44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague. I have been in his riding many times. I have family in the area.
This will help local artists and producers. We only have to look at some of the shows that have come out of Newfoundland. Consider the Republic of Doyle, for example, and what it did for our province to highlight and drive the tourism industry literally crazy because of the scenery it showed and the houses and colours of St. John's and beyond.
Our own artists need all the help they can get, especially with trying to come out of COVID. The member is an artist himself, and he fully understands how hard it is to make it in the industry. Why should people not be compensated for someone benefiting from their talent? They should be compensated, they should be supported and that is exactly what our government would like to do.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Avalon, for whom I have tremendous respect. We are both members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. We all appreciate his work as chair, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank him. I also want to thank him for his speech. I was very happy to hear him talk about independent producers, who are literally the driving force behind the cultural economy in Canada and Quebec.
I would like my colleague to tell us about the work that committee members, specifically my colleague from Drummond, have done on the discoverability of French-language content. Can he comment on why it was important to protect French-language content in Bill C‑10 and, of course, in Bill C‑11?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her comments. At the committee we serve on together, FOPO, she continues to amaze me with her intent, her questions and her knowledge of the industry. I also know her to be a performer, because she has gifted us with her talents at committee different times.
We have to protect our cultural identity, regardless if it is our French culture in Quebec, our Irish culture in Newfoundland and Labrador or our Ukrainian culture in Saskatchewan. We have to do everything we can. This country is unique given its diversity. As a government and as parliamentarians, we should try to build on it and make sure we do not lose it going forward, because if we lose our identity and culture, there is really nothing that says what Canada is.
We have to do everything we can to protect it, whether it be the French-language culture in Quebec or in other areas of the country. We have a great, talented country, and our music and talent speak for themselves.
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Mr. Speaker, I grew up in a blended family, and my stepbrother and stepsister were from upstate New York. They used to come here and were filled with the idea that Canada had no movies or music to offer. It was not that they did not exist, but they were not getting exposure. I feel like so much more work has been done to support Canadian artists and content creators.
What is at stake if we do not pass this bill? What do we risk losing?
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Mr. Speaker, what is at stake is losing who we are as a society and as a culture. As I said to the previous question, if we do not protect our own identity, who will protect us? We would be absorbed by the U.S.
I have said to different people that some people do not know where they are from. They have no connection to their community. They can leave one part of the United States, move somewhere else and think nothing of it. I am from Conception Bay South, Newfoundland, and I hope I will one day be buried in Conception Bay South, Newfoundland. I have never lived anywhere else. I love where I live. I love our identity and I do not think we can afford to lose it, because we will disappear as a society if that happens.
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Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank the member for Avalon for sharing his time with me today.
Allow me to make a quick digression to talk about my family. I just returned to Parliament Hill after waging my own battle with this nasty virus that has been talked about so much over the past two and a half years. I am fine now. We fought it off as a family. I want to thank my partner, Caroline, who is recovering as well, her daughter Alexandrine and my daughter Lily Rose. The girls and I are warriors, and we are fine now.
I am happy to be back, but not so happy to be debating Bill C‑11, or more specifically, Motion No. 16, which is preventing us from talking more about Bill C‑11. There are both pros and cons here.
It is never feels good to forgo our duty and privilege as parliamentarians to debate bills as much as necessary before voting for or against. The debate needs to stop at some point, however.
One day I will be able to say that I was there in 2022. I was also there in 1991. Some might think I am not old enough for that, because I do not look my age, but I was working as a radio host in 1991 when the Broadcasting Act was modernized. At the time, I have to say that we had the same concerns, fears and criticisms that are being expressed today about what we are trying to add to the act through Bill C‑11.
We heard criticisms about what is now being called discoverability, but used to be called quotas, those infamous quotas of Canadian content, those French-language music quotas for the radio.
I can say that in 1991, radio stations had quotas to meet, and it was a source of frustration for me and most of my fellow radio hosts at the time because it took a real effort. We could not get away with just playing the big hits from the U.S. anymore. We had to make the effort to discover content that we knew nothing about, since French-language music and Quebec artists were nearly impossible to find at the time.
