House Hansard - 91

44th Parl. 1st Sess.

June 17, 2022 10:00AM

Mr. Tim Louis (Kitchener—Conestoga, Lib.)

Jun/17/22 12:45:16 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-11

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of Bill C-11. For decades, Canadian broadcasters have given us incredible Canadian content on our televisions and our radios. This is no accident. We support our cultural sovereignty. It is who we are as Canadians. It is our past, it is our present and it is our future. It is how we tell our stories to each other. As a condition of their licences, TV and radio broadcasters have had to invest in our culture and our artists. That is why we have the Canadian content that we are so proud of. Here is what has changed. Online streaming platforms are the new broadcasters, yet they do not have to play by the same rules. Online streaming is the norm. Canadian broadcasters play by one set of rules and streaming platforms play by another. There should be one set of rules for everyone. That is why the government introduced Bill C-11, the online streaming act. This bill ensures that online streamers contribute in an equitable but flexible way to the creation of Canadian content, and ensures that Canadians can find that content on their platforms. Now, let us talk about what this bill would not do. This bill would not impose regulations on content that everyday Canadians post on social media. This bill would not impose regulations on Canadian digital content creators, influencers or users. This bill would not censor content or mandate specific algorithms on streaming services or social media platforms, and this bill would not limit Canadians' freedom of expression in any way, shape or form. We have heard a lot of misinformation. My colleague just mentioned previously that a lot of emails have come in with a lot of confusion and misinformation, and I believe that is deliberate. I was going to address two of the issues that we might be hearing some of the most misinformation about in the Online Streaming Act. First is the fact that user-generated content is excluded. People ask where that is in the legislation. The bill explicitly excludes all user-generated content in social media platforms and streaming services. I will read the subsection. Subsection 2.1 of Bill C-11 states: A person who uses a social media service to upload programs for transmission over the Internet and reception by other users of the service — and who is not the provider of the service or the provider’s affiliate, or the agent or mandatary of either of them — does not, by the fact of that use, carry on a broadcasting undertaking for the purposes of this Act. In plain language, that means that users, even digital-first creators with millions of subscribers, are not broadcasters and therefore they will not face any obligations under the act. Any suggestions otherwise are simply untrue.

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Context: House Hansard - 91 - Jun/17/22

Mr. Tim Louis

Jun/17/22 12:58:26 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-11

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the advice he offers from time to time. It always comes in handy, and I appreciate that. The world is changing fast. It used to be a closed system, where our traditional broadcasters paid into the system to make sure they contributed to Canadian culture with grants and programs that artists could draw from to tell their stories. Right now we have two systems. We have the traditional broadcasters, which are in radio and TV and are still paying into the system, and we have our online foreign streamers, which are not. They are not paying into any kind of system. Sometimes they contribute to a production here, but they are not paying into the system itself, and that is the level playing field we need to see. If they are acting as broadcasters here in Canada, which these foreign online streamers are, they would fall under the same regulations and would have to contribute funds to our culture for our Canadian artists to draw from to tell their own stories.

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House Hansard - 91