Senator Dagenais: Obviously I need to remind you that Minister Mélanie Joly publicly said that she was working on a plan to punish the street gangs that are terrorizing Haiti. Allow me to be skeptical and say that it will do nothing but create false hope within the Haitian diaspora in Montreal if Canada claims to be able to do elsewhere what the government can’t do here at home. Could the Prime Minister please come up with a logical, effective strategy to curb gun trafficking at the border between Canada and the United States?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): This government is not above the law. That’s not what Canada stands for — no government and no member should presume to be, and is not.

I don’t know how many people stayed in how many rooms in what hotels. It’s appropriate that Canada sent a large delegation to honour the late Queen Elizabeth II. I don’t know, Senator Plett, when the last time was that you tried to rent a good hotel room in London. I would love to be able to go to London more frequently. It’s a frightfully expensive city, and, to some very large degree, the cost of living in London is surely reflected in all aspects of the cost of being there as part of the Canadian delegation.

But without further information about the number of people and the length of their stay, it really is inappropriate to draw any conclusions, nefarious or otherwise, from the aggregate bill that Canada assumed to pay honour to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Dawson, seconded by the Honourable Senator Bovey, for the second reading of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Some Hon. Senators: Yes.

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, as I begin my remarks on Bill C-11, I’ll probably surprise many of you by agreeing with the bill’s sponsor, Senator Dawson, that the Broadcasting Act is absolutely in need of modernization. And we must do so, to quote Senator Dawson:

. . . in a way that appropriately considers the technological realities, business models and dynamics at play in the current Canadian broadcasting system.

Furthermore — and this is where Senator Dawson makes an extremely important point:

The law needs to establish an updated regulatory framework with clear guidance, the necessary tools and the flexibility needed to maintain its relevance.

Colleagues, that is pretty much where Senator Dawson and I part ways on Bill C-11.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this legislation is its scope. The government and the bureaucrats who wrote this bill have wrongly treated the internet as a form of broadcasting. While there are streaming platforms that behave like broadcasters and should certainly be brought into our regulatory framework as such, this bill goes beyond that.

Vivek Krishnamurthy, Director of Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, explained the difference during our pre‑study this way:

The first is spectrum scarcity. There is only so much electromagnetic spectrum available for linear broadcasting or bandwidth on a traditional cable connection, so certain kinds of restrictions on content are more justifiable in a broadcasting context than an internet or print context.

He goes on to point out that there’s no spectrum scarcity in the online world and that an individual can watch as many cat videos as they want on the platform without affecting the ability of other people to see content online. Mr. Krishnamurthy takes exception to the breadth of the definition of “broadcasting” in the proposed legislation coupled with the existing legislation, saying that, “Taken together, these two provisions seek to regulate practically all audiovisual content distribution on the internet.”

I quote Mr. Krishnamurthy where he says:

We shouldn’t be enacting laws that seek to sweep so much content into a regulatory scheme. Surely there are problems with internet content distribution, but those require a different kind of response. We shouldn’t just say that everything is in except for these few things that are out.

Let’s look at the exceptions in proposed section 4. I’ve been a lawyer for the better part of 15 years and this section is about the most confusing thing I’ve ever encountered.

So while I agree with what Senator Dawson says the law needs to do, the problem is that, as written, that is not what the law would do, no matter how many times he and the government says it will — just like it doesn’t matter how many times they say this bill will give more access to and remove barriers for unrepresented artists and creators in Canada or how many times they claim this bill and the regulations that come with it won’t capture digital creators and user-generated content.

In fact, allow me to quote an important exchange that occurred between our very own Senator Wallin and the Chairperson of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, Mr. Ian Scott, when he appeared before our committee this past June. Remember, it is the CRTC that will be left to interpret and apply this legislation.

Senator Wallin said to the CRTC chair, Mr. Scott:

I think we’re going to have to revisit the issue of user-generated content one more time. I know that you, the minister and other officials insist that you’re not regulating user-generated content, but I think there’s a bit of parsing the words. You will regulate the platforms, and then the platforms will impose your rulings and directives, as you said. You won’t manipulate the algorithms; you will make the platforms do it. That is regulation by another name. You’re regulating either directly and explicitly or indirectly, but you are regulating content.

Mr. Scott’s response to Senator Wallin’s question was, “You’re right.” So while the language of the bill is ambiguous at best, the position of the CRTC chair on this matter is quite clear and unequivocal. This has been an absolutely pivotal issue as supporters of the bill attempt to defend the provision in the legislation that clearly has a much broader implication than they want us to believe.

It hasn’t escaped my attention during our committee pre-study that witnesses, and even some of my colleagues who are taking the government’s word that user-generated content will not be captured, spent an awful lot of time pushing back on witnesses who have testified as to the negative impacts that would be felt by digital creators if user-generated content is included.

Meanwhile, the government’s insistence that there’s nothing to see here and that we should just trust them is having the opposite of the desired effect, including the swift passage of this bill.

While I agree that the Broadcasting Act is in desperate need of modernization, and I appreciate the principle that we shouldn’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I’ve yet to see justification for pushing through this bill without taking the opportunity to make it better. It is our duty as the chamber of sober second thought to do just that. I sympathize with stakeholders who feel they’ve waited long enough and have been worn down to the point that they believe this is as good as it’s going to get, but the government has no one but itself to blame for not prioritizing this and for digging in its heels on matters outside the scope of the act.

The truth is that while the impact of this bill on digital creators, user-generated content and algorithm manipulation has been taking up a lot of space here in the Senate, the opposite was true during the House of Commons Heritage Committee study in which few digital creators were given the opportunity to appear and those who did were often bullied and berated by government MPs on the committee. We’ve heard from several digital creators who appeared before our committee here in the Senate how thankful they are, not only for the opportunity to be heard but also for the dignity with which they were treated. I want to thank all of the members on our committee for that on both sides of the chamber; it is a testament to each and every one of you.

