44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 9, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, that member did not even listen to what I said. I never said the Conservatives are only listening to the fringe Conservative alt-right base. I said that is who they are playing to. They are playing to those individuals, and if I said it differently, then I certainly apologize right now, and I thank the member for allowing me to correct the record.
Do I agree with the quote the member read from Margaret Atwood? No, I do not. I think it is wrong. I think it is off base, and I do not think it represents the realities of this bill.
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Uqaqtittiji, the NDP supports an amendment that would ensure it is the CRTC, not the cabinet, deciding what kind of content media can produce. Can the member explain why this is not a form of government control that other parties are talking about?
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Madam Speaker, what I get a real kick out of is when I hear the Conservatives go on about the fact that it is cabinet that is going to make these decisions on what people listen to, as if suddenly the Conservatives are willing to say the Bloc, of all parties, with all due respect, and the NDP would be going along with this plan if they really thought that was what it is. Talk about taking a leg out of the credibility of that argument. We have two other established parties in this House that are basically saying that, no, it is not cabinet that would be making these decisions and that it is not the way Conservatives are portraying it. The reality is that this is about ensuring that Canadian content is out there.
To answer the member's question a little more directly, I agree with the member's position on this. I think it is important that we do not give the impression that we would allow policy-makers to decide which songs are cool and which ones are not, because that is the way the Conservatives would like people to believe it. We should be ensuring that in the content that is put out, there is a certain amount that is Canadian content. We should be ensuring that money and revenue is generated to continue supporting Canadian art, culture and identity, just like we have been doing since 1970. We have just expanded this to include online streaming services.
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Madam Speaker, I would just like to put this to the member across the floor. The former Bill C-10, in its original version, included an exemption for programs that users upload onto their social media or, as it was called, user-generated content. The Liberals voted to take that out of their own bill in committee, which really builds confidence in Canadians, and resisted Conservative attempts to reintroduce it. They then put it back into Bill C-11, but then put in an exemption to the exemption that basically makes it meaningless. If Canadians are supposed to trust the government and believe what it is saying, this flies in the face of that.
Will the Liberals put that amendment back in and make it very clear to Canadians?
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Madam Speaker, I do not know what the particular discussions were at committee. I am not on that committee. I do not know how exactly every amendment was debated and voted upon, how they ended up in the final production of the piece of legislation or which amendments to the legislation ended up before this House, but I will say that I have great confidence in the work the committee did. I feel as though the committee has properly represented to make sure that Canadian content will be preserved, and I have even more confidence, knowing that both the Bloc and the NDP are supportive of this too, because that shows that there is multi-party support around this, and that gives me confidence.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to be here this afternoon, and I hope all of my colleagues are having a productive day.
I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-11, the online streaming act. This important piece of legislation will level the playing field by requiring online streaming services to support Canadian artists and culture, just as Canadian broadcasters have been doing for decades.
As we have all heard many times, the last time the Broadcasting Act was updated was over 30 years ago, in 1991, when yours truly just finished high school, I believe. Since then, the way content is broadcast to audiences has changed dramatically, but our system is stuck in the 20th century and needs to be updated. After over a year of thorough study in both Houses of Parliament, the finish line, yes, is in sight.
Conservatives have recently started claiming that parts of this bill have not yet received the appropriate scrutiny by parliamentarians. I beg to differ.
With all due respect, I fail to understand how they can genuinely suggest that this bill has not been studied enough. At every step of the process, they have attempted to delay and distract from the issue at hand, which is bringing the Broadcasting Act into the 21st century to support Canadian artists and creators.
To show just how much this bill has been studied, let us take a trip down memory lane. On February 2, 2022, Bill C-11 was tabled in the House of Commons. Second reading debate started on February 16, 2022. Over the course of five days of debate, we heard over 15 hours of speeches from 48 members of Parliament in all recognized parties, including 29 Conservatives.
Conservatives then claimed that they did not have enough time to debate but then moved concurrence motions that blocked their own ability to speak and debate on the bill. They did this during the previous iteration of the bill in the last Parliament and on Bill C-11 in this Parliament, when they cut three hours of debate time and prevented their own members from having the opportunity to speak. I note the irony. Ultimately, these obstructionist tactics have only hurt the Canadian artists and creators that the online streaming act, Bill C-11, seeks to support.
Fortunately, Bill C-11, finally—
Mr. Ron Liepert: Because of the unnecessary election fiasco.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès): Order.
