The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill, as amended, be read the third time?

Hon. Peter Harder: Honourable senators, with leave of the Senate and notwithstanding rule 5-5(b), I move that the bill, as amended, be read the third time now.

An Hon. Senator: On division.

(Motion agreed to, on division, and report adopted.)

Hon. Senators: Question.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill, as amended, be read the third time?

The Hon. the Speaker: Did you have a question, Senator Dagenais?

The Hon. the Speaker: Did you have a question, Senator Dagenais?

Hon. Donna Dasko: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-18, the online news act, at third reading.

The news media business in Canada is in trouble, and Bill C-18 is designed to be part of the solution.

Many news organizations, particularly newspapers, are in dire straits. A 2021 Statistics Canada report surveying newspaper publishers in Canada revealed that operating revenue of Canadian newspaper publishers declined to $2.1 billion in 2020, down 22% from just two years earlier, in 2018.

Declines in revenues have led to closures and job losses; over 469 news outlets have closed from 2008 to 2022, including over 300 community newspapers, and one third of journalism jobs have disappeared since 2010.

Just yesterday, Bell Media announced the elimination of 1,300 jobs, mostly affecting their news operations, including nine radio stations and foreign bureaus.

The other side of this picture is that the internet has increased its share of advertising revenue as that of newspapers and other media has declined. Government background documents estimate that Google’s and Facebook’s revenues from digital advertising were $9.7 billion in Canada in 2021, which was 80% of the total digital ad revenue of about $12 billion.

Bill C-18 aims to fix the balance. The rationale behind the bill is that news organizations are not getting fair compensation for the news they produce from the digital platforms that distribute this news to the public.

Bill C-18 requires that major digital platforms make deals with news businesses to pay these businesses for information that is shared on their platforms.

Bill C-18 lays out the framework behind these deals. If voluntary deals are made between digital platforms and eligible news media within certain timelines that meet certain criteria, digital platforms would be exempted from the required portion of the act, which is to enter into a formal negotiation process that could lead to final offer arbitration. The CRTC will take the role in developing a code of conduct to guide the bargaining process and determine if agreements reached meet the conditions for exemption, among other roles it will take on.

Bill C-18 is a complex bill, and it needed fulsome study. We had a good process at committee, but I feel we needed to do more.

Bill C-18 came to this chamber at first reading on February 2. We heard the sponsor’s speech on February 7 but did not hear the first witnesses at our Transport and Communications Committee until April 25. From February 7 to April 25 is a very long time at second reading during sitting weeks, which, in my view, should have been spent studying the bill at committee. Our 10 meetings might easily have expanded to 13, 15 or even more meetings. Let’s compare our 10 meetings to the 31 meetings we had on Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, and I’m not saying we should go there, but that bill was a similarly complex communications bill. I feel we needed more time on Bill C-18.

I want to focus on some of what we learned at committee and where I see issues going forward that we were not able to examine.

Our nine meetings with witnesses — of course, we had one meeting for clause-by-clause consideration — focused primarily on the views of stakeholders. From our 60 witnesses, we learned that Bill C-18 has widespread support, particularly across the newspaper sector, including large and small organizations, as represented, for example, by News Media Canada, but it also has significant support among broadcasters such as the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. It has strong support among online publishers and multicultural media.

However, the two digital platforms, Google and Facebook, which would now qualify as the operators responsible for making deals with news organizations under the act, are aggressively opposed. During the period of parliamentary review of the bill, both companies launched “market studies” which involved blocking access to news on their platforms to some of their users and subscribers. While market studies are legitimate, and I can say this from 30 years in this industry, the timing of these studies was provocative, to say the least, and is rightly seen as a shot across the bow at the government and at the news industry in this country. Minister Rodriguez described these actions as threats, and even the Prime Minister weighed in, accusing the companies of using bullying tactics and saying that the federal government would not back down.

When both tech giants appeared as witnesses at committee on May 3 and were asked how they would respond if the bill were to pass in its current form, Google Vice President of News, Richard Gingras, did not want to speculate. He replied:

We’ve been clear on the considerations we have, which is to do with whether we need to assess how we use links or whether we need to assess whether it is logical for us to continue to provide a service like Google News . . . . I have no certainty right now as to what we might do.

Facebook, however, was categorical. Rachel Curran, Head of Public Policy for Meta in Canada, stated:

Because the legislation ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of people who use them and the value we provide news publishers, we have no choice but to comply with it by ending the availability of news content in Canada if Bill C-18 is passed as drafted.

We have two very large, very powerful, very angry foreign‑owned tech giants required by law to negotiate with way smaller Canadian firms. What could possibly go wrong?

