Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question.

Since IRCC began transferring asylum claimants to Cornwall in September 2022, it has worked closely with the Province of Ontario and the City of Cornwall. It meets on a biweekly basis with partners to discuss the respective roles and responsibilities, and the transfer of claimants, so as to ensure operational readiness.

Since the beginning, IRCC has been transparent with provincial and municipal stakeholders about the department’s plan to house asylum claimants in Cornwall and in other communities, given how so many have arrived through Quebec. It has passed along all available information at every step in the process. Furthermore, IRCC delegates made a trip to Cornwall in late January to discuss with officials the community challenges that came to light following the transfer of claimants.

IRCC is committed to working closely with its municipal partners to determine the future of operations when current hotel contracts are set to expire, and it will maintain open lines of communication.

Senator, you’re quite right to underline the challenge of human smuggling. It’s a global problem. It requires both domestic and international solutions. In that regard, Canada works closely both with its domestic and international partners, and the government remains confident in the ability of Canadian law enforcement agencies to work together to maintain the integrity of our border with the United States.

The changes in the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement are intended to deter irregular crossings between ports of entry and to reaffirm that foreign nationals should claim asylum in the first safe country they enter, whether it be Canada or the United States. Now that the terms of the Safe Third Country Agreement apply across the entire border, entering between ports of entry no longer provides greater access to Canada’s asylum system.

Again, the IRCC and the government will continue to work closely with the communities that are bearing the burden, costs and challenges of accommodating in a humane and dignified way those who are in Canada seeking asylum.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question.

The global economy is undergoing what might be fairly described as the greatest transformation since the Industrial Revolution, and Canada, as a leading country, cannot allow itself to be left behind. Our friends and partners — notably chief amongst them, the United States — are investing heavily to build cleaner economies and the net-zero industries of tomorrow. That’s why the measures in this budget put a strong accent on helping Canadian businesses in Canada with their efforts to invest in the clean economy with clear and predictable investment tax credits, low-cost strategic financing and targeted investments and programming designed to respond to the specific needs of the different sectors or projects that have national economic significance, to list some of them.

As I mentioned, there is a suite of new investment tax credits designed to attract and accelerate investments in clean electricity, clean technology manufacturing and clean hydrogen — projects already under way by businesses and supported by governments in many of our provinces, from labour requirements to investment tax credits, to ensure government support for businesses to be able to grow and provide workers with good wages and opportunities for apprenticeship. There is $3 billion over 13 years to support clean electricity programs. There is a clean electricity focus for the Canada Infrastructure Bank, with investments of at least $20 billion to support the building of major clean electricity and clean growth infrastructure projects. And, of course, there is the standing up of the Canada Growth Fund to partner with the Public Sector Pension Investment Board to attract the private capital needed to invest in Canada’s clean economy.

These measures are designed to make sure that we, as a country, do not fall behind our partners and the world as the world undergoes this transformative change. Budget 2023 is the Government of Canada’s response to that to help our Canadian businesses and our economy succeed as we go through these changes.

Senator Gold: It’s the position of the government that this is precisely the time to make these investments. First of all, the world will not wait. Climate change doesn’t wait; capital markets don’t wait; our partners aren’t waiting and Canadian businesses don’t want to wait. The workers who depend on good, solid jobs, whether it’s in the current energy sector, in agriculture — in every sector — have the right to have their governments support them as the world changes around them so that they and their children can continue to have a prosperous, nourishing and meaningful work experience.

Happily and fortunately — and I am repeating myself —

Senator Plett: Yes, you are.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Leader, to the surprise of absolutely no one in this country, it turns out that the member of Canada’s delegation to Her Majesty’s funeral last September who stayed in the $6,000-a-night hotel room was — you guessed it — Justin Trudeau. This information was not given during any of the times that the Prime Minister was directly asked about this in the other place. It also wasn’t provided through access to information, as his name was redacted from hotel invoices released in February. No, this information was given to the House committee just as Air Force One was touching down in Ottawa last Friday.

An Hon. Senator: Facts.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-18, the online news act.

A few weeks ago, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Harder, said he hoped that we could all agree that action is needed to address the challenges faced by the Canadian news sector at this time.

I do agree that legacy news media in this country are facing challenges, as they struggle to compete with online news outlets and platforms for eyeballs and for advertising revenue. Some are struggling more than others, and I think that’s something that should be included in any study of this legislation.

