44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, as my colleague from Drummond just mentioned, we had dozens and dozens of witnesses. Two of the key witnesses who came forward about Bill C-18 were from the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association and the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association. These newspapers, independent outlets right across Alberta and Saskatchewan, are the ones that cover cities and other places represented by half of the Conservative caucus, and they said Bill C-18 needs to be put in place, adopted as quickly as possible.
We have Alberta community newspapers and Saskatchewan community newspapers saying the bill needs to be brought in, and we have Conservative MPs who represent those ridings fighting tooth and nail to block this bill completely, refusing to allow it through. To me, that seems to be hypocrisy and a clear contradiction of what Conservative MPs should be defending, which is their communities' interests.
Why are the Conservatives blocking a bill that their community newspapers are calling for?
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Madam Speaker, there is no respect for democracy in blocking every piece of legislation that the majority of members of Parliament want to adopt, and that is what Conservatives have done systematically. I remember the dismal decade of the Harper regime. The Conservatives imposed closure 150 times, and destroyed pensions, environmental protection, all kinds of awful things.
We have a bill that is supported heavily by Alberta and Saskatchewan community newspapers. They have been saying for months that the bill needs to be brought in. How can members represent the communities of Grande Prairie, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Medicine Hat and Swift Current by blocking bills for which those community newspapers are calling? It makes no sense at all.
My question for the minister is simply this. Why are Conservatives blocking something that stands up for their communities and is good for their community newspapers?
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Madam Speaker, it is very unfortunate that the Conservatives are trying to block this bill, because it would have benefits for community newspapers.
I have great respect for the member for Drummond. As he well knows, the NDP moved amendments to ensure that small newspapers across the country could benefit from this bill.
I know that my colleague knows the regions of Quebec well, as do I. I would like him to talk a bit about the impact that this bill will have on Côte-Nord, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, Gaspésie, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, Centre-du-Québec, Estrie, and all the other regions where community newspapers are struggling because the web giants are collecting all the advertising revenue.
How will this bill have a positive impact on these regions?
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-18. I hope that this will be the last debate in the House about this bill, because, as we all know, it is extremely important.
For years, newspapers have been talking about the importance of passing a bill like this one. For months, the Conservatives have been trying to block the bill at every step. They wanted to block it in committee, they wanted to block it in the House. Now that the Senate has given its preliminary approval and we are at the last step, sending the bill to the Senate for final approval, the Conservatives want to block it again.
I will talk about that later, because it is important to point out the differences between what the communities represented by Conservatives are calling for and what the Conservatives are giving them.
The most important thing to realize is the devastating situation community media are facing across the country. We are talking about 450 local newspapers and community radio stations that have closed in the past decade, losses that have taken a heavy toll across Canada. Why?
We know full well why. It is because the web giants have eaten up all the advertising money. We are talking about billions of dollars that have been taken away from our communities and sent outside the country, to web giants that pay little if any income tax, make no contribution to Canada, and simply want to funnel our money across our borders. It was important that the government took action.
The NDP has been saying so for years. We should have taken the appropriate measures years ago. We would not have lost the 450 local newspapers and community radio and television stations that closed because of the legislative vacuum that enabled the web giants to do whatever they wanted. Finally, the government did something. I say “finally”, because it usually takes the Liberals time to act. The NDP and the Bloc Québécois, through my colleague from Drummond, really pushed for action.
The bill is finally here, but the Conservatives, for reasons I do not understand, have systematically blocked it. Once again, I will say that there are two Bloc parties in the House. Of course, there is the Bloc Québécois, but there is also the “block everything” party, the Conservative Party, which blocks anything that could benefit all Canadians, which is unfortunate.
That is just what the framework would do. I want to talk about what it could represent for French-language newspapers in Acadia and even in western Canada. We can see the benefits for all the regions of Quebec and northern Ontario and the benefits for French-language newspapers everywhere. For them, it will make a big difference.
Let me tell the House about what a difference it makes in New Westminster—Burnaby. I mentioned earlier that a bit more than 450 news outlets have closed over a bit more than the past decade, because of the billions of dollars that have been siphoned out of this country, vacuumed out of the country by big technology companies that pay very little or no income tax and do very little to benefit the country. All they want to do is take money out. Bill C-18 would finally level the playing field so news outlets could actually negotiate. I will come back to the moment when the NDP achieved the transformation in Bill C-18 so that it really would do what it was intended to do.
