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, this bill is important for our democracy, because the media are disappearing. Almost 500 newsrooms have disappeared across the country: big ones and small ones; in cities and small communities; and in English, French and indigenous languages. So many have disappeared.
That is why it is urgent to move forward. This bill has been studied in the House, in committee, in the Senate and in the Senate committee. It has come back here and it is time we move on, because too many newsrooms have closed their doors. We need a solid, independent, non-partisan news system in our country. We need the tech giants to contribute. That is why it is so important to pass this bill now.
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Madam Speaker, this is not about a power imbalance but the refusal of the legacy media to innovate. It is not up against links, as Facebook and Google do not advertise newspaper links; rather, it is up against Kijiji, Craigslist and, in Petawawa, even Jennifer Layman's Forward Thinking, where everyone in the valley goes to advertise or find a job.
What this is really about is preventing news from getting to the wider population through the end result of not having news links on Facebook or Google. This means that Canadians do not get all the news that is going on.
Why does the minister want to stifle the debate on the ability of Canadians to learn what is going on in their own country? What do the Liberals have to hide?
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Madam Speaker, history will remember the Conservatives as those who stood up for tech giants and forgot about all the media outlets in the different regions, including the regions they represent.
Small media outlets from everywhere across the country, including in their ridings, have been coming to tell us that they are disappearing. Our bill will help those media outlets to survive and thrive, whether in English, French, indigenous languages or other languages. We need those small and big traditional media outlets because they are here to ask the tough questions. The Conservatives hate that. They do not want those media outlets to come here and ask the tough questions.
Of course it is tough. Sometimes, it is not fun to answer the questions, but that is our job, and the Conservatives do not want to do it.
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Madam Speaker, this debate is important to my riding. I met with Terry Farrell from the Comox Valley Record and Peter McCulley from PQB News. They talked about the sense of urgency right now, because they cannot compete with Google, Facebook and so on. PQB News had to lay off Scott Stanfield, one of the top local reporters in the Comox Valley, who has covered really important and critical stories. Now it is short-staffed and does not have the capacity to cover as much as it would like to make sure that the people in our communities are well-informed and not at a disadvantage.
What we are seeing from Conservatives and finding out is that they are the gatekeepers for Google, Facebook and the big web giants.
Scott Stanfield has lost his job, and we know there are going to be more if we do not make sure that local media outlets can produce good local media in our communities. Can the minister speak about the sense of urgency to get this legislation passed, so local media outlets get the proper financial supports?
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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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Madam Speaker, I would never heckle personally.
However, the question from my colleague is extremely important. I really do not understand why the Conservatives from all those small communities are fighting this bill, which is there to help local media in their own communities. How can they do that? Why are they doing that? Only they can answer that.
We can only look at the pattern of how often they only side with tech giants, repeating their points, to understand part of the question. They are not there to support local media. They absolutely do not care, which is a shame. Therefore, we will stand up for them.
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Madam Speaker, that is a bit rich coming from a person who quotes the tech giants all the time. She has been using their speaking points from day one. We are there to support media in all communities. Also, if the member looks at the example of Australia, the system we are basing ourselves on—
Mrs. Rachael Thomas: Why don't not answer the question? Just answer the question.
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying, in Australia, looking at its results at the end of the day, when all the deals were concluded, proportionally small media got more money than any of the big media. That is a big example—
Mrs. Rachael Thomas: Oh, that is such a lie.
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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 would like to thank my colleague from Bow River because he is a staunch defender of small media outlets and the regional media, the local papers he talks about so passionately. He did a great job of defending them and representing them during the committee study.
Originally, long before Bill C-18 was tabled, the Bloc Québécois's idea was that we should create a royalty fund financed by the web giants' profits. That is not what the industry wanted, so the Bloc got behind the idea of a bill based on what Australia did. That is what the industry and the whole community wanted.
However, if there are smaller media outlets or outlets that are not eligible but are still essential to regional news coverage, then we should implement emergency measures to help them and support them financially. The fund I was talking about earlier could be added to a measure like Bill C‑18. It could target and clearly identify small media outlets, like the ones my colleague from Bow River was talking about, that will have a hard time of it because they cannot get ahead. Once the bill has been implemented, I think that there might be more of an appetite for that type of proposal.
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Mr. Speaker, a free and independent press is vital to our democracy. Last week, we learned that 1,300 families were affected by Bell's layoffs, while the online platforms and web giants benefit from access to the Canadian market, but have no responsibility towards our artists, creators and local Canadian media. That is another example of why we need Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 to make the web giants pay their fair share to our local media.
Can the Minister of Canadian Heritage tell the House how our government made a commitment to defend our democracy?
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Provencher.