Mr. Francesco Sorbara: Madam Speaker, the committee gave our colleagues the opportunity to study the bill with much closer scrutiny. That study lasted 12 meetings, where the committee heard from 80 witnesses and received 52 written briefs, but do not worry; the Conservatives still managed to delay and distract. They filibustered during the meeting at which the minister was supposed to appear and they filibustered the committee's clause-by-clause consideration.
They can try to deny it today, but the member for Lethbridge admitted it herself. She said, and this is a direct quote, “I did filibuster at committee”.
Fortunately, our colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP have decided to join us in modernizing Canada's broadcasting system through Bill C-11, and 38 amendments passed at the heritage committee, which included amendments from all recognized parties. Despite the Conservatives' best efforts, the bill made its way to the Senate.
Very well. At this point, I think it is valuable to remind my colleagues that the Conservative Party of Canada is the only political party recognized in both the House of Commons and the Senate. Senator Leo Housakos, the proud Spartan, who is both the Conservative critic for the bill in the Senate and the chair of the committee that reviewed it, is a regular in “Kill Bill C-11” videos posted by the Leader of the Opposition on social media.
Ironically, those videos, I might add, would not be impacted whatsoever by this bill, no matter what he claims. The best word to describe the Senate committee's study of Bill C-11 is “robust”.
Starting in June 2022, the committee spent over six months reviewing the subject matter of Bill C-11, hearing from 138 witnesses over 40 meetings. The members did not mishear me. I said 40 meetings, dedicated to considering the subject of this very important bill. Senators spent nine of those meetings in clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-11, including three-hour meetings, making it the longest clause-by-clause consideration in Senate history.
The bill emerged with amendments from all recognized parties and groups in the Senate, of which we are pleased to support close to 80%.
Here we are, over a year later, hearing the Conservatives urging us to send the bill back to committee, after over 100 hours of committee study, over 200 witnesses and dozens of written briefs, including from Telelatino in Toronto. I know that the folks at Telelatino produce great ethnocultural broadcasting, and they are in support of this wonderful bill.
This does not even include the countless hours of debate and study of the previous version of the bill that contributed to the online streaming act. As it stands, this bill has amendments from all recognized parties and groups in both houses of Parliament. It has truly been a group effort, and the future of Canada's broadcasting system is better for it.
The Conservatives are now bringing up Quebec. It is great they are finally paying attention, but they must have missed the two unanimous motions passed by the National Assembly to support the Broadcasting Act and the entire Quebec cultural industry pushing for the bill's swift passage.
The reality is throughout this process there have been endless opportunities for Conservatives to work collaboratively to defend Canadian artists and creators. Every time, they have chosen to side with foreign tech giants to maintain the status quo.
On this side of the House, we believe in doing more for Canadian culture, not less. We know in the prior Conservative administration how much less its members did for Canadian artists and culture and how they cut spending on Canadian culture, artists and content creators. We will not do that and we have not done that. We will continue to support the Canadian arts sector, culture sector and content creators.
I know this has been brought up many times throughout the debate, but there is an urgent need for this legislation. It cannot be overstated. The integrity of Canada's arts and culture system is at risk. We owe it to the tens of thousands of Canadians working in the arts and culture sector across the country. We have done the work as parliamentarians and now it is time to pass Bill C-11.
Many of us watch streaming services that provide content over what are called non-traditional methods. My wife and I really enjoy Ted Lasso, and the third season of Ted Lasso is coming out on March 15. We very much enjoy it. It is very well written. It comes across on I believe Apple TV+ and we pay a monthly fee for that. That content provider would now be subject to the Broadcasting Act, and it should be, much like Canadian broadcasters have been subject to the Broadcasting Act for decades.
Finally, to end off, the Broadcasting Act has not been revised since 1991. I wish to applaud all members of both the House and the Senate on those committees who have worked so judiciously, even when their opinions did not converge, to be unified and even when they disagreed vehemently and passionately from potentially different ideological bents on how they view the Broadcasting Act and how they view the CRTC. However, they did the work Canadians sent them here to do, and particularly in the House of Commons. They did the work their constituents elected them to do judiciously and diligently to bring forth the best possible legislation with regard to the sector we are talking to, which is broadcasting and updating the Broadcasting Act after three decades, or since 1991.
I look forward to questions and comments from my colleagues and I hope everyone is having a wonderful and productive day and week.
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Madam Speaker, I invite the member to follow along with me. Clause 7 of the legislation says that the cabinet can issue a directive, an order, to the CRTC because it amends certain sections of the act. When I go into the original act, it actually gives the right to cabinet to set policy objectives for licensing, service fees and for access.