Why are some succeeding where others are failing? That’s partly where I take issue with this legislation — that it establishes, as its baseline, that journalism as a whole is in peril in this country. Where I take further issue is that it is a problem that warrants government intervention. I have difficulty wrapping my head around the notion that government sticking its nose in will somehow ensure a free and independent news media — the two don’t really go together.

There is no denying that bricks and mortar newsrooms in Canada are being decimated — in particular, newspaper publishers and small, independent outlets. Canadians, like everyone else in the world, are consuming news differently. More and more, they are turning to online platforms for content, and advertisers are following them. As a result, legacy media are now forced to compete for advertising revenue over which they used to enjoy a monopoly. But, colleagues, if they’re unable to successfully do so, that’s a problem with their business model, not with journalism at large.

Let’s be honest about the intent of this legislation: It’s not about preserving a free and independent press that, yes, I agree, is so vital to a healthy democracy. It’s about preserving a system of journalism with which we are familiar and comfortable — and, in the case of the current government, has also served them well.

For a government that proclaims to embrace innovation and technology unlike any other government before them, they keep drafting legislation that punishes and disincentivizes innovation. The simple fact is that government has no business in the news business within a robust and healthy democracy.

When a government steps in to dictate what qualifies as “quality” or “professional” news, and starts handing out financial supports on that basis, that is no longer a free and independent news media.

Colleagues, it’s human nature to distrust someone whose very survival is dependent on another person or entity. It’s why we have conflict of interest laws and codes. Even the appearance of a possible conflict is to be avoided. That is especially true when it comes to news media.

I am very disappointed to see the government, including the sponsor of this bill here in the Senate, use the prospect of fighting disinformation and misinformation as justification for this legislation, as if only the government, or its proxies, can be the arbiter of what information is worthy of consuming.

It’s very dangerous, colleagues. Yet, it keeps coming up, even after a member in the House of Commons was forced to apologize.

Liberal member of Parliament, and a former journalist herself, Lisa Hepfner claimed in committee during study of Bill C-18 that:

. . . we’ll see the argument that a couple hundred other online news organizations have popped up in that time, what we don’t see is that they’re not news.

They’re not gathering news. They’re publishing opinion only.

In an apology that she was forced to issue over that comment, MP Hepfner couldn’t help herself and, again, denigrated online news by implying that most of them are not trusted sources of news but, rather, sources of fake news.

Colleagues, you scoff at our suggestions that all of these pieces of legislation — this bill and its predecessor, Bill C-11 — are attempts by the Trudeau government to control what Canadians see online, but the truth is the call is coming from inside the House — literally.

While we’re on the topic of misinformation and disinformation, let’s talk about the complete misrepresentation of how news is being shared on Facebook and Google, and what this legislation will supposedly do.

Liberal MP Hepfner, again, described it in the following way in a tweet after Bill C-18’s passage in the House of Commons. She tweeted that Bill C-18:

. . . makes it harder for big digital platforms like Facebook and Google to steal local journalists’ articles and repost them without credit . . . .

That is such an appalling distortion of facts and reality from a member of a government that talks ad nauseam about combatting misinformation and disinformation online, and then they go ahead and perpetuate it.

These platforms don’t “steal” content. If anything, they’re actually showcasing the work of journalists, and driving traffic to legacy media’s own websites — just like they showcase our work when we post our own content as politicians.

Ms. Hepfner makes it sound as though Facebook and Google are out there copying and pasting content and trying to pass it off as their own. Colleagues, that’s ludicrous.

In the case of Facebook, its users — people like you and all of us — are providing links to news items that take you to their originating website, whether it be CTV News or CBC or the Western Standard or any one of these outlets.

It’s the same with Google, whether you’re looking at Google News, which is an aggregator that clearly identifies the source of the story and links directly to that site, or when you’re using Google as a search engine, where it again brings you directly to the originating source site of the journalist’s story.

There’s no stealing of content nor failure to properly credit anyone or any outlet for their work. Accusing the platforms of theft would be like a restaurant accusing a cab driver of stealing their customers when they drop them off at the door. It’s ludicrous.

Yes, these online platforms have found a way to financially benefit from the work of others; and, in turn, with only so much ad revenue to go around, it cuts into the profits of the media outlets. Of that there is no doubt.