As always, I recognize what a privilege it is to stand in the House of Commons and represent my community of Peterborough—Kawartha.
Today, we are debating Bill C-18 amendments that have been brought back from the Senate. It is known as the online news act. In a nutshell, this bill proposes to make big tech like Google and Facebook or Meta, as it is now known, pay when they share links from smaller independent legacy media. This bill is deeply flawed and, quite frankly, it is an absolute disaster.
I grew up just outside Peterborough, Ontario in a town called Douro. We had about three channels. As the youngest child, it was my job to be the human remote control. It was also my job to turn the dial for the aerial outside to make sure it was just right. Everyone at home who was a child of the eighties knows what I speak of. My favourite shows were the CHEX news, The Raccoons and The Beachcombers.
When I was nine we moved to the township of Otonabee and we got a satellite dish. It was a huge deal. If someone pressed a button, the giant satellite dish out in the yard moved with a remote control with hundreds of channels.
As technology has rapidly progressed, the customer has definitely taken more of a driver role. The customer says what they want, when they want and how they want it.
There are so many more options and it has increased competition, which has made it harder and harder to capture the attention of the customer. Local news will always be relevant. Local news will always be a priority because we need to know what is happening in our community. We want to know.
The landscape of how we consume media has drastically changed but our need to stay connected and informed has not. I worked at a local television station for 14 years and then I went on to start my own business in social media. I know the value of local media.
I also know the competition has dramatically impacted our legacy media and not necessarily in a positive way. I worked for CHEX television at that time and we always dreamed of having a satellite truck so that we could go live. Imagine doing live hits. We were a small-town news media but with a big following because people wanted to stay connected. Then along came this little guy and we could go live with our phones like that.
Bill C-18 is not going to help legacy media. It is going to hurt them. Bill C-18 is a subsidy program. It is not a support program and it will never work. It also opens a dangerous door for censorship and control. It is a terrible idea hidden behind a classic Liberal narrative of "We will protect you and we know what is best for you."
This morning I spoke with Jeff Dueck, who is the sales manager from My Broadcasting Corporation in Peterborough, Ontario. He has major concerns with this bill. He shared many of his concerns with me, but the one that struck me the most is when he told me that they do not want subsidies but they want an equal playing field.
Subsidies are the polar opposite to sustainability and they are a classic Liberal tactic. They create chaos and then offer a sliver of help and long-term dependence, rather than freedom and autonomy. Canadians have caught on and the trust is gone. Jeff went on to say this:
The inability of our Government and the CRTC to listen to us and modernize outdated policies is slowly killing our industry, and in doing so, putting Canadians at risk of losing access to valuable sources for local news and information from trusted media outlets. When major players make major changes, it affects us all and stigmatizes us as a “passe“ business model amongst the businesses that we count on for advertising revenues - but that's still far from the reality.
If people take anything from this, please listen to what I am about to say. The harsh reality of this bill is that despite its intention, it is actually going to do the exact opposite.
If I were at Google or Facebook and the government told Google or Facebook it had to pay to share the links of small legacy media, what motivation would I have to share it? I would have none, zip. I would not share it. That is what is going to happen. This methodology is literally the stick instead of the carrot.
The truth is that one of the very best ways to get news to more people is to have a bigger platform to share it. That is the exact thing one would want. Once a bigger platform shares one's content, they are then able to tap into a whole new audience. Once they have that audience they have the opportunity to promote their subscription or merchandise. It is literally the best way to grow their business and brand online.
Bill C-18 will destroy legacy media: it will no longer be seen because it will no longer be shared.
Andrew Coyne, a columnist at The Globe and Mail, said it well when he said:
The premise, that the problems of the newspaper industry can be traced to search and social-media platforms like Google or Facebook "stealing" their content, is utterly false. The platforms don't take our content. They link to it: a headline, sometimes a short snippet of text, nothing more. When users click on the links, they are taken to our sites, where they read our content. Much of the traffic on our sites, in fact, comes from social-media links, which is why we go to such lengths to encourage readers to post them - indeed, we post such links ourselves, hundreds of times a day.
Has anyone even begun to ask how in the world this would work administratively? Who, and how are the links going to be tracked? Who is billing? Is it the legacy media's job to be their own watchdog and submit a claim? I am not sure who has worked in a newsroom in this room, but I can tell you, nobody has time for that. We do not need another government-run program with more bureaucracy to create more backlogs.
This whole idea is bonkers. It is a distraction from the out-of-date and archaic mandates by the CRTC. The real problem here is there are a bunch of platforms that can play what they want. They have no rules and no restrictions. Then there are legacy media that are bound by the archaic shackles of the CRTC.
How about we let radio stations play the music they want? That would be a great start. Of course they will continue to promote our talented and diverse Canadian artists. How about we trust them to listen to the customer instead of holding them hostage?