However, out of those 450 outlets, I want to talk about two that were in my riding, the Burnaby News Leader and the New Westminster News Leader, two of those outlets that simply had to close because big tech was taking all the money out of my riding.
The reason I am supporting Bill C-18, from a personal standpoint, is that I see those publications that remain, like the Burnaby Now and the Royal City Record, doing remarkable work every day, reporting on our communities, and I see new news outlets that are also looking to take advantage of Bill C-18 and to finally start to get the money that has been vacuumed out of the community. The Burnaby Beacon and the New West Anchor are terrific new publications that are really exciting our communities.
The important thing is that, when we see the onslaught of hate provoked by foreign troll farms in the United States or the far-right troll farms we see out of Moscow's Internet Research Agency trying to pull apart our communities, what we need are good local journalists bringing our communities back together. That is the counter to the amount of devastating homophobia and transphobia, the anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, the racism and the misogyny we have seen across this country, deliberately fomented through the big tech giants that do not seem to want, in any way, to stop this flow of toxic hate.
The antidote to this is local community journalists' telling us about each other, telling us about our neighbours and bringing our communities back. For the crisis we have of toxicity and hate, created by the far right in a deliberate way, the antidote is reinvesting in community journalism that brings people back together. Within the four publications I have just mentioned in the communities I represent proudly, New Westminster and Burnaby, those journalists and those publications every day do that work to bring people back, and this is essential. That is why we are so supportive of Bill C-18.
Before I talk about what the NDP achieved, I want to come back to the issue of community representation and what it means when we see Conservative MPs trying to block this bill for months and months at every single step. I want to mention two of the most compelling witnesses we had before the Canadian heritage committee about Bill C-18, representatives from the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association and the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association. Both of them said, on behalf of publications from across Alberta and across Saskatchewan, that this bill is absolutely needed. They said there need to be some improvements, and I will come back to that in a moment, but that this bill is essential. They told us to get it passed.
That was the message they sent to all of us, though it is fair to say it was to the New Democrats, because of our long roots in Saskatchewan and also because of the breakthroughs we have seen in Alberta. As members know, since the recent Alberta election, every single MLA in the city of Edmonton is now a New Democrat. There were no Conservatives elected at all, provincially, in Edmonton. Most of the MLAs now representing Calgary are from the NDP as well. There are a few Conservatives left, but not many. That new breakthrough in Edmonton and Calgary is important, so we take the issue of community representation very seriously. When the Alberta community newspapers and the Saskatchewan community newspapers speak out, we believe they need to be heeded.
I think it is fair to say that even though the Bloc does not have any members in Alberta and Saskatchewan, they understood. The Liberals understood. The Conservatives represent those communities, and let us mention the communities we are talking about. In Alberta, Grande Prairie, Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat are all proud communities with important publications, and they are represented by Conservatives. What did Conservatives do? They said they are going to block this bill, that they do not care about community publications and that they are going to everything they can to block this bill, rather than work with the other parties to actually get it through. Let us talk about Saskatchewan. Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, and Swift Current, again, are communities that are currently represented by a Conservative MP who was trying to block the bill that the newspapers within the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association were trying to get passed.
What did the NDP do? The NDP, more than any other party, brought forward amendments to improve the bill. We wanted the bill to work. The Conservatives have mentioned a PBO report. The PBO, of course, references the old bill. The Conservatives do not point that out, and for full disclosure, they really should say “the PBO report that was published prior to the NDP members' working, as they always do, as the worker bees in Parliament, to improve the bill to make the bill much better”. A PBO report today would show what we did, and what we did was allow for that input of community newspapers.
The reality is that now a community newspaper, a one-person, sole-proprietorship that has a half-time journalist, would be eligible for the program. Because of the NDP amendments, they are covered by the bill. The NDP worked hard to include those smaller publications from communities across Alberta and Saskatchewan. We followed what the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association and Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association called for. When we put that into place, we made the bill better.
The NDP had more amendments to the bill than all the other parties combined, and we are proud of that record. As worker bees, that is what we do. We take legislation, and we make it better. Members realize that the NDP are the workers bees of Parliament. We are here to get the job done and make things better. Bill C-18 is absolutely one of those examples.
