44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
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, 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, we are already seeing the ramifications of this piece of legislation. There are many small online news outlets that are already being blocked by Facebook. For example, there is Pipeline Online in Saskatchewan. Its users are already getting a message saying that, in response to Canadian government legislation, Facebook is restricting the sharing and viewing of news content from pages connected to news outlets in Canada. What does the minister have to say about that?
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Madam Speaker, the minister has disingenuously stated that the bill is about helping local newspapers, when, in fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is a non-partisan figure of this place, has reported that with the bill, the tune of 75%, the funding would go toward CBC, Bell Media and Rogers. These are the three big broadcasters. I would ask the minister this. Does that sound like newspapers to him, because it sure does not to me?
To the point from the hon. member who went before me, for our local newspapers in ridings like Lethbridge, where we have towns like Picture Butte, Coaldale or Coalhurst that are trying to make a go of it with one journalist, the bill would leave them out in the cold. There are hundreds, if not thousands, across the country that are in a similar boat. Does that sound like supporting local news to the minister?
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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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Madam Speaker, when a journalist loses their job in a region like Côte-Nord, it is not just serious, it is tragic. The news that comes from community media or other small regional media outlets, which are often newsrooms run on a shoestring budget, is vital.
It is these news media outlets, which are often run by passionate people covering three or four jobs in the radio station or the small local newspaper, that transmit critical news to residents. If this service disappears because Google and Facebook act in bad faith and neglect these media outlets in negotiations or simply skip over them and ignore them under any pretext, such as a lack of money, something absolutely must be done. We need to be there to support them and help them survive.
It is not the size of the media outlet that is important, or the number of journalists in the newsroom. As I was saying, they too must be saved because they are essential. Whether there are one of them or 12, they provide a service to the public that must be maintained at all costs.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank and congratulate my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his speech. We certainly did work hard on Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage with the other committee members. In general, we worked in a very constructive manner. I really appreciated that.
In September, I had the privilege of attending Mondiacult, a world conference on culture, in Mexico City. While I was there, I met with representatives from African countries, who told me that they were keeping an eye on the work that we are doing here in the House of Commons to regulate the news sector and the cultural sector with respect to the web giants. They told us that they are watching us because they do not have the same weight as Canada in terms of negotiating deals and in taking measures. They told us to stay strong.
Now we are seeing Google and Facebook threatening to remove or block access to Canadian news content. That is what Meta recently did. I would like to hear my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby's opinion on this. How important is it to take a firm stance with the web giants, knowing that we are setting an example for other countries and other nations that will soon have to make their own laws?
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the clarion call the member for New Westminster—Burnaby has issued against the corporate gatekeeping that is present in places like Twitter, Facebook and Google. He talked about the misinformation, and we see that spill over into our politics. In the by-election in Portage—Lisgar, the biggest issue between the Conservatives and the PPC was the World Economic Forum. That is the height of intellectual debate in the Conservative movement right now in that riding because of misinformation.
This is a time when we do have to invest in our local media. I am always amazed at the difference between the conversations I see on Twitter and the ones I hear in real life when I am back in my riding speaking to real people. I think of news organizations like the Cowichan Valley Citizen, the Chemainus Valley Courier, the Lake Cowichan Gazette, the Goldstream News Gazette and Island Social Trends and the struggles they are all experiencing in reporting local news.
Could the member expand on how these local organizations are such a powerful antidote to that misinformation we see online?
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Madam Speaker, the federal government continues to support our community and news outlets in many different ways.
I guess that can be reversed. The member said he is concerned about the community news media outlets, yet even though Conservatives made an election platform promise, they reneged on that commitment.
At the end of the day, we have not only shown budgetary measures to support media outlets, but we have now also provided legislative outlets.
As the NDP House leader has very clearly indicated, whether with respect to the Saskatchewan or Alberta community newspapers, the New Democrats support this legislation.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to answer the member opposite by saying that yes, I have worked in newsrooms. For more than 20 years I worked in newsrooms.
I also sit on the heritage committee. I know that this legislation is possible because it is already working in a similar form in Australia, supporting small local news outlets in Australia.
Bill C-18 creates a framework so that news organizations have the power to negotiate with big tech. There is no money coming from government. There is no money going to government. In what world could one call that a subsidy?
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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, 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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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 why this legislation is before the House. It is here specifically for the purpose of trying to give those resources to those news organizations. In my speech, I spent five minutes describing a set of conditions yesterday that led to a wild spread of misinformation. We need this legislation to help combat that kind of stuff.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite, who sits on the Canadian heritage committee with me.
She alluded in her speech to the fact that Facebook and Google will block Canadians from being able to share news links. We know that originally in Australia, the same thing was tried, but Australia granted them an exemption and worked with Facebook and Google to make sure citizens were not going to be blocked. Why did the government not do the same?
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Uqaqtittiji, I will ask the member a question that she did not really talk about and that not enough members talked about regarding Bill C-18. What I like about this bill is that the support provisions will provide for indigenous production. I wonder if she could help describe why Bill C-18 would be important for indigenous news outlets.
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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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Madam Speaker, for the past few years, Google and Facebook alone have been gobbling up 80% of the advertising revenue in Canada that used to go to small regional weeklies, small community radio stations like the ones in my riding, and small community television stations, which I have in my riding as well. That money is no longer going to the regions, small weeklies or small news producers, it is going to large international billionaire conglomerates.
I really cannot understand how the Conservatives can rise in the House today and defend these billionaires, who are going to continue to make billions if we do not legislate to stop them. We have to work for our journalists, our weeklies, the people in our regions who produce news for local residents. I really cannot understand how the Conservatives can stand up and do this.
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