Senator Plett: Thank you, Senator Dean.

Let me start with a quote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Senator Dean, I would hope that you would do the same thing, and in your preamble, you chose, rather, to drive wedges again in saying or intimating that when people don’t agree with you, they somehow don’t have the right to their beliefs.

This is a political chamber. I take no issue with somebody scrapping with me in this chamber and then going and having a drink with that individual after the chamber rises. This is a chamber of debate where different opinions are expressed.

Senator Dean, first of all, I do not disagree with probably 85% of your speech, which said, “Let’s roll up our sleeves; let’s get to work.” I agree with all of that. I don’t think any one of us here, any one of us that voted against the pre-study of Bill C-13, can be accused of not wanting to do their job or do their work. We happen to have a disagreement with you on what is important and how we should do things. That is why we have a vote. That is why we have bells. That is why we get together, and when the vote is done, it is over. I have accepted fully the results of the vote we had a few hours ago.

And then you feel the need to come in here and chastise us because of our beliefs. Senator Dean, my question to you is: Do you believe in the democratic system? Do you believe that I have the right? Would you defend to the death my right to my opinion?

Senator Dean: Well, of course I would defend your right to your opinion, and I would defend the right to the opinions of other people in this room. Absolutely. That is why I’m here. That is part of my responsibility. That is part of who I am.

If you took from my remarks that I was attempting to shut down anybody’s opinions, then I think you are mischaracterizing me, and I regret that.

I commented on the nature of the debate, on its divisiveness, on the fact that I thought that there was an excessive use of rhetoric and that I thought some of the comments that had been made by our colleagues in the Government Representative Office had been mischaracterized.

I stand by all of that without in any way acknowledging — nor do I want to shut down anybody’s right to talk and express their opinion. I have sat here, not left the chamber and listened to everything that everyone has had to say.

I was talking about the tenor of our debate, about the heat and the rhetoric of this debate, which is about a pre-study and a process. I will be honest in saying that I thought that I was hearing the intentions and the words of my colleagues in the Government Representative Office being mischaracterized. That is the way that I felt and I stand by that.

In that way, I was expressing my opinion freely, just as everyone else has in this room today. I am sorry if you did not like it, but we all have that right in this place. We have earned that right. We earn it every day and re-earn it.

Sometimes it is important to make a comment about the nature and the atmosphere of the debate, and that is all that I was doing. If I have offended anyone in doing that, I am happy to apologize. I do not think that I did. That was not my intention. I think the large majority of people in this room understand that.

Thank you, Senator Plett. I acknowledge your comments. I have nothing more to say. Just like anyone else in this place, I have stood up and offered my opinion. I am not going to make any apologies for that.

Some Hon. Senators: Dispense.

Senator Cormier: Absolutely.

Senator Cormier: Thank you very much for your question. Indeed, there are other topics to discuss. In fact, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages is currently conducting a study on francophone immigration.

Bill C-13 addresses this immigration issue, among others, and proposes that the Minister of Immigration adopt a national policy on francophone immigration. In the context of a pre-study, we would have the opportunity to delve further into certain aspects, such as francophone immigration, for example. This of course would be useful with respect to modernizing the Official Languages Act, but I should also say — and I agree with you on this — that the issue of francophone immigration is an extremely important theme for the future of official language minority communities and for all Canadians.

[English]

Senator Gold: I notice you have a motion on the Order Paper to authorize the committee to meet at their approved time on any Monday that immediately precedes a sitting Tuesday, consistent with the recommendations of the Selection Committee. Would this not help manage the workload?

Also, am I correct in thinking that you had hoped to have a committee meeting this past Monday? Can you explain why you were not able to have that meeting?

[Translation]

Senator Tannas: I think we can. It comes down to some degree — and I will be frank — of a measure of trust that we do not wind up in a situation where we create the expectation that a pre-study equals that we know everything there is to know, so if we have a quick debate here, we can get this all done before summer.

I know the subtext is all the way through here; and I know Senator Gold has been clear, both in private and in public, that this is not going to be the case. But I think we will add to the heat, because it will become a narrative; it will, potentially, get in the way of the work that will be done; and it will add to the commotion that will potentially carry on in the House. I think that, in a controversial situation like this, we risk getting dragged, along with our reputation, into the game that is going on there, with whatever calculus and score there is.