Bill C-18 is a terrible bill. It will be the death of our legacy media. If members in this House want to support our journalists and artists then they need to vote this down. Seriously, if members do not believe me, they should pick up the phone and listen to the people on the front lines. They know this is a disaster.
Jen Gerson is the co-founder of The Line, an independent journalist. She was a witness at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in September 2022. She said that this bill:
...is predicated on a lie. The bill adopts a very ancient complaint of newspaper publishers that aggregation-based news websites and social media networks are unduly profiting by “publishing” our content. However, we know this isn't true. In fact, the value proposition runs in exactly the opposite direction. We publishers are the ones who benefit when a user posts a link to our content on Facebook, Twitter and the like. This free distribution drives traffic to our websites, which we can then try to monetize through subscriptions and advertising.
Legacy media does not need Liberal interference and control. They need the government to get out of the way, stop regulating how they do their jobs and let them do what they do best, which is to create content Canadians want to consume. If Canadians cannot see the content, what is the point in creating it? Let us make sure that legacy media's hard work pays off. Let us vote down Bill C-18.
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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, I want to thank my colleague, with whom I am fortunate to serve on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We have some great discussions there.
I too have worked in a newsroom and studied journalism. I am speaking on behalf of local media in my region, which want us to pass Bill C-18 because they want the web giants to pay their share. Whether it is La Voix de l'Est, the radio station M105, La Pensée de Bagot, Le Journal de Chambly, Granby Express or Le Val-Ouest, these local media, which contribute to the local economy and are part of our cultural community, are calling for it to pass.
I am not hearing from anyone at those media outlets about the administrative problems that my colleague just mentioned. All they want is for Bill C‑18 to pass. They need it. They are asking for it.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. She is wonderful to work with on the status of women committee. On the surface, if we just read the Coles Notes version, we would say we need help because they are drowning. The competitive market is destroying them. That is the reality. They have shackles on them.
This bill is not going to do what they think it is going to do. It is going to last maybe five years. It is going to put a bandaid on a bullet wound. Media needs access and the freedom to create content and to be innovative. This bill, as much as it sounds honourable, will not. We have quote after quote saying that.
Professor Dwayne Winseck of Carleton University said:
The media's money troubles are long-standing and this latest proposal is a bandaid on a bullet wound.... I just think the whole thing is a real dog's breakfast.... This bill is being saddled with expectations and being sold as a rescue package — that, I think, [is] really disingenuous.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned that, in her view, the government should not interfere with this free market that rules our media world, yet the message I am hearing from community media, like the local newspaper in my community, is that it wants this. It is struggling in the face of these big tech giants that are not going to tell the local stories in Smithers, Burns Lake, Fraser Lake and Prince Rupert. They are just not going to do that. Community media wants to find a viable way to ensure it has the business case to deliver those stories to the people who need to hear them. People came to me, met with me and said they want precisely what is delivered by this bill.
What would my colleague say to them if they came to her with that message?
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question. On the surface, I would sit down with them and tell them to read the bill. It is not going to give them what they think it will. They need help. Every small media company is literally drowning. If the government walks in and says it will give them money, they will say yes because they do not know how else they are going to keep their head afloat otherwise. The reality is they have to get innovative.
I am going to tell a quick story. I worked in a newsroom and we launched a live talk show. I went to the news director at the time and said we needed to ensure we were cutting these stories for the Internet, so we were putting them into two-minute-and-30-second pieces to post online. The boss looked at me and said, “Michelle, we are in the business of TV, not the Internet. We are not doing that.” That is the limitation that boss had. He has been fired and he did not make it. They have to be innovative, but they have to be given the environment to—
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Madam Speaker, I find myself standing on my feet in the House quite often, reciting the Conservative Party platform, which I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be doing. However, I will read to that member what he ran on in 2021.
He was knocking on doors, and this is what he was selling to people: “Canada’s Conservatives will: Introduce a digital media royalty framework to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook.” I am literally reading their party platform. This is what they ran on, and that is exactly what this bill is about.
I understand that Conservatives are abandoning their platform en masse, because they have already done the same thing on pricing pollution. Would the member like to inform the House of any other Conservative platforms that they are so rigidly against, but that they ran on under two years ago.
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Madam Speaker, that question requires a comprehensive answer, but I will try to make it brief.
The member raises a good point. How will these smaller platforms benefit from this legislation? It is going to be difficult, because embedded in this legislation is that the negotiations between these big tech giants and news media outlets are going to be done in secret. Therefore, the question remains of whether these small news generators in smaller communities will be able to afford to have the information they are producing clicked on or listed on the big media platforms. I think that the cost to these small media outlets is the big question this piece of legislation does not address.
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