44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 27, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, it was interesting a short time ago when we had an opportunity to listen to one of the answers from the Bloc. The member for Shefford said that if violating freedom of expression means ensuring Quebec content is well represented online, then it is worth it. They may not vote against this particular bill, but they are certainly saying what the member is saying about the fact that there are violations.
Can the member comment on our colleague from the Bloc's assessment of the bill?
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Madam Speaker, I am not quite sure how to answer that question. The Internet is a new invention. It changes everything. Just like when the Gutenberg printing press was invented, it upset culture and completely overturned society, but it came out stronger. I think the Internet will do the same. We are too close right now to see what effect it will have, but we have already started seeing some of the effects with legacy media struggling and people like Kris Collins thriving.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.
I am always proud to rise to speak on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country on legislation we have before us. Bill C-11 is before us tonight at this very late hour. It would amend the Broadcasting Act.
Our constituency office has received hundreds and hundreds of emails, letters, phone calls and messages on this bill. Every time I am out in the community, people come up to me, letting me know how they do not want Bill C-11 to pass, as well as the former Bill C-10.
I think it is amazing that along with soaring gas and grocery bills and rising rent and mortgage payments, residents in my riding are letting me know that in addition to these very important topics, they are also concerned about this bill, which would affect their use of the Internet. I think it is because all of these topics affect their lives every day.
That level of attention is warranted because of what the government is proposing for this legislation to pass. It would cause unprecedented changes in how Canadians go about their daily lives online. Local residents in my community, Mitch and Lori, wrote to me to say that Bill C-11 represented the tipping point of government overreach.
Benji wrote to me to say that Bill C-11 would represent a major step back for our country.
Were Bill C-11 to pass, which it looks like it will with the Liberal-NDP coalition, those members in this House would be gifting the Liberals the power to play censor on what Canadians can see, if it does not match what they determine to be classified as Canadian content. The beneficiaries are the oldest legacy companies whose viewership has decreased. This bill would allow the government to have a policy directive implemented through actions like criteria. The government would give authority over online licensing and other matters. The only thing is that we have no idea what these would all be.
Bill C-11's twin bill, Bill C-18, would help failing legacy media companies looking for government cheques. They have found a perfect partner in the Liberals' desire for greater control of everyday Canadians' lives. A free and democratic country like Canada should never seek to empower the government with censorship powers to protect failing companies.
Canadians are rising up against the bill and against the Liberals for not listening. Bill C-11 is the government's proposed updating of the Broadcasting Act to provide the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, the power and authority to regulate online content platforms.
The stated reasoning behind Bill C-11 is to bring the CRTC into the 21st century, while supporting Canadian artists and promoting the spread of Canadian content over that of international competition. While that may seem like a noble goal, there are reasons Canadian artists, legal experts and digital content providers are speaking out against this bill. In fact, this legislation is going to suck content creator innovation into an antiquated Broadcasting Act black hole.
There are profound questions about using the CRTC bureaucrats as online regulators, as would be granted by Bill C-11. Here I am again in this House standing against bureaucracy and government overreach. This bureaucracy, the CRTC, took over a year to implement a three-digit number for mental health emergencies, despite that action being called for unanimously by all members of this House. This organization has proven to lack accountability. It regulates the telecoms and we know that Canadians pay some of the highest rates on the planet.
The questioning we did at the industry committee last summer of the CRTC, that I was part of at the time, on the Rogers' outage was like we were questioning a telecom executive and not an executive of the regulator.
The CRTC's expertise is primarily regulating radio waves, television feeds and advertising. If this bill passes, it would also be tasked with regulating user-content generating websites, like YouTube, where users upload hundreds of thousands of hours of video content every minute but even assuming they could do it, the federal government should not be policing what will be defined as Canadian content when using social or digital media platforms.
Canadians are right to question an organization having the power to censor or impose what content will be prioritized for Canadians to see online.
Here is the most concerning part: The criteria will come later and we have no idea what the criteria will be. We are just to trust the Liberals.
A free and open Internet is the gold standard of open, democratic nations around the world. The bottom line is that what we will search for and see online will be different after the CRTC puts in place its regulations, which will change online algorithms.
The former vice-chair of the CRTC, Peter Menzies, has come out strong, all along the way of this legislation. Of this legislation from the past Parliament, to which there really are few changes in the new legislation, he said, “Overall, it ensures that going forward all Canadians communicating over the internet will do so under the guise of the state.”