The truth is, colleagues, the study of this bill would likely be playing out very differently if not for the eleventh-hour inclusion of user-generated content in this legislation’s predecessor bill, Bill C-10. It is playing out this way because of the government’s almost hysterical refusal ever since to clearly remove it. Despite having time to address this issue when Parliament was prorogued and for several months after, the troublesome inclusion of user‑generated content remains there in black and white. The government tells us that section 4.1 excludes user-generated content from regulation. However, what they don’t tell you — and you can clearly see by reading it yourself — the very next clause goes on to put it right back in by including exceptions to the exemption. It’s a double negative, so to speak, and one that makes clear that user-generated content is in the bill.

It’s not just me saying it. It’s not just the digital creators themselves saying it. It’s not the platforms like YouTube and TikTok lining up the digital creators to say it, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage would like to claim. None other than a former chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, is saying it himself, and, perhaps more importantly, the current chair of the CRTC, Ian Scott, is also saying it.

During his testimony, Mr. Scott went on to confirm something else that the government has been claiming isn’t in the bill: algorithmic manipulation. The government and Senator Dawson insisted that Bill C-11 does not force platforms to use particular algorithms. However, Mr. Scott, chair of the CRTC, testified:

. . . I will give you simple examples. Instead of saying — and the act precludes this — “We will make changes to your algorithms,” as many European countries are contemplating doing, we will say, “This is the outcome we want. We want Canadians to find Canadian music. How best to do it? How will you do it? I don’t want to manipulate your algorithm. I want you to manipulate it to produce a particular outcome.” . . .

Pretty clear. Let me repeat that last part. Mr. Scott is saying that this legislation allows him to say to the platforms: We, the government, won’t manipulate your algorithm. We’ll just make you do it for us. In court, we would call that a clear and recorded admission of intent.

As I mentioned, proponents of the bill have argued in committee that there are other ways to achieve the desired outcomes without algorithmic manipulation, despite testimony from creators, users, the platforms and the regulator saying otherwise.

Last week, Senator Dasko, my colleague, insisted on this position in an exchange with former television personality, now digital creator, Jennifer Valentyne. Senator Dasko was adamant that there are other ways, but when asked by Ms. Valentyne to give an example she was unable to do so.

I want to be clear here, colleagues. We aren’t talking about all platforms. We’re talking specifically about platforms that feature user-generated content like YouTube and Instagram, to name a couple.

It isn’t just users, creators and the platforms who are raising the red flag. There are also significant privacy concerns with the government’s approach which were outlined by the Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, when he appeared before our committee. Mr. Dufresne stated:

The bill would provide the CRTC with the power to impose conditions respecting the discoverability of Canadian programs and programming services. While the bill specifies that in doing so the CRTC could not require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code, discoverability conditions could nonetheless potentially require the adaptation of existing algorithms that rely on personal information or the analysis of personal information to determine whether user-generated content is Canadian.

The potential privacy impacts would depend upon the specific circumstances of each case, including how these powers are exercised by the CRTC and how regulated entities respond to new obligations by their collection and analysis of personal information. Given this, it will be important that these privacy implications be fully assessed and mitigated prior to the CRTC imposing these conditions.

The commissioner recommended that we adopt an amendment to clearly incorporate the protection of privacy as an objective of the act. I completely agree that this is a minimal step for us to take. Much of the approach that underpins this bill are — as I mentioned previously — “just trust us” assumptions, particularly as related to the powers of the CRTC.

The CRTC chair, Mr. Scott, referenced the consultative process that would follow upon the passage of this legislation. He noted that this process would play a central role in determining how platforms could and should best achieve particular outcomes.

It all sounds wonderful to those who implicitly trust large government bureaucracies. But as Monica Auer, Executive Director of Canada’s Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, testified before our Senate committee:

In terms of accountability and transparency, the problem with the CRTC right now is that it is not making its decisions public. Every year, it’s publishing dozens of decisions that you can’t see because there’s no hyperlink and they don’t publish. When we say that the CRTC is transparent, it is simply not. It is holding public hearings without witnesses. I’m sorry — you’ve been very kind to invite me — but the CRTC chooses not to invite anybody to some hearings, including transfers of ownership. . . .

I submit that such testimony about an absence of transparency in the CRTC should be of equal concern to us in this chamber, as it is an absence of transparency on the part of online platforms. Otherwise, it is, shall we say, a bit rich.

However, I do, in fact, fully agree that Canadian consumers have a right to greater transparency. However, we need to be cognizant of the fact that by giving the CRTC powers as are being proposed in this bill, there simply will be no outcome other than algorithm manipulation, as promised by the chair.

For many of these platforms, there just isn’t enough screen real estate to accomplish the kind of outcomes we are talking about without such manipulation, even if it is passive. By “passive,” I’m referring to having a tab or file that compiles Canadian content, for example. The problem with that is that it’s just not physically possible on some of the platforms we are talking about.

Colleagues, if you take a moment to look at your phone on an app like Instagram, you will see right away what I’m talking about. These types of platforms or apps are essentially just feeds. The only way to promote Canadian content to make sure it shows up in someone’s feed more often than something that is not Canadian content is to manipulate the algorithm. As much as the government and supporters of this bill insist that it won’t affect algorithms, for many platforms it’s completely unavoidable.

That’s the point that Jennifer Valentyne, Scott Benzie, Justin Tomchuk, Darcy Michael, Morghan Fortier, J.J. McCullough, Frédéric Bastien Forrest and so many more have all made during their testimony at our committee.

With this legislation written the way it is, an arm of the government would be compelling platforms to change the way they do business to keep their customers coming back. We are also interfering with the businesses of Canadian digital creators. We are interfering with their livelihoods. They’re asking us not to do so. They’re telling us that they’re doing quite well already, and they deserve to be left alone.

As Morghan Fortier, CEO of Skyship Entertainment — perhaps Canada’s most successful exporter of Canadian content on YouTube — told our committee, when you tamper with that, you are essentially doing the same thing as tampering with radio stations’ ability to access ratings information and adjust their playlists or on-air talent accordingly.

I’ll take it a step further: It would be like telling a bookstore they can’t use their sales information or bestsellers list to determine how many copies of a book to order, or telling them where they can or can’t place certain books in their store to optimize their sales.

Most legislators wouldn’t dream of advocating for that level of interference in private sector marketing, but that is precisely what we are considering in this bill.

Why would we do that? And why do we continue to impugn the motives of these companies, as if they’re up to something other than running a business and trying to make a profit?

