44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 5, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, the reality is that if Bell Media, Rogers or whatever had the libraries that Disney+ and others have, we would not even be having this debate.
If they had that library of content, they would be like, “Yes.” That is the reality. The reason the government has to put this bill forward is that Bell, Rogers, etcetera are not competitive with the streaming services because they do not have the content that Canadians want to watch. There are many Canadian influencers who are producing content on Google, Alphabet companies, of which I believe YouTube is one.
I just kind of disagree with that notion. We should just call a spade a spade, and say whether this bill is in our best interests. I am sure there were some great steak dinners bought by Bell Media for a lot of people. God bless Bell Media, but we also have to make sure this is for Canadians. If somebody did not get a steak dinner, maybe they should just support my motion.
174 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. There is a lot of talk about this bill and she is asking that it be reworked. Is she prepared to work with us?
She quickly touched on the issue of local news, something that is important to me. Back home, local media outlets got in touch with me about this bill. The Bloc Québécois really wants to ensure that the bill is in line with our proposals on everything to do with local, community or independent media. The bill has to be able to help them. We know that local media are under threat and that they often pay the price for web giants like GAFAM. My colleague mentioned how quickly technology evolves. We have to make this legislation as flexible as possible. That is the type of constructive improvement we can make. Does she want to work with us on this type of improvement?
159 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I could not agree more with regard to local media coverage, particularly as a western Canadian. I know it is very important for Quebec to have coverage from a Quebec perspective and Quebec news. It is the same thing in western Canada. We actually do not have our voices covered in the same way either. Local media is important to me, but this bill does not do anything to support that. In fact, some of the government's policy, like picking winners and losers in print media, has actually stifled regional papers from being able to compete.
If there is a spirit of collaboration here, we should all just take a pause, support this motion, send this back to committee, send a nice, robust report back to the minister, reintroduce the legislation and come up with something that makes sense in 2022.
144 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I felt like I was stepping back in time, because when I first came here I was a digital idealist. I believed that we should not be picking winners and losers. I believed that we had all this innovation out there, and what we got were Facebook and YouTube, who have an economic power that is so powerful it is unprecedented. In fact, economists are calling it the kill zone of innovation, saying that they are so powerful they are actually stifling the development of other forces that could compete against them.
We have to deal with issues like antitrust. We have to deal with actually making them pay taxes in areas where they have not paid any taxes at all. We have to deal with the algorithms that have distorted content and conversation. They are culpable because they are serving our media services, and they are telling us what we are seeing.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague about holding the big companies, like Facebook and YouTube, accountable for the power that they are yielding—
190 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/5/22 4:07:56 p.m.
- Watch
We have to allow the hon. member to answer. The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill has time for a brief answer, please.
23 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I actually agree. I think that we do have to have a conversation in Parliament about the broader principle of algorithmic transparency.
The mainstream media would love to get their hands on Netflix's algorithm, because that is a competitive advantage, but I think what my colleague is talking about is the sort of content that is being presented to an individual end-user on certain social media platforms so as to calcify their beliefs and actually divide Canadians.
Let us send this back to committee. I am happy to work with him on that issue. I think it is very important, but this bill does not address that in its current form.
115 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, considering my previous career, it is a great pleasure and an honour for me to participate in this essential debate on a bill that is very important but that we believe, as my colleague from Alberta did a great job of explaining, has some serious flaws and could really do with another look.
Before I get into the substance of the bill, I would like to revisit some of the facts. I am sure my colleagues, particularly those in government, will waste no time insisting that, unfortunately, the Conservatives are once again delaying the parliamentary process. That is patently false. We have a job to do and we have to do it properly. It is important to note that this bill is almost, in a way, a carbon copy of the old bill we debated in the previous Parliament. When I say “old”, I mean that it could very well have been exactly the same bill that went through proper process, but the Liberal government decided to call an election right in the middle of the pandemic and right in the middle of the summer. The election that nobody wanted cost Canadians a fortune, over $600 million, and ended with a cabinet shuffle and numerous bills, including this one, going back to square one.
I therefore want to advise any Canadians who may be watching that, if any cabinet members opposite happen to mention that our motion calls for more in-depth study in committee, it is only because those folks over there delayed the process that was already under way. By calling the election, they delayed the whole approach that was established for us to study the bill, and all the stakeholders had to be called back.