Some have debated whether the company’s threats to leave are real or, in fact, a bluff. But if they are real, there is reason to be concerned. That is because we also learned at committee about how many news publishers rely on these platforms for their own business operations and successes.

Jeff Elgie of Village Media told us:

. . . we benefit greatly from the traffic back to our sites that we, in turn, are able to monetize and form new audiences, subscribers and followers that we would otherwise be challenged to reach. . . . Google and Facebook combined generate almost 50% of our traffic on an ongoing basis. . . . You will find similar numbers across our entire industry, legacy or new.

If that traffic were to be lost, the business would be over.

This sentiment was echoed by journalist and commentator Jen Gerson, who stated at committee that independent media, start-up media and media trying to build its brand in the marketplace are reliant on social media to build a brand, develop an audience and get a network across. The loss of Facebook, she believed, would be serious.

The policy framework behind Bill C-18 emphasizes that news organizations are not getting fair compensation from the platforms, but how will these realities figure in the negotiation process?

If we had those extra committee meetings I mentioned earlier, we could have invited more experts to dig deeper into the policy framework to understand how it works and its possible contradictions, and we might have been able to offer solutions. For example, how does the need for commercial deals, which must be negotiated privately, square with the regulatory requirements such as the transparency demands? We know that those transparency demands will increase. It seems pretty clear to me. What will be the impact of this policy on the internet, and what will be the impact on innovation? Does the long list of requirements that must be met for exemption, which go beyond fair compensation, create an undue burden on the commercial negotiation process as claimed by witness Philip Palmer of the Internet Society?

There were some other concerns: Our committee didn’t look at advertising or consumer behaviour even though the movement of advertising and consumers onto platforms, social media and search engines is central to these developments. How will news consumers be impacted by this policy? These are all important issues going forward.

As I said earlier, our committee did excellent work in the time we had, passing nine substantive amendments in one meeting. These have already been described by Senators Harder and Housakos, so I will not attempt to go through them.

I am pleased the amendment I proposed, which would remove the ability of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, to designate news businesses as eligible, was accepted. The news businesses should decide for themselves if they wish to apply and be part of this framework.

Colleagues, I love the news media, and it is painful to see what’s happening to the news today. I deplore the threats of the tech giants. I feel that despite its flaws, Bill C-18 is our only hope at this particular moment in time to help this industry, which is vital to our democracy. If all the pieces fit together and if all the players do their part, it could be a wonderful thing. It could be a wonderful assistance to this industry. That is why I intend to support it today.

Thank you.

Hon. Jean-Guy Dagenais: Senator Harder, would you take a question?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable colleagues, initially, I thought I might actually support this bill, believe it or not, despite the report I gave earlier. The Coles Notes version that journalists should be fairly compensated for their work sounded noble enough, and, colleagues, we all recognize — as the reflex is — we want to protect and ensure a thriving free and independent press. It’s crucial to our democracy. It’s crucial to our society.

I remember as a young man in my university days that newspapers were teaching tools. All of us relied on them for more than just information. It all sounds good that we’re trying to save, in a noble way, struggling journalism today, but you need only scratch the surface of Bill C-18 to understand that that’s not what it seems to be really doing.

Yes, traditional news media in this country is struggling. I say “traditional” because the truth is the industry as a whole isn’t struggling. It is just evolving, changing. It’s not just in journalism. We see it in every walk of life. We see it the way the restaurant industry works, the food industry and the transportation industry. The digital world has made significant changes. The whole world and everything we do is moving online. It’s progress. That’s why you see even the traditional broadcasters slowly abandoning their business model and their old way of doing things because the world, eyeballs and consumers are going in a different direction.

Is that concerning given the lack of regulation and the rise of misinformation and disinformation available on the internet? Sure, but that doesn’t mean, as Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner claimed, that online news is fake news, for example.

Somehow that we come to the conclusion that what’s going on in online news is misinformation and somehow traditional news broadcasters are more accurate or that they have more rigid standards, I think, is exaggerated. The news industry has been self-regulated for years. They’ve been setting their own standards.

Shame on MP Hepfner for maligning decent, hard-working Canadians who are making their living in this country delivering solid online news. The fact is online delivery is the future of news, and traditional media know it to be true. They have to adapt their business model or they will be left behind.

Many have adopted their models. In the meantime, there are massive job cuts and have been for several years. Bill C-18 isn’t going to fix that. I would support the bill if I were convinced that it would.

Certainly, it will give more revenue to large news outlets. It will make the big even bigger and the strong even stronger. The objective of trying to help diversify local news in the country will not be achieved with this bill. I believe quite the contrary. It will give more revenue to Bell Media, Rogers, Quebecor and tonnes more revenue to CBC, the government’s favourite place to put taxpayers’ money.