Why do we assume nefarious motivations on the part of these platforms, when it comes to the conduct of their business, that we don’t assume of other businesses like radio stations or bookstores?

Just because — with all due respect, colleagues — we don’t understand it, doesn’t mean they must be up to no good. Do you know what a lot of the people who are affected by this and looking at us — myself included — are saying right now? “Okay, boomer.” That is the truth.

This isn’t an argument against greater transparency but, rather, in favour of placing greater trust in the users of these platforms and in the creators of these platforms — who know what they want to watch, listen to or promote — to judge for themselves whether platforms are meeting those needs. It’s an argument in simple favour of consumer choice.

The consumer experience will be further impacted by the prohibitive cost of regulating user-generated content in the manner described in this bill. Not only will the higher costs to these platforms be passed on to consumers but, in some cases, could also lead to some platforms pulling out of the Canadian market altogether.

Should that occur, do you know who will be disproportionately affected? Diaspora communities in Canada, because it will be the smaller platforms — that serve these communities from abroad — that will most likely decide they can no longer afford the cost of doing business in Canada.

The consumer experience will also be negatively impacted because they will lose trust in the system. They will be seeing more and more content that is not based on their likes and their interests. I get that it sounds like an enticing prospect to force people out of their comfort zone.

Who among us wishes to be force-fed? Being force-fed has never had the desired or intended impact. If anything, the more it feels like something is being forced on an individual, or a society, the less trusting they will be of whomever, or whatever, is forcing it on them. And the less inclined they will be to appreciate it or desire it. That is a fact.

That, colleagues, will become a problem for the very people this bill is supposedly designed to protect and promote: Canadian artists and creators. There is a risk that many consumers will tune out such content altogether. They will go elsewhere to find what they’re looking for — unimpeded. They will simply click and make it go away.

As YouTube creator Justin Tomchuk told our committee:

CanCon content will perform poorly on the platforms because the audience will be mismatched with their interests. You can force a video to play, but you can’t force them to watch it. Canadians will click away and learn to actively avoid CanCon.

They will just go to the section and click it away.

That is precisely what we’re seeing now with conventional broadcasting. Viewership for conventional broadcasting is down dramatically because consumers now have choices as a result of streaming. They no longer have to consume what’s being forced on them. That’s not the fault of the streaming platforms.

At some point, conventional broadcasters in this country have to accept that the product they’re offering isn’t appealing to a lot of consumers. Just look at the ratings. That’s not to say that there aren’t good Canadian products available. It’s quite the contrary.

Conventional broadcasters in this country use local sports and news to satisfy a hefty portion of their CanCon quotas. Then they fill in the rest with repeats of Canadian shows that can also be found on their subscription services, and the rest is syndicated programming from the United States, which consumers can watch from the source American network or online anyway.

That’s not a problem with Canadian culture or Canadian artists not being good enough, colleagues. That’s a problem with the current legacy broadcasting business model.

Mr. Tomchuk explained another risk to Canadian digital creators if algorithms are manipulated to satisfy CanCon: If content is promoted based on something other than what the consumer wants to see, or may like based on their previous habits, they will click on it, realize it’s not something they want to see and then quickly move on without watching to its completion.

This will drive down the audience retention rate on that item. In turn, the lower retention rate will drive down the item’s global ranking, thereby driving down its discoverability, which refers to where it appears on the “suggested for you” list that you see on platforms like YouTube.

In that manner, Canadian artists and creators — who are enjoying immense success globally — will see that success greatly diminished. In essence, we are blunting worldwide success in exchange for limited, parochial success at home.

As a recent editorial in the Financial Post put it:

Even if Bill C-11 helps them find a little more success here at home, and there’s no guarantee of that, it could be to the detriment of any success they might hope for beyond Canada’s borders.

Colleagues, there is a large world out there.

This will be exacerbated even more by the threat of global protectionism. No other Western democracy in the world regulates user-generated content in the manner being proposed by Bill C-11. However, there are other countries who are closely watching what we are about to do here.

There is no doubt that if we enact this legislation, without removing user-generated content from it, other countries will respond with similar protectionist legislation. And all of the success and opportunities our artists and creators have enjoyed — as a result of the world opening up to them through the barrier-free advent of the internet — will be gone.

For what? And at what cost?

Will we have saved Canadian culture, or will we have just made it more insular and made creators more reliant on grants and a system of gatekeepers once again picking winners and losers? Will we have provided more exposure for under-represented voices, or will we have just thrown up barriers where there currently are none?

[Translation]

I want to focus on the impact that Bill C-11 will have on francophone creators.

With Canada’s traditional broadcasting platforms, francophone artists have a limited audience. They reach francophones in Canada, most of whom are in Quebec. However, the internet has changed all that. Platforms like YouTube and Instagram give these artists a global reach. Think about the success that Damien Robitaille had on YouTube and Twitter during the pandemic. Tens of thousands of people who do not speak a word of French and who would never think about listening to a French broadcaster saw videos of him performing.

Obviously, we need to ensure that our Quebec, Acadian, Franco-Ontarian and other cultures not only survive but also thrive. However, we were wrong in thinking that digital platforms were nothing but a threat to francophones in Canada and that we needed to address that and reduce their scope.

The internet represents freedom, the freedom for a Quebecer to listen to music from Burkina Faso or for a Lebanese person to listen to the band La Bottine souriante at a New Year’s celebration. The government needs to be very careful because it would be counterproductive to Canadian culture to erect barriers around it. In any case, it is unrealistic to think that that would work.

As a Quebecer, I certainly understand that our artists and creators face a different reality and different challenges than their anglophone counterparts. I unreservedly support the principle that the federal government must play a role in promoting Canadian culture and must ensure that digital platforms become a launching pad for Canadian artists and creators, especially francophones.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that Bill C-11 is the right tool. YouTuber Frédéric Bastien Forrest had this to say:

So if we really want to place an emphasis on culture from here — Quebec, Canadian, Montreal and francophone — I would concentrate on enabling those who are already making use of these platforms to become better and get more YouTube exposure.

[English]

We’ve seen indications from these platforms that they understand that contributing to Canada’s cultural ecosystem is a requirement of doing business in this country.

