44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/20/23 1:43:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very entertained by my hon. colleague's speech, but I was wondering when he might discuss Bill C-18.
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- Jun/20/23 2:02:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we approach the recess for the summer months, I usually look forward to a time of peace and reflection and to enjoying good weather, but this summer will be different. Due to the baked-in increase in temperatures resulting from our addiction to fossil fuels and our failure to act, we are going to have a rough summer. To all of my colleagues and everyone in their constituencies, I hope that they are spared climate events that are terrifying.
We know that the rest of the summer will continue hot and dry, which means more forest fires. In some places, it will be hot and wet. The Atlantic basin is hotter than it has ever been, which suggests that we are going to have a worse hurricane season. We are looking at climate threats of all kinds, and at this point we can only ask that we take care of each other, fortify our communities in resilience, and finally act to address the climate crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I am much in sympathy with what I have heard from the Conservatives around Bill C-18 to the extent of whether it will solve the problem. I am not hearing us identify the problem of social media outlets like Google and Facebook and the others having eviscerated the news media in this country, not necessarily by putting their content up without paying for it but by actually getting rid of the business model our newspapers used to rely on, like classified ads. The newspapers used to be able to rely on a source of income that is no longer there because foreign enterprises not paying taxes in this country have created a different marketplace that provides access to Kijiji and so on. I wonder if the hon. member has any comments on whether we could replace the word “platforms” with the word “publishers” and solve this problem.
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Madam Speaker, I know this might more properly be a continuation of a point of order, but in response—
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Madam Speaker, I wanted to point out to my friend from Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame that there are many things in the Standing Orders that are actually known as rules; they are not guidelines.
In the old days, Speakers who found somebody heckling, or violating the Standing Orders in other ways, would throw them out of the chamber for six months or more. This is not censorship; this is called decorum, and it is easy to follow the rules. One of them that I think the hon. member might want to take a look at is Standing Order 10, which says that, when the Speaker has stated a ruling, “No debate shall be permitted on any such decision, and no such decision shall be subject to an appeal to the House.” We should cease discussing something that happened earlier in the day.
To the member's points on Bill C-18, I do not see how it would be censorship. I may think it is flawed policy, but I do not see any censorship there, and perhaps he could explain where he sees censorship as opposed to an effort to, as the member said, support legacy media.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to put the hon. parliamentary secretary out of any sense of suspense over how I will vote on this bill. I will probably vote for it.
The reason I waffled was that I was so impressed the other day by the speech from the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who took us through, as a collective, what it was like to be in committee and to have the evidence from Transparency International put forward minutes before clause-by-clause amendments. Those improvements could have been made.
Transparency International is the gold standard, and Canada has been falling behind. Obviously we need the beneficial registry. We need this legislation, and we should have had it years ago. However, it is not great to be famous, as a country, for being a great place for money laundering, and we could have done better. I just wanted to explain that to the parliamentary secretary.
I do not how the member for Kitchener Centre will vote. We do not whip votes here. We find it liberating for people to represent their constituents. In any case, I will be voting for it, but with some considerable regret that the bill was pushed through without entertaining good amendments based on witness testimony.
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Madam Speaker, I take it my hon. colleague from Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is persuaded there is enough good in this bill in having a beneficial ownership registry that he will be voting for it. I ask him to comment on how he sees the use of this reducing money laundering, which has been a scandal, particularly in our home province.
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Madam Speaker, I want to come back to something quite shocking the hon. member told the House. I know it is true because it happens on the B.C. coast too. We have a fleet separation in B.C. that is more extreme than what happens in Nova Scotia. The people who are fishing do not own their own business. They are essentially employees in a vast machine. In British Columbia, billionaire Jimmy Pattison controls the entire herring stock.
I want the hon. member to perhaps reflect on what it means that DFO is giving fishing licences when it does not actually know who owns the businesses that are depleting our fish stocks. People, not necessarily foreign corporations, are completely unconnected from care and concern for the health of biodiversity.
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