Then, in November 2022, Mr. Menzies stated, “If Bill C-11 passes and Internet regulation falls into political hands, Canadians will regret it for the rest of their lives.”
Many of the very people the Liberals say Bill C-11 would help do not even want it. There was extensive testimony, at both House of Commons and Senate committees, by content creators, digital experts and professors. Without Bill C-11, Canadian artists are succeeding in making their full-time livings producing content on digital platforms with the support of fellow Canadians and viewers from around the world, receiving billions of views.
Canadian social media stars bringing their concerns to the federal government about their content being hidden because of Bill C-11's regulations found themselves ignored. Over 40,000 content creators affiliated with Digital First Canada called for the discoverability rules in Bill C-11 to be removed. The government is not listening to all of these voices.
What is discoverability? It really is about, when one searches online, what comes to the top based on what one is asking about and what one's interests are. This legislation would change discoverability, because the CRTC would come up with criteria that would rise to the top.
The Liberals have refused every offer of good faith regarding Bill C-11, not just from regular Canadians but also from the government's appointed senators. Most of the senators are independent who sent an unusually high number of amendments, after months of study, back to the House of Commons.
The minister responsible made it clear he was rejecting all amendments that attempted to restrict the powers he sought for himself and the CRTC.
Once again, this has never been about good legislation, better regulation or updating our laws. It is about control for the Liberal government.
Some Canadians have already gotten a sneak preview of what life with Bill C-11 might be like. Recently, Google announced that, because of another overreaching online law, Bill C-18, it started a test run to temporarily limit access to news content, including Canadian news content, for some Canadian users of Google.
This was not an outright ban. However, people were searching and not seeing what they did before, and that is my point here. Censorship by big government or big tech has the same results.
When I debated the government's original version of this bill in the previous Parliament, I said that Canadians did not want this deeply flawed legislation that would limit speech and online viewing.
The number has changed from Bill C-10 to Bill C-11. Sadly, everything else has stayed the same, with some minor amendments from the Senate. The most important Senate amendments have been rejected by the government.
Canadians still do not want it, but the Liberals and their coalition partners insist on passing it. It is time for a government that protects consumer choice and encourages Canadian creators instead of getting in their way.
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Madam Speaker, if I understand this correctly, I do know that Conservatives are willing to just say that the NDP and the Liberals will do anything together and that we work in lockstep. I disagree, but I hear they always say that.
If I understand this correctly, the member is saying that this bill would give all of this power to the government, and somehow the Bloc Québécois, which has been in lockstep with the Conservatives lately on just about every issue, is going to turn that over.
If Canadians are expected to believe what they are saying, if I understand this correctly, the Liberals, the Bloc, the NDP and the Greens are all in cahoots and those parties are willing to give this unfettered power to the Liberal government. Is that correct?
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Madam Speaker, the point is that this legislation would give incredible authority to the CRTC. As I laid out in my speech, I do not have a lot of confidence in the CRTC's taking on of all this extra responsibility and authority, considering what it has existing in its mandate. One could argue that the CRTC is not meeting a lot of the obligations of its current mandate.
The government is willing to give the CRTC this incredible new authority without even telling or disclosing to Canadians and parliamentarians what would be the criteria and all of the rules about the new authority that it would have. This should be concerning to every Canadian.
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Madam Speaker, I keep putting this question to the Conservative members who are speaking tonight. Beyond their whole campaign of fear and misinformation, which has been going on for months and is being used as a fundraising tactic, there is one fundamental question.
Why does the Conservative Party want to prevent web giants like Netflix, Amazon, Google, Disney+ and Apple TV from participating in funding Canadian and Quebec cultural production, while cable companies are forced to do exactly that? Why do they want to maintain this inequity and give the digital giants a tax gift that they absolutely do not need?
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Madam Speaker, this is not about what Conservatives are saying. This is what has been said by many Canadians out there, including by digital creators, experts in the field, professors, people who study this and former executives from the CRTC. These are the voices of these people who have testified at committee, both in the House of Commons and in the Senate. It is their voices that are being brought forth. Conservatives are talking about what their voices are, and they are saying that there are members in the House who are not listening to those voices.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals talk about how the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals are all in coalition together and about how it is a great bill, so people do not have anything to worry about, yet the Senate also said that this is censorship. Why did the government not accept the Senate's recommendations?
