44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, this bill deals with a very important topic, which is the sustainability of journalism in Canada. There have been many stakeholders from across the country who have expressed deep concerns, and I also note that, at various stages of the debate, there were many witnesses from different regions, different demographics, who participate in media in Canada who were not allowed to testify at committee.
My concern is that, if the government is curtailing debate on this without a chance for every member to speak to the amendments that the government is suggesting it either will or will not support, the voices of regional Canadians who are engaged in the media will not have a chance to be adequately debated in the House.
I am wondering, with the decline of local media in Canada, why the government is choosing to curtail debate on a bill that could, in fact, have some censorship provisions at this juncture.
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Madam Speaker, what is accurate is that this bill is there to support media across the country. As I said, around 500 media outlets have closed their doors. Big ones and small ones, in regions and in cities everywhere, have closed. It has a huge impact on our democracy that they are not there to tell their stories. In some regions, there is no more coverage, so the population does not know what the local MPs do in Ottawa. People do not know what the local provincial MLA goes and does in the capital. They do not know what the city councillor is doing in terms of making decisions. That is bad for our democracy. We have to be there.
Contrary to what my colleague said, there are many programs in place. As I said, we have a tax credit on labour and local journalism initiatives, as well as the Canada periodical fund. There are many projects, and this would reinforce all those programs.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I too enjoy the work we do and our close collaboration at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Most of the time, our work has been constructive.
There is a reason journalism and news are called the fourth estate. The news media has a duty and an important role to play in society. I said “important”, but I really mean “essential”.
If Bill C-18 is not passed, more media outlets will shutter, continuing a more than decade-long trend. The news media are in trouble. Bill C‑18 is one of the tools we need to ensure their survival. If it is not passed, we could lose more media outlets, including regional media, which would be especially unfortunate.
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Madam Speaker, I think that every form of journalism that respects the fundamental rules of integrity, independence, meticulousness and respect for people and sources is essential. In-depth reporting by investigative journalists striving to dig deeper into the stories is also essential, and we need to keep it alive as well.
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Madam Speaker, I do plan to expand on that point shortly, but before I do that, I want to provide a bit of a different perspective on how important Bill C-18 is. It needs to be placed in the real world context to see how it would protect our national community news agencies and media. It is so very important.
I often will go to a lot of events, as members on all sides of the House do. Often it is the community news people who are at those events, taking pictures, doing interviews and so forth. If it is a local basketball game or championship game at a local high school, it will be the local newspaper that highlights it.
I go to many different types of ethnic events. Whether it be the Pilipino Express News Magazine, Filipino Journal, Punjabi Today or CKJS radio, these community-driven news agencies, newspapers, radio and media are reporting on the things taking place. There are pictures and everything else incorporated.
While visiting constituents in their homes, I often see that they have a newspaper produced in the community. They will show me where their son or daughter's name is in that community newspaper or where a local community event is being profiled in the paper.
It does not matter whether people are from urban or rural communities, whether they are from the east or the west or up north, these small news agencies play a critical role in our community development and society as a whole and, absolutely, 100% with respect to our democracy. One of the fundamental pillars to a healthy democracy is to have a healthy media. That is why the minister of heritage has often talked about the importance of supporting journalism, supporting those news media outlets.
I believe the minister referenced the year 2008, a year when just under 500 media outlets of different sizes from different areas of the country completely disappeared. We should all be concerned about that. Local media is how we often find out about the birth of a child, or that someone has died or an announcement about a parade to be held in our community It is often how we will hear about grand openings and so many other things. Not to mention that elected officials will often take political accountability by providing writing or commenting through local media.
I want people who are following the debate to understand just how important it is that we as a government are here to support our media. We are not the first government in the world to do so. We have heard about Australia and France. I believe that many countries around the world are following the debate on Bill C-18.
I am disturbed by the Conservative Party's approach to this legislation. All of us should be. Is it working with the giant tech companies ? Has it been intimidated by the giant tech companies?