The same was true for Manitoban artists, with the exception of Daniel Lavoie, who was one of the French-Canadian artists who was doing well at the time. Fortunately, there was a place for him on the radio waves. Discovering the others, however, required showing curiosity, going to the record shop, then listening to albums and deciding to try something that people generally had not heard on the radio.
Those quotas allowed us to offer our artists something they would not otherwise have had: a showcase on Quebec radio. As a result, this music has gained popularity over the years, and now it is being increasingly played and increasingly requested on the radio. Thanks to that, Quebec has now a French-language music industry driven by francophone artists and a thriving music industry in general, independently of language, because the market has been well protected and has fostered homegrown content.
Therefore, it is not true that the concept of discoverability that we are attempting to impose on today's various broadcasters, primarily those online, is bad or evil, nor is it an infringement on the freedom of choice and freedom of expression of music consumers in Canada and Quebec.
The future will confirm what I am saying now, because it has been proven time and time again in Quebec. There is a good reason why there is such massive support for this bill in Quebec. Clearly, what we are trying to include in the bill is well-thought-out and positive.
I was around in 1991, and I was still around 2021, when the bill was called C‑10. Earlier, I heard a member say that the only difference between last year's bill and this one was the “1” in the title. One thing I know for sure is that, when Bill C‑10 was introduced on November 3, 2020, it was like a big, blank paint-by-numbers document. All the real work had yet to be done.
Some 130 amendments to this bill were put forward. The Bloc Québécois suggested some extremely important amendments that were debated and adopted so as to include discoverability of not only Canadian, but also Quebec, francophone and indigenous language content. For Bill C‑10, we had to reintroduce the concept of Canadian ownership to prevent our own homegrown undertakings from being swallowed up by giants for what to them is pocket change.
We added all kinds of things to Bill C‑10, and those things are in Bill C‑11. The fact is, the bill we are debating this year—or, rather, will be debating for a short time this year—is not the same as the one we debated last year. There is still room for improvement. We may run out of time for that, but I will still urge my committee colleagues to do the right thing and work efficiently and collaboratively. That may be wishful thinking.
The Conservatives want to hear from more witnesses. That was one of the arguments they used to hold up the process during the committee's recent work on Bill C‑11, yet they were the ones who proposed limiting our time with witnesses to 20 hours. I remember because I was there. We agreed to that proposal.
During those 20 hours, they could have invited the witnesses they say they did not have time to invite, like APTN, which is an extremely relevant witness and one of the first witnesses we should have heard from, but no. Our colleagues in the Conservative Party decided to invite YouTubers, TikTokers, creators of digital content. This is their choice and their legitimate right. Still, did they really need to invite the 160,000 creators who make YouTube videos in Canada? I think we got the message. We could have moved on to more relevant witnesses.
However, I am somewhat responsible for what happened. Since we had already heard from many witnesses and met with dozens and dozens of organizations since the beginning of this great adventure dealing with the broadcasting bill, I myself convinced a bunch of organizations not to testify, telling them that we would be able to study the bill faster clause by clause, and saying that we knew what they wanted and that we would represent them properly. I apologize to my Conservative colleagues, because I am perhaps somewhat responsible for the fact that we did not consider it essential to receive witnesses for hours and hours, as they would have liked.
It is important that this bill pass. I would really have preferred for it to pass in a more democratic manner, and for us to have a healthy debate on it. That did not happen in committee. However, it is important that it pass, and it needs to be flexible so that it can be adapted to new technologies. Soon online platforms will have the final say on what music and content we consume in our cars. Who knows where will be next. However, the CRTC must be given the opportunity to set out the rules and regulate this industry that is so dear to us, and it is up to us to do just that.
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- Jun/13/22 7:05:38 p.m.
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Before continuing, I would like to make a brief comment.
I like having something in common with another person. Like the member for Drummond, I began my career as a radio host in 1991.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.
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Mr. Speaker, I like my colleague. He is a friend and he is also my French teacher. We work together on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I did not know he was that old.
Can he explain just how important this bill is for protecting Quebec culture and the French language?
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Mr. Speaker, we both started our careers in radio, but I have to say that I started a few years before you. I know that is somewhat hard to believe.
