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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
Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)
  • Jun/20/23 10:08:11 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, entitled “The State of Canada’s Access to Information System”. While I am on my feet, I want to thank the members who participated in this report and the witnesses. I also want to thank Nancy Vohl, the clerk, and the analysts, Sabrina Charland and Alexandra Savoie, for their work on this. I hope this report reflects the seriousness of the current state of the access to information system. The recommendations in this report are meant and designed to fix what is a broken system.
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Context: House Hansard - 217 - Jun/20/23
Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)
  • Jun/20/23 4:51:50 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-18 
Madam Speaker, as much as I am tempted to ask my hon. colleague what those solutions are now, and I am sure Canadians probably want to know what they are now, I digress, because I am not quite certain. As the member is reluctant to give them today, I hope he may provide them to everyone here in writing. I want to make a quick differentiation about something that, for a long time, New Democrats have called for; this is the difference between the needs and the wants of Canadians. The member speaks directly to the market. As a matter of fact, we need to ensure that a market is well-balanced to ensure that the things Canadians actually need to obtain to live, such as food, water, homes and, in this case, good information, are actually available to them. The member did not speak directly to the concern that I think is important in this legislation, which is why I think we can probably agree that there needs to be a process ensuring that our small businesses, particularly news outlets in small rural communities, can actually get the information they are working for produced on to the websites people are seeing the news on. This is important for small communities, because people are doing the work. They are doing the journalism in their communities to talk about the good work happening, whether it is in Edson, Drayton Valley or Fishing Lake, so that when people go to the news, they can actually have access to it. Right now, these companies are saying that they will not, and they are benefiting to the tune of nearly $10 billion. Could the member speak to how important it is to balance those two?
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