The member for Kingston and the Islands raised a quote. I would like to reinforce that. For my Conservative colleagues across the way, I suggest they look at that election platform, the platform that they shared with millions of Canadians in the last federal election.
Page 155 of the 2021 Conservative platform, which has a picture of the former leader on the front of it, says, “Canadian media is in crisis. The loss of digital advertising revenue to American tech giants like Google and Facebook is putting local newspapers out of business, costing Canadian jobs, and undermining our ability to tell local, Canadian stories.” I agree with that. In fact, if I did not tell people it was coming from the Conservative platform, I would feel very comfortable making that statement.
I will continue to read from the Conservative platform. It says, “Canada’s Conservatives don’t believe that the solution is for the government to provide direct funding to hand-picked media outlets”, and I disagree with that as I see the value in CBC and I will provide further comment on that shortly, “something that undermines press freedom and trust in the media. Instead, we will secure a level playing field for Canadian media, ensuring that Canadians are paid fairly for the content they create while encouraging the creation of more Canadian media and culture.” I have some difficulty with some of the things in that statement, but the Conservatives raise the importance of the issue.
It goes on to say, and this is the platform's bold statement, “Canada’s Conservatives will: Introduce a digital media royalty framework”, and that is what we are debating in Bill C-18, “to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook.” If members were to review Hansard and the debate we have had on this, what are the two platforms we are talking about? Google and Facebook. This legislation is, in essence, taking what is in the Conservative platform.
It goes on to say, “Adopt a made in Canada approach that incorporates the best practices of jurisdictions like Australia and France.” Members on this side of the House have said that. The legislation and establishment of the framework is based on what has come out of Australia and France. Our legislation goes even further. It would ensure there is a higher sense of accountability and transparency.
Let us go back to the last federal election. In that election, Conservative candidates, 338 of them, had a platform document. Every one of them campaigned on that. The legislation we are debating, what we are proposing to do with this legislation, is fulfilling something they committed to doing. I would have thought the Conservative Party would have supported Bill C-18.
Why are the Conservatives not supporting it? We listened to the critic. We listened to a few other Conservatives. We get the impression that they have been intimidated by giant tech companies like Facebook and Google. What is the other option? That they agree? What about the commitment they made to Canadians? This is in opposition to that.
This is not the first time. They did the same thing on the price on pollution. They made a commitment and they broke that.
I would argue that this is not the same Conservative Party from the past. This is very much a Reform Party and maybe even further to the right than the Reform Party was. This is what Canadians need to be aware of.
Why would the Conservatives not want to protect the national interest and give more strength to our democracy by supporting Bill C-18? They have gone out of their way to protect those giants. I would be disappointed if the government were to back down because Facebook says it is going to pull its news ads. I am not a computer tech person. I know there are all sorts of things people can do through the computer and maybe they have ways they can pull out the news ads; I am not 100% sure how that works. However, what I do know is that I am not going to be intimidated, whether by Google or Facebook. If Facebook operators believe that they do not need those stories in order to sustain the type of growth that they have experienced and wealth that has been generated because of journalism that has been utilized through their companies at no cost, I will stand by Canadians. I am going to stand by our democracy. I am going to stand by the jobs and the importance of that industry because I recognize its importance.
The Conservatives have now said they are going to pull all stops out. They do not want this legislation to pass and they have been very clear on that.
I had posed a question in regard to the budget implementation bill when the leader of the Conservative Party had a big press conference. In the press conference, he said he was going to speak and speak. He has unlimited time on the budget implementation bill. He was going to continue to speak until ultimately the Prime Minister backed away and changed the budget, even though hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through the budget implementation bill in order to support Canadians. A few hours later, that kind of fell flat. Why was that? It was because not only did the Liberals see through the charade, but opposition parties outside of the Conservatives saw the charade and the propaganda stunt that the leader of the Conservative Party was trying to pull off.