But let’s stick with the analogy of the cab driver and the restaurant. A couple is dining out and they know they want to have a few drinks at dinner and don’t want to drive, so they take a cab to and from the restaurant. They only have so much budgeted for their evening out, so they know that they have to deduct the cab fare from the amount they had set aside at the restaurant. That’s logical.

Is the restaurant owner now going to say to the cab driver, “Okay, you owe me a portion of the fare”? No, he or she is thankful for the business; especially in today’s world where food delivery services are draining a lot of business from in-house dining.

Those same restaurants, by the way, have had to adapt, as a result of those food delivery services, to new technology and how we order from restaurants. It is the same way that the news media will have to adapt to the digital world — and some have adapted.

By the way, nobody is forcing news media to make their content available online to be shared on platforms like Facebook or Google. They choose to post the content themselves and encourage others to share by putting those little icons for sharing available on every item. They know the benefit they derive from having their content shared — it’s magnified. In the case of Google, media outlets proactively make their content available to show up in a Google search by enabling their RSS feed. They could simply not enable that feed, and, in the case of sharing on other platforms, they could put their content behind a paywall. A digital subscription is no different from a paid subscription. It’s difficult to accuse someone of stealing something that’s on offer for free.

Recently, Google carried out what they called a test in Canada in which they stopped providing links to Canadian news for what they say was less than 4% of the population in Canada. Government officials went off accusing them of “stealing” content and of “blocking” content.

I’ll return to my restaurant analogy. It would be like the cab driver saying, “Okay, I don’t want to be accused of stealing your customers, so I won’t bring people to your restaurant anymore.” And then the restaurant manager accuses him of stopping customers from going to the restaurant.

Colleagues, do we not see the ridiculousness of it all?

Furthermore, it’s just not true. During Google’s test, not one Canadian was prevented from accessing whatever news site they wanted to access — not one. That’s not how the internet works.

It’s not about defending big tech, as I’m sure I will be accused of doing. It’s about being factual and speaking plainly about the reality of the situation.

We have a government engaging in the very misinformation they claim to want to combat, just as they are engaging in the very bullying and intimidation that they’re accusing Alphabet and Meta of, the parent companies of Google and Facebook.

That was the reaction of the Trudeau government to Google’s recent test and to Meta making it clear that if they are forced to pay every time one of its members shares a link to a news article in Canada, they will halt the practice altogether. They will simply say, “Don’t use our platform. Use another search engine.” Nobody forces a journalist to use Google or any other platform. It is free. It is called freedom. You have a choice.

These two companies are engaging in a good old-fashioned game of chicken. They are calling the government’s bluff, and it’s no surprise that the government is reacting negatively to it.

However, that does not justify what the government did in retribution. For those who may not be aware, Google was called on the carpet to explain their decision to carry out their recent test. Not only was the witness from Google intimidated by MP Chris Bittle — he seems to be turning that into an art form — he went so far as to state that perhaps they would have to consult with the law clerk to determine what further could be done because Mr. Bittle simply wasn’t satisfied with the responses he received.

The government used that parliamentary committee to compel the production of third-party correspondence from these two companies, as it relates to a bill that is no longer in that chamber for consideration.

We are talking about correspondence between these entities and private citizens voicing opposition to this government’s legislation, and this government is demanding that it be turned over.

Talk about witch hunts. Talk about inadvertently browbeating and arm-twisting witnesses. To what end? What purpose does this serve? Never mind how rich it is for this government to demand a level of transparency from others that it has gone to great lengths to avoid providing itself.

This is the kind of strong-arming we’d expect from Beijing or Tehran or Havana, or even from the mob. It is not supposed to be how we conduct ourselves in a free and democratic society.

It’s the kind of witness intimidation we saw from the same member of government during their and our study of Bill C-11.

I know it’s easy to demonize online platforms, in particular Alphabet and Meta, who are the parent companies of Google and Facebook. There has certainly been a lot of it in this chamber and committee over the past several months, but this is beyond the pale.

Colleagues, I understand the reflex to help struggling newsrooms, especially the smaller, independent and local ones. The government has certainly played on that sentiment.

But the truth is that this bill will not breathe new life into struggling newspapers or upstart or ethnic venture newspapers. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the money collected through this scheme will actually go to big broadcasters, including none other than my beloved funded CBC.

That’s not me saying that; it’s the Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent officer of Parliament. According to an analysis carried out by the PBO, newspapers and online news outlet media would get less than a quarter of the funding collected from Facebook and Google.