I think there are many places for pre-study and that it is a good argument to say that this is sufficiently complicated or the timing is such — because of a deadline, a court decision or money — that we need to do it.

I just do not know why, if we say we are going to take all the time necessary — and it has never been directly said that June is off the table. Given the state of play right now, I think we risk signalling that we are in a rush to pass this, and I don’t think that is appropriate.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable senators, I want to speak on this important debate. I don’t want to debate the merits of Bill C-13 or Bill C-11, but my comments will equally apply to both the motions on the Order Paper, the current one and the one to follow.

Clearly, there is no urgency requirement, colleagues, in order to have a pre-study. I think anybody who attempts to make the argument that a pre-study is urgently needed here is doing nothing more than acquiescing to what may be the government’s agenda, for political reasons.

Senator Plett made a very compelling case in his speech about all the examples where pre-studies have been used. It’s an important tool in Parliament. It’s a tool we use whenever there is an urgent public interest in order to address an issue. We have seen it done time and time again. More often, it seems to happen toward the end of a parliamentary session because government wants to get something out before we rise either for the summer break or for the Christmas break. It’s not done ever, to my knowledge, because all of a sudden they — successive governments — want Parliament to dive into an issue for as long a time as possible, study it and analyze it because it’s so important.

That seems to be the impression we’re getting from our honourable colleague Senator Cormier.

So if this is such an urgent and pressing issue in the case of Bill C-13 and Bill C-11, why has the government putzed around for seven years before in both these instances of moving legislation forward? They haven’t because, clearly, there hasn’t been an outcry.

In the case of Bill C-13 and Bill C-11, if they don’t pass by the end of June — and, clearly, the government’s objective is to get it out of the House and this chamber as quickly as possible before we rise — but if it doesn’t happen, what will happen?

We have been operating with our Official Languages Act now for a very long time before this has come before us. Our Telecommunications Act and Broadcasting Act have been neglected for decades by governments. For this government, it wasn’t much of a priority either because they tried to drop it in this chamber on the eve of prorogation last year around this time, before they were going into an election.

I have come to the conclusion that this pre-study is an attempt to do what governments historically have done when it’s not an urgent public issue: They usually try to use a pre-study and try to ram stuff through Parliament because it’s controversial. There is no consensus; there are two sides that just don’t agree. As a result, governments don’t like for such bills to linger. They don’t like them to linger in the House or in the Senate.

Well, I’m sorry to the executive branch of government, but as we have experienced with Bill C-11 — it was called Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament — we all understood what the government was doing and we stood up on the eve of the last prorogation as parliamentarians, in consensus, and we said that it required an in-depth debate. I was happy to hear Senator Cormier, who all of a sudden embraces pre-studies, say that it required a long and lengthy debate.

Now to the fundamentals of reality, Senator Gold. Again, we look at the life of this session before we rise for the summer. Normally, it would be at the end of June. Again, Senator Plett appropriately highlighted the challenges we’re currently having for our committees to meet in the actual times that we require to do our work, let alone add pre-study requirements to the government agenda, which is already taking up all our resources. As the House is adding more resources, the chamber here gets hurt with that reality as well.

If I can remind people of another government motion — and we should start reviewing these government motions a little more diligently when they are tabled — we were promised when we accepted the last government motion to extend until the end of June hybrid and virtual sittings that somehow that will be a catalyst in returning our committees to their times of two meetings a week, because we all have come to the realization that we’re not producing the output of work the way we used to as a chamber.

We were given the commitment that, if we support that government motion, committees will get their two slots a week and we’ll get back to getting this place revving forward and doing its work.

Now in addition to the government not delivering on that promise, they want us to add a pre-study to two particular bills that none of us see the urgency of getting out before June. All of us see that they are contentious bills and require in-depth study. We know that many, many witnesses have expressed a desire to come before the respective committees in order to address the issues. Yet the government continues to insist that we need to have a pre-study.

Furthermore — and I don’t want to repeat everything that Senator Plett said, because his speech was an outstanding one — the truth of the matter is these two chambers are independent in our Westminster model. If committees are going to do their respective work in a diligent fashion, they also have the right to amend bills, right?