The way I read Bill C-11 right now, it would allow the government to censor content it does not like because of clause 7 in the bill. Members have repeatedly mentioned that this bill is bad and that we need to kill Bill C-11. We have been consistent on this message.
Does the member agree with me on the reading of clause 7 that in fact it would give the cabinet the ability to direct the CRTC on licensing, content and fees?
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Calgary Shepard for his question.
I have known the hon. member for Calgary Shepard for many years since I was elected a member of Parliament and I have a great deal of respect for him.
The content creation would not impacted in any way by Bill C-11. That is not the intent of the bill in any way. We encourage and value content creation by Canadians from coast to coast to coast. This is a bill to modernize our Broadcasting Act and ensure the technological advances that have allowed streaming services like Netflix, Crave or Apple TV+ are brought under the Broadcasting Act, much like the Canadian homegrown broadcasters have been so for many decades.
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Madam Speaker, how does my colleague explain the fact that all of Quebec's creators and artists, regardless of their sphere of practice, are eagerly awaiting this bill? If anyone is sensitive to the issue of censorship, it is our creators and artists.
How is it that they are looking forward to us passing Bill C‑11, yet the Conservatives alone see it as censorship?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Montcalm for his question.
Quebec is a very economic, vibrant sector here in Canada, and we applaud all the artists in the cultural sector in the province of Quebec. We should take a nod from them in their support of Bill C-11 and how it would modernize the Broadcasting Act.
Also, we then scratch our heads about why the Conservative Party of Canada is against a bill that the cultural sector here in Canada supports. It makes me think about the other ways Conservatives are looking at this bill, such as for ideological purposes and partisan purposes, and not for the direct benefit of the Canadian cultural sector, including the cultural sector in the province of Quebec.
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Madam Speaker, the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions said, “The pandemic has considerably accelerated the transition to streaming to the benefit of foreign platforms that have no obligation to showcase local cultural expressions.”
A lot of jobs were of course lost during the pandemic. A lot of people were hurt within the cultural and artistic industry. From all the years we have been waiting for this type of legislation to make it more fair for companies such as Netflix, Disney+ and Apple+, as he mentioned, to come in line with their competitors in more traditional spaces, could the member, if he has the information, share with the House what kind of funds and what the numbers are in the financial hit the industry took, which would now be added into the industry?
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Madam Speaker, I work closely with the hon. member for London—Fanshawe on the Ahmadiyya Parliamentary Friendship Group, and we share the same concerns when it comes to the beer and wine sector here in Canada and some of the challenges it faces.
Obviously, COVID accelerated a number of trends in our economy and our society, from working habits to staying home and from streaming to online shopping. We need to pay attention to the changes that have happened. Exactly as the member stated, this amends the Broadcasting Act to address an acceleration in streaming services. Therefore, for the broadcasters, much like the broadcasters that are under the Broadcasting Act today that pay their fair share for Canadian artists and content creators, the same thing would apply for those services now. It would be brought in under the Broadcasting Act.
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- Mar/9/23 4:33:55 p.m.
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Order.
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Democratic Institutions; the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Finance; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Families, Children and Social Development.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House today to this very important bill, which will certainly impact Canada for generations to come. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Foothills.
This really is about the Internet. That is what we are talking about today. It is such a marvellous thing. It has led to the creation of Canadian content being shared around the globe. It is truly the definition of free market, merit-based hard work and consistency, and there is so much it can do for Canadians and their content to share it globally with the world. From the palm of one's hand, all that is needed is the Internet or a data subscription package, and people can share their ideas with everyone with the push of a button.
It really is an incredible time that we are living in. It has only been about 15 years that Canadian content creators and producers could share their ideas so freely and so easily all around the world. This really begs the question of why, if they have had this much success and this much freedom, why is the government looking to regulate that?
Why is it looking to put constraints on the freedom that has generated so much success for homegrown Canadian content? That is the question we are looking to answer today. The answers I have heard from the government have not satisfied me that this bill is worth the risk of what it may do, and what it will likely do to Canadian content creators.
Through this piece of legislation, the government, in essence, is about to give itself authority to control what Canadians see on the Internet. Rather than Canadians getting to decide what they see, it would be the government dictating what they see when they open up their smart phones, when they pull up their YouTube app. That would be dictated based on CRTC criteria. I will go into that in a minute.
It would not just impact what we see online, it would also impact the content that Canadians themselves put online. Thousands of videos from Canadians are uploaded every minute, so we are talking about a huge impact on Canadian content creators and those who enjoy watching that content.