It is CBC, Bell, Shaw and Rogers, our beloved telecommunications giants, who would stand to make $248 million from this scheme, while newspapers and smaller, independent and ethnic online outlets would be left scrapping it out for the remaining $81 million. It’s not me saying it; it is the PBO.

Why is CBC even eligible for this funding? They already have an advantage over all others by allowing them to compete for ad revenue, while also receiving government funding to the tune of $1.4 billion per year. Are we now going to give them another leg up by allowing them to cut into this funding?

If we want to help the smaller, independent outlets, stop making them compete against CBC. If this legislation is passed, CBC should not be eligible for funding it generates, or every dollar they do receive should be deducted from their government funding.

In closing, I want to go back to something Senator Harder said about the newsrooms that do the heavy lifting and how their work must be supported and that they must be fairly compensated.

Few outlets, if any, in this town have done more heavy lifting in exposing the waste and ethical corruption of the current government than the online outlet Blacklock’s. They are one of the outlets I spoke about earlier that employs a business model of putting their content behind a paywall and charging a subscription fee.

Yet, this Trudeau government has been embroiled in a years‑long legal battle with Blacklock’s because government departments and offices keep sharing their content without paying the subscription fee. That’s why they’ve been before the court for years.

Think about that: This government is out there telling you that we must support free and open journalism and that these journalists must be fairly compensated for their work — noble. All the while, they’re openly circumventing Blacklock’s paywall and outright infringing on their copyright. That is actually stealing content — and that is parliamentary language. If somebody takes something that doesn’t belong to them, free and unwarranted, it is called stealing.

So the government’s talking points on this legislation are beyond rich. No doubt, they justify it by telling themselves that Blacklock’s isn’t what they consider a “professional” outlet providing “quality” news. That’s because they criticize. So anybody who criticizes is not professional — they’re fake and they’re not quality. Do you see the parallels here? They would say that about any outlet, I think, that’s highly critical of them. Even The Globe and Mail — sometimes they’re legitimate, sometimes they’re not, depending on the news story.

And that, colleagues, is precisely why the government and politicians have absolutely no business in the business of news.

Senator Plett: Hear, hear.

Senator Housakos: My speech, as you know, Senator Lankin, is a critique of this bill. It’s not incumbent on me to find all the solutions. But I do believe vehemently — and that’s why I oppose this piece of legislation — that the objective is honourable. We are trying to help failing — and particularly print — news platforms across this country. We all grew up with them. They are learning tools. They are so fundamental to our democracy. You are absolutely right — some are more left, some are more right, and that’s normal. I don’t have any issue with that. I encourage that as part of the democratic process.

But even in today’s digital world, some of them are very successful. They might not like it, but I’ll use The Globe and Mail as an example. They have adapted quickly to the new realities of the digital world. The digital world has offered a unique opportunity. It’s a megaphone to promote our work, and it has offered it to journalists, artists and politicians. It is something I believe we should embrace and learn how to use it effectively. The Globe and Mail has a subscription-type system that they have been using now for a number of years. They are as successful today as they have ever been in the past.

Another outlet, the National Post — and again, they might not like this — has not adapted to the digital reality as quickly, and we have seen their newsrooms across the country suffering. I’m not picking one or the other, but they are two prime examples of important national newspapers. One is really thriving in the digital world, and the other one isn’t.

It’s the same with local weekly newspapers. In my neighbourhood, once upon a time, there were six. Now there are three that are suffering, two are doing really well and one, unfortunately, went bust.

We have seen now with this government’s noble attempt to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to prop them up — to suspend them — that it hasn’t worked. The ones that are doing well are still doing well because they’ve adapted. For the ones that are not, all the money in the world won’t help them.

From my 20 years of business experience, I have learned something. If your business model is not adaptable to the economic realities of the time, the government can give you all the money in the world and you won’t succeed.

I don’t have the solution at my fingertips. I hope we have that robust, intense discussion at our committees — thank God, in Senate committees we do have those types of robust discussions — and, hopefully, we can come up with some decent, thoughtful amendments that would help this industry that we all agree and recognize has to flourish.

Unfortunately, for me, this is a shakedown of certain digital platforms that are not content providers. They are just platforms for content to be exported. We are shaking them down in order to help an industry that hasn’t adapted to that particular reality. There have been winners and losers. I think the marketplace should let them work it out.