Just yesterday, with respect to Bill C-42, the corporations bill, the Conservative Party actually supported the legislation. Everyone supports the legislation. However, the Conservatives want to apply that very same principle in terms of what they want to apply to Bill C-18, and that is to prevent government legislation from passing. Therefore, the Conservatives continue to put up members to speak and if it were not for time allocation, again, that legislation would not have been able to pass.
Now, the Conservatives are shocked or at least surprised that the government has brought in time allocation on Bill C-18. They should not be surprised. After all, they just need to look at their record; they try to frustrate the House of Commons, to deny Canadians the opportunity to have legislative measures that are going to protect their interests. We have consistently seen that from the Conservative Party. The Conservatives put their political party and their fundraising ahead of the interests of Canadians.
Let us listen to the first question, when the Minister of Heritage was answering questions as to why time allocation was necessary. The first person up for the Conservative Party asked why the government was bringing in time allocation, saying that they should be allowed to have all of their members speak to the legislation.
They should do the math. If every member speaks, that means how many hours of debate? How many more hours are there before the summer recess? It is not a question of whether the Conservatives will allow the legislation to pass before the summer break, they want to kill the bill. They do not want the bill, period, end of story. That is their intention.
That is why I posed a question to my Bloc friend. The essence of the question was whether the member believes that the Conservatives, had we not brought in time allocation, would have allowed this bill to pass before the summer recess. If the member from the Bloc were to be honest with the chamber, he would probably recognize that the Conservatives have no intention whatsoever to pass this legislation, definitely not before the summer break. If we did not have at least one opposition party supporting what we are doing, this legislation likely would not see the light of day in terms of its passing.
I need to remind the Conservatives, as they like to remind us, about the last election and there being a minority government. In a minority government, we have to continue to be focused on Canadians, delivering legislative and budgetary measures and working with the opposition. Fortunately, most opposition parties have a more co-operative attitude and recognize that they too have a role to play in a minority government. It is not just the government's responsibility.
The only party that has failed to recognize that fact is the Conservative Party of Canada. It continues to believe its only role is to prevent legislation from passing. Then it criticizes us for bringing in time allocation motions and trying to limit debate on important pieces of legislation or budget measures. It is hard to take Conservatives seriously on things of that nature when we see them delay time and time again, such as with concurrence in committee reports. One of my favourites is when a Conservative stands and moves a motion for another Conservative to speak. Then there is a vote, which causes the bells to ring. Instead of debating, they try to determine which Conservative member should filibuster or they decide we are done for the day and move a motion to adjourn, again causing further delay. These are the types—
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Madam Speaker, I worked for community newspapers for more than 20 years. I believe the member is misleading Canadians when he said that this is somehow going to be a salvation for community news, as the vast majority of papers will not see a dime of this money because 70% goes to Rogers, Bell and large tech companies. The small community papers in our rural ridings with one journalist do not even qualify for this program.
I will tell the member this. The three things that really impacted community journalism and those community papers were the costs of using Canada Post and accessing the Internet; the CBC, which undercuts the advertising ability of small and medium outlets because they cannot compete with a subsidized giant like it; and the government withdrawing all of its advertising dollars from those small community papers that relied on those advertisements.
If the member thinks community journalism and community papers are so important and the heartbeat of our communities, how much money is the government spending on community papers through federal advertising dollars?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her journalism career. I know she has had a good one. I know she has worked in a newsroom and knows how hectic it is.
Knowing what she does know, and back to my point of the administrative end of things, how in the world is that going to be done? Who is going to pay for it? Who is going to track it? Who is going to negotiate it? Who is going to cover the costs? Why in the world would someone not want their media shared on a bigger platform? It makes no sense.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague spoke about the importance of this bill, but here is the thing: 450 news outlets in Canada have closed since 2008 and at least one-third of Canadian journalism jobs have disappeared. The Liberal government took power in 2015. Can the member explain why his government dragged its feet and took seven years to fix this problem?
