Senator Gold: That is a good question. Thank you for asking it.

As you know, temporary foreign workers play an essential role in the Quebec and Canadian economy. Employers are having a hard time meeting their labour needs and the availability of temporary foreign workers is an important issue for Quebec, where the unemployment rate was 4.2% in March.

The government is implementing a pilot project in Quebec for temporary foreign workers. The purpose of the project is to ensure that intermediate-skilled jobs are included in the facilitated process. The government also signed a new agreement with Quebec to allow key sectors to welcome more temporary foreign workers without displacing local workers.

That is an example of strong collaboration that can help us build the workforce we need and then ensure that foreign workers are able to find a new life with us here in Canada.

[English]

Senator Plett: Thank you, Senator Quinn. Thank you for your speech. I’m glad that at least a part of what I said had an impact on you, whether negatively or positively. I hope it was positively.

Nevertheless, I found your comments intriguing. Are you suggesting that because I said that when we form government — not if, when we form government — we will kill this bill, you are saying that is somehow a good reason for voting for bad legislation, thinking, “Well, the next government will take care of this, so we can go ahead and vote for bad legislation”?

Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, today is World Intellectual Property Day, established by the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization to build awareness of how patents, copyrights, trademarks and designs impact daily life and to celebrate the economic and social contributions of creators and innovators.

I want to focus on that second point: the contribution of IP to the Canadian economy.

Intangible assets such as IP, data and software now make up over 90% of the S&P’s market value. In the 1970s and 1980s, physical assets — things like natural resources and land — were overwhelmingly valued. That world is no longer. Today, investors look for companies that control valuable IP and data. They use those assets to control markets and capture superior economic rents from the work of others all around the globe. Think of the global efforts to control natural resources and land and you will have some sense of the battle that is currently raging to control intangible assets like IP. Those who control crucial IP can control access to markets and information.

But, globally, Canada has not yet adjusted to this highly technical, highly strategic global transformation.

Consider that about half of the patents that protect Canada’s publicly funded IP are transferred to foreign-owned entities once issued. As a result, that research output creates opportunities and wealth elsewhere in the world. The annual gross income earned from the IP licensed by Canadian universities produces a paltry 1.3% return on the $7 billion invested annually through university-based research in Canada.

We are investing in research without a modern strategy to protect and grow its economic value for the benefit of Canadians.

Some believe in the strategy of incentivizing foreign-owned tech giants to build IP branch plants or research facilities in Canada. But, yet again, the resulting IP leaves our country and creates wealth elsewhere.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt thanked Canada for the talent and IP that now underpins its business model. Some celebrated; I did not.

Canada’s IP problem results from a policy belief system that assumes that investments in research automatically convert into opportunity and wealth. This misconception has been sustained through both the Conservative government and the Liberal government who’ve each led our country for similar periods — over the last 40 years — where Canada’s living standards have declined steadily in relative terms. This trend is projected to continue — unless we change. We can quickly turn this around; we have the talent. But I fear that our investments in research will continue to diminish unless we finally implement a coordinated strategy that converts our best IP into, yes, Canadian jobs but also, even more importantly, into Canadian opportunities and Canadian prosperity.

Thank you, colleagues.

Hon. Michèle Audette: Your Honour, Senator Cordy and Anishinaabe people, I am speaking to you.

[Editor’s Note: Senator Audette spoke in an Indigenous language.]

Esteemed colleagues, I would like to share with you some information and an important message about the resolve and dedication of families and individuals in Quebec communities who have worked hard for years to find out what happened to their children when they were hospitalized. We are talking about missing or deceased babies who never came home.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Quebec, was able to hear from families from Atikamekw, Innu, Anishinabek and other nations in the course of its inquiries. They talked about losing a baby following hospitalization between 1950 and 1980.

Imagine if it were your child, in 2023. It would be a scandal. What is even more upsetting is that these families were asked if they knew where their child was buried. They do not know. Grief contends with doubt. Again, if it were my child, I would want to know why they died and where they are.

Call for Justice 20 gave the Government of Quebec an important mandate to introduce a bill, which has since become law. The families know how their babies died and where they are buried, and that is important. We’re talking about 120 little beings of light who never returned home after the hospitalizations. My colleagues can appreciate why I care so deeply about commissions of inquiry, regardless of the subject.

I want to say thank you to the Atikamekw, Anishinaabekg and Innu families, as well as all other First Nations families, for their courage and for their word, which has become part of Canada’s truth. I also thank the people from Quebec and Canada who work to share information with everyone who is looking for answers.

Most importantly, colleagues, I want to tell you that this is just the beginning of a truth that has been hidden for too long. Tshinashkumitin.

[English]

Senator Carignan: Of course.

Senator Quinn: Yes.

Senator Gold: It is serious, and I told you the truth. I do not have that information.