Members would think that the Conservative MPs who represent those communities would say, “Golly gee, you New Democrats have done amazing work again and have made the bill reflect my community's interest. I am going to vote for it.” However, they did not. On the contrary, they said, “No, we're still going to block because we do not really have a reason. We just like blocking stuff.”
There are two Bloc parties in the House: the Bloc Québécois and the “block everything” party. The “block everything” is the Conservative Party, which just blocks legislation, whether it is dental care, child care or providing support to their community newspapers. Conservatives say that they are going to block everything. They do not know why. They just like to block stuff.
I guess the voters will make their choice. We certainly saw in the Alberta election that Edmontonians and Calgarians were saying that they did not like the Conservatives anymore and elected New Democrats right across the board in Edmonton and Calgary.
However, we made that difference and improved that legislation, which is really our job. Now, the important thing is to get it implemented.
I also want to comment about how some of the web giants have been acting, such as Google and Meta, in trying to threaten this country and Parliament by saying, “Hey, we have taken these billions of dollars out of Canada for years. We have not put anything back, as we pay very little or no taxes, but we want the status quo to continue.” Members will recall that they did the same thing in Australia.
They basically said to Australians that they were not going to respect their democracy or their democratically elected Parliament. They were going to monkey around with their algorithms to make sure they monkeywrench the legislation. However, for members who may be attentive to all of these trends internationally, the Australians said that, no, they had to respect their democracy, and the Australians held firm. These big technology companies were forced to respond.
For example, Country Press is a consortium of independent smaller publications from across rural Australia, which faced many of the same challenges that we have seen with the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association and the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association. It responded by calling on parliamentarians to adopt the legislation and improve it. In Australia, it was a similar sort of dynamic with money being siphoned out of Australia and small publications going under, but not as many as in Canada. We have lost 450, but they did lose a lot. However, Country Press came together and now, as testimony before the heritage committee showed, there is a very vibrant news sector in Australia with over 125 publications in rural Australia that are thriving because the Australians held firm.
In Canada, unfortunately, we have seen the big tech giants, which seem to be accountable only to themselves. As I mentioned and will continue to mention, they pay very little or no income tax in this country. They take from the country, and they do not give back.
They are trying to pull the same trick. Like they did with Australia, they are trying to threaten the country and threaten Parliament. They are going to monkey around with their algorithms, but they will call them tests. These are the same companies that do not crack down on the toxic hate that often helps to contribute to their profits.
Just as a short side note, the Stop Hate for Profit campaign has come out of the United States, and the NDP supports it. These big web giants are earning additional money from the so-called engagement that comes from the rampant and disgusting homophobia and transphobia, the appalling misogyny and racism, and the disgusting anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. It helps to foment their profits. Whether it is the Internet Research Agency in Moscow, run by Putin's regime, or the American far right troll farms in the United States, run by Republicans, all of them help to contribute to their profits.
The Stop Hate for Profit campaign wants to crack down on that. It says that what they are doing is unbelievably toxic to democracy and to human rights. Big tech companies say that these algorithms are out of their control, and there is nothing they can do about it. Then this bill comes forward, and is voted on democratically by parliamentarians, and all of the sudden they are willing to change their algorithms. They are willing to intercede, push back, threaten Canadian parliamentarians and keep Canadians from their news sources, to cut them off and censor them by using those algorithms.
There is censorship going on. They are being gatekeepers, yet Conservatives would never, ever say a word against big tech. Not a single Conservative MP has stood in the House to denounce these practices of gatekeeping and censorship when it comes to fomenting hate and lies. Not a single Conservative has done that.
It is clear hypocrisy that they can all of a sudden adjust their algorithms, allowing them to all of a sudden cut off and censor, but they are not willing to do it to stop the hate, and they are willing to do it when they want to disrespect this Parliament. I think everyone can draw their own conclusions.
The reality is that, as parliamentarians, we have stand up to these threats. They are threatening Parliament because we are asking them to give some of the money that they have taken out of the country back. They have taken between $8 billion to close to $10 billion, and 450 news outlets have closed as a result. One-third of the jobs in journalism across this country have been eliminated as a result, yet they are not willing to put back some of the money they have taken from us.
I think it is fair to say that, when the average Canadian is asked, they want us to stand up against big tech. They want us to provide supports to our local journalism sector so that, as in the case of my community, the Burnaby Now, the New Westminster Record, the Burnaby Beacon and the New West Anchor can do that work, each and every day, that is so important to bring our community back together again.