It is not only the Canadian content within our own national borders, but also anything that Canadians are looking to view on YouTube from around the world, that would be regulated by this bill.
Why are the Liberals doing this? They are claiming that they are the government and they are here to help content creators. They want to promote, as they say, Canadian content with government regulation. As a Conservative, that immediately brings up a lot of red flags. It also brings up a lot of red flags for Canadian content creators regardless of their political views.
How the government is going to do this is really the concerning part of this bill. The bill gives the government, through the CRTC, the power to force social media platforms and streaming platforms to manipulate their algorithms so that the discoverability of what they deem Canadian content is sort of pushed up the ranks. This is concerning. We have to remember that the CRTC, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, controls what we see on traditional television and radio, and has done so for the last 50 years. It is really the ultimate gatekeeper of content in Canada in the traditional formats. That comes into play in sections 9 and 10 of the bill under what is called discoverability regulations.
As I mentioned, that is what is really going to determine what we are seeing when we open, for example, our YouTube page. It is going to be based on what Canadian content is, which has yet to be defined. To me that means it is going to be some Ottawa bureaucrat deciding what Canadian content is.
From what I understand, The Handmaid's Tale, which is a world phenomenon Netflix show based on the book by Margaret Atwood, who is, of course, a very notable and famous Canadian author, would not be considered Canadian content. That is not something that would be promoted based on these discoverability rules.
One would think, if this were for Canadian content creators to help them or give them a boost, that Canadian content creators would be over the moon about this, but in fact it is quite the opposite. Over 40,000 content creators, and that is incredible because there is a lot of content creators but not that many people who actively contribute online looking to influence and share their ideas, but 40,000 of them in Canada have affiliated with Digital First Canada and signed letters calling for the discoverability rules of Bill C-11 to be removed from the bill.
Again, 40,000 people who would be directly impacted this, who are supposed to be the ones that the government is saying it is helping, said they do not want this. That, to me, in itself, is enough to say that maybe we should park this bill, shelve it or throw it in the trash for good.
However, the government has continued on for the better part of the last three years. It is not just Conservatives or these content creators who are sounding the alarm. There are other experts in this field as well. Scott Benzie from Digital First Canada explained, “most Canadian creators do not care solely about the Canadian market. The platforms are built for global discovery...local discovery, is a recipe for failure and jeopardizes successes like the indigenous creator renaissance...Canadian musicians seeing global recognition and the world-class gaming industry.” local discovery is what Bill C-11 would target and promote through the algorithms and their manipulation, but they have all had success without the need of any government control from the CRTC.
Marie Woolf, for the Canadian Press, who did extensive research on this, said:
YouTube itself has warned that Canadian digital creators, including influencers and streamers, could lose foreign revenue if the government forces digital platforms to promote Canadian content.
The proposed legislation that would force YouTube and other streaming platforms to actively promote Canadian content risks downgrading the popularity of that same content abroad....
Again, it is important to know that the data from YouTube says that nine out of 10 people watching the stuff that our Canadian creators put online are not from Canada. Therefore, this would have serious consequences for those who are looking to be successful online. It would limit their global audience based on the basic algorithms of YouTube.
A lot of money and livelihoods are depending on this. The number of YouTubers from Canada earning $100,000 or more is growing steadily every single year. People are already having a lot of success, again, without the government's control and so-called support.
Morghan Fortier, co-owner and CEO Skyship Entertainment said, “We've seen first-hand that, when barriers are removed and Canadians are given equal, free access to an open platform and a global audience, they can take on the world. For Canadian creators, YouTube is a level playing field on a world stage. It doesn't matter who you know or what you look like. Any Canadian with an idea and a smart phone can be a creator and find an audience on YouTube.”
That is what it is today, but that is not what it will be tomorrow or whenever Bill C-11 passes.
She went on to say, “If this bill passes as written, the CRTC could determine what content should be promoted in Canada through discoverability obligations.... This approach puts the regulator between viewers and creators, handing the CRTC the power to decide who wins and who loses.”
Obviously, this will have an impact on our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the freedom of speech that we enjoy.
Michael Geist, a foremost expert in this area in Canada, outlined this very well. He said:
To be clear, the risk with these rules is not that the government will restrict the ability for Canadians to speak, but rather that the bill could impact their ability to be heard. In other words, the CRTC will not be positioned to stop Canadians from posting content, but will have the power to establish regulations that could prioritize or de-prioritize certain content, mandate warning labels, or establish other conditions.... The government has insisted that isn’t the goal of the bill.
