44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 9, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, this is what the bill does: it brings online streaming services under the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Act; it requires having Canadian content; it prioritizes and supports creators from francophone, first nations, LGBTQ2+ and racialized communities and those who advance equity; it modernizes outdated legislation to bring our system into the 21st century.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know whether my colleague is as tired as I am of all this disinformation.
What the Conservatives are doing is taking bits of information out of context and trying to scare people with them. It reminds me of the documentary on Robert Charlebois in Paris called À soir on fait peur au monde, which translates to “tonight we scare people”. I feel like that is what the Conservatives have been doing for months, or years, I should say.
This is the party that made all sorts of cuts to culture. Are they just trying to find an excuse to promote their political agenda of taking a laissez-faire approach and giving digital multinationals absolute power?
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Madam Speaker, it is true. Disinformation is all we have been hearing from the Conservatives since we began debating this bill.
As I said in my speech, it is time to make room for Canadian content, to make sure that Canadian content has a place, to stand in solidarity with our artists and creators and provide them with the support they need so much after two tough years. This bill shows our willingness to stand behind them and with them.
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Madam Speaker, initially, the Broadcasting Act told cable companies that they owned the pipeline, but that they would have to participate in funding the thing that goes in the pipeline, the thing that allows them to make money and profits, in other words the content. What we call content is what goes in the pipeline. I am talking about Quebec and Canadian cultural productions.
At the time, digital broadcasters did not exist. What the Conservatives refuse to understand is that in order to make the market more equal, the new digital broadcasters also need to take part in funding the content that goes in the pipeline.
I would like to know why my colleague thinks that the Conservatives do not want the web giants to pay their share.
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Madam Speaker, earlier, following the speech by the opposition leader, we noted that he was clearly pandering to a certain demographic, certain people, just as he did during his election campaign by spreading a lot of disinformation and using algorithms to redirect certain text messages and so on.
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Madam Speaker, I was very pleased to hear my colleague talk about how Bill C‑11 will support the creation of groups across the country who had difficulty receiving help in the past.
Has there been any reaction from stakeholders in the creative industries on how Bill C‑11 will help them?
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Madam Speaker, certainly, a number of associations and groups, including the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expression or CDCE, La Guilde and the Union des artistes, are all in favour of Bill C‑11, on the assumption that a vast majority of the Senate amendments would be accepted.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to rise in support of Bill C-11, the online streaming act. I spent 20 years as a broadcaster, following a short career as a newspaper reporter. I saw first-hand the impact on Canadian storytellers once online streaming companies entered the fray and altered the way we and people around the world consume news and entertainment. I am so thrilled that now, as a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, I can play a role in helping level the playing field for Canadian content creators, with the passage of Bill C-11, an update to the Broadcasting Act.
This was the first big piece of legislation that I had the privilege to work on.
The Broadcasting Act, as we have heard, was introduced in 1991.
That was before I was a journalist, when I had just come back to Canada after spending a year in France. I had started studying political science at the University of Calgary. It was a different time. Times have changed.
Throughout the study of Bill C-11, the heritage committee heard from artists, creators and broadcasters about how much the Broadcasting Act has helped Canadians appreciate our own unique culture.
We heard from Gord Sinclair, of The Tragically Hip, that the little band from Kingston would not have been able to reach across the country from coast to coast to coast, and have such an impact on so many Canadians with their music, if it had not been for the Broadcasting Act, which has ensured that Canadian artists are heard, seen and appreciated by Canadians all across the country, that our artists do not have to go overseas or across the border in order to have successful careers. This is about seeing Canadian artists and creators succeed, and be supported and appreciated right here at home.
For decades, broadcasters in Canada have given us incredible Canadian content on our televisions and radios. We made a conscious decision to support our fellow Canadians, to help them share their talents and their stories with the rest of world. As a condition of their licences, TV and radio broadcasters have had to invest in our culture and our artists. It is why we have all the Canadian content we love. Whenever we are watching Schitt’s Creek or Orphan Black, or listening to Hamilton’s own Arkells or a classic like Stompin’ Tom Connors, it makes us proud to be Canadian, to support and encourage our Canadian talent.
Our culture is who we are. It is our past, our present and our future. Now that Canadians consume their media from a bigger variety of platforms, it is time to update the Broadcasting Act and protect our culture for generations to come.
I remember 1991, when we were listening to local radio to learn about the newest music and artists. When we found something good, we would head to the mall and buy the cassette tape at the music store. Today, most Canadians get their music on YouTube. We want to make sure they can still find and identify Canadian content from their streaming services.
