunities they have to present themselves. Of course, Canadians around the world are recognized for all the good things about the values we have.
I would say to the member that, if there is fundraising that is being successful here, we cannot beat money out of Canadians. I suppose we can if we tax them. However, in this case, people in this nation support what they believe in with their pocketbooks. People in Canada are doing that, and I would encourage the member to do what he can to express their views and see if people support it in the same way.
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- Mar/30/23 3:34:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they are not beating money out of Canadians; they are scaring it out of them.
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- Mar/30/23 3:35:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his honesty today and for dealing in facts and evidence. It is very refreshing to hear, considering this debate.
I came to the House to fight for Canadians and to stand up for the Charter of Rights of Freedoms. When members opposite are making a case that we are against free speech or that we are somehow here to control the Internet, it is scary to me because what I then get at home in my riding, and which my staff have to deal with, is a barrage of hatred. I wonder if the member can comment on how dangerous this kind of rhetoric really is.
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- Mar/30/23 3:35:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, because it is extremely dangerous for a political party to look at the opportunity to raise money as being more important than the consequences that come with the misinformation and what that could potentially translate into. That is what we are seeing. As I said earlier, I believe that some of the Conservatives actually are at the point where they believe their own rhetoric because they have been saying it so much.
We have a situation here where money, generating revenue, is more important. Nowhere was that clearer than earlier today when the Leader of the Opposition realized that this cash cow is about to dry up because we are about to vote on this, and that he had better start recording a video on it with a link to his donation page. He started recording a video while he was still in the chamber with the mace sitting on the table. That should tell Canadians where this issue lies for Conservatives, because it is extremely telling.
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- Mar/30/23 3:36:58 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, this is such an important bill because it would especially help marginalized independent content creators and producers like IsumaTV. I just wonder, though, if this bill is passed, when the member thinks web giants like Netflix and Disney+ would be required to pay their fair share so that smaller, independent producers like Isuma could benefit from this bill.
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- Mar/30/23 3:37:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. This would help the independent artists. It would do that because all we are saying is that the rules that apply to the traditional media outlets and helping to fund those independents should apply to the web giants too. That is all that this is. There is great opportunity here and great potential.
I would say, to Conservatives who are saying this is a violation of freedom and rights, that we will see what happens the day after this legislation receives royal assent. Would the Conservatives take it to the court to have a charter ruling on it? I am going to guess they would not, because any lawyer who would advise them would most likely tell them they do not have a case.
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Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, I intend to vote for Bill C-11, but I would vote for it with more enthusiasm if the government had accepted the amendment from the Senate that excluded user-developed content. I wonder if the member could explain, because so far I have not had any explanation that makes sense to me, why the government has rejected that amendment from the Senate.
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- Mar/30/23 3:38:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that it had already been dealt with, that it is already very explicit that user-generated content would not affected by this piece of legislation, and that everybody knows that user-generated content was never the intention here. The intention was about getting to the web giants and making sure they pay their fair share.
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- Mar/30/23 3:39:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, therein lies the exact issue we are facing here. The member just said “my understanding is” and went on to give his understanding. This is why we continue to debate this. This is why it has been at the Senate for so much time. This is why we want to talk about this more: There is not agreement.
The member talked about the group of people who must be under the dome, which I think were his words. It is an interesting group, because not only does it include Conservatives, but it also includes Margaret Atwood and it includes the current chair of the CRTC, who also said it would affect user content. It is an interesting group of people who are raising objections and concerns about this legislation. How does the member explain all who, in this interesting group of people, are also raising objections to this legislation?
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- Mar/30/23 3:40:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is more cherry-picking of quotes from people without providing the full context. The member referenced Margaret Atwood. The Globe and Mail quoted Margaret Atwood, saying “The author said she had not read the bill ‘thoroughly yet’ and that there seemed to be ‘well-meaning attempts to achieve some sort of fairness in the marketplace’."
The member is not even properly using the context in which Margaret Atwood was making her comments. Of course they leave it out that part, because it is not beneficial to their argument, it does not support their case and it certainly would not raise any money for them if they were to send out that quote from Margaret Atwood.
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- Mar/30/23 3:41:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands spoke about the Conservatives using this legislation as a way to drive fundraising for the Conservative Party of Canada. I am curious whether he finds it a bit ironic that it is actually the Conservative Party standing in the way of content creators' being paid fairly for their content and their ideas, and that Conservatives stand in the way to block that legislation so they can fundraise for their own party and their own partisan activities.