One such proposed amendment would explicitly ensure that if a platform’s content is out of scope for things like discoverability, the platform itself would still be subject to the CRTC’s order-making powers on required expenditures to support Canadian culture in section 11.1. This would address the concern from the music industry stakeholders that platforms that only carried music clips, or otherwise did not carry full-length commercial music, would find a way to avoid contributing to the ecosystem.

Senator Simons has raised concerns in the committee about the necessity of including section 4 to protect against big music labels using YouTube, for instance, to stream music without paying royalties to artists. However, it was made clear at committee that’s not the case. There are already protections against that.

Music labels can only share the music of artists they represent. To do otherwise would be copyright infringement, whether on YouTube or otherwise. Furthermore, when labels share music from their own artists on YouTube or any other platforms, they have to pay royalties to their artists based on their contracts. It’s contractual. And if they breach their contractual obligations to their artists, that’s not something for Bill C-11 to address.

As it relates to our culture and our stories, Senator Dawson says that this is an opportunity to ask ourselves big questions about how we, as Canadians, are going to and want to define that. And he’s absolutely right.

Senator Dawson said:

. . . for more than 50 years the Broadcasting Act helped us share our stories. That’s how we built our strong Canadian culture, forged our Canadian identity and brought Canadian voices to the world. We want to build on this for the future, so we must recognize that times have changed.

I agree with you 100%, Senator Dawson. The problem is that this bill doesn’t recognize that times have changed. On the contrary, it is trying to replicate and revive a system that is clearly on life support if you look at legacy broadcasters — otherwise we wouldn’t be having this debate — and that’s just not feasible.

We’re talking about a system of regulation and broadcast that is in decline, and not because Canadian talent and Canadian culture are in decline. On the contrary, the Canadian entertainment and creative industries are thriving like never before. It’s the antiquated system of delivery, and certainly funding, that’s on life support. Without this pillar, I’m not quite sure it will survive.

The old regulatory system worked well to varying degrees because it was designed for conventional broadcasters that mainly stopped at our national borders. It was designed in the 1970s, but it has served its purpose, and its time and usefulness have come and gone.

It is certainly not needed when it comes to digital creators and user-generated content. The creators themselves are telling us that. They’re begging us not to force the old regulatory regime on them. They’re showing us that, unlike under conventional broadcasting, they don’t need us. Actually, they don’t even want us. What they need is for us to stay out of their way. They’re imploring us to look at their success and to acknowledge that this success is a result of producing quality, interesting, innovative content that people want to see and hear.

If we leave user-generated content in this bill, we are saying that we don’t think Canadian creators are capable of doing it on their own. We are saying that we don’t think that what they produce is all that interesting on its own and that it won’t succeed without our intervention — especially the marginalized and under-represented creators like Indigenous people, BIPOC and francophone artists and creators.

Frankly, it’s not only disheartening to these creators; it’s extremely paternalistic.

If we truly want to remove the barriers that underserved and marginalized Canadians are facing, we should start by ensuring equal access to reliable internet service across Canada, especially for communities in the North, which currently are underserved.

We should also look at ways to assist in informing artists and creators on how to produce quality content and how to upload it themselves. As a matter of fact, the very platforms that are being somewhat demonized about their algorithms, source codes and their supposed lack of transparency have testified that they are setting up accelerator programs to provide exactly that kind of education and incubation for emerging artists and creators.

One recent example of this was Google’s announcement on October 3, 2022, of $2.7 million in funding to empower Indigenous peoples in Canada, to help close the skills and education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in this country, to re-skill Indigenous job seekers for new careers in technology. Obviously, that’s just one example, but we need to continue to encourage more of that.

But again colleagues, we heard from the creators themselves time and time again that the best thing we can do to make sure Indigenous, BIPOC, francophone and other under-represented artists and creators in Canada do not face barriers in showcasing their art and their work is to, quite simply, get out of their way.

What I fear with respect to Bill C-11 is that if it is passed in its current form, we will risk standing squarely in their way. That would be a terrible outcome.

Here I think it is useful to return to Senator Dawson’s point about the law needing to provide “clear guidance.” Sorry for over-quoting you in this speech, Senator Dawson. I agree with that insofar as I think it is absolutely necessary to amend this bill to make it crystal clear that user-generated content is out. That’s all we have to do. Let there be no doubt for anyone, least of all the persons tasked with implementing and overseeing it. And I implore the members of the Committee on Transport and Communications to deliberate on the best way to accomplish that. We need to do that.

If there is any consensus among a majority of witnesses who have appeared before our committee, it is on the importance of doing just that.

That brings us to a central rationale for this legislation: that foreign streaming companies that behave like broadcasters must pay their fair share in relation to the profits they generate in the Canadian market share. These are the streaming companies including, but not limited to, Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video, to name a few.

This is where there is a little less daylight between what the government is proposing and what my concerns are regarding those proposals, but there is some.

It’s interesting — to me, anyway — that our committee has heard from several witnesses who are proponents of Bill C-11 but who are seeking amendments nevertheless. It is telling when even the supporters of a bill come to Parliament seeking amendments. We have seen this on other recent bills where it is far from clear that the government has listened or even properly consulted on legislation it has chosen to bring forward.

The good news is that we’re here to fix flawed legislation. As Senator Dawson says, we have an opportunity here. And I agree that we must seize that opportunity.

This bill and its predecessor, Bill C-10, have taken so long to advance through the parliamentary process, and if we’re being honest, as I said earlier, that lies primarily at the feet of this government. Regardless, it’s taken this long, so taking a little more time now to get it right is not the doomsday scenario the government would have us believe it is.

The minister responsible for this file, Minister Pablo Rodriguez, would have us believe that we are bleeding money and losing out on some imaginary windfall of $1 billion; I say imaginary because neither the minister nor his department has ever been able to provide documentation of where that number comes from.

By the way, I’ve asked countless number of witnesses before our committee. They can’t give me an answer either.

Regardless, I appreciate that an entire industry is awaiting this legislation, but I am confident that in the long run everyone in the industry and consumers will appreciate that we took the time and the opportunity to make sure that whatever changes we make to the Broadcasting Act, they will either stand the test of time or have the flexibility, as Senator Dawson himself pointed out, to adapt to a continuously evolving internet.