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Madam Speaker, that is a very important question. I did meet with stakeholders who were indigenous journalists. They told us about how important it was for them to tell their stories in their own way from their own voice and to not have a definition of journalism imposed upon them that would not feel natural for their lifestyle. We incorporated their suggestions into our legislation. I thank them again for their input, because it led to very valuable amendments to this legislation.
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Madam Speaker, I agree that Canadians take their news in all forms. Like many people, I enjoy reading lots of news from online journalism sources.
What people need to know is that the government is not getting involved in censoring the Internet. There is nothing like that at all. All this legislation does is allow news organizations in Canada to have a business negotiation process with tech giants for an exchange of goods where they both benefit.
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The question is on censorship and what the Prime Minister considers he is doing in a positive way to influence media in his favour. This is the way I phrase it: Who does not get the money and who gets the money? This is from an article entitled “Sue Gardner: Bill C-18 is Bad for Journalism and Bad for Canada”. On who does not get the money, she says, “This process will benefit big legacy media companies at the expense of startups and indie publishers.” She goes on to say, “Meanwhile, many small and indie publishers are actually excluded from C-18; the bill excludes operations that employ fewer than two journalists, and excludes those ‘primarily focused on a particular topic’ in favour of those that make general interest news.”
That is a question we have to ask when talking about control. Small publishers are much harder to control, and big media is a lot easier to control. Just give them millions and billions of dollars and away we go.
Let us talk about who is getting the money. The same article says:
If news organizations became dependent on money from the platforms to sustain their operations, as they surely would with the passage of Bill C-18, this dependence would create an incentive for them to pull their punches in how they covered the platforms.
That is an example where media might say it does not want to go after someone because, after all, they are writing the cheques.
What is even more concerning, based on what I have alluded to regarding the control of big tech, is the control of government. This is from the same article:
For journalism to be trusted, it needs to be—and perceived to be—independent from government, and willing and able to be critical of government.... Bill C-18 deepens government involvement in the industry. This creates an incentive for the industry to be soft on the government, and it will further reduce trust in journalism.
That is not from me; that is from this writer. They continue: “And anything that reduces trust in journalism is dangerous—especially right now.”
I started by talking about who gets the money. Let us look at what the money looks like.
I have an article by Samantha Edwards entitled “What to know about Bill C-18, the proposed law that could affect Canadian news publishers”. It states:
A report from the PBO said of the around $329-million the bill would generate for news outlets, around $247-million would go to broadcasters such as the CBC, Bell, Shaw and Rogers.... “The fact that three-quarters of the money will be going to broadcasters, some of which are the richest companies in Canada, plus the public broadcasters which are heavily subsidized already, undermines the government’s whole premise of the bill”....
What is the temptation? I have already talked about it. The temptation, of course, is about somebody writing cheques for millions and billions of dollars: Is the media going to be as truthful to the public as it should be when reporting about them? What is its first goal? Is it to provide news and truthfulness to Canadians? Right now, the government is saying that if the media wants a big cheque, they have to say this or that. We know the Prime Minister is already about control and wants to control what people say about him. Will he use this as a heavy stick? I believe he will.
We have already talked about the control that Bill C-11 gave to the CRTC. The CRTC is influenced by the Prime Minister and cabinet. It says it clearly right in the bill. I have an article from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute entitled “Extortion, Dependency and Media Welfare—The Liberals’ Bill C-18”. About halfway through, it states, “Those in favour have no qualms about creating a news media industry permanently dependent upon the good graces of the two most imposing powers in the lives of citizens these days: Big Tech and Big Government.” As a former chair of the access to information, privacy and ethics committee, I saw how powerful big tech was and is, and the government working together with these guys is a really scary thing for those who care about freedom in the country. I will go on: “All involved will huff and puff self-servingly, while the [Prime Minister's] government happily renders media companies ever-more dependent on federal funding.”
It is not me saying this but articles that are concerned about the very same measures that this controlling Prime Minister, who has already implemented a censorship bill, is now trying to use to covet those two big entities so as to have the narrative go his way.