I would like to congratulate my colleague on the progress he is making in learning French. Last year, it was much more difficult for him to speak French. He just asked me a question entirely in French and I congratulate him.
It is not a secret. We talk about it often in the House. French in general is at risk and in decline, and it must be protected. It is true for the French language in everyday life, but it applies even more so to francophone culture. We are a francophone island in the sea of North America, and we are being invaded by American culture. We must protect francophone culture as best we can, especially Quebec culture, but francophone culture across Canada also. With bills such as Bill C‑11, we can make this difference and this distinction by protecting our culture.
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Mr. Speaker, I joined the ranks of journalism, as well. I know it well and went on to be an online content creator and know what it can do. I am sorry I am not speaking in French. I am working on that.
I am actually really curious, because my office has received hundreds of emails opposed to Bill C-11 from very concerned people. Has his office also received the same concerns, and how does he respond to his constituents?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. We would be happy to help her work on her French. We are already seeing progress with the member for Perth—Wellington.
We have also received a lot of emails from members of the public, but I have to say that, with a few exceptions, none of these emails came from Quebec. They came from western Canada. I am not here to judge others' opinions. However, I believe that an interpretation, or disinformation, really, is what is behind the concern about Bill C‑11. This bill does not contain any threat to freedom of expression, from what I understand. At the very least, it does not contain any of the threats that people mentioned in the many emails we have received.
There is widespread support for this bill in Quebec. Almost none of the emails my colleague is talking about came from Quebeckers.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I am very pleased that he is back in the House of Commons. Like me, he is a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage where, for weeks, all kinds of tactics were being used.
The chair of the CRTC could not come testify because the Conservatives blocked his testimony. We finally worked around that. We saw all kinds of stalling tactics that meant that we could not do our job.
He supports Bill C-11, I support Bill C-11, and the vast majority of witnesses said the same thing. However, he also wanted us to look at each of the amendments and make this bill better.
My question is simple. Why did the Conservatives not want us to improve this very important bill?
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- Jun/13/22 7:10:32 p.m.
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The member for Drummond has time for a very short reply.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a big challenge to give a brief answer. I will try nonetheless.
I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his comments and his question.
I cannot answer the question about the Conservatives' motives. I believe that it may be ideological obstruction. However, it must be said that these delays in the work on Bill C‑11 have consequences for more than just Bill C‑11. These stalling tactics are causing delays for important bills, such as Bill C‑18, which must soon be referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. There are also consequences on other very important studies that we decided to put forward.
Unfortunately, I do not have an answer, but I would say that it has consequences for more than just Bill C‑11.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight once again to speak to the government's proposed Bill C-11. In the last Parliament, it was Bill C-10, and it certainly generated a lot of feedback and frustration from Canadians across the country. We have been witnessing that here again in the last couple of months with this bill in its current form.
I have been receiving a lot of emails and advocacy petitions from constituents, both online creators and those who consume the content. They are concerned about what this bill entails and, frankly, among several things I will get into, what it does not entail. I believe that kicking the can to the CRTC and other organizations is a slippery slope and not a good precedent, based on the precedents that have caused a lot of frustrations to build up over the years.
I want to note that I will be splitting my time with the member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington.
We are debating this motion tonight because of an attempt by the government and its NDP partners to try to jam this legislation through the House of Commons once again. I know there are still numerous witnesses who want to provide their perspectives and voices at the heritage committee and share the legitimate and reasonable concerns they have and the clarifications they wish to see that they are not getting from the government and its partner.
One of the problems we have that is typical of the Liberal-NDP strategy when it comes to legislation, which we are seeing in Bill C-5, the criminal justice reform legislation, is that if members do not support the Liberals and NDP on the bill, it means we do not care about racism. If members want an end to federal mandates and the chaos we are seeing at the borders and airports, it means the members hate vaccines and health care workers. Now, with the Internet censorship bill, Bill C-11, if we do not support their way and their ideas, we hate content creators and arts and culture in this country. It is an either-or, a divisive approach, but it is not surprising. It is one that we see more and more.
I will repeat what I said in the last Parliament because Bill C-11, as we have it, is very similar to what we saw in Bill C-10, and a lot of the concerns we had last time are not addressed or clarified in the bill in its current form.