In this regard, I want to go back to something Minister Rodriguez claimed, and also Senator Dawson echoed, in relation to the money our broadcasting sector is supposedly losing. Yes, it’s true, conventional broadcasters are losing revenue, and, in turn, entities like the Canada Media Fund don’t receive the same amount of money they once did. However, this notion that foreign streamers aren’t paying their fair share is, at a minimum, not entirely accurate. While funds may not be going directly into these centralized kitties that our current system props up and forces artists and creators to rely on, it doesn’t mean there isn’t money on the table for Canadian artists and creators. On the contrary, one could argue that because a portion of the funds no longer goes to the gatekeepers who pick winners and losers, there’s actually more money for Canadian artists and creators themselves.

Our committee heard from Wendy Noss of the Motion Picture Association, or MPA, which includes companies like Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros. and Discovery.

In 2021, the MPA spent more than $5 billion across Canada, accounting for more than half of all production in this country and 90% of the growth in the sector over the last decade. They hired, trained and provided opportunities for 200,000 of Canada’s most talented creative workers and supported more than 47,000 Canadian businesses.

This so far exceeds the footprint of a government-supported corporation like the CBC, which should give us all pause and a real think.

However, despite this impressive economic footprint that these companies have in Canada, we are asking them to pay more into our paternalistic system that supports domestic companies. Meanwhile, Canadian broadcasters who pay into these mandatory kitties draw benefits and protections from them that these foreign streamers will not, according to this bill. So, they will have to pay into them without being afforded the same benefits and protections. How is that fair or a level playing field?

Then there is the additional problem of the outdated definition, which the bill perpetuates, regarding what counts as Canadian content. It is twofold for foreign streaming companies. First, global undertakings operate for a worldwide audience, not just a closed domestic market. Unlike conventional broadcasters, who have the advantage of using localized sports and news programming to count against their minimum CanCon requirements, these undertakings cannot.

Second, quite plainly, they don’t get credit for the investment they do make into Canadian storytelling and for supporting Canadian artists. The example of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is often raised. It is a production that is filmed in Toronto, whose story is partly or even largely set in Toronto, that employs Canadians and was written by a celebrated Canadian author. Yet it is not considered Canadian content because the owner of the production company, the investor, is not Canadian.

That example is far from unique, yet it is a product of our outdated Canadian content rules.

Think about the millions of dollars that a foreign production or streaming company is willing to invest in telling a Canadian story and employing many Canadian artists, writers, actors, producers, editors, camera operators and audio techs not being good enough unless they also hand over ownership of the product. That is notwithstanding the money they are often pouring into the economy of Canadian towns, cities, our infrastructure, hotels and so on, yet our government has the nerve to claim that this is justified under the guise that they’re protecting and promoting Canadian culture and Canadian artists.

Colleagues, Canadian artists have never been busier in the history of this country, and it’s because of the new platforms and the new opportunities, not because of the legacy broadcasters.

The whole thing about this bill is about protecting the big corporate players in our television and film sector that are used to calling the shots under the old system and want to make sure that nothing changes under the new, modern system. That’s the biggest problem I have with this part of the bill. I’m not suggesting we just hand over the keys to streaming companies and allow them to come in here and make money hand over fist without Canadians standing to benefit, but I would like the government and supporters of this legislation to be equally clear about what the bill really protects — the status quo and the guys in the corner offices. Let’s call a spade a spade: Bell Media, Rogers, Quebecor — none of which takes into consideration that Canadian talent want to work with the best producers, writers, actors and singers in the world, nor does it consider that the best in the world want to work and collaborate with Canadians who are leaders and the best in their field. The global companies want to pay for that.

Yet we are saying that it’s not good enough. You have to pay more. You cannot benefit from the funds that you do pay.

Colleagues, it’s not common sense, and it will be more so if we don’t take this opportunity to address it, especially if we’re going to continue to say that we’re doing all this in the name of protecting and promoting Canadian stories and talent. We need to be fair, and much of what is contained in this bill is not fair.

That lack of fairness may also have serious trade implications in other sectors for Canada. The former chair of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein, and other witnesses were quite clear on this when they appeared before our committee. He said:

Under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, such restrictions, while falling under the cultural industry exception and, thus, technically allowed, allow our partners to take retaliatory measures of equivalent commercial effect. Since most streamers are U.S.-based, you can expect that to happen.

These are serious considerations that the government has quite evidently ignored. The government sponsor and all the supporters of this bill in this chamber talk poetically about the urgent need to modernize the act in order to account for the realities of the digital age, but nowhere do I see any modern thinking or anything of the government having thought outside the box and outside of traditional habits when it comes to broadcasting.

It’s a continuation of a Broadcasting Act that is already 50 years old. What I do see is a whole lot of romanticizing about what we think works so well in the age of conventional radio and television, and I see an attempt to apply that approach to the internet. Colleagues, it doesn’t work. My kids tell me all the time that it doesn’t fit and, quite frankly, it’s out of scope.

It also does not allow for flexibility. Senator Dawson said the law requires it to be able to adapt as the digital landscape continues to evolve. A lot of what is in Bill C-11 was built around principles, like I said, from 50 years ago. Those principles no longer apply. Look at the way millennials consume information — the way they put it out and consume it — compared to how an old guy like me consumes it.

Where is the impetus in this legislation for conventional broadcasters to adapt their business models to deal with the reality of the digital age? I know the CBC in the last decade has spent millions and millions of taxpayer dollars trying to upgrade their digital capability. Why do you think that is? Because they realize their model doesn’t work anymore. Quebecor’s digital footprint is growing in leaps and bounds. Why do you think that is? Because they realize their business model doesn’t work anymore.

It reminds me so much of the fight over ride-sharing services when they first started becoming popular. The taxi industry, understandably, was upset. We all remember that. Taxi owners were overburdened with regulatory red tape with their vehicles, drivers and taxi licences — red tape that new ride-sharing services weren’t subject to and that allowed them to easily swoop into the markets and take business away from taxis. Drivers and owners were upset. I don’t blame them. They at least wanted a level playing field, but the truth is that there had to be some adjustments on the part of the taxi industry and on the part of the ride-sharing services. I resisted Uber for a very long time, but I’m not the norm. Millennials have changed the way we do things.