We have been hit by a lot of things in the last few years. We have been hit by COVID. We have been hit by the catastrophic impacts of climate change, including the heat dome that killed 600 people across the Lower Mainland at a time of intense heat. We are also subject to the hate and lies that come through the big tech companies that say they cannot control it.
Now, as a Parliament, we have the ability to stand up to big tech to say, first, that we do not believe they cannot curb the hate and lies that are run on their platforms, and second, now they are going to contribute to legitimate journalism across the country. Whether we are talking about New Westminster—Burnaby, Alberta, Saskatchewan or anywhere else in this country, they are going to have to contribute so that our communities are better and our country is better. That is why we support Bill C-18.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is a repudiation of community representation.
They have local newspapers in their communities, whether they are in Alberta or Saskatchewan, and that is where half of Conservative MPs come from, and the local community newspapers are saying that they really need this, that we need to start reinvesting. Rather than letting big tech continue to have its way and take money out of our communities, let us have some of that money put back. A Conservative MP who represents that community then says, no, they are not going to. They are not going to stand up against big tech. They are not going to stand up for their local newspapers. They are not going to stand up for their local community radio.
I just do not understand how that person could run for office, say they represent the community and not heed the call from the publications in the community to support Bill C-18.
They will have to live with the consequences of their actions.
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Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for that member and really enjoy working with him on the Canadian heritage committee. He is correct that the Conservatives did present that amendment. I thought the amendment the NDP presented was better. As he knows, any sole proprietorship that hires, even at a quarter time or half time, a journalist to go out there will qualify for the program. That includes the publications in his riding as well.
The NDP amendment was better and, I think, more complete. We have worked together to get a much better bill in front of Parliament. It is going to be a bill that helps community publications right across this country.
As I know, he approached the whole negotiation and the amendment process in good faith. Why is he voting against the bill now when the bill does so much for community newspapers, not only in his riding but also right across Alberta and Saskatchewan?
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the work of my colleague from Drummond.
I will also note that French-speaking Africa is a place where the francophone population is growing incredibly quickly. There will be millions of new francophones in the coming years. That is why Africa and the media presence in Africa are so important. Just as Australia served as a model for Canada, it is only right that Canada should serve as a model for other countries, such as the African countries.
Meta and Google siphoning off all the money is not just a problem in Canada or Australia. This is happening all over the world. Now the web giants need to pay their fair share. By passing Bill C-18, we will set an example for other countries.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford is one of the best members of Parliament in the House. He works extremely hard in his community. The publications he has just outlined are some of the best community publications in the entire country. I am proud he represents that riding and those publications. They do terrific work.
He cites the issue of the Conservatives and misinformation. Stephen Harper was on the right hand of the World Economic Forum. That is what Conservative ministers did for a decade. Now they are pretending that somehow they have no connection with the World Economic Forum. It is crazy. It is a conspiracy theory for Conservatives to deny their past. I hope they will come clean to the Canadian public some day.
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Madam Speaker, he is referencing a platform that came from the member of Parliament for Durham as leader, and I have a lot of respect for him. He allowed us to unanimously support the ban on conversion therapy, which is extremely important.
Now there is a new leader, and the new leader, the member for Carleton, seems to be competing with Maxime Bernier to see who can be further right, who can be further extremist and who can talk more against the World Economic Forum and conspiracy theories. The old Conservative Party seems to be dead and a new Conservative Party is unfortunately very—
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- Jun/20/23 4:28:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to take a few minutes to intervene on the point of order that was raised by the whip of the official opposition just prior to question period.
It is regarding the entirely appropriate decision that was made by the Speaker at the time, the Assistant Deputy Speaker, the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, who has been a stellar Speaker in the chair, always maintaining, on behalf of all of us, order and respect for this institution. It is so important. It was clear to me that the official opposition whip was not present in the House and had no idea what went on.
I want to cite a number of references to Bosc and Gagnon, and then I want to clearly lay out the facts because I hope you and the Speaker will rule in a forthright way. It is very important that the decision be upheld. It was the appropriate decision.
Madam Speaker, as you well know, Bosc and Gagnon give the Chair the authority to preserve order and decorum: “As the arbiter of House proceedings, the Speaker's duty is to preserve order and decorum in the House and to decide any matters of procedure that may arise. This duty”—
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- Jun/20/23 4:30:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was saying that it was obvious to me that she had not observed what had happened. I stand by my position on that. That was obvious from her presentation. I was not in the House when the opposition whip made her presentation, but I carefully read what she said in her speech, and it was obvious to me that she was not here to observe.