As I said in my introduction, as a former journalist, I am obviously very interested in this subject. I had the privilege and pleasure of practising that wonderful profession for 20 years and sharing information with the public. Of course my 20-year career had its ups and downs, as well as its great joys. When I began in radio in 1987, in Beauce, where I cut my teeth, technology did not exist as it does today, which is quite logical. In 1987, when I started at Radio-Beauce, in Saint-Georges de Beauce, I was very proud to see that we had manual sliders on the board rather than round knobs. It was very technologically advanced at the time, and we were very proud of it. Nowadays, you have to go to a museum to see that kind of thing, so yes, technology has evolved.
When I started my journalism career in television, a production facility cost about four times the price of a house, whereas today, people can use an iPhone to record a video and broadcast it live from anywhere. That costs far less than four times the price of a house. Although everything in life is too expensive, in this particular case, let us just say that there are substantial cost savings compared to when I started as a journalist.
I went on that very long tangent to say that we need to adapt to changes in technology when it comes to the news. First and foremost, we must protect the public interest.
Is the public well served by the bill we are currently studying? In our opinion, there are flaws.
Are producers, artists and creators well served by this bill? We feel there are weaknesses in this area as well.
Are the large companies that produce video, audio or journalistic content well protected? Here again, we believe that there are valid questions that need to be analyzed in parliamentary committee.
We always have to find that balance and, as we see it, that is where this bill fails. I do want to point out that things have changed even though no amendments have been made. That might apply more to print media, but anyway. Let me give an example.
I have often been called upon by the press for my thoughts on various issues as a journalist. After giving the same answer a number of times, I was harshly criticized by people who had not bothered to read the article in question carefully. I said that I could not remember the last time I had sat down to watch the news or bought myself a newspaper. Taken out of context, that could be seen as an incendiary remark about journalists, but it is not at all.
Nowadays, because of modern technology, we can access all the stories we hoped to see during the nightly ritual of the Téléjournal. Like everyone in my generation, I grew up religiously tuning in to Bernard Derome's Téléjournal at 10:00 or 10:30, which was without a doubt the most highly regarded intellectual beacon and the go-to source for news.
Today, all the news reports are just a click away on the Internet, whether it is the Téléjournal, TVA, Noovo or other newscasts. We no longer need to sit at home in the living room at a specific time to watch TV, participate in the nightly ritual with Bernard Derome, as I did for years and decades. I was very happy to do it, by the way, thanks to the quality of news offered by Mr. Derome, his team and his reporters.
The same thing goes for newspapers. Why would people pay for the news on paper when all the articles are on the Internet? That is why I said that I could not remember the last time I sat down to watch a newscast on TV or bought a newspaper. People misunderstood me and said that was horrible, an attack on the news. On the contrary, it is the reality of the situation.
I wanted to say that because things have changed. Take, for example, Le Soleil, a daily newspaper in Quebec's capital that is more than 100 years old. When someone starts reading an article on this newspaper's website, a message will appear on the screen after a certain point, telling them that they must pay to read the rest of the article.
The media has adapted. I spoke about Le Soleil, but the same thing is being done by the Toronto Star, if I am not mistaken, and The Globe and Mail. Other media outlets have this paywall, which means that they have self-regulated to meet the requirements of the current act to gain access to this source of funding. That is why we must also find the right financial balance.
Let us now talk about the big players, such as GAFAM, YouTube or Netflix, companies that can present, produce and provide online content.
As citizens, we buy their products, but our money does not necessarily end up in producers' pockets. That is why we must come up with the right legislation that will enable producers not just to get the money they need, but to invest it in creating even more content. In the end, the reader or the online streamer consuming the documentary or show will have to pay their fair share as well.
From our perspective, this bill does not provide adequate answers to these very pertinent questions. That is why we are asking the government, through the motion moved by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill, to go back to the drawing board by referring the bill to a parliamentary committee.
We have to pay our fair share. We have to find the balance between traditional media and new media. Creators must be allowed to develop in this world as it currently exists. Many Quebeckers will remember how an extraordinary artist emerged at the height of the pandemic when we were all in lockdown. Damien Robitaille is a one-man band who still puts on incredibly unique shows.
This is why it is important not to look upon new media and new online platforms with disdain. On the contrary, we must seize the opportunity, because every new development brings opportunities. It is up to us, as citizens, to seize them. It is up to us, as legislators, to regulate them properly by protecting freedom of expression and ensuring that resources are equitably shared. We also need to allow artists and news professionals to continue to entertain and inform us.
1408 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his speech. I have a lot of respect for him.
The Bloc Québécois will be happy to support this bill. The amendments we put forward for Bill C‑10 are included in Bill C‑11, which has to do with the Broadcasting Act.
My colleague has experience as a journalist, and an excellent one, I would add, so I would like to hear what is holding him back from supporting Bill C‑11.
92 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles for his kind words. It was very nice of him.