By the way, Google has been negotiating with news outlets now for years. They have made arrangements with newspapers and different organizations. The Globe and Mail is an example, right? They have made a deal.

All I am simply saying, again, is let the marketplace figure it out amongst themselves in a conducive fashion.

[Translation]

Hon. Fabian Manning: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada.

The purported purpose of this bill is to regulate what the bill terms “. . . digital news intermediaries to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace . . . .” “Fairness” is the word that the government employs most in relation to this bill. The government argues that regulation of digital news intermediaries is necessary to allow for the Canadian digital news market to be sustainable.

To accomplish that supposed objective, this bill does many things. It creates a framework for digital news intermediary operators — online platforms — and news businesses to enter into agreements respecting news content that is made available by the digital news intermediaries. It empowers the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission — CRTC — to maintain a list of digital news intermediaries and then enables the CRTC to exempt them from the terms of the bill if the CRTC is satisfied that an intermediary has entered into agreements with news businesses that, again, in the commission’s opinion, satisfy certain criteria of fairness that the CRTC itself will adjudicate.

The bill allows for regulations to be made by the government on how the CRTC is to interpret these criteria. The bill establishes a bargaining process between businesses and digital news intermediaries that the CRTC will oversee. It permits businesses to complain to the CRTC about the way digital news intermediaries are conducting themselves. And, of course, the bill then authorizes the commission to impose, for any contraventions of the legislation, penalties and conditions on the participation of news business in the bargaining process.

The bill also establishes a mechanism for the recovery, from digital news intermediary operators, of costs related to the administration of the legislation.

Colleagues, what this bill does is inject the CRTC into yet another dimension of how the internet and broadcasting have functioned over the past 30 years. This time, the CRTC is to be injected into how Canadians get their news and into who benefits from that consumption of the news.

The Senate recently reviewed Bill C-11. Many witnesses, among them former chairs and commissioners of the CRTC — people who possess considerable knowledge and experience — told us about the limited capacity of the CRTC to take on the new roles envisioned for the commission under Bill C-11.

Now the government is proposing, under Bill C-18, to give the CRTC an even broader role and more power when it comes to the negotiation of revenue-sharing arrangements between online platforms and news businesses. Bill C-18 would impose a board on all parties. That board would, of course, be appointed by the government to conduct the arbitration that is provided for in Bill C-18. It is scarcely surprising that many people question how such a board will credibly adjudicate between very different points of view and in a manner that is seen as legitimate by all parties.

I would argue that the absence of legitimacy is a major problem with this bill, given the scope of authority that is proposed for the CRTC over what are bread-and-butter issues for multiple news outlets — often small news outlets — and the platforms themselves.

The role of the CRTC will also extend to how consumers, or the Canadian public, access and consume news. What I fear is that the task that the CRTC will assume will be so difficult that the government may end up inadvertently undermining the legitimacy of the CRTC itself. That is, of course, not what the government intends. But as with all ill-thought-out good intentions, that may nevertheless be the result.

Despite all the claims by the government that it widely consulted on this bill, there is certainly no clear consensus to suggest that the role proposed by the CRTC will be seen as legitimate by all parties.

I want to focus my remarks today on what I see as some of the core problems with the concepts that underscore the bill.

The first challenge concerns what the ultimate objective of the bill actually is. When I listen to government justifications for this legislation, I hear a lot of buzzwords and phrases.

Minister Rodriguez has said that the bill is important to protect a free and independent press. He says that the bill is about ensuring that Canadians have access to fact-based information. He also said this is about strengthening our democracy. He states that the bill will build a fairer news ecosystem.

We hear those words — “news ecosystem” and “fairness” — a lot from government spokespeople. Not surprisingly, Senator Harder repeated those same themes when he spoke to the bill in the Senate Chamber. Using the same words as the minister, Senator Harder said:

The aim of Bill C-18 is to create a news ecosystem that promotes the creation of high-quality news content and reflects Canada’s diverse voices and stories.

He says that the bill will provide “. . . a legislative and regulatory framework that is flexible, modern and encourages market fairness.” There is that word “fairness” again.

By my count, Senator Harder uttered the word “fair” or “fairness” more than 20 times in his remarks on the bill. He referred to the importance of the government ensuring, through the CRTC, “fair negotiations.” He said that the government had to ensure that everybody gets their “fair share.” He spoke about the need for news businesses to get their “fair compensation.”

