44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/20/23 4:05:51 p.m.
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I am now ready to rule on the question of privilege raised on June 15, by the member for Calgary Nose Hill regarding the government’s answer to written Question No. 974.
In raising the question of privilege, the member for Calgary Nose Hill argued that the government had deliberately provided an incomplete answer to her written Question No. 974. The member stated that she had received, through an access to information request, a copy of emails showing that public servants had prepared the answer while limiting it to generalities and openly stating among themselves that the answer did not need to address every aspect of the question. She further noted that the public servants had analyzed the risks of a potential Speaker’s ruling in determining what kind of response to provide. According to the member, this situation amounts to a breach of her rights and privileges to obtain complete information from the government.
The members for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, Lakeland, and Saskatoon West also rose to echo the member’s statement, while noting that their own written questions had met the same fate.
In response, the deputy government whip pointed out that the member had obtained an answer within the prescribed time frame. She said that the decision of February 2, 2023, showed that the Chair cannot review the content of answers to written questions. She added that Question No. 974 asked for secret information and that, on that basis, the government was within its rights to provide a response that appeared incomplete. In her view, the matter does not constitute a prima facie question of privilege.
As for the member for Calgary Nose Hill, she acknowledged that the Chair had issued a ruling on the same written question on February 2, 2023. However, in her view, the new information obtained through her access to information request justified further action by the Chair. I agree with the hon. member on this point.
On September 27, 2016, my predecessor rightly remarked, on page 5176 of the Debates:
Access to information, accurate information, is one of the cornerstones of our parliamentary system. Members must be able to rely on it at all times. The integrity of many of our procedures, especially those relating to written questions, rests on the rightful expectation that ministers and the public servants who support them understand the value and utility of providing, not simply technically accurate, but also complete and transparent, answers in the written responses that they provide to members of the House.
Ministers and their officials are expected to provide members with the most accurate answers possible to written questions, regardless of their name, reputation or political affiliation. Written questions and the responses to them are essential parts of the process of accountability. Consequently, they are central to our parliamentary system.
However, in seeking a decision on this matter, the member for Calgary Nose Hill asked the Chair to rule not on the quality of the answer but on departments' internal processes for preparing responses to written questions.
On April 3, 2014, one of my predecessors ruled that this was beyond the powers of the Chair. Allow me to quote from page 4208 of the Debates:
Regardless of whether the department's internal processes on written questions have changed or not, it remains beyond the role of the Chair to undertake an investigation into any such matter or to render any judgment on it.
The Chair's powers therefore seem to be limited. In the case before us, I must conclude that there is no prima facie question of privilege.
However, the Chair would like to note that it finds the remarks of public servants reported by the member very troubling. I am especially troubled by the comments from the public servants to the effect that the Chair could not intervene in case of a point of order and that this could justify an incomplete response.
It is true that, based on many precedents, the Chair does not judge the quality of responses, and the reasons for that fact are understandable. However, my predecessors and I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of providing members with the information they need to do their work properly.
There may be legitimate reasons not to provide certain information in answers to written questions. In the present case, the government invoked the confidentiality of international relations and trade negotiations. Still, the Chair has noticed that members are questioning more and more the quality of answers to their questions.
There was a time when members complained about how long it took to receive a response, which led to the requirement of answers being provided within 45 days and the referral of late answers to committee. The time may have come for the House to consider how it wishes to deal with the issue of incomplete answers.
In the meantime, the Chair encourages ministers to find the right words to inspire their officials to invest their time and energy in preparing high-quality responses rather than looking for reasons to avoid answering written questions.
I thank the members for their attention.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity again to address Bill C-18 in the House.
I am pleased that the Senate has exercised its judgment as the place of sober second thought and sent this legislation back to the House for further work.
Right off the top, I will say that there are three areas where all members of the House are in agreement. First, we all agree that there should be some mechanism whereby tech giants are taxed, and that we do so in a way that does not negatively affect Canadian consumers. Second, we all agree that there must be some mechanism in place to deal with online misinformation and disinformation. At every one of our offices, we deal with this issue on a daily basis. Third, we all agree that we must create a framework to regulate AI or artificial intelligence.
We agree on these three principles. The issue, as is usually the case in the House, is how we go about doing that.
How do we make tech giants pay their fair share? How do we regulate information online and, perhaps more pertinent to our conversation today, particularly in light of the events of the past three years, who determines what is misinformation? How do we differentiate between fact and opinion?
In our postmodern world, or what some have called a post-truth world or a world where truth has become a relative or entirely subjective concept, how do we, as governments and media, differentiate and adjudicate between truly evidence-based information versus that which is driven by ideology and political expediency? Finally, how do we even begin to deal with the challenges posed by artificial intelligence?
