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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 217

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 217 - Jun/20/23
Hon. Pablo Rodriguez
  • Jun/20/23 11:15:17 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-18 
Madam Speaker, the exact reason for this bill is to support the different media in our communities. As I have said, it is not the only thing the government is doing. We have put in place a tax credit on labour to help our newsrooms. This is money for our newsrooms. We also put in place the local journalist initiative for small outlets in different regions. We did this because they are absolutely essential. We have the Canada periodical fund. Those are three key programs, and this bill reinforces them. We have met with local small media outlets from across the country, from each of the ridings, from everywhere, and they want this bill. The bill also allows for collective bargaining. Small media outlets could get together, with 5, 10 or 100 of them, if they want, to negotiate as a group with the big tech giants, because, of course, there is a power imbalance there. This bill is extremely important for those small media outlets. If we look at what happened in Australia, because they have a similar bill in place, proportionally, the small media outlets got more than the big ones.
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