Certainly, regulatory obligations have reasonably been placed on these ride-sharing services, especially where passenger safety is concerned, but taxi companies have had to accept that their business model, up to that point, was out of date and they would have to change it if they wanted to compete.

Colleagues, the taxi industry had to change their ways; it was not the new technology industry having to go to the old way. That’s why, now, most cab companies have apps that operate similarly to the apps on offer from ride-sharing programs. That gives consumers more choice and flexibility, even in something as simple as the way they pay the fare. The world has changed. Even I now have an app where I order that type of service.

That sort of acceptance of the reality of the digital age and the give-and-take is something I see woefully little of in this legislation.

Consumer choice and consumer protection will be the inevitable losers if we pass this bill, but this town has always been all about standing up for the big giants. This is another example of it. This bill is not about standing up for millennials. It’s not about standing up for new platforms in a digital age. It’s not standing up about giving people more choice at a more efficient cost. It’s not. It’s trying to save some giants that we all have an affinity for, but the world is changing on them. As legislators, I do not believe we can simply stand by and permit that to happen.

I’m cautiously hopeful that many senators on our committee may see it the same way in the face of very strong testimony that we’ve heard so far in the pre-study. There’s a lot of good in this bill. I do believe that, as we adapt to the reality of online streaming, we shouldn’t compromise our values, culture and identity in allowing foreign streamers to operate in Canada. I don’t think any of us here are diametrically opposed to that. However, as I’ve outlined, I think there’s work to be done on how we achieve what we want to achieve in a fair manner, without compromising consumer choice and affordability.

Where I think we have a bigger problem is the lack of clarity around the inclusion of user-generated content. There, too, I’m confident we can achieve what needs to be done in a fair manner, without sacrificing the enormous successes of so many Canadian digital creators who are enjoying this both at home and abroad, and without compromising consumer choice and affordability, which is fundamental. I’m cautiously hopeful that our committee will send the government a strong message and vote to fix flaws in this legislation and substantially improve it. We’ve waited decades and decades to deal with the Broadcasting Act, and we have an opportunity to fix it in a non-partisan, transparent fashion, because at the end of the day, we’ve heard from so many stakeholders who have come before our committee, and very few think this bill is fine as is. Even those who support the principle of the bill, which I don’t — and I’ve always been clear about that — come with a long list of fixes that they think have to be dealt with.

Colleagues, 8 billion streams of Canadian music or podcasts are exported every month on Spotify. The top nine international markets for Canadian artists provide 7.2 streams of Canadian content for every one person in Canada. Streaming is driving record revenues for companies like Spotify, record labels and music publishing partners, now representing 77.9% of the market for recorded music in Canada.

Canadian YouTubers are amongst the top performers in the world. I met with senior executives from YouTube, and I looked at their stats. Canadians, per capita, punch way above our weight, as we do in just about everything that we engage in.

Content creators, artists, actors and producers enjoy benefits that we’ve never seen before. But colleagues, we need to encourage them, and we need to make sure that the amendments to the Broadcasting Act that we’re proposing accommodate the new way of the world, the way millennials choose to consume and express information around the world. We can’t hinder that in an attempt to protect a dying legacy broadcasting industry.

With that, colleagues, I’m pleased with the opportunity to have spoken, and I call the question on second reading of Bill C-11.

Senator Plett: Hear, hear.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: In my opinion, the “yeas” have it.

And two honourable senators having risen:

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: The vote will take place at 4:41 p.m. Call in the senators.

Motion agreed to and bill read second time on the following division:

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Duncan, seconded by the Honourable Senator Clement, for the third reading of Bill S-236, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Employment Insurance Regulations (Prince Edward Island), as amended.

And on the motion in amendment of the Honourable Senator Ringuette, seconded by the Honourable Senator Petitclerc:

That Bill S-236, an Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Employment Insurance Regulations (Prince Edward Island), as amended, be not read a third time, but that it be referred back to the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry to hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer concerning his office’s fiscal analysis on the bill; and

That the committee report to the Senate no later than November 15, 2022.

Hon. Diane Bellemare: Honourable senators, I rise today to lend my support to this amendment. I will be brief. I had prepared a speech like Senator Ringuette’s, but I found hers very compelling.

I would first like to say that I fully understand the purpose of Bill S-236 and why several senators supported it. The fact that Prince Edward Island has two zones is an anomaly that dates back to 2014. Prior to that, the province had only one zone. In the context of the work surrounding this bill, many have said that these two zones were created as a result of steps taken by certain individuals in the other place. That explains why Prince Edward Island was divided into two zones.

A number of people have talked about this anomaly. Apparently, according to the Commissioner for Workers, four zones were created at that time, quite spontaneously and arbitrarily. I can understand why several senators want to put an end to this two-zone anomaly.

Why? Because it causes all sorts of inconsistencies and inequalities. As you know, given that unemployed workers receive benefits based on their place of residence, two unemployed workers who worked at the same business but who live in different areas would receive different amounts for different weeks. We must think about that and change it.

However, I rather agree with what Senator Simons told the committee. She said that it is not really the Senate’s role to micromanage. To some extent, amending the schedule to the Employment Insurance Act is micromanaging, and that is not our job. We can point out anomalies, but it is not up to us to fix them. It is really the government’s job to make those changes.

I am also very sympathetic to Senator Ringuette’s remarks. She eloquently stated, following the release of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report, that it had calculated that merging the two regions would result in a $76.6-million loss between fiscal years 2021-22 and 2025-26. This represents a lot of money that the people of Prince Edward Island would not receive, according to the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I appreciate this argument.

Third, the government wants to reform Employment Insurance. The work is under way and the changes should be substantial. I believe that that would be the right time to correct this anomaly and review the complexity of the current system. We must not bury our heads in the sand. The current EI system is incredibly complex.

There are 66 zones in Canada and, depending on the zone and its unemployment rate, each person requires a different number of weeks to qualify for EI. Once you qualify, the duration of benefits is also different. There are tables that contain 29 rows and 11 columns. This means that there are over 400 possible boxes that can apply to a Canadian in terms of EI. That needs to be fixed.

I am not aware of any country that uses zoning as an eligibility criterion. In some countries, a person’s age and income can be used as eligibility criteria for Employment Insurance benefits, but never the zone they live in.