Let me start with a positive in terms of agreement in Parliament. The Broadcasting Act was created in 1991. I do not remember it. I was about five years old at the time. Boyz II Men, Paula Abdul and Bryan Adams had some hits then, but since that original piece of legislation, a lot has changed in how Canadians create content and get it out there as well as in how they consume it.
We have the Internet, social media platforms, YouTube, Spotify, TikTok and so forth. There is an agreement that we need to have a level playing field with these large conglomerates of a foreign nature and how they do business in this country. At the same time, we also need to make sure that we protect the individual freedoms and rights of individual content creators, like those on YouTube who have been able to explode in not only the Canadian market but also the international market with the evolution of the Internet and social media platforms.
There are serious flaws, and I have a perfect example. My colleague from Perth—Wellington, the shadow minister for Canadian heritage, raised this as a perfect example today. We all want to make sure Canadian content is created and is fairly represented on Netflix, Hulu, Crave and all the different platforms. He alluded in the chamber today to this bill not creating the specific measures to clarify some of the red tape about what is Canadian content. A perfect example that was illustrated was The Handmaid's Tale. I do not agree with Margaret Atwood and a lot of her politics, but I will admire her and give her respect as an artist and an author and for what she has done over her incredible career. A proud Canadian she is.
The Handmaid's Tale, a blockbuster TV series, was filmed in part in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area. One would think Margaret Atwood and filming in the province of Ontario, the GTA, would classify as Canadian content. It does not. That speaks to the need to define this content better, to set better parameters and better definitions when it comes to this. Sadly, the bill would not do that. One would think it would when we talk about the modernization that we face.
I want to specify my concerns during my time. This comes perhaps from my background before being in the House, as a mayor at the municipal level, and perhaps it is a bit affected by my experience in the past few months on the public accounts committee, which reviews Auditor General reports on programs and efficiencies and how they run.
I want to reiterate my concern with regard to the vague definitions particularly around user-generated digital content, claiming there is an exemption, but section 4.2 is there. The government says not to worry about it. The CRTC says not to worry about it. I do not think Canadians have a lot of faith in that approach to what we have.
The CRTC is a public entity, but considers itself very independent. I have a lot of frustrations with the organization that I will not get into tonight when it comes to providing Internet service to rural and remote communities. That is a speech for another night.
Particularly, what is happening is that the government's legislation is extremely vague. Conservatives have been standing up in committee and in the House, not just in this Parliament but also in the last Parliament, and I have foreseen and I am foreshadowing what I know is to come. We see it over and over again. The government says, “That is not our intention. Do not worry.” The legislation would pass and then it would go to the CRTC, after which, at some point down the road after the bill is passed, after it has come into law and been enacted, suddenly we would see algorithms or we would see content. At that point, the CRTC would say, “We are independent. There is nothing you can do. This is the law that was passed and this is the way it is interpreting it.”
The minister has tried to claim that user-generated digital content and YouTube creators, TikTok creators and Canadians who have been able to burst onto the scene, not just in this country but internationally, are free from having their content regulated. They say that they have no interest in looking at that.
If that is the case, the government should be going for what we have been advocating for: it should specifically rule it out and make it black and white. It should make it very clear so that there is not a little door poked open for the CRTC, when it is batted over there to look after, all of a sudden to decide that, in the public interest, it is going to be doing this.
This is the time for Parliament, for Conservatives, for us to stand and be on the record to say that there are amendments. There are a lot of things that need to change, but there are specific amendments at least on that. I believe that just speaks to the rushed attempt that we are seeing from the government. It speaks to the secrecy of what it is trying to do. It is trying to pass the buck over to an independent organization, one that is overly powerful in my personal view, to interpret these laws, at which point the government can later say that it was its goal but secretly it was not the government's problem but somebody else's.
It is government creep at its worst. We have seen it before. We see it at the public accounts committee, in terms of leaving it to bureaucratic organizations to organize, and the success of that.