We should not assume that they are going to be steamrolled through a House committee without amendments and steamrolled through this chamber and a Senate committee without amendments, particularly when we know that both these bills are controversial and that many stakeholders have concerns.

We have an obligation to independently hear the committees on both houses. We have an obligation to hear the debate in terms of second and third readings. What we particularly have an obligation to do in this place is to take the politics outside of all bills, including government bills, which inadvertently will happen on the other side. That is why it is called the House of Commons.

I think only where necessary should we accept the use of this tool of allowing pre-studies to happen in extenuating circumstances. We’ve done it many times when there is a public need, when we’re dealing with an existential crisis that requires funding and there is a general consensus and we know that there is a consensus from the public in order to get money bills through here quickly. We did it through COVID non-stop. If there is a particular crisis or emergency of sorts, again, we understand that we have to make exceptions, and then the traditional parliamentary rules in order to accommodate those public interests.

But, government leader, in both these instances, there is no emergency — we all know it and you know it — other than the fact that the government doesn’t want these two contentious issues to be dragged out in either part of our two chambers, because like any government they don’t like to get a headline where someone is criticizing their agenda.

The other thing I have to highlight, colleagues, is that this particular Trudeau government has not been very good at identifying emergencies. The last time that they had this chamber debating on something which was an emergency it was called the Emergencies Act, if you all recall. Some of us were up on our feet questioning that emergency at the time, and there were other senators who were embracing that emergency as the Prime Minister was running to a press gallery to basically say, “Sorry, I’m pulling the plug now, it is not as big an emergency as it was yesterday.”

So there is a track record here, government leader, of this government not being good at identifying emergencies and dealing with emergencies.

Again, I asked the question last week when this motion was tabled. I never got a legitimate answer from the government leader. Given the resource challenges that we have as a chamber and as a Parliament, given the fact that no one has made a compelling case that there is an outcry by the Canadian public either for Bill C-13 or for Bill C-11 to be rammed through this Parliament without thorough debate, the reality is even if we accept this pre-study, I still have not had an answer from this government: What is a timeline that you think is reasonable for this bill, government leader, to become law?

Because given our agenda the next three to four weeks both in the House and in the Senate it is very unrealistic to think even if there is a pre-study, even if a majority of senators here will stand up to support the government on this motion, I still find it difficult to believe, realistically, that this bill can pass, unless the government thinks that it is such an emergency that they are willing to keep Parliament here past the month of June through July and August — which, by the way, you had the right to do last year as well and chose not to, right? We need clarity on all of those things, government leader, and we have not had it up to this point.

For all of those reasons I have highlighted and outlined, I do not believe, colleagues, that this is in any way a compelling case for a pre-study, neither on Bill C-13 nor on Bill C-11, and, of course, we’ll leave it to the good judgment of this chamber to decide. Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Hon. Lucie Moncion: I am not certain my comments will contribute much to the discussion, but we shall see.

I rise today in support of Senator Gagné’s motion proposing that the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages be authorized to study the subject matter of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

I am a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages and have been part of the study on modernizing this law, and I am convinced that such a study will enrich debate in the House of Commons and the Senate. This pre-study will not prevent the Senate from conducting a proper study once the bill arrives here. Believe me when I say that we have waited too long for this bill to rush it through.

In recent sessions, senators have debated whether it would be appropriate to conduct a pre-study of Bill C-11. That discussion is also relevant to the debate on the pre-study of Bill C-13. In particular, several senators emphasized the benefits of the two chambers maintaining a dialogue in order to achieve a more refined final product that better represents what stakeholders and Canadians are looking for. I share this view as well.

[English]

The context of the pandemic and the hybrid session format makes it difficult to follow the usual committee meeting schedule. The uncertainty of committee schedules and the labour shortage that also affects the Senate is another reason to have a pre-study of Bill C-13 at the Official Languages Committee. It would be unfortunate, in my view, not to take advantage of the valuable meeting time that is available in the coming weeks to study the subject matter of the bill and to get ahead of the game. Giving ourselves time should be a priority in such an uncertain environment.

As Senator Saint-Germain pointed out in her speech on the pre-study of Bill C-11, many pre-studies of non-budgetary bills have been conducted in previous parliaments, including under previous governments. Therefore, we would be continuing a well-established practice. I thank the senator for providing the historical context in this chamber.