I want to also extend my concern, colleagues — and we all should — to the 1,300 employees who were fired yesterday by Bell Media. It is ironic. A lot of people are arguing that Bill C-18 is going to save media and journalists.

Well, we are on the cusp of passing this extremely important bill that is maybe not a magic bullet. I agree with Senator Harder that it is not a magic bullet, but why wouldn’t they wait and see the outcome? We’re rushing this bill through. Despite my reservations that this bill will not save and diversify journalism in this country, we are still giving it a shot. As you can see, we are not distracting from the objective of the government trying to put this bill forward.

I believe journalism is changing. It is inevitable. The reality of the digital world is changing, and journalists have to change with it.

Colleagues, once we pass Bill C-18, I suspect the 1,300 employees at Bell Media and all these journalists who lost their jobs in the next six months will be hired back, right? All the fat cats at Bell Media and CTV — I say fat cats because I guarantee the cuts we’ve seen in journalism over the years are not equivalent to the cuts we see in upper management of these corporations. I invite you all to go to the annual reports of Bell Media, Rogers and Quebecor and see what the executive salaries are. People think there are fat cats in the Senate and the gatekeepers here. Go check out the salaries of some of these executive vice-presidents. You’ll find it staggering. These same people who are so concerned about journalism and our democracy, go see how much they get paid compared to some of the hard-working journalists in this country.

It’s stunning to me that government talks a good game on following the science and embracing technology, but are doing the very opposite when it comes to digital internet media. The truth is companies like Bell have to adjust to the reality of the internet.

The other reality is that not one of these people who were let go yesterday will get rehired once this bill passes. I’m ready to bet on that and have that discussion when we review the outcome in a few months or even in a couple of years.

Contrary to what they said in their statement that things would have been different had Bill C-18 been passed sooner — the problem is we didn’t move quickly enough; it’s our fault — not one of those people who were let go yesterday would have held their jobs had Bill C-18 been passed one, two or six months earlier. I do want to point out how cynical Bell Media’s move is, both the timing and the blaming of it on regulatory burden and the slow passage of Bill C-18. I noticed that unlike in the case of Facebook and Google and their responses in regard to the implications of Bill C-18, Minister Rodriguez didn’t question Bell and their timing or accuse them of scare tactics and say he won’t be bullied or intimidated.

Colleagues, Meta and YouTube have been hiring Canadians across the country for years. I invite you to go to any region of the country where Google and Meta and Facebook have operations and visit their facilities. They’re hiring young Canadians at a record pace — these fat digital cats that need to be reeled in by the Canadian government because these are just terrible international corporations that are doing harm to our basic way of life. Go see all the thousands of young Canadians coming out of IT schools — the engineers and programmers — and see what kind of jobs they have and what kind of environment.

I went to visit a couple of the offices of Google last year, and, boy, let me tell you that I wish I was 25 or 30 again. That generation of kids, they know how to work, they know how to be innovative and they know how to create work-life balance. I was very impressed, and the future is bright. But we have to embrace them and give them an opportunity to grow, flourish and continue to be innovative.

Also, he can and should sympathize — I’m talking about my good friend Minister Rodriguez — with the people who lost their jobs yesterday, but I notice he didn’t say anything about the people who made the decision or call them out about their timing, as I said. That’s because it’s very easy to demonize big tech.

I have issues with them as well. I don’t think Meta and Alphabet are perfect. No corporation needs to be free to run wild, but I’m also not defending management at Bell Media or Rogers Communications or Shaw Communications, and I’m not picking sides. My sense is that when you look at this legislation, the government has a propensity to continue to defend traditional broadcasting, which we all know — we had this debate with Bill C-11 — is dead and done with, and they continue to side with big corporations: Bell Media, Rogers and Quebecor. They’re giants in this country, and they’re not giants because they offer the best service at the lowest price. Most of us in here are old enough to pay cable bills every month. Take a look at that bill. Call your friends down south in the United States or in Europe or anywhere else around the world and compare some of those cable bills.

Senator MacDonald: Our phone bills.

Some Hon. Senators: No.

The Hon. the Speaker: I’m sorry, Senator Housakos, but your time is up.

[English]

The Hon. the Speaker: Leave is not granted.

The Hon. the Speaker: Leave is not granted.

The Hon. the Speaker: I’m sorry, Senator Housakos, but your time is up.

[English]

Hon. Andrew Cardozo: Honourable senators, I am pleased to rise to say a few words on Bill C-18. We heard from a number of Canadians on this, and I listened to the many speeches that we have heard along the way, especially today. My comments will be brief and in three parts. I will speak first about the purpose of the bill, then about the role of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, in overseeing the bill and then about the larger context.