One interesting bit of testimony I saw when I was doing some research, because I knew I would be speaking to this, was from Liberal Senator Paula Simons in her speech from the Senate debate. Here is a clearly Liberal senator, a former media person, who is very concerned about what this bill brings if passed. I will read a couple of her quotes.
“More than that, I’m asking if it’s wise. How independent can the Canadian news media be if they are so deeply beholden to the goodwill and future economic success of two foreign corporations?” She is referring to big tech in this instance.
She goes on to quote Mr. Greenspon, from 2021, at a Senate committee: “...inviting the platforms to negotiate deals with individual publishers can badly distort the information marketplace. People have expressed concerns for decades that advertisers influence news agendas.” This is exactly what I have been saying. This is a person who has been in the industry her whole life. He went on: “They have massive public policy agendas of their own, including tax policy, regulatory oversight, data, et cetera.... You are here to strengthen the independent press, not to create new dependencies.”
Here is another quote from the senator: “And are we comfortable giving unprecedented new regulatory powers to the CRTC to intervene in the business of print journalism and to require mandatory media codes of ethics, given the free press has never before been subject in any way to the authority of the CRTC?”
I will finish with this. Who controls the CRTC? We already heard that it is cabinet and the Prime Minister. Members heard my question, the question that I started with: Does the Prime Minister want to control what we see and hear about him on the Internet? Absolutely, yes.
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Madam Speaker, what the member just asked me would be funny if it were not so scary.
This is from a Liberal senator appointed by the Prime Minister: “And are we comfortable giving unprecedented new regulatory powers to the CRTC to intervene in the business of print journalism and to require mandatory media codes of ethics, given the free press has never before been subject in any way to the authority of the CRTC?” That is from a Liberal senator.
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Madam Speaker, I can tell members what we did not mean. We did not mean this flaming dumpster fire wreck of a bill that the government is ramming through, in spite of hundreds of people and millions of Canadians saying they do not want it.
I offered solutions the government could have taken that Facebook, Google and other media companies already put on the table, such as creating funds that would go directly to investigative journalism instead of going to the rich corporate executives and shareholders of a few dying media companies.
If the Liberals want ideas for it, we are happy to provide them, but we will be doing that on that side of the House when our party is government.
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Madam Speaker, this is exactly the type of misinformation the Liberals want their controlled media sources to spread to Canadians. The reality is that, when he raises that issue of Australia, Australia amended its legislation so that Facebook and Google could work with journalists to create deals to support journalism in ways that go directly to journalism, outside of the legislative framework, understanding that they cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach. The Canadian government has been ramming through this bill without amendments, and I have to ask why. I think it is because its members want their colonial downtown voices of Toronto to keep controlling the media and keep shutting out voices.
The parliamentary secretary is a member from western Canada. Do members know that there are no members from western Canada in the Parliamentary press gallery? There might be one, but I think it is zero, and we have to change that, so we should be looking at ways that other witnesses suggested. Certainly that is what the Conservative Party would be suggesting to support journalism instead of lining the pockets of wealthy corporate executives and their shareholders, who are hoping Canadian tax dollars will squeeze out the last vestiges of their dying business models, which we have no responsibility to pick up.
We need to be supporting young diverse voices as they enter the career of journalism in a way that is accountable to Canadians' free-speech rights.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure that simple change would change the crux of the bill, because I think the bill fails spectacularly to do what the Liberals intend to do. I would be happy to speak with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, the leader of the Green Party, about how to move forward. I think she is on to something in that the business model has changed. What we have to do is provide certainty for an industry going forward, particularly when it comes to small and independent journalism, which is something this Liberal government has entirely missed the mark on and is pretending that it is solved.
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Madam Speaker, 450 news outlets in Canada have closed since 2008. At least one-third of Canadian journalism jobs have disappeared. I am wondering what the member can share with us this evening about why it took so long to start the work on implementing this important move in the right direction.
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