44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, it is a rare privilege to have the first question off the top to the hon. member for Perth—Wellington.
As he was reflecting on the history, and I have been doing this myself and have not yet had time to dive into Hansard to double-check, he asked members to cast our minds back and ask how this place would react to a motion like this had it been brought forward in the period of time when there was a Harper majority government. I cannot think of a time that a motion this egregious was put forward in that era. I know that when we speak to someone like the hon. member for Perth—Wellington, who got a Ph.D. in the Thursday question, one knows they are going to a source with some knowledge. Could he enlighten me? Did I miss one, or is this in fact the worst we have ever seen?
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Madam Speaker, in fact I cannot find another example in recent memory when a bill of this magnitude and of such consequence was pushed through at committee stage, through clause-by-clause consideration, through amendments, through report stage and through third reading, all on time allocation at each and every stage.
In fact, I would note that in the motion, any amendments brought by that member or by her colleague from Kitchener Centre would be deemed to have been moved, and the member would not even have an opportunity to appear before committee to present the amendments. This is what we are talking about with a motion such as this, which prevents parliamentarians from doing our job by debating the amendments necessary and forces them through without debate and without the opportunity to have that meaningful dialogue.
I think it is unfortunate. I appreciate the hon. member's question, because this is without precedent in the modern history of this place.
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Madam Speaker, I heard the member opposite mention certain shows, like The Handmaid's Tale, but what he did not include in his question and what I would be really curious to hear more about is how many of the people working on that show were Canadian: the actors, directors and the writers for the actual shows.
How much of that intellectual property remains in Canada? How much of that supports our Canadian talent right here in our country? Does he actually believe it is more important to give away the power over the discovery of our shows and to decide that the money goes to web giants that have no connection to our country than it is to see us empower Canadian creators for our productions?
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Madam Speaker, I encourage the member to join us at the heritage committee so she could hear from different members of the creative industry and from different representatives, such as IATSE, who have strongly talked about changing the rules so that more Canadian production can occur here in canada.
We mentioned The Handmaid's Tale, but let us talk about The Umbrella Academy with the great Colm Feore from Stratford, Ontario, which was filmed in Ontario, but is not considered Canadian content for the purposes of CanCon regulation.
This is the type of thing we need to see changed. We want to see more and more production in Canada. Whether it is in Vancouver or the greater Toronto area, we want to see that talent come here to Canada, using Canadian voices, Canadian actors, Canadian writers, Canadian producers and Canadian media consultants. We want to see that here in Canada, yet the definitions included in the current way of defining Canadian content mean that none of these would be considered Canadian, and that has to change.
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Madam Speaker, I find it so ironic that a bill about communication, about streaming, about communicating with each other is not allowed the proper time for communication in this chamber and at committee.
Why does my colleague suppose that the government would release a policy directive in the previous iteration, Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament, and refuse to do so at this point?
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Madam Speaker, that is the question: why? Why would the government not just be open and transparent and release the policy directive?
Bill C-11 would provide the CRTC with a significant of regulatory authority, but without the direction from the government, we do not know how the CRTC will interpret that regulatory authority, and we will not know until after we have already been forced to vote on this bill. That is the issue.
If the government wanted to be open and transparent, it would table that document today, as it did with Bill C-10. The question is, what is the government trying to hide?
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Madam Speaker, I am so tired of hearing the Conservatives spout lies about Canada's arts industry. I cannot take it any more. I have spent so many nights here working on Bill C-11 until midnight and listening to the same speeches about censorship and freedom of expression, speeches about things that have never been proven, that do not exist. The only place those things exist is in the Conservatives' parallel universe.
This nonsense needs to stop. We need to help Canada's arts community. Everyone agrees.
If we accept the Conservatives' premise and do not pass Bill C‑11, what is the Conservatives' solution? What will they do?
We are not saying that it is perfect. However, if we do not go ahead with Bill C‑11, what will the Conservatives do to help our artists in Quebec and Canada?
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Madam Speaker, let me say what the Conservatives would have done. We would have done what we promised in our election platform. We would have updated the Broadcasting Act, while also respecting digital-first creators and those Canadians who want to excel here at home and around the world. We would have worked with the creative industry, including and especially those who are using new technologies. We would have worked with them to ensure that the major foreign streamers invest in Canada and pay their fair share, but we would have done it in consultation and co-operation with the industry to ensure that users who upload user-generated content are not subject to CRTC rules.