I want to take this opportunity to point out that the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is the son of Antoine Desilets, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, photographers and photojournalists in Quebec. Antoine Desilets showed thousands of Quebeckers, Canadians and people around the world, since his books have been sold across the Francophonie, that it is possible to create beauty without words. He showed that it is possible to capture the moment in time with a camera. One of his photographs was seen around the world. If I am not mistaken, it was taken for UNICEF. My colleague can correct me if I am wrong.
In response to my colleague's question, I will say that we need to take a big-picture look at this. As a former journalist, I think there needs to be some balance, allowing for healthy and productive competition among different media outlets but also ensuring that the people who truly need access to information can access it. I think this can be done in a way that allows for competition but does not hold any media outlets back.
Earlier, I stated that Le Soleil, Le Devoir and other newspapers now use a paywall, which is appropriate. Obviously, people who are a little more careful with their money may say that they used to have access free of charge. That is true, but I would remind them that nothing in life is free.
269 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the hon. member talks about striking the right balance, and that is what this bill does. It is about balancing interests. There are companies like TVA or Quebecor that have obligations under the Broadcasting Act to produce content for Quebec culture, and broader companies for Canadian culture. Why does the member not expect that an American company like Google or a major Chinese company like TikTok would have those same obligations? It is patently unfair.
77 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, that is a very important question. We have a different perspective on that. For sure, we all agree in this House, whatever party we represent, that we need to have a share of representation. If we want to have access to something, nothing falls from the sky, so we have to pay for that and the money should get back to where it belongs. If we want to have new products and good wages for that, we need to have a fair tariff.
My colleague talked about Quebecor and TVA, and yes, they have an obligation to produce here. What we are asking is just to be sure that those who produce great-quality documentaries or something else have access to the same platforms that TVA and some others have. We have some concerns with how the bill is written right now, so this is why we are referring it back to the parliamentary committee.
157 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to speak about fiscal balance and fairness.
For years, broadcasters and cable companies invested in the production of Quebec and Canadian content. The new players, that is to say digital broadcasters, were given a gift, a free pass, for many years.
My question is simple. Why does he think that Vidéotron should pay, but Google and YouTube should not?
68 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, that is a very good question.
In our opinion, this bill does not properly assess the balance we must strike and the fair payment that must be made to all producers and broadcasters, without affecting content quality and creators' initiative, whether on YouTube or elsewhere. Damien, the musician I spoke about earlier, made us understand that.
58 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to speak in the House, but particularly on an issue as important as Bill C-10, or rather, Bill C-11. I apologize. I am in the last Parliament.
36 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/5/22 4:25:30 p.m.
- Watch
There is no going back and forth. The hon. parliamentary secretary should know that.
The hon. member can continue.
19 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Are you literally reading a speech from the last Parliament?
10 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the broadcasting and communications industry has changed dramatically, and COVID-19 has shown us that it is incredibly important in today's day and age to have access to unfettered news and unfettered communication. Many of us were locked down in our houses for months at a time, and in many cases our sole form of communication was through the Internet. That is the way we communicated with the outside world.
The great news is that Canada is no longer restricted to a few channels. I can remember when I was younger that we had three, four or five channels, and that was it. That was the maximum number of channels. I lived out in rural Canada, so we used to have to move the antenna to get CBC, and that was our one communication around there. Now, we have Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Reddit, among many other platforms.
I will actually discuss one great communicator. He is from my riding and lives about five minutes from my house. His name is Mr. Wyatt Sharpe. Wyatt is a young man of about 13 years of age, who is one of the leading voices in Canadian politics today. He is leading the discourse on many important issues at 13 years of age.
How did he do it? He started working at the Orono Weekly Times, writing for the paper. Then he moved on to social media. If it had not been for the great access to social media, Wyatt's voice would have been limited to the wonderful but relatively small community of Orono. As it is now, he goes from coast to coast to coast, and if members have not been on the Wyatt Sharpe Show or listened to his podcast, I highly recommend it.
When we look at social media, this bill casts it as another CBC, NBC or broadcasting network. I do not think that is accurate, with respect. I believe the Internet is closer to the public square, where we go out as Canadians and share our views and visions. We might be miles apart, but it is so critical that we have those discourses. It is so critical that we go out on the battlefield of ideas and discuss them. Some of those ideas will fall by the wayside in favour of better ones, yet other ones will be improved and get better. Having that unfettered access to that public square that we call the Internet is so incredibly important.
Canadians have always had the ability to communicate completely unfettered and to share their ideas and visions, and what alarms me about this legislation is the fact that we are moving away from freedom of speech and starting to restrict it. I dare say I am perhaps going a bit too far, but we really do not have to look too far in history or even around the world to look at examples of what happens when the government goes too far in restricting freedom of speech.