Also, the current political environment suggests that there will be sufficient time to do a proper study of this bill, in addition to the pre-study. This is a bill that official language minority communities have been awaiting for over 30 years. I believe that we need to give time and proper consideration to this quasi-constitutional piece of legislation, which is at the heart of Canada’s social contract.

[Translation]

I sincerely believe that, by proposing a pre-study with no constraints related to exchanges and procedure as we approach the end of the session, this motion offers us a reasonable and judicious way to begin our work.

Many of the stakeholders who have been waiting a long time for this have already expressed their concerns about some aspects of the bill. They are ready and we are ready, so why wait?

For one thing, a pre-study would enable us to be proactive in our study of the following aspects.

Stakeholders want Treasury Board to be designated as a central agency responsible for implementing the bill as a whole, but the bill makes Canadian Heritage responsible for exercising leadership in relation to the implementation of this act. We have to examine the complex issue of the central agency.

Next, the clause about francophone immigration policy does not explicitly state that the policy must increase the demographic weight of French-speaking Canada. Should this clause be amended to clarify its remedial purpose?

Many stakeholders are concerned about the fact that this bill does not contain a provision requiring the government to include linguistic provisions in agreements with the provinces and territories. What jurisdictional issues prevent the government from including a clause requiring linguistic provisions? Are there viable alternatives that could satisfy stakeholders?

[English]

The bill does not contain a provision for the disposal of federal real property, a long-standing request by stakeholders to facilitate the acquisition of such property by French-language school boards whose infrastructure is insufficient to meet the needs of their communities.

Finally, we must also consider how the bill will affect the English-speaking minority in Quebec. The Quebec Community Groups Network has expressed significant concerns about various issues that deserve our attention.

The Official Languages Committee has particular expertise in the reform of the Official Languages Act, having conducted an extensive study on this subject matter during the Forty-second Parliament. We should build on this expertise by initiating a pre-study as soon as possible, in parallel with the study of the bill by the Standing Committee on Official Languages in the other place. The other place could benefit from our knowledge. A productive dialogue between these two committees would be an asset to stakeholders and to Canadians.

[Translation]

This bill is long overdue and we need to do it justice. Esteemed colleagues, I urge you to support this motion to ensure that we can start studying the substance of Bill C-13 as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.

[English]

Senator Moncion: Thank you for the question, and it is an important one. I think people believe that a pre-study is something that will be done right away and that we will approve the bill by the end of June. That is not the purpose of the pre-study.

It is important that people in your province are concerned about issues of a linguistic nature, and the fact that you are hearing them is also important. I understand the loyalty you have towards the people of your province, just as I have loyalty for the people of my province.

It is important to understand that with this pre-study we are not pushing to have this bill passed by June. We want to start our work on specific issues that are very contentious right now. We want to work with our francophone colleagues who represent Canadians from coast to coast to coast in order to find resolutions within what is being provided to have the best bill we can for linguistic minorities in Canada.

This bill has been 50 years in the making. The last bill we had was 50 years ago. It was amended along the way, but what we currently have is not what is needed for minorities in our country, whether in Quebec or outside of Quebec.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is leave granted?

Senator Plett: As I mentioned earlier, I oppose this motion for the same reasons that I opposed the previous one. I find it strange that people who one day say we should not do this or we should only do it under certain circumstances, and then when it comes time to show that they really mean that, they stand and vote completely contrary to what they have said previously.

But for the record, allow me to recap very briefly. As I said earlier, colleagues, pre-studies are a legitimate tool available for the Senate to use when utilized for the right reasons. We didn’t vote on whether or not we support Bill C-13 just now. We voted on whether or not we should waste the Senate’s valuable time doing something that will have no bearing on us passing the bill, none.

I debated with a few during the break, and it was clear that people were thinking they were voting in favour of Bill C-13 by voting against a pre-study. In no way is that the case. As I said, pre-studies are a legitimate tool available for the Senate to use when utilized for the right reasons. But this motion for a pre‑study on Bill C-11 does not meet that bar for three reasons:

The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to seek our advice on amendments; their mind is made up. The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to draw from a specific expertise in the Senate; they believe that they are the only house that has this expertise. The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to meet a court-imposed deadline or other urgent situation. This bill meets none of these conditions.