In the Bible, we have the story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have the story of the Tower of Babel, where people believed that by building a tower to heaven, by storming God’s dominion, they could themselves become God. We have heard the story of Pandora’s box, or jar if we want to be exact, and the story of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.
Almost every ancient civilization has some story of humanity receiving or taking knowledge from the gods, knowledge they were not ready for, that they were ill-equipped to handle and that ultimately leads to chaos.
With the advent of the technological revolution and, in particular, artificial intelligence, humanity has come full circle to a truly frightening reality. It is good that we are beginning to address these important issues. It is good that we are at least largely agreed on what those issues are.
Unfortunately, as is always the case with the government, the flaw is in the details. There is a reason that the Senate sent this back. It could have chosen to just approve it. It sent it back and that is because this legislation, like its sister legislation Bill C-11, is deeply flawed.
Conservatives maintain that the government has misled Canadians about what the true objectives of Bill C-11 are. In short, it gives the government the ability to control what people see and post online. That is why Conservatives have committed to repealing it. I suspect that we will do likewise after Bill C-18 has been passed, and we are sitting on the other side of the House.
Like Bill C-11, at first look, the legislation looks fine and prudent, but then one starts to dig a little deeper. The flaw is in the details. One of those first pesky details is the issue of accountability. The government says that tech giants need to be more transparent and accountable to Canadians, which is the pot speaking to the kettle.
I agree. I am pretty sure my colleagues agree with this statement. Tech giants, like all multinational, plutocratic entities, do need to be held accountable. If they wish to operate within the jurisdiction of a country, those individual nation states must find a way to temper the unprecedented power, influence and wealth these entities have amassed.
When it comes to transparency and accountability, the government has very limited credibility. How the government can have the audacity to tell anyone they need to be more accountable and transparent shows its utter lack of self-awareness and the level of narcissism we are dealing with here because there has never been a government that has been so secretive. This government has so actively shunned accountability.
When, in the long line of scandals and failures of the Prime Minister and his ministers, has even one of them ever taken responsibility? I think the record clearly shows that the answer to that question is never. I could stand here and, one by one, list the scandals and failures of this government, but we would be here all night, and I know we have other work do get done here.
There is always an excuse, always someone else to blame. The government never takes responsibility. No minister has ever been held accountable. Actually, that is not quite true. We may remember that the Prime Minister did fire a minister. What did she do? Did she fail to execute the basic functions of government? Did she create chaos in her department? Did she misappropriate funds? Did she lie about a matter of national security? No, she did not. Her crime was that she tried to hold the Prime Minister accountable. She was the first indigenous woman to be minister of justice and attorney general, and the Prime Minister fired her because she refused to be party to his misdeeds or to capitulate to his unlawful demands.
When it comes to accountability, the Liberals have no credibility. Therefore, how can Canadians trust the Liberal government to enforce the very thing that the government itself refuses to do? That same statement from the heritage minister’s office states, “Canadians need to have access to quality, fact-based news at the local and national levels, and that's why we introduced the Online News Act.” I agree with that sentiment. The problem is that it is really difficult to take the government at its word when it has spent the past seven and a half years subsidizing media outlets that are friendly to it, intentionally parrot government talking points as “facts” and brand everything else as “misinformation”.
The Liberals gave legacy Liberal media $650 million and continue to fund the CBC to the tune of $1.24 billion per year. Why do they need to do this? First, it is to buy positive coverage, and they have gotten excellent bang for their buck. There is always a cost-benefit analysis, and the benefit seems to have been worth the cost of taxpayers' dollars. Second, they have done so because those friendly outlets are dying. They are trying to prop up a dying industry.
With the exception of a brief renaissance during COVID, when flush with Liberal government dollars, the media spouted government talking points and spread fear and division among Canadians. They have ceased to be relevant. We can bemoan that fact all we want, but I would ask, as I believe my colleagues have adequately done, what members' primary source for their news and entertainment is? Chances are that it is something online. I think this is really at the heart of the issue. I would pose this question to the government: What is a better indicator of what people actually believe, what they say or what they do? I would argue that it is what they do.
In the same way as the government’s track record, its behaviour has shown that it does not really believe in accountability. It also does not care about what the media prints or posts as long as it is favourable to the government. However, Canadian consumers have also spoken by their behaviour. If we were to ask a group of Canadians to define “Canadian content”, it would be difficult to get consensus. The platforms that Canadians subscribe to, the shows they watch and the content they consume would probably not be considered Canadian content by all Canadians.