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- Mar/30/23 3:41:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is such an interesting take on it. Conservatives are basically creating their own content by using this issue in order to fundraise and generate money for their party. It is total hypocrisy on the part of the Conservatives. They should know better and they should stop playing with an issue in a way that encourages disinformation, which is what they are doing.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about rhetoric from the member across the way. All he has talked about is us as a party. He has not talked about the legislation and factually defended his argument about the legislation they are proposing. It goes back several years to Bill C-10, the iteration before, and clause 4.1. That is the problem, and I do not know if he has even read that. It is not just us saying it is a problem; it is Canadians across the country who are saying it is a problem. Why does he not just simply remove that clause?
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- Mar/30/23 3:42:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the member who was heckling me when I was reading Gord Sinclair's quote. I really wish he had given me the rest of that heckle so I could have at least heard it through his question.
It is inaccurate to suggest I do not understand the context of this bill. With respect to his suggestion that all I did was attack Conservatives, that is not true. He did not listen to the first eight minutes of my speech. The fact is, I did talk about artists, about how content impacted me as a child and is impacting my children, and about how I saw this legislation would improve the content my children are watching today.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Abbotsford.
Today I am speaking, along with many others, about an issue fundamental to the future of our country.
Do we as Canadians live in a country that believes in the principles of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and supports free speech on the Internet, or do we deviate and support the principles of censorship and the pursuit of wokeness and conformity? What do we value as Canadians?
The fact is that the Conservative Party is the only political party in Canada that stands for freedom of speech and the rights of Canadians to express themselves freely on the Internet. Margaret Atwood called Bill C-11 “creeping totalitarianism”.
We have, and we will, fight this legislation to the bitter end. Is it a losing fight? Probably. We have heard many times, when the Prime Minister asked the leader of the NDP to jump, that the only question he gets in response is “How high?” That does not mean that Conservatives would not fight. However, it does mean that, when Conservatives form the next government under our new leader, we would repeal this horrible attack on free speech.
Much has been said about the obvious move toward censorship and government control over what we see and post. However, I want to come at this from a different angle, which is that of The Littlest Hobo. I grew up in the 1970s in rural Saskatchewan. We had colour TV, I am not that old, but our house only had two channels: CBC and CTV. It was the golden age of government censorship of what we could watch on TV.
Back then, the CRTC was not as concerned about political censorship as we would see with the result of Bill C-11, but it was very concerned that we watch Canadian programming, instead of that evil, awful American programming. Every day, after school, I had to endure a half-hour of the The Littlest Hobo, because it was literally the only thing I could watch on TV. Now some may have enjoyed the show. I did not.
This was the result of the government dictating to Canadians what it felt we needed to watch on TV. Thankfully, we eventually got U.S. TV channels in our house, and we were able to finally watch what we chose to watch and not what the CRTC told us we could watch.
Everyone who has grown up in the Internet generation has always had full control to watch whatever they want to watch on the Internet. The government has so far been unable to censor them and force them to watch the content it deems important.
With Bill C-11, the government would be throttling the Internet and forcing Canadians to watch things it deems important: The Littlest Hobo of this decade. Do not get me wrong. I am not against Canadian content in any way. I just want good content, wherever it comes from.
Canada produces some amazingly good content. For example, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was written by a Canadian author and is being filmed on Canadian soil. It stars Canadian actors and it employs Canadian producers, but it fails to make the cut. It is not considered Canadian by the CRTC.
This just demonstrates the silliness of the government trying to dictate and control our creative industries. The last thing our creative industries in Canada need is more government control.
Canada has amazing content producers, from big-name actors, producers and artists down to small content creators on YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. We must keep them free to compete in a global world, rather have the government pick who are the winners and who are the losers.
How does Bill C-11 work? How does the legislation actually strangle the freedom of individual Canadians on the Internet?
At the heritage committee, one witness, J.J. McCullough, used a metaphor that I believe captures this law in a nutshell. He said, “It's like promising not to regulate books while [simultaneously] regulating...bookstores.”
The approach of the NDP-Liberal coalition is to regulate everyday social media platforms that Canadians use: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and others.
This would directly affect every Canadian, as the platforms would be told by the government which of the content created is allowed or not. It is as if someone walked into a bookstore but would only be allowed to see the books on certain racks. They would not be allowed to see the books on other racks in the rest of the store.