[Translation]

The purpose of Bill C-18 is to rebalance the power dynamics in the digital news marketplace in order to ensure that Canadian media and journalists are fairly and equitably compensated. The bill creates a new legislative and regulatory framework. It also expands the mandate and powers of the Canadian Radio‑television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.

[English]

The bill rebalances the power dynamics in the digital news marketplace in order to ensure fair compensation for Canadian media outlets and journalists. It creates a new legislative regulatory framework to enable digital news intermediaries, such as Google and Facebook, to negotiate agreements. This is the core of the bill: negotiating agreements with Canadian media to authorize them to disseminate Canadian media content on their platforms.

The bill also creatively sets up a process that enables smaller media outlets to bargain collectively. It gives the CRTC responsibility to make the necessary regulations, as well as a code of conduct to govern bargaining between digital news intermediaries and news businesses in relation to content. It also mandates the CRTC to determine whether agreements are outside of the bargaining process — meeting the conditions for exemptions.

Here are a few comments about the CRTC in relation to this bill. I have addressed in the chamber — a couple of times — the general role of the CRTC in relation to this bill, and I don’t want to be repetitive, but I’d like to summarize a couple of points that are made in criticism of the CRTC, and share with you my perspectives, given my experience with that agency.

The CRTC is an arm’s-length agency that oversees or implements several acts, and does so rather diligently — sometimes standing up to the cabinet and the Governor-in-Council when they disagree with them. While commissioners are always appointed by the federal cabinet, the process of selecting commissioners is open and transparent, and people have to apply. Once they are appointed, they have to avoid interaction with ministers and parliamentarians, and must do so quite diligently.

I should tell you this: When I was appointed, the riot act on this matter was read to me by the director of appointments. There were a few MPs — that I knew from different parties — whom I didn’t see for six years. At the end of those six years, I came out and met them, and found that their children had grown up, while they had become older and greyer, and it was like being in jail for six years. There were a lot of people who I had no contact with whatsoever for those six years.

It has been said that the CRTC can designate parties on a whim. Well, let me tell you, the CRTC does not and cannot do whim. It is incapable of doing whim, and that is by design. When I was there, I had a colleague who tried very hard to have a commission rule on certain issues from the bench. He tried throughout his time there, but was not successful. The process is always thoughtful, and they don’t do things at the drop of a hat — for better or for worse. The CRTC always does extensive consultations before finalizing its regulations through a process that often has two rounds of negotiations.

Lastly, the CRTC, in my view, is well equipped to take on this responsibility, as it does regulate broadcasting, which includes broadcasting news. Therefore, it will be expanding its purview by looking at print news and online news, and, in that sense, those are things that the CRTC has to learn, but they certainly have their base in place.

Let me address the larger context briefly: Here we are in the historic spring of 2023 — it needs a name. I recall the Arab Spring, but I think the artificial intelligence, or AI, spring of 2023 is a really interesting time. This is the time when AI has taken over the online world, and possibly taken over the whole world. The world has changed with the arrival of ChatGPT and other generative AI. In the context of the rapidly growing polarization in Canadian society and societies elsewhere, this kind of bill becomes all the more important.

Are we defending failing media or dinosaur media with this bill? Maybe we are, or maybe we’re not. But if we are, we need to do everything we can to save the free, balanced and legitimate media that is generally balanced and edited — rather than only having all of our news be reduced to individualized social media, which we know is increasingly biased, myopic and unreliable.

There are, as mentioned, many new and developing online media that carry many of the same good values — such as being balanced and edited — as the traditional media, but they are generally small and struggling. Until such time that they are strong enough to have the same broad, edited and balanced nature, I think it is important that we do what we can to help the traditional media. The online world often drives Canadians into silos rather than brings people together to create Canadian discussion, dialogue and debate that is fair and respectful.

While the web giants are threatening consequences in this collision of democratically elected governments versus multilateral corporations, it is vital that democracy stands firm. The web giants, in fact, make the point very well as to why we need this bill. This is about our harmonious democratic society slipping away into a Wild West of disintegration of our society.

For these reasons, I strongly believe that we need to do whatever we can to save and grow traditional media: print, broadcast and online. This is one step along the way in helping a free and fair media, and in securing our democracy, which is more fragile than it has been in many decades.

Hon. Leo Housakos: I appreciate that — I’m glad you find it such. It’s a simple question.

The government says that they are so committed to helping print media, as well as diverse local and regional media. Can you explain to me why the government spends about $140 million a year in media buy-in for all of their government agencies, and why do they spend a maximum of about 2% to 2.5% on ethnic and local media, while the rest of the budget goes toward the giant broadcasters in Canada?