Maybe listening to Canadians rather than dictating to them what the government wants them to see as Canadian content would poise the government to better serve Canadians. If we were to ask a group of Canadians how important Canadian content in media is, I suspect about half would say it is important. If we were to ask that same group how much Canadian content they actually consume, what platforms they subscribe to and what shows they watch, the answer would most likely be pretty different.
Perhaps, for once, rather than dictating to Canadians, the government that supposedly represents their interests ought to take the novel approach of listening to them. While it is listening, it should ask them what they think about the carbon tax, the cost of living, this so-called green and woke agenda, their media priorities and whether they feel safe on the streets. This is Conservatism 101. The market is the best indicator of what Canadian people want, because it is driven by Canadian people. Rather than accept this reality, the government that thinks it knows better than Canadians how to spend their money, consistently pushes back against the market to achieve its own ideological purposes.
At the end of the day, the market determines the viability of a product, including media, so we need to address these issues. Conservatives agree with that, but the weaknesses of this legislation are secondary to the sad reality that the government lacks credibility. It is a serial offender, guilty of doing the very things it claims this legislation would address.
Only a new, Conservative government would be able to address these important issues, and we will address them head-on—
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Madam Speaker, I am returning after the hour of PMB. I would like to thank my colleague from Niagara West for presenting that piece of legislation to the House. I would also like to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies.
I left off saying that, for many reasons, I am very concerned about the direction of Bill C-18, for the reason that it would create risks to the independence of the press. My conclusion from all the items I listed prior to coming to that conclusion was a larger conclusion, which is that the government likes to control everything.
I gave some examples that were provided to me through different media sources, and I will continue some of those examples now. This is very interesting commentary that Canadians have left on the Substack of Michael Geist, and these comments include the following: “I wonder if the Liberals view C18 as a win-win situation. If Google and Facebook pay then the media will be more likely to support the Liberals in the next election.”
We have seen this happen before, of course, where the Liberals pay the media and then it feels compelled to report positively on the government of the day. In fact, we just heard the deputy House leader make reference to an article. We know, not off the top, if this journalist would have been subject to this type of situation, whereby they felt compelled to print something positive about the government of the day.
Another comment reads:
The potential consequences of this bill are deeply concerning. Even its supporters acknowledge the serious flaws that could lead to significant losses for Canadian media, including lost links and deals. The fact that the government is willing to silence criticism from local media organizations raises alarm bells about the lack of accountability and transparency surrounding this legislation.
This is similar to what we saw with Bill C-11. The comment goes on:
If passed as it stands, it could result in reduced access to news for Canadians and diminished revenues for Canadian news organizations. It is crucial that we address these issues and strive for a balanced solution that supports the sustainability of Canadian media while preserving the public’s right to information.
Another comment off the Substack of Michael Geist, who has been a strong commentator on the negative aspects of Bill C-18, is from a Canadian named Brian, who writes:
Haha. The driving of the final nail into the Canadian news media coffin has begun. Once the referrals to news sites from social media and web searches stops, so will the traffic to those sites stop and so will the advertising revenue they enjoy from that traffic. The last revenue stream for those news organizations will dry up faster than a puddle of water in the Sahara desert.
Michael Geist himself makes a comment, which is really damning, on the government cutting off debate, which is nothing new for us. Unfortunately, we have experienced time allocation several times in the House. He says, “The government cut off debate at second reading, actively excluded dozens of potential witnesses”; this is pretty par for the course as well. It “expanded the bill to hundreds of broadcasters that may not even produce news,” which is interesting considering that they accuse us over here of providing misinformation. It “denigrated online news services as ‘not real news’, and shrugged off violations of international copyright law.” This is a larger problem altogether.
In fact, I believe it was the member for Hamilton Mountain who said the quiet part out loud in committee by claiming that online news outlets were not news. That is news to me. After apologizing, she never spoke up again at committee, but she chose not to maintain her silence in the House today.
DB writes, “After Bill C11 and C18 why should anyone trust this government? It's clear they value the interests of media organizations over the interests of Canadians.” That is my point, as I go to close here. The Liberal government wants to control everything. It wants to control our democratic systems, as we have seen with its hesitancy to do anything about the situation regarding foreign interference and call a public inquiry. It wants to control the cycle of our economy, keeping Canadians in poverty with higher taxation but giving back tiny bits. It wants to control our day care systems, in terms of providing no solutions for different types of families and taking away work from female entrepreneurs.
The good news is, in the member for Carleton, we will have a prime minister that will allow for freedom, and we will see all these things go the way of the dodo bird.
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