44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech of the member for Winnipeg North maybe a little more intently today than I have in the past. He claims in his comments that this will not limit individual content created.
On Twitter, a couple of days ago, Mr. Michael Geist said, in response to a previous intervention from this member, that the member “is just plainly wrong. Independent Senators, former CRTC chair, and many experts all agreed: Bill C-11 gives the CRTC the power to establish certain regulations involving user content. The Senate tried to fix. [The minister] rejected it.”
Cody from my riding is an indigenous entrepreneur from Flying Dust First Nation, and he shared with me that his very successful business is going to be unfairly impacted by Bill C-11, unless this is changed. That is because of the way the online marketing and social media algorithms to grow his business across Canada and the United States would be affected.
Why would Cody believe this member, who has a very partisan interest, instead of the former head of the CRTC, who has nothing to gain from this?
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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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Mr. Speaker, my colleague went to some length to explain that Bill C-11 would not impact user-generated content, so my simple question would be this: Why would we not just accept the amendment proposed by the Senate to do exactly that? It would remove user-generated content from the bill. Would the bill not, thus amended, still have all the other positive effects the member is promoting?
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- Mar/30/23 1:13:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no hidden agenda in this bill. Algorithmic control would remain with the online streaming platforms.
What is important is the notion of ensuring that a portion of the profit that online streaming platforms, particularly those from other parts of the world, are already making from Canadian content is contributing to the creation of that Canadian content. That is a win for Canadian creators. Arguably, it is probably a win for Netflix as well, because it will just have more like The Tragically Hip to put on their streaming platforms.
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- Mar/30/23 1:30:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I will take the word of law professors, former CRTC presidents and Canadian content creators themselves when it comes to the impacts this bill will have not only on what Canadians are allowed to see but also what they are allowed to post online. There is a huge difference between giving supports through tax breaks or funding and directly deciding who should be featured as Canadian content and who should be suppressed. On this side of the House, we believe that Canadian creators have proven they are capable of building large international audiences.
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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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Mr. Speaker, I will point out to that member, whom I respect very much, that the Government of Quebec has spoken about this and expressed profound concern over Bill C-11. That government has actually sent a letter to the Liberal government expressing this concern and calling for further consultations before this bill goes forward. I know what those concerns are. One is that user-generated content would no longer be free. In other words, user-generated content would be regulated by the CRTC's government bureaucrats. That is something no Canadian should be supportive of.
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- Mar/30/23 4:25:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the great things about the way this bill has been looked at and examined by both Houses is that it has been quite a robust discussion. I understand, from reading the notes on the bill, that many tough questions were asked, including the member opposite's question on the issue of discoverability.
What is important is that we are modernizing the Broadcasting Act for the first time since 1991. Content creators would continue to have free rein in the generation of the content they wish to produce, post online and show to users and viewers here in Canada and around the world.
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- Mar/30/23 4:30:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is an esteemed member who I have worked with in years past on the finance committee. I have a great deal of respect for that member.
I will say again that my understanding, from reading the bill and speaking to the various officials, is that user-generated content is not going to be impacted at all with regard to this bill.
The bill modernizes the Broadcasting Act. It brings platforms that we use often in our daily lives and innovation forward under the Broadcasting Act and ensures that Canadian content continues to be generated.
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- Mar/30/23 4:42:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am maybe not going to make the Liberal bench, from which the question emanated, as happy as it might have been. There are reasons that this legislation has critics, and that is a big problem. I would rather vote for this bill with the Senate amendment to refuse any regulation of user-generated content, which has now been rejected.
In fact, my colleague from Kitchener Centre brought forward a similar motion before committee because we could see where this was going to lead. User-generated content should not be included in this bill. The government's position is that it is not. The Conservatives' position is that it is. I would rather the government had accepted the Senate amendment to make that really clear and nail it down because it is that little inconsistency, shall we put it, that gives rise to the volume of what I regard as incorrect statements about the bill.
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- Mar/30/23 4:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand the member takes exception to the idea that Canadian content might feature a little more prominently in the news feeds of Canadians on social media platforms.
I wonder then, what does the member think about the current state of affairs, which is that social media companies, behind closed doors, without any transparency, concoct these algorithms and are deciding right now what Canadians see and what they do not see based on rules that have nothing to do with the public interest and that have absolutely no transparency at all.
Does the member object to the current practice of using algorithms to filter content, which is already happening? It is just happening with corporate interests behind closed doors.
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- Mar/30/23 5:00:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have said over here that there is absolutely no way that big tech is perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. They have major issues, and there are things that they need to do as well.
What we are concerned about is what would be suppressed at this point in time, and that is the challenge right now. If individuals are creating content and are not able to put it out there because the government has decided that it would not go forward or see the light of day, then we obviously have a very huge concern with that.
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- Mar/30/23 5:13:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think there are a lot of Canadians, and we have former artists on our side, who want to see Canadians who produce content do well. I produce content myself. A lot of us in the House produce content, and we want to make sure we can continue to do that.
I think it is fine if a person can produce content, freely send it out to the Internet and people can purchase it or watch it at their choosing. However, the problem is that, if a directive were to be given by the cabinet, there is the potential, as has been warned about by the former head of the CRTC, that it would say it does not want people to watch things that have a certain word in them or that are from a particular area in the country. That is the potential this has. We have seen examples around the world where this happens. Like I said, we cannot trust the Liberal cabinet and Prime Minister to defend our freedoms.
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Mr. Speaker, if the amendments would address the concerns around user-generated content, I think we would have a whole bunch of viewers listening over here. However, the bill is flawed. We have been talking about this bill for many years, since Bill C-10. It is still flawed today, and frankly does not cut it for us on this side of the aisle.
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- Mar/30/23 5:29:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, whether it was the minister or one of the many other members, it has very clearly been said that what the bill would not do is, “impose regulations on the content [of] everyday Canadians post on social media.” It “does not limit [Canadians'] freedom of expression in any way, shape or form.” Why does the Conservative Party continue to give false information and plant anxiety in many individuals, and use that anxiety, when it knows it is not true?
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- Mar/30/23 7:40:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do, it is called the Criminal Code.
To conflate the issue of child sexual exploitation with amendments or legislation that deal with the Broadcasting Act is disingenuous to say the least. None of us in this place want to see child exploitation manifest itself through online channels. The Criminal Code addresses that. The police services across this country address that. We have already addressed that. Could we do more? Absolutely.
However, this is about the Broadcasting Act, and this is about user-generated content and the impact for what people could see online.
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Uqaqtittiji, I have not been surprised, I guess, by the Conservative rhetoric during this debate on Bill C-11. They are quite repetitive in their interventions. They have not shared any real interventions on the actual text of the bill, including on discoverability, which in this act will be to ensure that cultural content created by artists is accessible and promoted and that discoverability requirements will not authorize the CRTC to impose conditions that require the use of a particular computer algorithm or source code.
I wonder if the member can explain to us what the Conservatives understand the discoverability clauses to be in the bill.
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- Mar/30/23 7:54:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things to that point. The bill is many pages long, and experts who have spent their entire lifetime studying this stuff have, in large numbers, come before multiple committees of the House to say that user-generated content is open to being regulated by the government through the CRTC.
On the cultural side of things, I trust that Canadian creators, from across the country, in whatever language they come up with, in whatever form their content takes, will come up with something that will be really special and demanded by people all over the world.
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