That is what we would have done, and I am proud to say that is what we are fighting for at committee on this bill.
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Madam Speaker, I have been hearing from my constituents, who are digital creators. They have been asking me specifically about section 4.2, and I am very curious to hear from my hon. colleague about his views, because my constituents talk about how they are worried that the online content rules would apply to individual users. I would be very curious to hear my hon. colleague's views on that.
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Madam Speaker, the fact is that section 4.2 is a legislative pretzel. It is an exception to the exception.
What we want to see is a clear prohibition on regulating user-generated content with respect to those digital-first creators who want to exceed and excel. Therefore, when we get to committee—and obviously the government is going to try to force that—we will be looking for clarification and for amendments to ensure that it does not capture the work of digital-first creators, the content that the member's constituents and my constituents are concerned about in Stratford and the surrounding areas, where they are finding success online in the digital world.
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Madam Speaker, my question for the member is around this issue of whether or not something gets captured by the CRTC.
I understand it states in the bill that anything that generates direct and indirect revenue would now be regulated by the CRTC. Pretty much every piece of content that is put up on the Internet has an advertisement beside it. That advertising generates revenue based on the content. The government claims user-generated content is not included in the regulation, but it is hard to see how it is not when it is generating revenue through advertising. I wonder if the member could comment on that.
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Madam Speaker, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets is absolutely right. Right there in black and white, it states that direct or indirect revenue could be captured by the CRTC. When we are talking about indirect revenue, it encompasses all of those aspects, whether it is a brand deal with a supplier, direct advertising on the video itself or indirect advertising by the site itself. That has the potential to capture everything. In fact, the chair of the CRTC himself mentioned to the committee that yes, there was a possibility for the government to regulate the content that is uploaded by users. It is clear. It is there in black and white.
We as Conservatives are going to work hard, as we always do, on making sure the amendments are there to protect those creators and those users who want to upload their creative talents onto the different platforms so they can share their talents globally.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I am going to share my time with one of my Bloc Québécois colleagues.
It is a pleasure to speak to Government Business No. 16, which is for Bill C‑11. Unfortunately, it is not exactly a great pleasure because it feels like Groundhog Day. We went through essentially the same thing with Bill C‑10, which was introduced in the previous Parliament and was kind of hit or miss as far as the wording went. A lot of work was done. A year on, I feel like we are still bogged down for various reasons that are not necessarily the fault of a single person. All parties contributed to the delays in modernizing the Broadcasting Act. The problem is that, in the meantime, artists and small radio stations and media outlets are suffering and struggling to survive in this high-tech world.
I would like to begin my speech with a look at the current situation. A year has passed and, not surprisingly, the situation is no less urgent. In an article in La Presse just this morning, Alexandre Sirois wrote about the “digital barbarians” that have to be reined in. Here is what he said:
A bill like this to rein in the “digital barbarians” is long overdue. Alain Saulnier uses that colourful expression as the title of a very relevant essay in which he explains the massive devastation caused by companies like Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Google.
The journalist explains that the fate of local culture on the web giants' platforms is quite similar to that of the soft drinks that are relegated to the bottom shelves in grocery stores because the big brands monopolize the best spots.
“That is why access to our content, its discoverability, is the most important issue for the future of all non-U.S. cultures.”
Discoverability is at the heart of this matter. It reminds me of a little anecdote. I was fortunate enough to be part of a delegation abroad recently, along with some of my colleagues from English Canada. Something really struck me. When we were talking about culture and what we watch on TV and listen to on the radio, I noticed that there were almost no common references between Quebec culture and English Canadian culture. Our common references are to American culture. This illustrates how global U.S. culture has become and what a strong impact it has on other cultures, to the detriment of our local culture.
We need to urgently legislate the broadcasting situation because of the repercussions it is having on small players in a context of globalization and the Internet, which is an ever-growing presence in our lives.
Some reports published in 2020, including one by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, or CAB, projected losses for radio and television broadcasters to the tune of $1.6 billion between 2020 and 2022. That is major. CAB also mentioned that, in the six months following the 2020 report, there could potentially be 50 radio stations at risk of closing and no fewer than 150 more in the next 18 months. That represents a potential loss of 2,000 jobs, or the equivalent of roughly 24% of the jobs that existed in 2019.