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Madam Speaker, it is extremely concerning. This bill spent a lot of time in the Senate, and a lot of senators had real concerns. They brought forth an incredible number of amendments to the government, of which the government did not accept all, so here we are today. The government is not listening to witnesses who have testified at committees both in the House of Commons and in the Senate. It is not listening to senators and it is not listening to Canadians.
We have to wonder what truly are the Liberals' objectives. They are wanting to give incredible authority to the CRTC, and we do not even know what that authority would be and what the criteria would be. All of this is extremely concerning.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be standing up to reiterate what all my colleagues have been saying tonight: It is time to kill Bill C-11.
The legislation is about giving the government more power and making sure that we have extra regulation. If we give the CRTC more regulations, that means more red tape and more gatekeepers telling us what we can and cannot watch; it also equals less opportunity for us, as Canadians, and less opportunity for creators who are using the Internet. We know that it comes with more costs.
We already heard that the government is going to ask content providers to make sure that they have the appropriate broadcast licences to go onto YouTube and other social media platforms and get their creations out there. These creations may be online programming, some of the short films being produced, animation or sharing their music. Now they are actually going to have to pay for a licence to have their own channels on social media.
We have already witnessed how government intervention has cost us as consumers. Canadians already pay the highest Internet service fees in the world. We pay the highest mobile phone bills, more than anywhere else in the developed world. To me, that is extremely disturbing. Canadians continue to pay more and more, while everybody else seems to be getting away with paying less while getting better services than we get from our phone companies or Internet service providers.
We still have lots of Canadians, including in my riding, who do not have access to high-speed broadband. They do not have that opportunity to actually see what we are talking about here on Bill C-11 because they still do not have the ability to hook up online.
As Conservatives, we believe that Canadians should be given more of what they want. However, the Liberal-NDP coalition wants the government to tell Canadians what they can watch or see on YouTube and other social media platforms.
The question here, and we are going to use a little theatre, is 2(b) or not 2(b). Of course, I am talking about section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under fundamental freedoms in section 2, it says that everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.
If we go to Justice Canada's own website, and we are talking about a department of the federal government, it says:
The protection of freedom of expression is premised upon fundamental principles and values that promote the search for and attainment of truth, participation in social and political decision-making and the opportunity for individual self-fulfilment through expression.... The Supreme Court of Canada has maintained that the connection between freedom of expression and the political process is “perhaps the linchpin” of section 2(b) protection.... Free expression is valued above all as being instrumental to democratic governance. The two other rationales for protecting freedom of expression [are] the search for truth through the open exchange of ideas, and fostering individual self-actualization, thus directly engaging individual human dignity.
Canadians who value their Charter of Rights, who understand the freedom of expression, are all the ones out there denouncing what Bill C-11 could do. That is why we are hearing from social media content creators. A lot of them have their own shows where they share their political views. They share a lot of things, from criticizing what is going on in the film industry to criticizing what is happening here in the House of Commons. They fear, and they have testified at committee, that their ability to share their thoughts online, and the costs that come with it, would undermine their freedom of speech, expression, and opinion and thought. This would happen through the excess licensing that this bill would create.
That is why, as Conservatives, we are standing so strongly in opposition to what is very much a censorship bill that we are seeing from the Liberal-NDP coalition.
We heard through the debate tonight a lot of times from the Liberals asking where the legal expertise was. All we have to do is look at Phil Palmer, who is a constitutional lawyer and former official in the Department of Justice. He argued that Bill C-11 is unconstitutional. He said:
...C-11 lacks a foundation in Canadian constitutional law. Internet streaming services do not transmit to the public by radio waves, nor do they operate telecommunications facilities across provincial boundaries. They and their audiences are the clients of telecommunications common carriers, which are subject to federal regulation. Netflix, for instance, in this case is no more a federal undertaking than a law firm such as McCarthy Tétrault or a chain store like Canadian Tire, both of which rely extensively on telecommunications services.
We are talking about a situation where we have the Government of Canada overstepping its means through Bill C-11 and infringing upon the rights of Canadians, Canadian companies, individuals and our artists. I would make the argument that Bill C-11 would actually penalize content creators, including our artists, whether they are creating music, culture, clothing or any other type of art that is out there on social media.
We already heard from the member for Sarnia—Lambton. She talked about the monetization and the ability of creators who have been able to go online and make a good living selling their music, art and any bit of their creations. Right now, if we regulate the industry, we are talking about $1 billion a year that the arts community is going to be able to earn. Today, without government interference, it is making $5 billion a year. Why would we want to limit the ability of our arts and culture industry to actually make less?