It is important to remember that our entire system is the result of the 1976 reform, the Axworthy reform, which had some positive and some less positive results. It needs to be said that, at the time, the main purpose of Employment Insurance was to manage unemployment. There was a period in the 1990s where the monetary policy was having a major impact on the participation rate in Canada. I am reminding senators of this because I think it is important. The monetary policy worked like it does today, with agreements, and it targeted a range of interest rates. However, its target at the time was the natural rate of unemployment.

We were so afraid of inflation and inflation expectations that the Bank of Canada’s focus was the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment, which was assessed at 8% for Canada as a whole. That was the rate at which interest rates would increase. When the rate approached the natural rate of 8%, the Bank of Canada tightened its monetary policy. It is also important to remember that mortgage rates were very high at that time.

When you have an unemployment rate of 8% and that is the rate you want to achieve, imagine the unemployment rate in certain regions. It could be very high in the Maritimes and lower elsewhere. There were and still are very big regional disparities.

Nowadays, the problem is different for a number of reasons, including the inevitable aging of the population. Even if we do have a recession, the unemployment rate will rise, but probably not as much as it would have in the past because the population is aging. A recession will lead to earlier retirements, and the total unemployment rate will rise, but it will not rise as much as it would have in the past.

Now, because of the rapid pace of technological change and people moving from job to job often, along with the aging population I mentioned, we have a labour shortage. We need to reform Employment Insurance to deal with the labour shortage.

I invite the committee to consider this, if the amendment is agreed to, and to take another look at Bill S-236. I also invite the committee to take another look at it in light of the upcoming reform and consider what else the committee might suggest with respect to Employment Insurance reform.

That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.

[English]

Senator Patterson: Thank you for the answer, Senator Bellemare. I’m not sure about the accuracy of the statistics from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, because in 2021, the Eighth Annual Report on Child and Family Poverty on Prince Edward Island highlighted that the federal riding of Charlottetown, which is smaller than the EI zone of Charlottetown, has the highest rate of both child poverty, at 25%, and poverty of people of working age, at 24.4%.

By contrast, the westernmost riding of Egmont, which is entirely in the P.E.I. EI zone, has a 19.4% rate of child poverty and a poverty rate of persons of working age of 14.7%. This is the discrepancy you spoke about in ensuring access to benefits to the working poor in Charlottetown due to requiring 700 qualifying hours compared to 560 hours in the P.E.I. zone.

The authors of that report recommended that the federal government immediately end the division of EI on P.E.I. into two zones, thereby ending that disparity that currently exists among EI recipients in this province.

In light of this information from the annual report on child and family poverty, 2021, would you not conclude that passing Bill S-236 actually benefits the working poor in Prince Edward Island, given that the highest rates of poverty are in the Charlottetown EI zone? Should we not listen to the subject matter experts on Prince Edward Island?

[Translation]

Senator Bellemare: I knew you were going to ask me a question about poverty rates. I didn’t have enough time to study the matter in detail. But it’s not for me to study it. That is why there is an amendment that proposes that the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report be reviewed. Then it will be possible to examine the problem of poverty more thoroughly and determine whether it is truly linked to the number of weeks of benefits and the duration of benefits.

We know, in fact, that unemployment rates change. In September 2022, the unemployment rate in Prince Edward Island as a whole was 8.3%, while it was 7.3% in the Charlottetown zone and 8.7% in Prince Edward Island excluding Charlottetown. With a rate of 8.3%, this is a slight improvement. I am not really sure that the difference between the rates of 7.3%, 8.3% and 8.7% is considerable. All that will be for you to judge and to report to us after the committee does its work.

[English]

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Senator Bellemare, since 2014, the House of Commons committees have twice recommended a restoration to one EI zone for P.E.I., and you’ve talked about reforming the EI system. Out of respect for Prince Edward Islanders, let’s not confuse their specific issue with the larger matter of EI reform that you’ve advocated.

Is it not the role of the Senate to work on behalf of our regions and address issues of regional interest first?

[Translation]

Senator Bellemare: Thank you for the question, Senator Omidvar. The advisory council that I am proposing will help the current commission do its job, which is to comment, reflect, make proposals and receive testimony. The commission would also be able to act on its own initiative. It could therefore receive requests from outside parties, conduct its own analyses and present them to the commissioners.

In my bill, the commissioners would be members of the advisory council, this broader commission, if you will, so they could offer an objective view and help develop common solutions for problems that are identified.

Dear colleagues, I hope that we can discuss this more fully when you participate in the debates on my bill.

[English]

Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, I think it’s wonderful to hear this focus in the Senate of Canada on those who are marginalized and disadvantaged in Prince Edward Island. It shows we’re focused on a very important part of our job, which is to represent regions and to represent issues that are not being as well debated sometimes as they need to be and where Parliament may not be acting in a way that serves every issue.

I would like to speak in support of the subamendment because the issue of Bill S-236 gets to the core of a very important national problem that we have, and it’s a business crisis in terms of labour shortage.

I want to speak to a bit of history I have on the Island. When I first worked there in the 1990s, I worked in a job where I had a board that I reported to, and sometimes I would come forward with issues that were concerning to employees and where employees were really hoping to have certain advancement so they could do their job better. I would often hear a response that was: Well, they’re just lucky to have a job in the first place.

At a certain point in time in this country, that was very much a perspective: that there was a line around the block for people to replace you in a position, and if you didn’t want to do the job as you were told, you could see yourself being replaced and you were lucky to have that job.

Things are different today. Twenty-five years later, Prince Edward Island actually has the youngest population in Atlantic Canada — it’s the fastest-growing population in all of Canada — and it has seen a tremendous change since the 1990s. I remember when former premier Wade MacLauchlan was president of the University of Prince Edward Island, or UPEI, and the crisis was so dire with an aging population and a lack of a vibrant working environment that he said, “Would the last person to leave P.E.I. please turn off the lights as they head out the door?” It was a really tough time on the Island.

