Senator Miville-Dechêne: I rise to speak at third reading of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act.

Many things have been said about this bill over the months — before, during and after the review in committee. To some, Bill C-11 is absolutely necessary and should have been passed without amendment several months ago. To others, this is machiavellian legislation that jeopardizes the rights and freedoms of Canadians. I’d like to state from the outset what this bill does and what it doesn’t do.

[English]

First, the bill does not censor or restrict Canadians’ freedom of expression in any way. Once the bill is passed, all Canadian residents will continue to publish and consume all the cultural content they want, just as before. Whatever is available today will continue to be there. Anything you want to publish today can be published tomorrow. As such, nothing changes. With all due respect, those who denounce Bill C-11 as an evil act of censorship and infringement on our rights and freedoms are out to lunch.

What Bill C-11 does seek to do, however, is offer some support to our creators and, in particular, to Canadian creators in a minority situation. This support takes two forms: money and increased visibility. Under the bill, the major streaming platforms will have to contribute financially to Canadian culture and they will have to promote and recommend the works of our creators.

[Translation]

This bill is especially important to me as a Quebecer and particularly as a francophone because French is a minority language in a cultural ecosystem where discovery occurs first and foremost on foreign platforms where English is the dominant language.

Let’s be clear. Bill C-11 won’t provide a miracle solution. However, this bill with its rather imperfect regulatory tools constitutes a first step toward giving our creators a chance to make a name for themselves in the flood of global content.

Many unknowns remain, even after a lengthy study in committee. What specific criteria will determine what constitutes Canadian content? How will the visibility of Canadian content be measured? How can we promote Canadian content without making undue changes to the user experience? What does the word “discoverability” even mean? It is rather central to this bill, but it has yet to be defined. It will be up to the CRTC to answer these complex questions, which some people say will just open a can of worms.

Since Bill C-11 was introduced, some critics have found that the discoverability measures in particular constitute an inexcusable violation of consumer preferences and platform algorithms. I don’t see it that way. The market is not a god, and even in the internet age, it is still appropriate for countries to support their culture and defend their cultural sovereignty.

Despite the limitations of Bill C-11, I believe it is essential that Canada deploy legislative and regulatory tools to support its film, music and digital works in the context of globalization. Historically, Canada has taken the necessary steps to ensure that its cultures — particularly its minority cultures — have a voice, exist and are known and appreciated. Of course, with the evolution of technological platforms, it makes sense that our means of intervention should adapt, but the political and cultural imperative remains. Canadian culture, particularly minority and francophone culture, is not a commodity like any other.

I note, however, that Bill C-11 has shone a light on a generational conflict that we must consider. In Quebec in particular, nostalgic people praise the 65% francophone music quota on Quebec radio, which certainly allowed several generations, like mine, to get to know Quebec classics such as Robert Charlebois, Beau Dommage and Harmonium. However, younger people don’t listen to much radio or watch much TV anymore. They are on Spotify or YouTube and they value that freedom, which has increased their listening possibilities tenfold and opened new markets. These are real benefits that no one, even older people, would want to do without now.

The trade-off, however, is that young Quebecers no longer know their local artists, they listen to them less and less, so I’m worried about the sustainability of my culture.

This is a sensitive but crucial issue. We have to strike a balance between wanting to expose users to new Canadian cultural content while protecting their freedom and media consumption experience. I admit that is a major challenge.

In terms of legislation, the internet is still a new subject area that raises a number of issues. Bill C-11 is a first attempt at legislating in favour of Canadian culture, but it is certainly not the end of the line. There are bound to be mistakes and adjustments that have to be made as platforms evolve. This bill actually gives the CRTC a lot of flexibility.

As the committee wrapped up its study, some were still questioning the validity of Bill C-11, but what’s the alternative? I think the status quo isn’t viable for our creators, especially francophone creators. It is magical thinking to believe that market forces will miraculously enable Canada’s francophone creators to survive and have an impact despite being a drop in the ocean. Right now, that francophone content is being drowned out.

When singer David Bussières appeared before the committee, he neatly summed up the situation as follows:

 . . . the longer it takes, the greater the hegemonic effect of the Big Tech oligopoly in distancing audiences from local content. Our cultural identity is ultimately at stake, with all its diversity . . . and the fact that it is home to the only francophone communities in America.

During the study in committee, the senators from the Independent Senators Group, of which I am a member, got the 18 amendments that they moved adopted. Some of those were major amendments.

In my opinion, the most important amendment, which was prepared in cooperation with Senator Paula Simons, strikes to the heart of the debates on Bill C-11, namely, the scope of the exception for content generated by social media users.

The adopted amendment curbs the CRTC’s discretionary power and basically limits the bill’s application to professional music content. This further guarantees that YouTubers will not be targeted by Bill C-11, even if they generate revenue. This amendment also recognizes the fact that the world of cultural creation has changed. Individual creators have flooded social media with special content. They aren’t subsidized. They don’t have money. They manage on their own and they use their own business model. Our amendment helps to better maintain their autonomy.