We can go back in time and look at the Soviet Union as it pushed out its propaganda and told lies to its people. This held people behind for years and years, sitting in bread lines. Meanwhile, they were being fed that they were actually ahead of the western world, which we all knew was false. We see the modern-day incarnation of that in Vladimir Putin restricting freedom of speech and restricting the Internet as Russians are unable to hear about or listen to the atrocities that are happening in Ukraine.
Freedom of speech is a pillar of western democracy. It really supports many of the other freedoms and rights we all share. It is based on that. It is foundational to our country and many around the world, so when we mess with that foundation, we must do so with the greatest of care. We must use a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
There are some out there who agree that this is going on, and that content is being curated right now by large multinational multi-billion dollar corporations, so why is the government not in a better position?
The challenge is that there is no one watching the government. When we look at companies that have stepped offside, the government has a rightful obligation to ask for greater accountability and transparency when it comes to sorting, curating and ensuring there are appropriate algorithms. We must do that carefully, and as legislators it is our role to provide that oversight. However, when we have the government watching the government, we have the fox watching the henhouse, and that should be troublesome for all Canadians.
The reality is that when we look at the Internet right now, there are certainly challenges, as I said. Greater transparency with respect to algorithms and otherwise is critically important, but there has been a tremendous growth in Canadian content. The Canadian Media Producers Association suggested that the industry has grown by a record amount and that there have been record investments in film and television, almost doubling in the last decade.
I am inspired by what is going on in my own riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South with Albert Botha, Heather Haldane and the South Eastern Ontario Production Accelerator Fund. This initiative is making southeastern Ontario the next hot spot for a bustling film and TV industry, and I am very proud of what they are accomplishing. On that note, certified Canadian content has grown in recent years. The highest growth for certified Canadian content television has occurred over the past three years.
My fear is that when we change this very foundation, this freedom of speech and freedom of expression, we could do more harm than good, not only by restricting people's ability to express themselves, but in terms of the production of Canadian content itself. While there is no doubt that traditional broadcasters may benefit from the restriction of this content and bringing others into this content, it will almost certainly inhibit the amount of content that is produced when we start to regulate user-controlled content.
The other hallmark, sometimes, of poor legislation is a lack of clarity. Quite frankly, this legislation is replete with a lack of clarity. The hon. minister claims that the legislation features guardrails against overly broad regulation, to keep the nature of the Internet as it is, but there is no specific eligibility. In fact, many of the decisions are pushed onto the bureaucracy, and as much as I respect it and our public service often does a great job out there, it is not ultimately accountable to the people, like parliamentarians are. When we push our decisions onto the bureaucracy, we lose accountability as a government.
Bill C-11 includes many terms that it simply does not define. “User-generated content” is not defined, and “social media” is not defined, yet these words are used repeatedly. One of the troubling sections is the user-generated content. It was excluded and then brought back in, and that is troublesome. We have user-generated content that people are creating from all around Canada and, instead of treating these folks as I think they should be properly viewed, as the public square, as the sharing of discourse, as the battlefield of ideas, allowing all entrants onto the field, it restricts them and starts to treat individuals as it would the CBC and other major broadcasters, making them pay fees and making them subject to content restrictions and algorithm restrictions.
I believe that Canada is best when we let Canadians decide and, unfortunately, this legislation puts the government in the driver's seat, allowing it to make decisions that Canadians should be allowed to make.
1296 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, first off, I want to say that the member is incredibly lucky to have Wyatt Sharpe in his riding. What an incredible young individual. By no means should anybody judge his ability to interview people based on his age, because I know from appearing on his show not that long ago that he is a hard-hitting individual who knows his stuff well in advance.
My real concern over the member's speech is his comments with respect to how this bill would somehow limit user content. I cannot help but think that something that we chuckled at at the beginning of his speech when he talked about Bill C-10 might actually be true. What this bill has in it that perhaps Bill C-10 was not as explicit about is a number of sections that reference making sure that user-generated content is protected: proposed subsections 2(2.1), 2(2.2), 2(2.3), 4.1(1), 4.1(2) and 4.2(3).
I am wondering if the member has actually read this version of the bill or if indeed his comments about user-generated content were based on Bill C-10.
198 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, as always, I admire the passion, although not necessarily the substance, of the member's question.
Proposed subsection 4.1(2) creates an exception to an exception for user-generated content when the user makes some type of profit or dollars from it. That is absolutely brought in and is clear. That is the right answer.
58 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
