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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 216

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 19, 2023 11:00AM
  • Jun/19/23 6:13:59 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-18 
Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Lethbridge for her brief speech. She spoke a lot about the fact that Bill C‑18 offers nothing positive for smaller media outlets, weeklies or newspapers. Oddly enough, however, over the course of our study, the most vocal proponents of this bill were people like Pierre-Elliott Levasseur, president of La Presse, and Benoît Chartier and Sylvain Poisson of Hebdos Québec, an organization representing about 150 Quebec weeklies. There was also Paul Deegan of News Media Canada, which represents various media outlets across Canada. There was also Jad Barsoum and the folks from Quebecor, which is by no means a second-rate media organization. All of these people, who represent very small to average-sized media outlets and mega media companies, unanimously agree: Bill C‑18 is a necessity. I have a simple yet complicated question for my colleague. I want to know whether she listened only to the version of the web giants like Google and Facebook and those who signed agreements with those companies. Did she also take the time to listen to the people from News Media Canada, Hebdos Québec, and other media outlets like La Presse and Les coops de l'information, who have been calling for a bill like Bill C-18?
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