I personally moved two other amendments, which were adopted. The first was in keeping with the recommendation of the Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, who was of the opinion that Bill C-11 should better respect consumers’ and creators’ right to privacy. That is a significant addition given the considerable exchange of personal information resulting from the regulations.

The other amendment is the result of my long-standing commitment to protecting children from exposure to online pornography — or what is called adult content, which is regularly consumed by millions of children around the world — which causes obvious harm. The objective of Bill C-11 is to give the CRTC the power to regulate online platforms in the same way that it can regulate traditional broadcasters. The CRTC already has the ability to regulate access to sexually explicit content in traditional broadcasting, through cable or satellite, and my amendment only transfers that ability to online content.

The amendment reads as follows:

 . . . online undertakings shall implement methods, such as age-verification methods, to prevent children from accessing programs on the Internet that are devoted to depicting, for a sexual purpose, explicit sexual activity;

This is simply a statement of principle. The regulations and consultations should be carried out before these age verifications go into effect. The objective is simple. We will apply to the internet precautions that exist in the physical world to protect children from adult content.

[English]

I will conclude with a few words about algorithms, which were discussed at length during our committee hearings. These algorithms are, in a way, the secret sauce that determines what content is recommended and put forward for a given user. I say “secret sauce,” because we know almost nothing about these formulas which are closely guarded by the platforms. These algorithms incorporate several variables and data with the goal of attracting and retaining users for as long as possible. Yet, for some, these algorithms are not only confidential but sacrosanct — any attempt to intervene in favour of Canadian content thus constitutes a form of crime against the free market.

Here is what Brock University Professor Blayne Haggart told the committee about algorithms:

Algorithms become one of those magic and scary words that intimidate people, but all they really are is a set of rules that are repeated over and over again. . . . It is a form of regulation.

These privatized discoverability regulations are not designed simply to surface the most popular content or the content that you, the viewer, or reader, are most interested in. These companies do not just tell us what content is popular; they define what popular means. They already create winners and losers and they define popular to fit their own interests, however they decide to define them.

Personally, between private and opaque discoverability rules and public and transparent discoverability norms, I prefer the latter. That being said, I have no doubt that the platforms will adapt intelligently to the new requirements, and that they will continue to offer their Canadian users the content they like and are looking for, in addition to showcasing our creators.

Of course, this is not about censoring anything, or limiting access or distribution of any content. And it’s certainly not about destroying the engaging, modern platforms that we all use every day. It is about updating our means to implement our essential cultural policy. I simply do not see why a country like Canada should accept that private, foreign platforms be the only ones to decide what priority to give to Canadian, Quebec and Indigenous culture.

Adapting our policies and laws to the evolution of technology is not easy. Acting always involves risks. It is always easier to wait or to do nothing. But in this case, as in others, I believe that inaction would be fatal, and that boldness is necessary.

[Translation]

In conclusion, I will resolutely vote in favour of Bill C-11. Thank you.

[English]

Senator Housakos: Senator Dawson, will you agree that at that same study we had at committee, the former chair of the CRTC, when he came before the committee, made it clear he has authority under the old Broadcasting Act and the current piece of legislation to force platforms to manipulate algorithms in order to get certain results when it comes to user-generated content? Is that true?

Senator Dawson: I don’t want to repeat what we did during the two-and-a-half years that we have been debating this issue in which people have been trying a little bit of fear-mongering by saying, “We are going to take away the right of people to create, and the right of people to express themselves.” This is not the objective of the bill. It never was. I don’t know how many times we have to tell you, Senator Housakos, that is not going to — I am trying to be creative, and — I know there was a strong political objective on your part — and everybody here knows that it was a very good fundraising period for you to go on television and talk about this bill — but the reality is that you have been raising issues that are not true for Canadians in that bill. I am sad to have to say that, in the last few weeks of being here, it is the first time I have seen you in such an approach — because you have always been quite transparent on what you do — but, on this bill, I don’t know why you decided to be very aggressive. As chair of the committee, you certainly did not — and we accepted every person you asked us to listen to. We accepted every digital creator that you put on our list. Every single last one of them came to committee, and we kept telling them, “Somebody told you this, but it is not true; you are not going to be controlled by this bill.” You can continue saying it again, but it is still not going to be true because you will repeat it in your speech later in the week.

Senator Simons: With respect, Senator Housakos, I don’t think there is a wide latitude. There was in the bill that came to us, but I think, as amended — and I am grateful that you supported the amendment — it is pretty clear. It includes only, at the discretion of the CRTC, pieces of professionally recorded and released music that have that unique international identifier number and things that have been previously broadcast on conventional broadcasting. It is crystal clear at this point, I think, that it absolutely does not include social media users.

More to this point, this amendment doesn’t speak to social media users. This amendment, as I read it, would in no way capture a mom who puts her skateboarding adventures on TikTok, or a comedian who posts his stuff to Twitter, because those platforms make way more than $10 million. This amendment wouldn’t help the people who you are trying to help, whereas the bill, as currently amended, does.

That said, I think it is important that we say on the record that there is a remaining concern about streaming services, because the thresholds were never supposed to be about people giving cooking tips on YouTube. They were supposed to be about how we deal with ethnocultural streaming services that fall below the threshold of the big companies.

[Translation]