Many iterations of that word “fair” were used in Senator Harder’s remarks. The minister also continuously repeats the fairness mantra.

I’ve been around politics for a long time. Excuse me for being a little bit cynical. When a politician uses a word like “fair” that many times, people are wise to check to see if they still have their wallets.

What this is really about is money. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the question of who gets access to revenue streams generated from online advertising is the major focus of this bill. Accessing that revenue stream is what the bill is really all about.

Through this legislation, the government proposes to set up a system where the digital platforms will be required to pay news businesses for posting links to the news content that they have produced. Senator Harder argued the government’s case for doing this by saying that the business model of digital platforms is to capture billions of dollars in advertising revenue by posting these links. But then, he argues, they pay none of that advertising revenue to the originators of the news.

The platforms, of course, see it differently. In their view, what the bill will do is to require them to pay the publishers simply for hosting links to their websites and for bringing more people to their websites. In effect, what they see is a de facto tax for putting the link to the news site on their platforms.

Whether we support the point of view of the government or the platforms, there is no dispute over the fact that with Bill C-18, the government has come down on the side of the legacy news media.

The government argues that the reasons for doing so are grounded in the devastating impact that the internet revolution has had on the legacy news media. Minister Rodriguez himself referenced the allegation that since 2010, about one third of journalism jobs in Canada have disappeared and that Canadian TV stations, radio stations and newspapers have lost approximately $4.9 billion in revenue, even as online advertising revenue has grown.

The bill is in large measure about trying to put the genie back in the bottle and reverse the undoubtedly negative impact that the advent of the internet has had on traditional broadcasters.

Sue Gardner, who in 2021-22 was a visiting professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy, described this in a recent article as being the equivalent of a government 100 years ago requiring carmakers to pay permanent compensation to companies who had heretofore made buggy whips.

Those buggy whip manufacturers have been following the business model of buggy whip makers for many centuries. Then came along the automobile, and buggy whip makers suddenly found their previous profits badly impacted. Government intervention might make good sense for buggy whip makers, but does it make good sense for society as a whole?

I don’t want to minimize the struggles that traditional news organizations are going through. I know many jobs have been lost. I have seen this in my own province of Newfoundland and Labrador. But I do believe we need to ask ourselves whether heavy-handed government intervention to support an out-of-date business model really makes sense.

If this is what we are doing, then words like “ensuring fair negotiations” and “ensuring that everybody gets their fair share” are really just a cover. What the bill is really about in that case is about justifying government intervention. That intervention will occur through the CRTC to redirect revenue flow.

That brings me to what has been the government’s rhetorical cover for this bill, namely, the argument that it is essential for our democracy to sustain the old way of doing things.

In this regard, Senator Harder’s remarks on Bill C-18 stress the vital services that traditional news broadcasters are said to perform in Canada. He said that “. . . a free and independent press is one of the foundations of a safe, prosperous and democratic society.” Certainly, no one in this chamber would disagree with that premise.

But he also implied that it is largely the traditional broadcasters who deliver for Canadians that fair and unbiased information. Senator Harder implied that unless government supports traditional broadcasters, we will see greater misinformation and disinformation. Specifically, he said:

We have seen how the spread of misinformation and disinformation around the world can damage societies. A robust, questioning media is one of the most effective antidotes to these disorders.

With all due respect, I believe it is a fallacy to argue that traditional media is somehow our antidote to misinformation. Everyone in this chamber has witnessed mainstream media feeding frenzies that result whenever hot-button issues suddenly emerge at the top of the news cycle. A groupthink takes hold. Suddenly the entire parliamentary press is reporting the same story in much the same way. No one wants to be seen as out of step. Investigative journalism has gone out the window.

When this happens — and it happens all too frequently — I have rarely seen any of the mainstream media outlets swim against the tide. When the feeding frenzy is at its peak, I have rarely seen media ask many serious questions that might suggest that perhaps somebody has it wrong. As I just said, investigative journalism has gone out the window.

The idea that government intervention through Bill C-18 is pivotal to create a healthy mainstream media better able, in Senator Harder’s words, “to hold . . . leaders accountable” puts the emphasis in completely the wrong place. The traditional media are not the guardians of objective truth.

