Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate), pursuant to notice of June 14, 2023, moved:

That the Senate approve the reappointment of Heather Powell Lank as Parliamentary Librarian.

Hon. Leo Housakos moved the adoption of the report.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise to speak to the sixth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. This report summarizes our committee’s study of and amendments to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, or in short, the online news act.

This bill was referred to committee for study on April 18, 2023. We held nine meetings in total, heard from 58 witnesses, including departmental officials who were on hand during our clause-by-clause consideration. There were also 27 written briefs submitted.

During clause by clause, which was completed in one meeting this past Tuesday, June 13, 2023, there were 18 amendments proposed by Senators Carignan, Clement, Cormier, Dasko, Miville-Dechêne, Simons, Wallin and the government itself. Of those proposed, 12 amendments were adopted. I have to say, like its predecessor Bill C-11, perhaps what I found most interesting about the bill was that even its most ardent supporters came to committee drawing attention to flaws in the legislation and seeking amendment.

While I do believe that some small changes of improvement have been made to the bill through some of the amendments we adopted at committee, I believe others run the risk of further complicating an already convoluted bill and making it even more unworkable.

While other reasonable amendments that were proposed and defeated were missed opportunities to vastly improve this flawed legislation, perhaps the most egregious of those missed opportunities was an amendment put forward by Senator Carignan that would have safeguarded against forcing platforms to pay for hyperlinks, including links that the news outlets themselves proactively post on those platforms.

This isn’t a practice where a news item is reproduced. The item appears on Facebook, for example, as a link that goes directly to the website of the news outlet. Facebook is actually providing the news outlet the vehicle with which to drive more traffic to their own sites. That’s why it’s the news outlets themselves who post these links on these platforms and encourage others to do so as well. Had this amendment been adopted, it would have removed perhaps one of the main criticisms of this legislation. A failure to fix this not only cripples the legislation, but may very well result in platforms not allowing that practice and thus crippling the very industry this bill is supposed to protect.

Another opportunity gravely missed was one that would have removed the eligibility of CBC to take part in the scheme. As Senator Carignan pointed out in moving this amendment — and I wholeheartedly concur in my comments — the CBC can hardly be described as a struggling news outlet. Yet this whole bill is predicated supposedly on the government’s desire to throw a lifeline to struggling media.

Smaller, independent and ethnic media outlets in this country already have to compete against the behemoth that is the publicly funded CBC for ad dollars. That’s already an unfair advantage to CBC. Now they are getting a significantly larger piece of the pie from this funding scheme. It boggles the mind that they would be included, and even more so that Senator Carignan’s amendment was defeated.

As for the 12 amendments that were adopted at committee, they include amending language in clause 2 that will expand the definition to specifically include official language minority community news outlets; amending clause 2 to limit the definition of Indigenous news outlets to one whose primary purpose is to produce news content. This was an amendment by Senator Simons that I would be surprised if it is supported by Indigenous media, and certainly seems to be at odds with the emphasis typically placed, in theory, by the Trudeau-appointed senators on listening and taking into consideration Indigenous input.

There were several others from Senators Clement, Cormier and Miville-Dechêne that were adopted, including, as previously mentioned, some that further complicate an already convoluted bill.

One of the most meaningful amendments, as far as improving this deeply flawed bill, came from Senator Dasko in clause 27, page 11, thus limiting the CRTC’s discretionary power as it relates to designating an eligible news business. This will leave it to news outlets themselves to determine if they wish to apply to be part of this program rather than having it forced on them.

Another important amendment came from the government, and it struck me that the bill made it as far as it did without this much-needed correction. That correction was in clause 36, page 15, line 11, which was amended to address a major gap to properly protect confidential information from being exposed during arbitration. This amendment adds further requirements and sanctions related to the improper disclosure of information by the arbitration panel or each individual arbitrator.

In fact, I was surprised that the government supported as many of the committee’s amendments as they did. Despite all time they had to draft this bill and all the months it has been in the House of Commons, it’s like they realized that it is really a bad bill, but they made promises to certain stakeholders to have this done so here it is.

Here we are, both chambers, in quite the spot at the end of the session, with only days left on the calendar. We will be rushing through third reading, with limited debate, in order to send an amended bill back to the other place so they have time to reply and we have time to accept their message before we all go home for the summer.

This is not the way Parliament should be conducting itself, but has become a hallmark of how it has been conducting itself. They make grand promises and either fail to deliver them altogether or throw together a piece of legislation at the last minute, resulting in poor drafting. Then it’s up to Parliament to fix it, but doing so in a rush to meet the government’s self-imposed deadline.

So now, despite all of the concerns raised by witnesses, committee members and many senators, the government wishes to move this bill into law as quickly as possible with the content of the bill itself becoming almost secondary.

That brings us to the last amendment adopted by our committee in clause 93, page 39, after line 26, that changes the coming-into-force provision. It now requires that the entire bill come into force within six months of receiving Royal Assent, which I have no doubt will happen in the next few days. When it does, the government will then have to show exactly how it will support small businesses, possibly without the involvement of large platforms and possibly in the face of significant trade implications.

With all of that said, I would like to thank all witnesses and senators, including Mr. Owen Ripley who has been a steadfast presence in our deliberations for a number of months. I would also like to thank Marc-André Roy and David Groves from our Law Clerk office for their diligent work; Jed Chong and Khamla Heminthavong from the Library of Parliament; our committee’s administrative assistant, Natassia Ephrem; and our unflappable committee clerk, who did tremendous work both on Bill C-11 and now on Bill C-18, Mr. Vincent Labrosse.

Finally, I would like to thank all my colleagues on the committee and our excellent staff who work to support us and provide the wonderful results that we see in the work we do. Thank you very much, colleagues.