[English]

Senator Plett: I will do as the government leader did yesterday and say I will answer one question and then I will pass it on.

[Translation]

Senator Housakos: Please, her position is clear on it, and so is the position of many others. I guess everybody else who thinks there’s potential for censorship — haven’t they read this bill either? The truth of the matter, colleagues, is that a compelling case has been made that this bill has left out many important voices in this country. We are the last vestige of hope for these people to be defended.

Again, we had unanimous consent that this bill needed to be fixed by all groups. A concerted effort was made to fix it. The most important elements and amendments in this bill were ignored by the government. I’m pleading and asking this chamber to send it back one more time, to do our due diligence and to tell the government and insist that these are worth reconsideration.

Senator Quinn: Senator Plett, I hope that when you have the chance, you can reflect on what I said. What I said was that the blue wave was coming. I didn’t reflect on what you just said; I reflected upon the fact that there is a democratic process that lies ahead; it’s called an election. That election will take place in due course. I believe that’s what I said.

Senator Miville-Dechêne: I will nevertheless ask my question. Why are you so pessimistic about the future of Bill S-210? Do you have any information suggesting that this bill will not pass and that the amendment to Bill C-11 is the only way forward?

[English]

Senator Plett: Again, your question is not on Bill C-11, it’s on Bill S-210. My speech was on Bill C-11. I have no information that it will not pass. Again, as Senator Dalphond said yesterday, when it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Our government has shown that they do not particularly care about the exploitation of children; they have shown it on Bill C-11. I have no optimism that they will show it on Bill S-210. I certainly support the bill.

[Translation]

Hon. Jane Cordy: Honourable senators, I would first like to acknowledge that we meet here today on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.

I’m delighted to share that I am rising today to offer my congratulations to one of our colleagues who was honoured this morning.

The Moose Hide Campaign, a grassroots Indigenous-led movement that is dedicated to ending gender-based and domestic violence, has a campaign that features a moose-hide pin. I know many of you have seen these and, looking around now, I see that many of you are wearing one today. These pins aim to spark conversations and bring more awareness to these important issues that impact too many people. Working together, particularly by engaging men and boys, is a crucial component in the work to end domestic and gender-based violence.

To date, 4 million moose-hide pins have been distributed, and a ceremony was held earlier in the Senators Lounge to present the four-millionth pin. Our very own Senator Michèle Audette was the deserving recipient of that milestone pin. Her dedication to reconciliation is a model for us all.

Having these conversations is indeed important, but doing the work is the only way we will see change. Members of the PSG — the Progressive Senate Group — are inspired by the Algonquin word “mamidosewin,” which means “meeting place” and “walking together.” I am so honoured to be walking together with Senator Audette.

Honourable senators, please join me in congratulating Senator Audette for this recognition. Félicitations, mon amie. For all your hard work, tshinashkumitin.

Senator Carignan: I have no problem asking for five more minutes if Senator Miville-Dechêne would like to ask me a question, because she seemed to have one.

Senator Gerba: Senator Gold, why are these men and women who feed us and take care of us not allowed to settle in Canada?

Senator Housakos: I always say: Have faith in Canadians’ choices and in their abilities. That is why it is so unfortunate that the government bungled this by turning it into an internet regulation bill rather than a broadcasting reform bill.

Minister Rodriguez, along with former Senator Dawson and the government leader, Senator Gold, love to say that when it comes to regulating user-generated content, “Users are out, platforms are in; trust us.”

Colleagues, there are no platforms without users. I’ve said this a thousand times, and I had to learn it myself during the study: Platforms are just an empty shell. They’re just a service that is provided to Canadians who want to use it. That could be individual journalists, media companies and even us politicians. When we export using these platforms, what we do here, we use them as a forum to communicate with as many people as possible in order to propagate our work. What is wrong with that? At the end of the day, are we going to call these platforms and say, “You owe us part of your revenue because we’re content producers”?

Where do you draw the line? When does a government step in to pick who wins, who loses, who gets punished for their success and who gets rewarded for their failure? When you regulate these platforms, you regulate content and you regulate the users.

That’s what this debate is all about. We know that this bill is about regulating the platforms. As I said, platforms are user‑generated content producers and digital-content producers — which are, again, Canadians.

Basically, the government is saying that it will regulate bookstores but not the books or authors. How ludicrous is that? The government is saying, “We’re going to regulate the platform, but — trust us — users won’t be affected whatsoever. We’ll ask the platforms for a desired outcome. Obviously, the only way to have the desired outcome is to force users to manipulate their algorithms in order to give us the outcome we want. But don’t worry; trust us.”

Most of us work with governments in good faith, but those of us who have been here for a long time recognize that unless you get it in writing, you will always be disappointed down the line.