Bill C-11 ensures that big players like YouTube and TikTok start contributing to the system, like our traditional broadcasters have been doing for decades now. Back in 1991, we knew which TV shows played on which night and we made plans to get home in time so we would not miss anything. If we wanted to watch a movie, our options were either a Blockbuster rental or the theatre.
Today our streaming services have usurped cable services. I still have cable, I still like to watch my local news, but I understand that today, most Canadians stream their content. People can stream pretty much anywhere they can get a signal, through their TV, phone or car. The technological advances many of us in this room have lived through since the 90s are extraordinary.
How wonderful and amazing to be able to watch our favourite shows and movies whenever and wherever we want. We can even binge an entire season of say, Canada’s Drag Race and not have to wait with anxious anticipation week after week to find out what happens at the end.
However, streaming platforms like Amazon Prime and YouTube broadcast to Canadians without the same requirements that traditional broadcasters adhere to, including supports to the industry and its players that helped build Canada’s culture. These companies absolutely invest in our economy in other ways, and we are fortunate to have such a bounty of entertainment to consume. We can proudly point to many productions made on our shores and in our streets, with our people telling our stories.
Streaming services do not have to produce and share content that reflects our Canadian story and shared identity. They do not have to protect Canadian rights of content ownership. They do not have to pay into the system that nurtures young talent and gives it space to grow and be seen and heard. Until Bill C-11 is passed into law, our culture will be in danger of being lost in the noise of all the content available to Canadians online.
Asking the streaming companies to make Canadian content more fundable does not in any way limit Canadians' ability to watch what they want, or produce the content they want or post the content they produce. All regulatory requirements and obligations in the online streaming act only affect the broadcaster and the platforms, never the user or the creator.
This bill does not limit Canadian freedom of expression in any way, shape or form. We are not telling streamers how to do their business or construct their algorithms. We are just saying that they benefit from our country and our stories and our creators. They have to contribute. They have to let Canadians see through the clutter and identify their own music and artists, storytellers and other creators.
This legislation will provide real opportunities for Canadians, including community media, local news, French-language productions, racialized communities, third-language programming and so much more. This legislation is incredibly important to ensure space within our broadcasting system for indigenous storytelling and indigenous languages.
When it comes to Canadian stories and storytelling, I would be remiss if I did not mention the news, community news and hard-working journalists. The broadcasting landscape has changed since I was in journalism, with bigger players impacting the Canadian news market. We need to ensure that our broadcasters can keep up and are protected, and that Canadian journalists continue to tell the stories of our Canadian communities.
The 1991 Broadcasting Act has run its course. It is now undeniably out of date, but its principles of fairness to Canadian creators remain crucial to this country. We need this legislation now so that we can better support our Canadian broadcasting sector. Canadian organizations and creators will continue to lose ground if this bill does not pass. We must all work together to see this come to fruition.
I would like to express my thanks to the Senate for its exhaustive study of this bill, which included the longest clause-by-clause consideration of a bill in Senate history. This has been about teamwork, about getting this bill to its best form. Although the Conservatives have been working against the team, spouting misinformation and raising unfounded fears on what this bill is really about, spending more time filibustering than working collaboratively, we got there.
We agree with many of the Senate amendments. As my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, mentioned yesterday, this government is fully supporting 18 of the 26 amendments brought about in the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-11. We also accept another two amendments with modifications, so all of the changes that adhere to the spirit of the legislation. This is another testament to the truly collaborative work that has gone on.
It is time that we pass this bill, that we show our support to Canadian artists and creators. I truly hope that all my colleagues will join me in supporting Bill C-11. It is time to bring our broadcasting system into the 21st century and do what is right for this country and our culture.
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Madam Speaker, if this bill does not affect what Canadians will post, why did the government choose to remove the amendment that would have explicitly said that? We, the Conservative members, have been accused repeatedly throughout the debate, of misinformation, and yet they have refused to explicitly exclude content posted by Canadians. Why?
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Madam Speaker, the only amendments this government did not accept were amendments that created loopholes that would have allowed streaming companies to get out of their obligations. This is all about supporting Canadian culture and Canadian artists.
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Madam Speaker, earlier, we heard the Leader of the Opposition say that the Conservatives, once in power, would repeal this legislation, that it would be the end of this legislation stemming from Bill C‑11.
Personally, I think that he should favour a more rational approach and perhaps leave the door open a bit and say that, if ever there were no censuring or control of online content, he would keep this legislation.
I think that I can say, without betraying my Bloc colleagues too much, that, on our side, if we see that there are real changes in terms of online behaviour and freedom of expression online, we will be the first to say that we need to go back to the drawing board. We will be the first to say that we might have missed something and that we need to go back to the drawing board.
Does the Liberal Party agree on that?
