44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 16, 2022 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, for his remarks today and his work on this bill.
This bill was presented, or certainly the spirit of it was, in the 43rd Parliament. I had conversations with constituents who were confused because they thought the government was trying to regulate free speech. Of course, we just heard the member for Carleton with his remarks, so no wonder constituents get confused.
I used the opportunity of those phone calls to say that the government was seeking to modernize the act so that digital giants would be more akin to traditional broadcasters and would also be required to actually contribute to Canadian content. Some of my constituents do not believe in the idea of contributing to Canadian content. That was fine and they understood that. Others, of course, once I explained it, understood the fundamental elements of the bill.
I thought the minister did a very good job in his remarks. Could he remind my constituents that we are about protecting Canadian content in an evolution in how we receive digital content in Canada?
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting and important question. As I said during my speech, we heard the concerns about social media, and we fixed it. We brought back section 4.1, with the exception of commercial content.
The criteria for commercial content is really specified in the bill. There is a clear sandbox. It is very precise. It is about the revenues. It is about the fact that we can find the same content on, for example, YouTube or Spotify. It is about codes that could be encrypted in some of that content.
I did meet with digital first creators and those were honestly fascinating conversations. Some of them were 18, 19, 20, 21 years old. They are all over the world. They do incredible things. I love it. However, it is not about them. It is about those streamers contributing to the Canadian culture. That is it.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his remarks and for speaking in French. It is wonderful to see parliamentarians work on improving their skills in both official languages.
With respect to freedom of expression, the Minister of Canadian Heritage made it clear in his remarks that Bill C‑11, like the bill in the previous Parliament, is designed to make digital giants contribute to Canadian content, not to restrict freedom of expression.
Does the Conservative Party of Canada agree with the idea that broadcasters should support Canadian content?
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague hit the nail on the head there. There is much that we can agree on in this bill. There is much we can agree on with respect to where we can go forward within the broad cultural milieu. Certainly the web giants and foreign streamers who are operating within the Canadian regulatory regime and enjoying its benefits should be paying their fair share.
Where we have concern is where it goes beyond paying their fair share and where Canadian artists, especially new, up-and-coming Canadian artists, have the opportunity to use social media to propel themselves to the next level. There is not the clear separation between professional and amateur content as envisioned by the minister in his comments on this bill. If we can remove part of that, if we can have a meaningful conversation about this at committee, I think there is much we can agree on, but that is the challenge that we are concerned about right now.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Trois-Rivières for his speech.
Has he heard the same concerns that I have from creators who use online platforms, like TikTok and YouTube, to share their content with the world?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech. It was very enjoyable. He spoke about Quebec content and francophone content on streaming services.
What proportion of Quebec content would my colleague want to see on the big streaming platforms?
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if there is some technical reason that makes French-language content appear more frequently or whether we need to use algorithms. I am not an expert in that area. In any case, the issue remains the same.
Bill C‑11 gives us a sort of guarantee that the major platforms will be asked to work on discoverability. It is not perfect. For the time being, we are not going to get involved in that. We will rework the bill. If there is reason to get involved in that area, the CRTC will decide in the end.
I do believe that the message is fairly clear in the bill: We want French-language content to be visible everywhere for anyone who wants to consume it.
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