Colleagues, we have a responsibility to the Senate to vote based on criteria. We didn’t do that five minutes ago. This bill meets none of these conditions, which have been the convention when requesting pre-studies. Instead, both the government in the other place and the Government Representative right here seem intent on bypassing sober second thought in order to rush bills through unnecessarily. We hear over and over again from this government leader, right here, “These are the government’s priorities, and we need to rush these through.” Then he says, “Let’s do a pre-study, but let’s take our time. But let’s get it done by this date.”

Colleagues, I must say that I find Senator Gold’s message a bit confusing on this matter. On the one hand, he tells us that the pre-studies have nothing to do with rushing the bills, and the Senate can take all the time it wants. Then he adds:

To be clear, the Senate ultimately decides how many days and weeks it chooses to spend on second reading, on committee stage and on third reading of a government bill.

Here we are, one day away from June 1. We have at best 30‑days left in one month, and we are not going to be here all of those 30 days because we are only here a maximum of 4 days a week, so we have 28 days left.

But then in the next breath, Senator Gold tells us:

. . . it is important to understand that, should Bill C-11 be delayed, hundreds of millions of dollars targeted for allocation to Canadian content and Canadian creators of content would be lost.

That is a misrepresentation of facts. That would not be lost. It may not be there right now.

A delay would perpetuate the void in the Broadcasting Act for minority and marginalized communities.

And then:

For those who may argue that there is no urgency in passing Bill C-11 and that it is not time-sensitive, again, I would respectfully disagree. In my view, depriving Canadian artists of deserved, earned income and tacitly permitting the absence of Canadian content in our broadcasting is an urgent, time-sensitive issue, and it is also a priority of this government.

Along with 100 other priorities that they have.

This is exactly why we are suspicious, colleagues, of the government. Is this bill urgent or not? How can they say, “Oh, take all the time you want, but remember, people are starving while you nitpick at the bill?”

Colleagues, I agreed with Senator Dasko when she made the following statement, and we saw how Senator Dasko voted just a few minutes ago:

My concern with Bill C-11 is that I fear we will be doomed to this inadequate process and its shortcomings and that we will not conduct the proper investigation we need on Bill C-11, and we have no assurances that a regular committee study would follow from our pre-study. With Bill C-11, the ideal process, in my view, would be for us to take into account all the learnings from the House of Commons committee, their proceedings and their report, and build from there.

Colleagues, that is exactly what we should be doing. As I stated earlier, we should have defeated the pre-study on Bill C-13. We should defeat this motion and get back to doing the important work of the Senate. Thank you.

Hon. Scott Tannas: Honourable senators, I just want to put some comments on the record.

First of all, let me just say that I thought we have had a good debate on this. I’m looking forward to hearing the final few speakers before we vote on Bill C-11.

I have listened carefully. I think there have been good points made on all sides. I sense, though, a fatigue — maybe a frustration — among some of us on how often we seem to be debating how to work rather than just getting on with working.

But I have to say that I think this is an important issue for us to pause on before we plow ahead. If you believe, like I do, that we are in a new era of independence, then we are setting precedents as we go.

I will just go through a few of the impressions that I gained.

I am not persuaded much either way by the kind of he-said-she-said in 1990 or 2017 — or whatever — that has been quoted by the government and the opposition. The government’s job is to pass legislation through this place as quickly as possible. Period. The opposition’s job is to defeat — or, failing that, delay — legislation for as long as possible. Period. So I think that while the speeches were interesting, and there were great, wonderful arguments on both sides — compelling arguments on both sides — the rest of us who are independent and trying to make a decision about a side need to weigh the interests of others at all times.

In my view, we need to come to decisions on matters like this without hanging our personal feelings on whether or not we like the bill or the government of the day. There will be times when it will be a different government. Those of us who like today’s government may not like tomorrow’s government.

If we are truly exercising our independence, then we will need to be consistent, won’t we? Given the same circumstances five years from now — with a Pierre Poilievre government in place and Senator Plett making the case about how we ought to give ourselves the extra time to study a policy that many of us find appalling — we want to make sure we’re consistent, don’t we, if we are going to be independent.