Having said that, I will continue.
In essence, the Chair has the duty to exercise his or her powers in order to maintain respect for Parliament: “This duty carries with it...authority extending to...the behaviour and attire of Members, the conduct of proceedings, the rules of debate and disruptions on the floor of the Chamber and in its galleries”. I will come back to that later.
As we know, “Once the Speaker has ruled, the matter is no longer open to debate or discussion”. Furthermore, all of these “ways in which the Speaker may act to ensure that order and decorum are preserved” are given to the Chair by us, the members of the Parliament of Canada.
Bosc and Gagnon say:
The rules governing the conduct of debate empower the Speaker to call a Member to order if the Member persists in repeating an argument already made in the course of debate, or in addressing a subject which is not relevant to the question before the House. The Speaker may intervene directly to address an individual Member or the House in general, or the Speaker may respond to a point of order raised by another Member. The Speaker can call to order any Member whose conduct is disruptive to the order of the House.
I will come back to this later, because it was definitely the case here.
If the Speaker has found it necessary to intervene in order to call a Member to order, he or she may then choose to recognize another Member, thus declining to give the floor back to the offending Member. On occasion, a Member who is called to order by the Speaker may not immediately comply with the Speaker's instructions;—
That is what happened in this case. Bosc and Gagnon go on to say:
—in such a case, the Speaker has given the Member time to reflect on his or her position, declining in the meantime to “see” the Member should the latter rise to be recognized. A warning at the time the Member is called to order that the Chair may elect to do this has sometimes been sufficient to secure compliance.
It is therefore very clear, when we look at the procedural bible of Bosc and Gagnon, that all these powers to preserve order in the House do indeed fall to the Chair. That is the case in the ruling that was made this morning by the chair occupant, the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.
I will give three examples, and then I will get back to the facts of what happened. Since I was in the House, I saw first-hand what happened.
Here is the first example. First, in 1987, Speaker Fraser would not recognize Jim Fulton, the member for Skeena and a member of our caucus, for more than three weeks because he refused to withdraw his remarks. The member was only able to be recognized after agreeing to apologize.
Here is the second example. On November 27, 2002, Speaker Milliken ruled on unparliamentary language used by Jim Pankiw, the then member for Saskatoon—Humboldt. The Speaker asked the member to apologize, which was not done. The member was not recognized for the day and offered a full apology the next day, which closed the matter.
I am also aware of another case, which involved an NDP member from Dartmouth. That member was not recognized for a few weeks because she had introduced someone who was in the gallery. As we know, we are not supposed to do that. It took a few weeks. In this case as well, the hon. member apologized and things went back to normal.
Clearly what happened with the member of Parliament for Lethbridge was a complete refusal to heed what were clear directives, politely but firmly given, from the Chair. Looking at the blues from this morning, we can see that the Assistant Deputy Speaker repeatedly asked the member for Lethbridge to stop screaming and heckling in the House. This was done not one time, not two times and not three times, but four times. Each time the Assistant Deputy Speaker issued, very clearly, a warning that, if the member for Lethbridge continued to heckle, yell in the House and disrupt the proceedings, the member would not be recognized.
As we can see from all the precedents and the clear directions from Bosc and Gagnon, that is an authority that we give to you, Madam Speaker, and to all of our terrific Speakers in the House of Commons, to maintain order and decorum. The member for Lethbridge violated that decorum repeatedly. She refused to heed very clear, politely but firmly worded warnings from the Chair, and the consequence is a consequence that has transpired in the past in the House. It is completely valid, within the rules of order and appropriate.
I will say one final thing on this. I know the Assistant Deputy Speaker and the great work she does in the House of Commons. I also commend the work of our whip, the member for North Island—Powell River. If a member from the NDP had done what the member for Lethbridge did today, that member would have been called to order by our whip because our whip would not encourage this type of behaviour in the House of Commons. Therefore, I call upon the official opposition whip to take her responsibility seriously and call on the member for Lethbridge to apologize in the House for her behaviour, which was inappropriate and over the top, and for refusing to heed the repeated warnings of the Assistant Deputy Speaker, who was acting entirely appropriately.
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