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Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree that this bill protects our culture. At the same time, it does not compromise our freedom of expression.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech. I appreciated the distinction she made between traditional broadcasters that are involved in the system producing Canadian content and digital broadcasters, which have been excluded for far too long.
Under this bill, more money from these large private corporations will be injected to produce Quebec, Canadian, francophone and, thanks to an NDP amendment, indigenous cultural content.
I wonder if she could talk a little more about the impact of these web giants being forced to contribute, and how this will enhance and increase local and regional francophone and indigenous production.
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Madam Speaker, at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, we heard that creators need this bill to support them.
It would give them some support in their communities. Streamers pay into this system. We have programs that support young artists. We appreciate the contributions from the Province of Quebec, and we would not have as much access to all the Canadian content we have now if it were not for the 1991 Broadcasting Act. Our artists today need that same lift that artists in 1991 got with the original Broadcasting Act.
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Madam Speaker, I was very interested to hear the impassioned and thoughtful speech by my colleague, especially given her previous history in journalism.
I would like to know what the reaction is from local stakeholders and stakeholders from across the country. Is Bill C-11 something that they are looking forward to seeing?
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Madam Speaker, we heard from many broadcasters that they will not be able to continue, that they will not exist much longer, if the playing field is not levelled. They cannot compete with these streamers the way things are now. If we do not bring in this legislation as soon as possible, we will lose more Canadian companies that are producing Canadian content.
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Madam Speaker, can members imagine going to a restaurant and ordering a burger, but instead of a burger, they are served a salad, and when the server is asked why a salad was received, they say it is because of a new government rule that salads need to account for a certain percentage of meals eaten in Canada? That would be ridiculous, one might say, and if one wants a burger, one should get a burger. Nobody would accept something like this when they went to a restaurant, so why would they accept it when they browse the Internet?
That is the essence of Bill C-11, a solution looking for a problem that does not exist and the latest attempt from the Liberals to stick their nose in where it does not belong to limit the freedoms of Canadians.
Madam Speaker, I hope the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent would share a burger with me because I will be sharing my time with him.
Right now, Canadians get to pick the things they see online through their very own viewing habits, searches and choices. If Bill C-11 passes, the videos they watch on YouTube, the movies they stream on Netflix and the podcasts they listen to on Spotify would all be subject to government regulations requiring the promotion of certain content. It would deem the content we can and cannot watch. Of course, the government cannot explain what that content is. It has not answered that question.
By putting the rules for what this bill is calling “Canadian content” in the hands of government and unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, the Liberals would be free to amplify the voices they like and silence the ones they do not like. Do we know why this would be? It is because they appoint the body that does that and the head of the CRTC, and they do so without telling us what kind of content, of course.
Let us face that Bill C-11 is just another attempt to drastically expand the size and scope of government, to control what Canadians think and to limit their fundamental rights and freedoms of what they get to see online. No government should ever be given the additional powers to censor and regulate what Canadians say and see, especially of the entire, infinite and unending Internet.
The bill states that any content that generates revenue, yes, even cat videos, would be subject to regulation that would be under the control of the CRTC. It lays out the very path for hiring the Internet czar who would do that, who would give the purview of that to somebody else, an unelected bureaucrat appointed, of course, by a government that wants the control.
This is a debate about amendments, specifically on the issue of censoring user-generated content. That is what regular people put online. The government was really never going to consider that amendment because it took it out of the bill to begin with. I will tell the House why.
Here is the response to trying to get user-generated content out of the mix. It is in amendment 3, and it is part of what we are discussing here. The government states it:
...respectfully disagrees with amendment 3 because this would affect the Governor in Council’s ability to publicly consult on, and issue, a policy direction to the CRTC to appropriately scope the regulation of social media services with respect to their distribution of commercial programs, as well as prevent the broadcasting system from adapting to technological changes over time....
That is the government's response. The rationale behind the rejection for content creators finally says the quiet part out loud. It finally said it. It is right here. For a government that claims user-generated content was never going to be part of the bill, it took out that amendment and then rejected the fact that the amendment would have been put back in the bill. It says the opposite right in the rationale. The government wants the power to direct the CRTC on user content today, and it wants the power to do it in the future.
Regulatory power over user content is confirmed in that explanation. It covers YouTube videos, podcasts and any other content on platforms we do not even know exist yet, because that is what “adapting to technological changes” means. The government has regulated something that does not even exist yet.