I think many Canadians see it the same way. When we consider Canadian news viewing habits, we are seeing a decline in confidence in traditional broadcasting. The average audience for CBC’s supper-hour newscast is just over 300,000 people. That’s less than 1% of the Canadian population. I’m sure many senators opposite watch the CBC religiously, and on this side, I may be the only one, but I do too most times. I too watch it from time to time. In Newfoundland and Labrador, we have good memories about what the CBC was and about the services it did provide, particularly to the rural communities throughout our province, especially in the Labrador region of our province.

But the public’s view of that is changing. Despite Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner’s assertion that online news outlets aren’t news, clearly most Canadians don’t see it that way. Canadians are looking for greater and real diversity in their news. I think that it is confirmed if we seriously consider how many people are watching traditional mainstream news broadcasts in general.

CTV News has around four times the viewership of CBC, but even their viewership is less than 4% of Canadians on most nights. Much of that likely has to do with the availability of greater variety of alternative news sources. But some of it undoubtedly has to do with skepticism concerning some of what is being reported in the mainstream media.

With all due respect to my colleague Senator Harder and to the government, if we really want to counter disinformation, I think the best antidote to groupthink in the media is to celebrate diversity in news sources. I would argue that diversity of opinion that we have now as a result of the internet revolution is a far greater antidote to misinformation than what we will get from bills like the one we have before us.

There is no question that the diversity of opinion on the internet inevitably risks simultaneously greater dissemination of disinformation. But for the informed and critical consumer of information, this should not be a danger. What we should be encouraging as a society is both critical thought and the critical consumption of diverse information. What we should not be doing is acting from a presumption that more government intervention to empower certain news media over others is the solution to our problems. Yet, I fear that — cloaked in a language of fairness and countering disinformation — this is the precise purpose of where the bill is leading us.

Colleagues, this bill requires a fulsome review in committee before we can agree to pass it.

I have only talked about some of the issues and concerns I see with the bill. There are others. In particular, what happens if the platforms simply refuse to cooperate with the legislation? What if they simply de-link all previous Canadian news sources? Is that a possible outcome? Are there other negative outcomes that the government is simply choosing to ignore? We know and have heard that the United States has again signalled, as it did in relation to Bill C-11, that the passage of the bill will have trade implications. Once again, the government seems determined to ignore those concerns.

Like the previous bill, Bill C-11, which we reviewed, Bill C-18 is complex, and its implications are multi-faceted. I hope senators agree with me that the committee reviewing this bill must hear from witnesses on all sides of the issue in order to fully understand the potential implications.

I believe this is essential, since, once again during House debate, the government cut off hearing from witnesses in an attempt to rush the bill through the legislative process. It did not work on Bill C-11, and I highly doubt it will work on Bill C-18.

The irony of the government doing that — even as Senator Harder tells us how important this bill is for democracy — should not be lost on anyone. As we did on Bill C-11, the Senate can — and should — ensure that witnesses who are prevented from appearing in the House are heard in this chamber. Personally, I am skeptical that this bill will be good for the country at the present time. I am concerned about the implications of certain sections of the bill, but I am prepared to listen to all witnesses on all sides of this issue.

I share the concerns of many when it comes to ensuring that our smaller and remote communities in particular have access to quality local news. I fear that Bill C-18 either would not be a solution to that problem or would create so many other problems that the supposed cure may not be worth it. But, as I said, I want to hear from multiple witnesses on all sides and hope the senators opposite will be prepared to do that as well. Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator Manning: Thank you, Senator Cormier. I didn’t get the last couple of words of your question, but I think I got the gist of what you’re asking.

There’s no doubt in my mind — I live in a small, rural part of Newfoundland and Labrador and I’m very concerned about the impact of any legislation on those small publications. I hope that through the committee process we will hear from publishers such as those you touched on and the impact that the internet has had on them so far, and then we’ll hear what they think about Bill C-18. I’ve had the opportunity to meet with several people involved in publishing across the country already on Bill C-18 — small, medium and large — and there’s a variety of opinion, as always. We’ve served on the committee for some time now and had the opportunity to hear from everybody.

My concern on the House side is that they cut off debate and moved on. At least in the Senate on Bill C-11, whether I agree at the end of the day with what happens to the bill, I do agree with the process of taking our time to listen to others, to listen to the people who are affected and hopefully improve the bill if it needs to be improved, move amendments if they need to be moved, but to make sure that at least the small players in this game don’t get swallowed up.