The government agency overseeing this is called the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, CRTC. These are the same people who forced me to watch The Littlest Hobo as a kid. The CRTC has been around for a long time, and, in theory, it is responsible for ensuring Canadian content on radio and TV. They are the reason cable is so expensive and why many of us are cord-cutting.
Basically, the CRTC is a bunch of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa elites, appointed by the Prime Minister, whose jobs would be to decide what we consume and what we post.
This law would effectively give the CRTC the authority to set out conditions, requirements and exemptions for what is to be restricted or to be allowed. For example, the law would give the commission the authority to make orders imposing conditions affecting such things as “the proportion of programs to be broadcast” being “devoted to specific genres” and “the presentation of programs and programming”.
Despite its vague language, it is clear that the government plans to give the friends of the Prime Minister the power to decide what the people see, quite literally policing content.
They do this under the guise of promoting Canadian content, but that is just an excuse to grab more power and to limit the freedoms we enjoy. That is exactly what Bill C-11 does.
It gives the CRTC the authority over platforms like YouTube. These platforms would be forced to comply with regulations that prioritize content to be displayed to individuals over others, depending on what the CRTC deems to be the priority. That is exactly the problem.
This law would “encourage the development of Canadian expression by providing a wide range of programming that reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity”.
Who will decide what content is reflective of Canadian opinions, ideas and values and exactly what those are? Of course it is the friends of the Prime Minister.
This one phrase would reprogram the algorithms of your platforms to show you what the government wants you to see, rather than having your preferences deciding what appears in your feed.
The NDP-Liberals do this under the banner of diversity and inclusivity. The truth is that, right now, open platforms allow for, and facilitate the exchange of, diverse and inclusive content better than a government with a political agenda ever could.
The party that prides itself on multiculturalism is now putting a rubber stamp on what is Canadian and what is not. Canadian culture and interests are always expanding and are being influenced by many different artists, genres, languages and the trends of the day. The government is the last organization I would want creating Canadian culture.
Ultimately this is the difference between the Conservative approach on this issue and the approach of the NDP-Liberals. They are concerned about government control and how to have power over Canadians. Conservatives are devoted to freedom. We want Canadians to be able to live their everyday normal lives on the internet. It is simple as that.
Let us talk about how this legislation would affect Canadians. As Neal Mohan, the Chief Product Officer for YouTube, has explained in countless interviews, Bill C-11 would harm Canadian content creators.
Some may argue that YouTube is a massive corporation simply looking after its own interests. Of course, on one level that is true, but YouTube contributes over a billion dollars to the Canadian economy and creates roughly 35,000 jobs in this country, so it does have a stake beyond the confines of Silicon Valley.
Bill C-11 would essentially decide who the winners and losers of this market are, based on the qualities and conditions set out by the CRTC. Rather than helping the little guy, this government plans on putting barriers that impede them from success.
By creating more red tape, we would not just harm the economy but, more importantly, we would harm each Canadian who depends upon the internet to generate income. Nowadays, that is a lot of people from all age groups and all walks of life. This law would cover any content individually generated that touches a user trying to make even the smallest dollar.
The Liberals will say that this bill would not touch personal content like cat videos but that is simply not true. Even the current Liberal-appointed chair of the CRTC told the truth by mistake and admitted that Bill C-11 would regulate content generated by individual users.
According to YouTube and others in this field, forcing content to be displayed in one’s feed may have a negative impact on content creators within Canada and would harm the very people the government claims that it wants to protect.
We all know what happens when the government tries to force-feed us content that we don’t want, like The Littlest Hobo.
We do not want to watch it, yet the government shoves it down our throats anyway. At least CBC TV shows are voluntary right now. Just wait until the algorithms are required by law to put these in our YouTube searches, then in our Facebook videos and then in our Insta stories.
There will be no escaping the government-approved content, so we will shut it off. One does not see what one wants, and the so-called Canadian content shoved down one’s throat will go unwatched. It is a lose-lose situation, like most things that this current NDP-Liberal government does.
Bill C-11 is a threat to our fundamental rights and is setting up the foundation for censorship. Whether one is a YouTube content creator, a social media influencer or even just a viewer, Bill C-11 would limit Canadians from seeing and watching the content they choose.
People in Saskatoon West are worried about what is to come if this legislation passes, and that is why we must kill Bill C-11.
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