In my time remaining tonight, I want to acknowledge some of the comments made by a Canadian YouTube creator who spoke at the Canadian heritage committee a few weeks ago, J.J. McCullough. I go back to what we could agree on: Modernization is needed for the Broadcasting Act to make sure that large companies such as Netflix pay their fair share and also create Canadian content for us to have as Canadians. J.J. McCullough noted the following, which really hit home when I heard his testimony:
The tremendous success and even worldwide fame of many Canadian YouTubers in the absence of government regulation should invite questions about the necessity of Bill C-11. An unregulated YouTube has been a 17-year experiment, and the result has been an explosion of popular Canadian content produced by Canadians of every imaginable demographic....it is important to understand that it is simply impossible to regulate a platform like YouTube without also regulating creator content.
We have seen more Canadians become known. We have seen more Canadians make a living on these platforms. What the government is proposing is not that if one does not support this, one does not care about Canadian artists. We are standing up for individual content creators to say that platforms like these have given them the opportunity to make a living, to get known and to get Canadian brands, Canadian stories, Canadian music or other things we could name out there.
Our colleagues will stand up for those individual creators in making sure that we get the government to better define the very slippery slope it is on, not just with Bill C-10 in the last parliament. It is repeating the same mistake with Bill C-11.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way was talking about receiving emails from people who had concerns about the bill. I know that members in the House can say whatever they want in the House and then post it on their Facebook, Twitter and so on. I am curious if the member has had any communications in his householders on Bill C-11 and what he says to members in his community about it that is resulting in people contacting him from across Canada. The previous speaker mentioned that he gets tons of emails from across Canada, as do I, from people not in my riding, about certain legislation.
Does the member opposite feel his party is maybe playing into the fact that they are igniting this fake outrage about this piece of legislation?
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Mr. Speaker, in the last Parliament, I had a petition on my social media for Canadians in my riding, particularly in my region, who were concerned about the overreach of the bill and the vague definitions. It was a slippery slope that did not go through.
It is not a fake outrage. There are many things that the government, the NDP, the Bloc and others could do to give further clarity to the definitions, give specific exemptions and eliminate proposed section 4.2 regarding individual user-created content, and they choose not to. They are fuelling the rage by not listening to those who are opposed to the bill, who have reasonable suggestions that could better define and narrow the scope of what the CRTC's mandate is in doing this. They are ignoring it, and the language of false anger on this is something that only adds to that.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to take this moment, since The Handmaid's Tale was mentioned, to give a shout-out to my university roommate Edie Inksetter. She is an actor and producer for The Handmaid's Tale, and that is Canadian talent.
I wanted to ask the member about the missing tax dollars that Canadians have not been able to benefit from, let us say, over the last seven years, since 2015. Could the member comment what he thinks the government and Canadian citizens are missing out on by way of fair taxes?
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from the NDP's intervention. It is always nice and appreciated to give a Canadian shout-out to a Canadian artist. That is appreciated.
On the revenues, as I said in my intervention, we need to make sure that companies such as Netflix, whether of a national or foreign nature doing business in Canada are paying their fair share, and also contributing to Canadian content using the revenues they have and the power they have to generate Canadian content of Canadian stories, creating Canadian jobs and so forth.
The example I laid out concerning The Handmaid's Tale speaks of how broken the idea of Canadian content is. Bill C-11 is not the solution. It does not tackle those problems appropriately, and I think it is going to leave a lot of confusion in the industry about coming into Canada and creating authentic Canadian content and jobs for actors and producers. There is also all the behind the scenes we see from a wide variety of platforms and the media viewing aspect of things. We are to be left behind.
We need better clarity on this. This bill does not do it. Just saying a title and that it is for artists does not actually mean it is going to benefit all those it says it is going to.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a tough issue for me, as an individual MP, because I do not like a motion that says we are going to fast-track all amendments, close things down and push something through on this basis, as the government is proposing to do on Bill C-11.
I am honestly still trying to decide how I will vote on the Conservative motion. I would rather we stay in this place and do it right, even if it took sitting into July. I do not know about taking until September. That is what I am struggling with right now. I also know in the previous Parliament, with Bill C-10, and in this Parliament, and I do not want to make this personal in any way, shape or form, but the tactics of the Conservative Party cannot be described as anything other than obstruction for the sake of obstruction.
I would like him to try to tell me what he thinks would happen if the government did not push this through. Would we have a chance to improve this bill and then get it passed?
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