Hon. Andrew Cardozo: Thank you for your speech, Senator Manning. I found it most interesting. My sense is, as I’m listening to your criticism, I feel that your complete faith in the purity of the online world is kind of enchanting, but it’s five or seven years out of date, sir. I do share your interest in hearing from a lot of viewpoints in committee.

I want to read two lines from a report yesterday. There was a report that was issued, and some MPs from the other place hosted this session that a number of senators attended. MP James Bezan was among the people who spoke in favour of this report. I want to quote two quick lines:

Russian disinformation targeting Canadians received engagement from over 200,000 accounts on Twitter. These networks were among Canada’s most prolific and influential political communities online.

So these Russian-controlled communities are more influential than all of the newspapers in Canada that you can think of. That’s where we’re going, and that’s where things are.

My concern is that your view that government-appointed officials are non-legitimate is very troubling. Because if we were to fire all government-appointed officials, that would include all of us in this place, but it would also include every judge, regulator, police chief, fire chief. We would not have law and order. We have a system where the democratically elected governments appoint various officials and we’ve placed trust in them.

My question is this: Do you share my concern that we should perhaps have faith in at least some of our government-appointed officials or do you feel they should all be removed because they’re not legitimate?

Senator Manning: Thank you, senator, for your question. First of all, my faith in the online world and social media is very limited. I am not on any social media myself because maybe I’m too opinionated or whatever the case may be, but I decide to keep my views to myself most of the time.

With regard to government-appointed officials — and I’ve served in different positions — I don’t necessarily agree with all appointments, as I’m sure you don’t either. My concern with this here is that the variety of opinion that we received on Bill C-11 — we received many people who came before us who had concerns with the opportunity that we will be giving to the CRTC to regulate, to organize, to decide who will be the winner and the loser here. That concerns me and concerned the witnesses we’ve heard on Bill C-11.

We have to try to make it — again, I talked about the word “fairness” being used — as open and transparent as possible. We hear a lot of that too. I think we have to try at least to be as open and transparent as we can with the legislation to make sure that the people out there who are most affected at least believe they have been treated fairly. There’s that word “fair” again. Those words are important, but it’s very important to the people who are involved in the industry out there.

That’s why I’m very interested in beginning the process at committee. I believe in my time here in the chamber — and I’m sure you’ll learn the same thing as you go — it is the committee where the work is done. It’s the committee where we educate ourselves, where we find out from across the country how people think about a piece of legislation and how they offer improvements and amendments to it. Then it is up to us to either take their advice or just sit back and not do so. But at least we have the opportunity to do so.

Senator Cardozo: This is more of a statement just to thank Senator Manning. This will be the first bill that I will be involved in from beginning to end. Like you, I look forward to hearing from the diversity of opinion on this bill, and I’m sure you and I share that view. We’ll look forward to those hearings.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Could you get to the question, please?

Senator Manning: Thank you. I wasn’t sure if you were answering Senator Cardozo’s question in the beginning or asking me one. Anyway, it was a little bit of both. I wouldn’t want you to be confused.

The bottom line is that we live in a changing world in so many aspects of our world. The media is part of that. When I remember back to when I was growing up, we had one channel in our community — the CBC — and if the weather was bad, you had to go on the roof to fix the rabbit ears to make sure the view came in and wasn’t all snowy on the screen. Access to media is now at your fingertips. Finding some type of regulation to deal with that is in all our best interests, but finding the best legislation to deal with that is in Canadians’ interest. I think that’s where we need to be in relation to the bills. It can’t be Band-Aid solutions. We have to take the whole problem and try to work through it and try to come up with solutions and a piece of legislation that addresses the concerns of all players.

I know the small players in the media are struggling in this country. I don’t have to go any further than Newfoundland and Labrador to see that. I’ve met with those people in some cases. They’re concerned about legislation, but they’re also concerned about their futures, and many of them have closed up shop. We have to try to find a way to protect them but at the same time protect the freedom the media has.

What I said earlier in relation to committee is that we can talk about it here in the chamber and we can talk about it outside, but it’s in committee that the work gets done. It’s in committee that we hear from the witnesses and educate ourselves and, hopefully, through that educational process come up with a piece of legislation that addresses the concerns we all share.

Hon. Donna Dasko: Will Senator Manning take another question?

Senator Manning: Yes.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Could you ask your question, please?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Are honourable senators ready for the question?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”