I guess there is the argument out there about having a free market versus government intervention. We know that government intervention always equals more dependency, because people are going to have to rely on grants and subsidization to be able to earn a living. I think the Liberal-NDP coalition, and I think my colleagues will agree with me, actually loves when Canadians become more dependent, because if they are more dependent, the government gets to control them.
A great example of that is the $595-million media bailout and how the government has control of our free press, supposedly.
This is a debate about freedom. This is about the debate to have freedom to create, share and earn a living. This is about freedom of Canadians to view and listen to what we as consumers choose, without the gatekeepers dictating what we see and hear. This is about the freedom to express ourselves and participate in society online without any censorship, but we should not be surprised, since we have a Prime Minister who has said that he admires basic communist dictatorships.
I have heard from hundreds of constituents and Canadians across the country who oppose Bill C-11 as well as the NDP-Liberal coalition. They are worried about censorship. The artists and content providers are worried about the red tape, the extra costs and the limited market opportunities. Matthew Hatfield, who is the campaigns director of OpenMedia, encapsulates this the best. He raises the issue I think most Canadians are concerned about. He says:
...Bill C-11 must not give the CRTC the power to manipulate the results of algorithms on platforms. We would never tolerate the government setting rules specifying which books must be placed in the front window of our bookstores or what kinds of stories must appear on the front pages of our newspapers. But that’s exactly what the discoverability provision in section 9.1(1) currently does. This dictatorial approach is not needed or appropriate.
I can tell Canadians that there is hope out there. A future Conservative government would kill Bill C-11.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot tonight about creating even playing fields, but Bill C-11 is about doing the opposite. It would make the field less even, take us backward and jam the Internet into a 1971 system around Canadian content.
I wonder if the member could comment on whether he agrees that there is nothing more even than the playing field of an unfettered Internet.
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Madam Speaker, there is no question that Canadians have done very well on the Internet as it is today. They have been able to access the international market and share their culture and artistic abilities with other Canadians.
The fear we have was reflected by Justin Tomchuk, a filmmaker, who said, “If Bill C-11 disrupts the discoverability of Canadian creators globally”, as there is concern out there that trade action could be taken, “I can see a scenario where some companies with few physical ties will leave the country entirely so they can continue to work unimpeded by these aggressive mandates.”
An overly zealous government with more regulations will drive away the great artists we have here now, those creating great content, and companies that see an advantage in coming to Canada to create wonderful movies, TV shows and other creations we like. We do not want that to happen. Let us make sure we have a level playing field and open up Canada for everyone to come here and create amazing art and culture.
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Uqaqtittiji , I think we all know by now that the online streaming act is attempting to update the outdated Broadcasting Act. I will read a quote from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists. It said, “Other countries are taking measures to protect their economy and their cultural sovereignty. Canada must not fall behind. Sovereign countries must have the necessary tools to tell their own stories in the 21st century.” I wonder if the member can respond to that.
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Madam Speaker, we listened to testimony, including from Peter Menzies, the former CRTC commissioner, who said that we cannot take a square peg and put it in a round hole. The bill still reads very much like the old Broadcasting Act. It is talking about applying broadcasting licences, which are meant, of course, to go to the big TV stations, to people who are trying to set up a YouTube channel. That type of over-complicated, costly and unfair system, which my colleague just said is ridiculous, is something we cannot allow to happen.
Do we have to update the Broadcasting Act? Yes, we do. Do we need to tell Canadians what they should watch? No, we do not. We want to make sure that censorship is stomped out, that Canadians and consumers can choose what they see, watch and listen to, and that all Canadian artists are allowed to put their creations online unfettered by government interference.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member opposite how making Canadian content more discoverable online limits the choices in what we watch.
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Madam Speaker, when we have a government agency like the CRTC deciding what the algorithms are and what Canadian content is without having it defined and without Canadians having the ability to individually choose what is Canadian enough for them, it is disturbing to many people. That is why our offices have been overrun with emails and phone calls. More and more people are concerned about the government's ongoing dictatorial approach to how this country is run.
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- Mar/27/23 11:53:15 p.m.
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There being no further members rising for debate, pursuant to order made earlier today, the debate is deemed adjourned and this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 11:53 p.m.)
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