I think that is partly what is at stake in these kinds of detours that we take into process — because there are precedents. It is not about somebody calling us out five years from now. It is about looking ourselves in the mirror and saying, “Yes, I was truly independent. I made the same decision for the same reasons five years ago that I am going to make today.” That consistency is something that I reflected on. What is the consistent thing I can support today that I know I can support in the situation where there is a different government? For myself, I am satisfied that in this case I am doing that.

This does not mean that I won’t ever support pre-studies. We’ve all talked about this. There are times when pre-studies are an important tool. I just do not happen to believe that these particular two items have arrived at the right thresholds for us to agree to do this.

I also think about the role of the Senate, and some of the debates that were done pre-Confederation talked about the role of the Senate to pass, reject, amend and delay with dispassionate consideration. All those things, I think, come into play here, in particular with Bill C-11. This bill is going to come to us, I believe, with a lot of heat. It is going to come to us with a lot of people who are passionately for Bill C-11 and a lot of people who are passionately against it. I think it was Senator Plett who talked about that today. There are going to be winners and losers in this.

In my instinct, this is not the time that we should be trying to get into the mix quickly. We should be the ones who take the heat out of it. We should be the ones who say that we’re going to take space and time and make consideration here. We are going to see this bill come to us time-allocated, where debate has been truncated, and where activities in committees, whether they are dilatory or not, have been truncated. We may see it as we did at Christmas and last June with last-minute deals and whole sections written in — like we had. All of those things give me reason to think that it is not a good idea in this case for us to embark on an adventure of pre-study.

But I want to be clear. My vote has nothing to do with the bill. It has nothing to do with the contents of the bill. I don’t know how I’m going to vote on the bill. The way I deal with my job here is to not pay a lot of attention to what is going on until it is in my chamber, and I am supposed to be focused on it. I know that others deal with it differently.

But I honestly can say I have no hot clue how I’m going to vote. For me, this is 100% about whether or not it is a good idea for us to embark on pre-study. I know a number of my colleagues feel the same as I do. It is not about the bill and its contents.

That is really all I wanted to say. In closing, the idea of us being appropriately cautious in guarding our space and time on Bill C-11 will be important to the credibility of the decision that we make in the end.

I encourage you to give my thoughts today, short as they are, some consideration as we move to a vote. Thank you.

Senator Gold: I will refrain from — I appreciate your acknowledging that I have said publicly what I have said, and privately. What I said was that a pre-study is not a Trojan Horse to displace all other stages of study, which it is for the Senate to decide. I have two colleagues whose votes I hope I can count on. I have the responsibility to quote Spider-Man but not the power: With great responsibility comes no power except the power of persuasion and the power of my own integrity and reputation.

I will allow myself to take the liberty of saying that it is very fine to be told, “Of course, we think you are a wonderful person, but the government could always change their mind. And what is to stop it? We haven’t been told this and we haven’t been told that.”

At the risk of revealing more than I wish, it is offensive to me that despite my public and private pronouncements time and again and the respect I have shown for this chamber, we still think it relevant in this debate to trade on the suspicions.

I can’t do anything about it, colleagues, except to tell you that my question is as follows: Can you explain two things? First, why is it that you think we in the Senate — for the reputation which we all extol, and properly so — will be drawn into the political partisanship in the other place? If we choose to not be drawn into the politics, surely we will not be drawn in. If we choose to play the politics, as some do in this place, then c’est la vie.

Secondly, why do you assume that the government — or I should say, more accurately — the parties in the other place will not be responsive —

Senator Tannas: You have strained my attention span with your questions. Let me start with the first one. I do not believe that the files that you quoted have anything like the potential acrimony that these do.

Maybe we would have to go back. That may be a matter for somebody else to debate down the road or for history to judge about how long they have taken in the House of Commons, the fact that closure has been utilized and that we still do not have a bill. We do not know what amendments there are going to be.

In the case of the pre-studies that you did mention, we did do some great work, and it was collaborative. Certainly, during Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, which you mentioned, there was no rancour. There were no theatrics. There were no winners or losers. We were all pointed at a result that we wanted to get to and to create the best product that we could.