There we have it. A statement we heard from the minister on this point is the exact opposite of his response in the House, his response in committee and his response on television, which makes it the opposite of the truth. He will also ensure that we are the only country, the only democratic country in the world, where this is a thing. We are the only country to engage in this form of regulation of things we would put on the Internet. It leaves absolutely no doubt in the minds of anybody who has read this legislation. For people like Margaret Atwood, Senator David Adams Richards and purveyors of cat videos from coast to coast, there is absolutely no doubt that this is the government's plan. The government just said the quiet part out loud: Platforms are in, and user-generated content is in. Anything else is simply untrue.
We have so many philosophical issues with this bill. I could stand here all day talking about them, but I want to touch on some very practical ones, such as the mandate of the CRTC. There are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data added to the Internet every single day. Do people really believe that the Liberal government or that any bureaucracy, especially a bureaucracy within the government, could handle the responsibility of regulating that? The Liberals cannot get us passports in a reasonable amount of time. They cannot do what they are saying they can do.
What about the idea that the government needs to save the industry? Of course, that is ludicrous. The minister says that the investments in Canadian production that would further our culture are somehow in need of his rescue. Again, that is the opposite of an actual fact. My colleagues will tell me that I am engaging in disinformation, but that is just not true.
Huge investments are being made, and if we looked a little further than traditional broadcasters, or where they have traditionally been made, or if we talked to anyone else other than the unions that will lose control over that funding, we would know that statement is not true.
The Motion Picture Association of Canada told a committee in the Senate that it spent over $5 billion in 2021 on investments in just one year. That is more than the $1 billion the minister is talking about when he talks about what Bill C-11 would bring in. That $5 billion is more than $1 billion, and that is in a single year by a single industry association.
What about the fact that Canadian creators have not asked for this? In fact, many of them have spoken out against it. Those are the ones that have had tremendous success, the ones that will be held back by this bill. Creators in this country who, without the government, have reached unimaginable heights, both within Canada and especially outside of Canada. They have been ignored.
It is not about culture, and it certainly is not about funding. It is about control. It is about doing anything possible to increase the size of the Canadian government and reduce the freedoms of what we see online, of what ordinary Canadians see and put online. These are ordinary Canadian citizens, and the government will stop at nothing to do more of that no matter how much the facts do not line up, how much it cannot answer questions about what Canadian content is and who will regulate it, or how it simply misleads the House in telling us that the CRTC has no role in this.
The Liberals jammed this bill through the House of Commons once already, but the Senate found so many issues with it that it conducted the longest committee study ever on a piece of legislation and proposed 26 amendments. That is, of course, after the Liberals took out the amendment that would leave out user-generated content, while telling the Canadian public that was not true.
Just like putting lipstick on a pig, it leaves us with a pig. Putting amendments into Bill C-11 just leaves us with Bill C-11, a bill that, at its core, restricts, infringes and penalizes. It is a bill that can only be fixed by voting it down and making sure that it never sees the light of day. A Conservative government in this country would have never introduced it, and if members of the House make the mistake of passing it, we will repeal it.
We do not need a government deciding what we can and cannot watch. We do not need a government to pick the winners and the losers. We do not need a government to get more involved in the lives of Canadians. It is involved enough, and we see how that is going in this country. We need a small government that makes room for bigger citizens where government is the servant and we, Canadians, are the masters.
We are upholding the heritage that Canadians have given the world, that successful creators have put out there. We are here today to stand against Bill C-11, a bill that goes against the principles of freedom, the values that have been the bedrock of our country for 150 years, and the heritage that the heritage minister should be protecting.
Freedom is the very opposite of this bill. He should not be focusing on arbitrary roles. If he did, he should be able to at least explain them in the House, in committee or on television. He should instead be focused on growing the power of people right here in Canada and letting them decide what they can see on the Internet.
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Madam Speaker, there is absolutely nothing within this legislation that takes away a person's freedoms or their rights. They can choose to watch whatever they want on the Internet. The sad reality is that the Conservatives know that, but they do not have a problem spreading misinformation.
Will the Conservative Party of Canada be honest with Canadians today? Given what it is saying about Bill C-11, is its intention to withdraw the Broadcasting Act? After all, the very same principles have been applied, in good part, through the Broadcasting Act for decades now.
The Conservative Party does not support Canadian content. It has made that abundantly clear. Are the Conservatives going to get rid of the Broadcasting Act? Are they going to get rid of CBC? Is that what their real intentions are?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Mar/9/23 1:22:48 p.m.
- Watch
I have to again remind members, if they have questions and comments, to wait until they are recognized.
The hon. member for Thornhill.
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Madam Speaker, yes to CBC and yes to Bill C-11. I would invite the member opposite to tell me what he thinks Canadian content is, why he will not define it in the bill and why he is misleading Canadians, to say that the CRTC, the Chair of which is appointed by him, will not regulate what Canadians see and hear on the Internet. He is misleading the House, and he knows it.
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