Revenues are down across the board. Roughly 40% of private stations have posted a negative net income over the past few years. It is a disaster. This is a huge loss of $336 million between 2010 and 2020 for general television networks. Things are not going very well at all. We also know that this erosion is having an impact on local content in traditional media to the benefit of everything that is on the Internet. Roughly 52% of audiovisual content produced in Canada is not Canadian content. We import a tremendous amount of products because our products are less discoverable.
In this context, production by francophone minority communities is only 4%. Meanwhile, the digital platforms are thriving, but our local content is not on those platforms because of the discoverability issue. Only 2.7% of the 10,000 most popular songs on digital platforms are French songs, so there is also a linguistic aspect that is worrisome here.
I am not saying that Bill C-11 is perfect. Some parts could be improved, or have been improved compared to Bill C-10. One of the issues that the Conservatives were particularly concerned about was algorithms, and that has been addressed. With the first version of Bill C‑10, the CRTC would have been able to intervene and require businesses to change their algorithms to improve discoverability. That was taken out of Bill C‑11. I would say that may be a good thing because, at this time, we may have a tendency of being more preoccupied with the letter of the bill than the spirit. The bill now better reflects the spirit. We want local content to be more discoverable, but we will let the companies determine how to achieve that through advertising, suggestions or other means.
People have mentioned and are still mentioning that there are concerns about the platforms that could be included. The bill does not set out which platforms are included and which are not. Things are being left open so that more platforms could be added in the future. I tend to think that might be a good thing because the bill needs to be adaptable, given how quickly things change in the online realm.
Finally, some definitions may not be clear. The bill is perhaps not perfect, which is why it would be a good idea to give members more time to work on amendments in committee. However, I understand that the Conservatives have been filibustering and putting up roadblocks. I would have liked to talk more about this, but I do not have much time left.
I do want to say, however, that what the Conservatives are unfortunately doing to interfere in this file is a tremendous act of bad faith. The Bloc Québécois recently moved a motion on what happened at Hockey Canada, and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage must be the one to look into these allegations of assault. The committee members proposed adding hours so that we could deal with both issues at the same time, but the Conservatives refused. This shows that they are more interested in wasting time than anything else.
There was also a motion to allow the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to travel. At the same time, the Conservatives denied approval for the foreign affairs committee to travel, showing once again that this is a tactic to waste the House's time. Conservative members claim that there is not enough time to hear from witnesses, but when asked how many witnesses would be enough, they are unable to provide a number. This, even after the committee already heard from a number of witnesses, including some YouTubers who came to testify in committee not once, but twice.
That said, the Liberals are not beyond reproach either. The time that was allocated to debating Bill C‑11 in committee could have taken place between June 2021 and February 2022. Last June, we knew that we were on the verge of an election, which is why the Bloc Québécois supported a closure motion that was much more restrictive than this one. The super-closure motion we are debating today makes the seven other motions recently voted on in this place look like mere technicalities.
If the House had not shut down for an election, we probably would have been able to get Bill C‑11 through third reading, get it through the Senate and get it passed. All of the time we lost from June to February is much longer than the time that the Conservatives have wasted here in the House.
No one is without blame here. One side is unfortunately systematically obstructing our work. I can understand, to a certain extent, the use of some form of closure on this matter. This is why the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of closure on Bill C‑10 the last time, in a completely different context, because we knew that we were headed into an election.
That does not justify this closure motion, which is much broader and less appropriate given the urgency. In fact, we know that even if we vote in favour of closure now, the bill will not make it through the Senate in time, since there will only be a few days left for the Senate to sit after the motion has been passed in the House, most likely around June 20, 21 or 22, depending on how things are going, and if there is another filibuster.
Unfortunately, no one is without blame here. As I said at the outset, the two main parties in the House keep this going like Groundhog Day. Sadly, the ones who are paying the price are our small traditional media.
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- Jun/13/22 1:59:15 p.m.
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The hon. member will have five minutes for questions and comments after question period.
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- Jun/13/22 1:59:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate two towns in my riding on upcoming milestone anniversaries. Heart's Delight-Islington is celebrating its 50th anniversary of amalgamation, with celebration events happening between July 29 and August 7. Nearby Heart's Content is celebrating 55 years of incorporation, from August 1 to August 7.