Senator Gold, I do want to say that I am sorry I have raised your anger with my comments. I am not making up the fact that we have had some last-minute surprises. We have had pressure put on us by ministers publicly in the media; ministers phoning us; and other officers phoning us to tell us that we needed to hurry up for whatever reasons at the last minute when the bill had only just arrived or when there were changes to it at the last minute. I am not making that up.

I do take you at your word that is not going to happen this time. Maybe next time, after it doesn’t happen this June, it will be more of a distant memory. I know it is frustrating, but it is true. We have had some problems where we have not, in my view and in the view of others, had the opportunity to properly consider government legislation because of so-called time deadlines.

I am sensitive about it. It is in the back of my mind. I have always spoken my mind here and felt that I could trust people with that. I do not mean anything bad by it. It is how I feel. I think it is how others feel. We all have scars and bruises from it, including yourself.

In this debate, it is important that we all have our say. I am having mine. I thank you and appreciate your questions.

Hon. Paula Simons: Honourable senators, I think it’s safe to say that there is broad consensus in this chamber that Bill C-11 requires deep and comprehensive study. The question before us is: What is the best way to carry out that study?

This is a complicated bill, replete with competing interests from a wide and diverse range of stakeholders. This is not a question of hearing from people on both sides. What we’re looking at is not a two-sided debate but something like a dodecahedron. The interests of digital-first video creators are not the same as those of established, conventional filmmakers. The interests of young musicians attempting to use YouTube to break into their field are quite different from the interests of giant record labels represented by Music Canada. The interests of Netflix, Prime Video, Apple and Disney are quite different than the interests of Global Television, Rogers or Bell.

This bill splits across many cultural divides. Bill C-11 reads differently whether you’re anglophone or francophone, rural or urban, northern or southern, whether you come from the west or the centre. There is, perhaps, an even greater generational divide — people who watch television versus those who “Netflix and chill” versus those who grew up on Twitch and Discord. The bill fundamentally redefines Canada’s entertainment and information ecosystem and requires rigorous non-partisan, independent, fair-minded review, which the Senate is uniquely equipped to provide.

Is Bill C-11 unconstitutional? Some critics have suggested that it is, though I do not think so. Still, there is no doubt it does engage with important constitutional issues. Is the bill about censorship? No, I think that that is a complete red herring, but it is an extremely ambitious piece of legislation that attempts a radical paradigm shift in the way we consume online culture.

For some, it is problematic and protectionist legislation that does not necessarily fit the way that people today create or consume digital media. Whether you support the bill or not, I hope we can all agree that it needs the sober second thought that the Senate at its best provides. However, it’s difficult to provide sober second thought while the first thought is still happening.

Committee work in the other place just began a week ago, but it is moving extremely quickly. Unlike the parallel bill, Bill C-10, which spent four months in committee, this bill is moving rapidly. Initially, Bill C-10 was subjected to an extraordinary number of amendments — 134 in all — some of them seemingly contradictory amendments that completely rewrote the bill. I don’t think it’s unfair or unreasonable for me to be worried about the timing of all of this. It is possible that if we begin our pre-study before the House has finished its work, we could be wasting our time spinning our wheels because we will have no idea what the bill that finally comes to us will actually look like.

But, actually, given the pace at which the committee in the other place is working, it is also possible that a pre-study will be moot, and we will get the bill so quickly that we will not have time for a pre-study to even begin. More than that, I am concerned that if the bill does come to us in mid-June — and I say this with the greatest of respect for the Government Representative, for whom I have the greatest of respect — I am hearing voices from outside this chamber that suggest to me we could nonetheless be hurried into winding up a final study before we have had time to do our job properly.

I am even more worried about that as of today, as we begin debate on this motion, because of what is happening with Bill C-18. The government imposed time allocation on Bill C-18, and this afternoon, it was sent to committee after second reading. I’m more than a little concerned that we could end up with both bills in front of our committee at once, and Bill C-18, which is a far more radical and problematic bill than Bill C-11, must not be rushed either.

