Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Welcome, minister.

A recent documentary entitled Essentiels really resonated in Quebec. It is about temporary foreign workers who work hard to harvest our fruits and vegetables, and who are essential to our farmers. It shows migrant workers to whom the Canadian government has issued closed work permits, which don’t allow them to change employers. These captive workers often find themselves at the mercy of unscrupulous employers, who are in a position to abuse their workers.

As minister, you have the power to change the regulations and issue open work permits that would let workers change employers and provide a path to permanent residency. Why not do that? This is about human rights.

[English]

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Certainly.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Would Senator Miville-Dechêne take a question?

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Yes.

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Australia certainly isn’t a perfect model, but we noticed that journalists were hired there after the secret agreements that Google and Facebook unfortunately reached with media outlets. We also noticed that, according to some sources, larger media organizations have more money than small ones but that small community media organizations received some money.

As for the Uber that gets you to the restaurant, I tend to agree with Senator Harder because I’m not convinced that’s a good analogy for what’s really happening. There is an exchange, but we don’t really know if the value of journalism to these platforms is equal or unequal to the value journalists derive from being broadcast on these platforms.

[English]

Senator Miville-Dechêne: In a nutshell, we don’t know the value of this content shared on the internet.

As we speak, a lot of private deals are being struck between Google and certain Canadian media outlets. We don’t know the value of these contracts, but we do know that Google, faced with the “threat” of the coming law, is making deals with the media. The fact that Google is doing this means that it sees value in doing it. In our capitalist world, few private companies make deals if they don’t feel the need to do so.

In a way, the platforms are admitting that this journalistic content has value. Based on the rumours we’ve heard, we know that most of the agreements currently require the payment of 30% of the cost pertaining to journalists, based on the number of journalists on staff.

Still, you’re quite right in saying that there is too little transparency in this bill and a lot of unknowns. At some point, the hammer will fall. The government will want to know how many agreements there are and will wonder if that is enough for the law not to apply, as was the case in Australia. Then there will be a race because Google does not want legislation, does not want arbitration and does not want agreements to be imposed either. The government is betting on the platforms — and Facebook does not seem to be doing this — signing agreements before the law goes into force, because that way, the law will not apply. That is what the Government of Australia and the Government of Canada are betting on.