I go back to the goodwill gesture on the part of the Canadian Senators Group to include an observation in the bill. Senator Quinn, I’m telling you that 6, 9 or 10 months from now, when we don’t get the outcome we want from the CRTC or Canadian Heritage, nothing in this bill gives us any remedy to solve this problem and the outcome will be very dangerous.

The amendment that this chamber put forward to protect digital creators in this country and to protect consumer choice in controlling their own feed was not perfect. Many of you know that it wasn’t perfect. However, I accepted it because I believed it was better than what we now have in the bill and what we had in the original bill. The fact that it was a non-starter for the Trudeau government makes it worthy of more pushback and insistence from this chamber.

At every turn in this debate — in our committee and in the other house — we’ve seen the government push back and not accept any concrete, written, black-and-white amendments that would protect user-generated content. That, in itself, has raised flags and concerns on the part of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are wondering about their livelihoods and businesses — and their way of life, for that matter, because today digital communication is a way of life.

I will reiterate my grave concern for digital creators in this country as a result of this legislation. These are people from across Canada and from all walks of life. I’ve said it before, but it bears being repeated: All regions, ethnicities, linguistic and religious backgrounds have found incredible success on the internet, and they’re pleading with this chamber for their concerns to be heard and to gain some sense of security. Unlike this government, they’ve embraced innovation and the lack of barriers. They’ve done it without any government help or intervention.

Again, I will repeat the people I’m fighting for because it’s worth repeating. Darcy Michael comes to mind, for example; I mentioned him earlier. Jennifer Valentyne comes to mind; I mentioned her many times. Vanessa Brousseau is a proud Indigenous woman who expressed concern, as did other Indigenous groups, about their voices being heard and being heard in an unfettered fashion. These are the people for whom I’m so vociferously fighting every step of the way on this piece of legislation. I know they’re watching because they communicate on a daily basis. They’re hopeful that this institution will provide some added value to these stakeholders across the country.

I talked about algorithms. I talked about the impact it will have on user-generated content, and then there’s Canadian content. We went through this review of the Canadian Broadcasting Act, which, of course, is at the pinnacle point of culture in this country, and we didn’t open up the element of CanCon and the definition of CanCon. How ludicrous is that? How irresponsible as legislators?

By the way, the Broadcasting Act in this country hasn’t been opened very often. Every 30 years or so, the government has the courage to look at it. Yet, we went after the digital platforms. We went after user-generated content to, by all means, help our traditional broadcasters, which are huge corporations in this country, and there’s still no clarity on the definition of CanCon.

We’re not listening to the ordinary Canadians who feel their livelihoods are being threatened. We’re not even listening to Margaret Atwood. We’re not even listening to icons of Canadian culture. Did you hear what she said about Bill C-11? Did you hear what she said? She called it “creeping totalitarianism.” So if you don’t believe Leo Housakos and my view on this being potentially a censorship bill, is Margaret Atwood also being partisan?

Senator Carignan: Thank you for your question. It is interesting, because it shows how important it is for senators to be part of a caucus, like those in the House of Commons. What you may not know is that the other place consults senators. That way, we are able to help improve bills, give our opinion even before the bill reaches the Senate, and propose amendments.

That is what I did with regard to the electoral reform. I worked with my current leader, Pierre Poilievre, who, at the time, was the minister responsible for democratic reform and the Fair Elections Act. Even before the bill reached the Senate, I proposed several amendments that were added to the initial bill. That is the advantage of having access to the prime minister and cabinet, to the government. Obviously, that’s something you don’t have, because I am still waiting for an answer to my question about Prime Minister Trudeau’s much-talked-about credit card.

Senator Quinn: Thank you, Senator Housakos.

I think the committee has done an excellent job. I commend all the members of the committee and the ex officio members who participated, as well as the various witnesses we had. We have been a part of that democratic process as members of the committee.

But I’ve also come to this conclusion: There has been a lot of discussion here about the Constitution, the roles of senators and our rights. I think we have done our due diligence in having heavy debate during committee and in this chamber. I’m at the point where I’m saying that I am not elected. If this is something so dear to my heart, I think some of my colleagues said, “Go and run.” Run in the election. But I think my more valuable contribution in this institution is — I think you and I spoke on this — trying to do the sober second thought and trying to add value but also recognizing that the elected government has the right to govern, and it’s our job to challenge. We’ve challenged, and the mitigating factor for me is that we — all of us — agreed to a message that included public assurance that the government will not do what it said it wouldn’t do.

After 32 years in the public service, I have great confidence in that institution and I believe that the House and this institution will follow through and hold people to account, as the electorate should.

Senator Plett: Your Honour, Senator Miville-Dechêne said she wants to set things straight. That she can do during debate. If she has a question, I will answer it. If she wants to set the record straight, she can stand up during debate and do so.

[Translation]