I want to make it plain that I am not interested in dragging my feet or stalling this study for the sake of stalling. I do not have a partisan or ideological game to play. I’m speaking out of common sense. I want to plow ahead. I want to start the study of Bill C-11 as soon as possible. I have been meeting with stakeholders and lobbyists, artists and academics, and lawyers and technical experts for two years now. I cannot wait to get started on a proper study of Bill C-11. This bill is just as momentous for the industries and economies it seeks to regulate as Bill C-69 was for the energy sector, and it deserves mature and measured study.

I deeply appreciate the thrust of Senator Gold’s comments, and I share his frustration at how long it has taken to get the bill to us in the Senate. I am a champion — a passionate, lifelong champion — of Canadian arts and Canadian culture, and indeed, as a sometime playwright and author myself, I have been a small part of the cultural economy. However, I want to clear up a few points of confusion.

Two weeks ago, the Government Representative told us in this chamber that if Bill C-11 were delayed until the fall:

. . . hundreds of millions of dollars targeted for allocation to Canadian content and Canadian creators of content would be lost.

I wish for my colleagues to understand this: There is no way that hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for the arts sector will be lost if we wait until October to pass this bill. To be clear, that is because Bill C-11 does neither earmarks nor allocates any money for anyone at all. The bill instead allows the CRTC broad new powers to hammer out agreements with various major streaming services and social media platforms. These are individual financial deals that could take years to work out. Once this bill is passed, there will be no immediate change to funding for Canadian film, television and music.

This bill is not a tax bill; it is a regulatory framework. It does not tax anyone. It does not apply any levies. It does not create any new production funds, and it does not transfer or allocate a single penny to anyone. It punts the issue down the field to the CRTC. If and when Bill C-11 is passed, it will be an overture, not a finale. It will allow for complex negotiations with major players in the digital economy, but it will not wave a magic wand to put money into the pockets of Canadian music, film or digital producers.

Delaying the passage of this bill, as Senator Gold has warned us, would be depriving Canadian artists of deserved earned income, but there is nothing in the text of Bill C-11 about remuneration for Canadian artists, creators and copyright holders. That is not the intent of this bill. It is, as I say, a regulatory framework.

Now Bill C-18, which we will be receiving soon, would indeed compel Facebook and Google into binding arbitration and compel them to subsidize online news. There is no similar provision in Bill C-11. Again, the regulatory framework is a necessary first step, perhaps, to a new system of indexing and showcasing Canadian programs to give them more visibility online. But it is not, directly at least, a new way to pay or compensate Canadian writers, directors, composers or performers.

So perhaps — to borrow a metaphor from Senator Tannas — we can take the temperature down a bit. I stand ready to study Bill C-11 as soon as possible. I am not interested in foot-dragging or lollygagging, as my office has a list of possible witnesses prepared. I am eager to hear their testimony and to hear their answers to our questions. And goodness knows, given the persistent misunderstandings around this bill, we need public hearings to educate the public at large and perhaps parliamentarians, too.

I just don’t want us to be pushed to meet an arbitrary, artificial deadline. And I don’t want a quick pre-study to undercut the place of proper analysis and good faith debate that this bill requires. So I’m proud tonight to stand in support of my colleague Senator Dasko and to ask us to give sober second thought to this motion. Thank you very much. Hiy hiy.

[Translation]

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: As you know, Senator Simons and I are both members of the Transport and Communications Committee. We have discussed this bill at length. We received witnesses together — or should I say, lobbyists — to try to understand the situation a bit better. I subscribe to your analysis and I totally agree that it is complicated, that there are not just two parties, but many parties. However, I believe that the issues are very important. It is, in part, about the survival of the Canadian culture as we know it. Yes, we must change things; yes, we must innovate, but we nevertheless have a duty to protect this Canadian culture. How can we do that in an environment that is completely different?

How does starting a pre-study next week, when we could begin to receive witnesses who would give us a comprehensive view and people who are knowledgeable about the technology, prevent us from conducting a study that would no longer be a pre-study when the bill comes to the Senate? I do not see how that changes anything at all. We are seated in a room, we receive witnesses, we listen to them, we ask questions. What is the difference between a pre-study and a study we could do at that stage, which would be an extension of the other?

Hon. Claude Carignan: Would Senator Cormier take another question?

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, it is now six o’clock. Pursuant to rule 3-3(1), I am obliged to leave the chair until 8 p.m. If you wish this session to be suspended, please say, “suspend.”