Just to give you an example, between September 2021 and September 2022 there were 2,300 net new jobs, relatively speaking, created in the month of September on Prince Edward Island, mainly in manufacturing and construction, that were not there a year ago. There are a lot of people moving to Prince Edward Island. Last year 4,800 people moved to P.E.I., the fastest ever in 50 years in terms of population growth on the Island, but the trouble is that population growth is exacerbating a housing shortage that is also being exacerbated by a labour shortage. There are 1,000 unfilled construction jobs in P.E.I. right now.

The P.E.I. tourism sector, which has worked so hard to build a shoulder season so that you’re not just making money as a tourist business in July and August but building your business from April right through to November — and that shoulder season has always been affected by a drop in the number of student workers as they head back to school — but now it’s being absolutely negatively impacted by a lack of workers to replace that labour in the shoulder season. This has been a hard-fought win on the part of the Island to expand the length of the tourist season.

Small businesses post-COVID are not able to hire the staff to meet market demands today on the Island. The labour shortages have never been bigger. We have moved in Atlantic Canada — and this is true for Nova Scotia and the tour that I did of different businesses across Nova Scotia, labour shortages were crucial, especially in rural communities. You couldn’t get people to move to those communities in many cases, and the businesses are really struggling. We’re no longer in a world of job shortages. We’re in a world of pervasive and growing labour shortages. But our federal-provincial labour market agreements are based on a world of job shortages; they are based on the assumption and the paradigm of job shortages. From my perspective, that revisiting that Senator Bellemare and many of us have spoken about is really important.

I want to give you a sense of the risks facing businesses nationally for sure and in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island absolutely. In my home province, one anchor employer in a rural area — a profitable, very well-respected business — 30% of their workforce is over 55 years of age. They do not have replacement workers coming along. We have to fix this issue of labour shortages in this country. To me, the challenge that I have is that the current situation on P.E.I. I think is indicative of some of the challenges that we have in this country, on the basis that we’re really supporting a job shortage market, not a labour shortage market. We’re incentivizing people in the second zone to stay home and work less. That’s the net result of that.

I really respect the concerns that have been raised by my honourable colleagues. I absolutely think we need to address them vigorously, but I like the fact that Senator Black has proposed a subamendment that allows us to look at the issue because in agricultural and rural communities it is especially challenging. The larger question of how we have to revisit our programs supporting those who are unemployed is crucial.

I will finish off by saying I hope we do vote in support of this subamendment and give the Agriculture and Forestry Committee the flexibility and time they need, and having the committee look at this issue makes an awful lot of sense in my mind. There is a profound challenge facing small businesses. They need the help to fill jobs and they don’t need people being incentivized to stay home.

The success of business is built — as we all know — on the quality and reliability of the workforce, but Bill S-236 is trying to get at this challenge of labour shortages on the Island. We heard it in committee when we did our study last May, and it is worse in rural communities and much harder for some of these businesses to get people to move into the communities and make sure they have the ability to create the value that they could deliver to their customers.

Colleagues, I hope you look at that part of the question seriously because it is a negative impact for those who have struggled to get through COVID and are trying to rebuild on the other side of it. Thank you very much, colleagues.

Senator Yussuff: Senator Deacon, I very much appreciate the issue that you spoke about, in terms of not having enough people to fill jobs in this country. But I think it’s a stretch, because you do not have one shred of evidence to suggest that the workers in this particular zone that we are speaking about are incentivized to stay home. There is lots of data, and certainly the system exists, that if a worker fails to take a job that’s available, they will be cut off from EI.

I understand there are not enough people to fill jobs that exist in certain regions of the country, but we also have to appreciate that we have regional economies in certain sectors of this country. It’s not just in P.E.I. — it’s throughout many parts of the country — and the EI system has had to adjust to deal with this reality. In certain parts of Quebec, there is a regional economy. They have an EI zone that takes in that particular region and recognizes a regional economy.

I want to be honest because I don’t think this is what you intended to say. Workers, for the most part, struggle with life, and it’s not fair to suggest that somehow they’re lazy or they don’t want to go to work. I know many of them. I have represented them my whole life. I understand that we need to make sure workers have the skills and the ability to take jobs, when jobs are available, so they can continue to work, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that this particular region, in the province of P.E.I., is being incentivized to stay home. Senator Deacon, maybe you can clarify this through some data or statistics to help me feel more comfortable with regard to your statement.

Senator C. Deacon: Thank you, Senator Yussuff. That is the primary reason I recommend that it be studied by the Agriculture Committee. I am disappointed that I am no longer a member of the Agriculture Committee. I would like to be engaged on this topic because it’s crucial. When there are two zones, and there are jobs available in one zone but not in the zone you are in — in a place as small as Prince Edward Island — we’re not creating the circumstances, in my mind, where we are managing a system to ensure that all jobs are filled in order to make sure the economy is as strong as it can be.

Right now, there is a massive challenge of labour shortages that is getting worse because there is not enough housing, not enough construction workers and not enough workers to keep these businesses going. I am really hoping that the questions that you and Senator Ringuette have asked are studied and looked at by the Agriculture Committee, because I think it is important.

Senator Bellemare: I used to work at the Economic Council of Canada, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We once did a major study, and I’m wondering whether you are aware of the results.

The study clearly showed that, because of the significant shortage of jobs and the way the EI program worked, in many regions, in both Quebec and the Maritimes, companies, not workers, were integrating the notion of job sharing into their human resource management practices. It wasn’t so much individuals, but rather businesses, that were really integrating job sharing into their own practices.

In other words, one aspect that needs to change is business practices, in order to provide greater job stability and improve workforce retention.

Were you aware of that study?

[English]

Senator C. Deacon: Of course, you were involved in something that innovative that long ago. Thank you for the question, Senator Bellemare. It goes to the core of what Senator Pate has been proposing. Let’s look at other ways of addressing the ability to provide everyone with more opportunities, be that through a guaranteed livable income pilot program, job sharing. There are many ways we can look at this issue, but the reality is we have to find a way to keep our businesses thriving in our communities, and that’s a really innovative idea that in this situation is not supported by having the second zone that is incentivizing people to stay home and claim EI or get only a full‑time job. Thank you.

Hon. Pierrette Ringuette: Senator, would you take another question?

Senator C. Deacon: Absolutely.

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Yes, I am.

Senator Gold: Thank you, I will add this to the inquiries I have to make with the government.

[English]