He finished by saying, “If so, the solution is obvious. No other country in the world seeks to regulate user content in this way and it should be removed from the bill because it does not belong in the Broadcasting Act.”
Many people have outlined the threat that this poses to free speech. As someone who loves our Charter of Rights, that is a grave concern to me and the Conservative Party.
Certainly, the elephant in the room here is, as Jay Goldberg, Ontario Director and Interim Atlantic Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said, “If government bureaucrats get to choose what content to push on Canadians, there’s a very real risk the government will be tempted to use its filtering powers to silence its critics”, which we have seen since time immemorial from governing authorities looking to quash dissent. It is happening right now in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. I really do not understand why we would open the door in Canada for our government to do that, yet here it is in the bill.
If we do not need this, then why are we doing it? Content creators tell me that they have had lots of success already. Why are we doing this? I do not know. I have yet to be convinced of the need for it at all.
I will conclude with a quote from the leader of Canada's Conservatives, who said this very well on the threat that this poses to the liberties that Canadians enjoy and the success they have received online with the freedoms we, at least today, have for now. He said:
We live in a free country. Everyday, ordinary Canadians should be allowed their own megaphones and the only limit on how loud and how vast their voices are should be whether people choose to listen to them. Everyday Canadians should be able to decide what they like by voting with their clicks. That is the kind of liberty we should extend to the Canadian people. In the marketplace of ideas, there is no role for state coercion and intimidation. There is no role for nameless, faceless government bureaucrats to decide who is heard and who is not. Everyday Canadian people should have the freedom to do that for themselves.
After eight years, it is time for a government that protects freedom of speech and consumer choice, and encourages Canadian creators instead of getting in their way, which is what Bill C-11 would do. That is why Conservatives will fight it every step of the way, and we will repeal when we are in government.
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Madam Speaker, as I indicated earlier, nothing in this legislation threatens Canadian freedoms and rights, and that has been very well established. The Conservative members know this, yet they continue to give a false impression.
Given that we have a minority government, we are very dependent on opposition parties. Whether it is the Bloc, the Green Party or the New Democratic Party, we are all saying the same thing: There is no infringement on rights and freedom of speech. However, the Conservatives continue saying that.
I wonder if they applied the same principles to the Broadcasting Act that they are applying today, or going back to the traditional act, where there were Canadian content mandates, for example. Is it the Conservative Party's policy today that it would also get rid of this so that there would not be a level—
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- Mar/9/23 4:45:34 p.m.
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I have to give the hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul a chance to answer.
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Madam Speaker, the control is right in the bill. Clause 9, for example, the one I talked about in my speech, would dictate discoverability. It would provide the CRTC, the ultimate gatekeeper of traditional content platforms, the ability to force online streaming platforms and social media platforms to comply, under pain of a $10-million fine, I will add, with the enforcement of discoverability laws. They will downgrade a video that does not meet the government's definition of “Canadian” and will upgrade a video that does. To me, that is absolutely a limit on the free speech of the individual who is deemed not Canadian enough by the government's vision of Canada, which, as the Conservative Party has made very clear, we take great issue with over and over again.
That is in the bill itself. I do not know what to tell the member.
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Madam Speaker, in her speech, my colleague said that Bill C‑11 paves the way for algorithm manipulation. That is worrisome. Can she tell me how, technically, it is possible to manipulate algorithms?
How does she know, technically, that Bill C‑11 will provide control over algorithm manipulation?
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Madam Speaker, it is from the reading of the bill and the experts in Canada who have been telling us this. I mentioned a number of expert opinions, whether they are from Michael Geist or other legal experts. They have explained to Canadians that it is discoverability rules that would dictate what social media and streaming platforms can do with their algorithms to ensure they are meeting the standard of what is Canadian.
I will say to members of the Bloc Québécois that I am surprised they are supporting this. They seem very keen to separate themselves from Canada, yet they are handing over the power of their own content creators, to be dictated to by a major Canadian gatekeeper, the CRTC. It really does not make sense and is not in line with what they believe in and how independent they want Quebec to be. This bill would ensure that what Quebec content creators get to share online and what other Quebeckers get to see would be dictated by a major Canadian gatekeeper. I cannot really square that circle.
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Madam Speaker, is the member telling us that algorithms and access to algorithms are easy things to decrypt? Is that actually what she is telling us?
Basically, as she sees it, the only way to avoid any interference in broadcasting and streaming is to abolish the CRTC.
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