Members can find these two towns on Route 80 on the west coast of the Bay de Verde Peninsula. Both are coastal communities, and while they may be small, both are full of heart, no pun intended. The people are friendly and hard-working. They always welcome visitors with open arms. While visiting, people can see beautiful sunsets and lighthouses and eat fresh seafood any day.
I want to congratulate both towns on their magnificent milestones. I look forward to visiting later this summer.
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- Jun/13/22 2:00:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the youth in Brantford—Brant are keen, motivated and eager to have a say in the future of our country.
Last month, I asked students in my riding to come up with ideas to reduce crime in our community. From increasing community engagement, outreach and resources, to ways to deter incidents of dangerous driving and increasing opportunities for young people, the ideas they came up with were both innovative and creative.
I would like to congratulate Katrina Davis, recipient of the essay contest award, and finalists Tanner Dickie, Giulia Di Lollo and Owen Portelli. These students will be the first members of my youth advisory council, set to begin in the fall, when I begin to look forward to getting their non-partisan advice on a variety of pressing issues.
Our young people are our future, and I can confidently say that our future is bright. They provide invaluable knowledge, and I am excited to continue to engage and hear their opinions and perspective.
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- Jun/13/22 2:01:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the past two years have been difficult, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, but none more so than for our health care professionals, who have been challenged both personally and professionally.
Situated in the traditional lands of the Anishinabe, Humber River Hospital has cared for more COVID patients than many other hospitals in Toronto. It played a key role in keeping the northwest community safe and healthy, delivering close to 400,000 vaccines at the clinic and raising over $2 million for local COVID response. With a greater mission in mind, Humber River Hospital continued to save lives, improve patients' journeys and foster innovations, while nurturing the culture of philanthropy and playing an important role in bettering the community.
The pandemic has been tough, but Humber River Hospital employees were up to the fight to protect residents of Humber River—Black Creek, showing further leadership on how to foster a positive work environment, something that was vital for our health care professionals.
To the CEO and president, as well as every employee and volunteer at Humber River Hospital, our community thanks them. We are forever grateful.
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- Jun/13/22 2:02:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have the honour to rise in the House today to mark the 30th anniversary of the Table de concertation des aînés de Beauharnois‑Salaberry, a round table on seniors' issues in Beauharnois‑Salaberry.
I applaud the work done by all of the partners to highlight the reality of seniors in the Beauharnois‑Salaberry RCM. Together, community organizations and the health care system fought hard to address shocking cases of elder abuse and neglect.
The partners' involvement has led to all sorts of initiatives to protect seniors from financial abuse. More recently, the round table raised the awareness of elected officials and the community regarding population aging and how long-term improvements can be made to our communities when the public is involved in developing projects.
The longevity of the Table de concertation des aînés de Beauharnois‑Salaberry shows just how important the community and the public believe that consultation, teamwork and community participation are in addressing social issues. We wish all of the partners a happy 30th anniversary.
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- Jun/13/22 2:04:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Pride Month is well under way in the Yukon, and so is planning for Yukon's Pride celebrations this August. Like so many others, Queer Yukon Society has worked hard in the past two years to adapt to the needs of Yukon's LGBTQ2S+ community in response to public health guidelines.
We are all excited to gather in person and celebrate what has become one of the largest Pride celebrations north of 60 in the world.
Pride celebrations across Canada and around the world are essential opportunities for allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community to stand in solidarity and support a community that still faces discrimination on a regular basis.
As the member for Yukon, I am proud of the work our government has done to build a more inclusive and more tolerant Canada. I know there is still a long way to go.
I am honoured to be an ally to this community. I hope all of my colleagues will join me in celebrating Pride this month and in Pride celebrations across their communities this summer.
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- Jun/13/22 2:05:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the community of Dorintosh, the local Lions Club had a celebration to recognize the contributions of John Osborne. John Osborne is the definition of a “pillar of the community”. As a business owner, John was someone who valued an honest day’s work. However, his work went well beyond his own business. Being involved in municipal politics for over three decades, including a long run as mayor, John was a “let’s get the job done” type of leader who approached everything with an authentic kindness and integrity.
Beyond politics, some of John’s other contributions included being a charter member of the Lions Club and an active member of the Ski-Doo club, and two decades on the Beaver River Community Futures board. He even taught old-time dance lessons to the kids at the school. It was mentioned last night that if John’s years of service to his community were added together, it would be over 150 years or two lifetimes' worth.
I think all of us can agree that the world needs more John Osbornes.
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