44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I want to read something for the member, because he has brought up a really interesting point about why Conservatives will not support this and why they seem uninterested in this bill.
This is from page 155 of the 2021 Conservative platform, which states, “Canada's Conservatives will: Introduce a digital media royalty framework to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook.” To me, this sounds exactly like what we are debating today.
This is not the first time the Conservatives have, in a very aggressive manner, gone after legislation on which they literally ran. We know it was the same thing with the carbon tax. Now they are doing it on this issue.
I wonder if the member from Burnaby can shed some light on this as to why the Conservatives would be so abjectly against something they ran on less than two years ago.
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Madam Speaker, I note that in his speech today the parliamentary secretary specifically talked about Conservatives now compared to those from back in the day and former Conservatives. He and I have spoken a lot about this in the House. However, what has been reported today are some comments from a former Conservative prime minister.
The CBC reported the following:
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney mounted a defence of one of his successors Monday, saying...the current Prime Minister has delivered on the “big ticket items” and history won't look kindly on Parliament Hill denizens who push “trash...rumours” and “gossip.”
I wonder if the parliamentary secretary has any insight into who he thinks the former prime minister is talking about when he makes reference to those who are spreading trash rumours, given that he is speaking so glowingly about the Prime Minister and the work this government has done.
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- Jun/20/23 3:18:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was just going to add this: Although I would agree with the member that there are certain circumstances in which a chair would be asked a question, the content of the question is what is key here. It has to be about the schedule or the agenda of the committee. One cannot just ask about any issue they want.
I would encourage you to consider—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, I find myself standing on my feet in the House quite often, reciting the Conservative Party platform, which I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be doing. However, I will read to that member what he ran on in 2021.
He was knocking on doors, and this is what he was selling to people: “Canada’s Conservatives will: Introduce a digital media royalty framework to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook.” I am literally reading their party platform. This is what they ran on, and that is exactly what this bill is about.
I understand that Conservatives are abandoning their platform en masse, because they have already done the same thing on pricing pollution. Would the member like to inform the House of any other Conservative platforms that they are so rigidly against, but that they ran on under two years ago.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain.
I go back to the question that I asked the member for Provencher a few moments ago. He answered it by saying that I like to set up lobs for him to hit out of the park. The only problem is that he inadvertently did that to me as well, in his response. That is because the next part of the Conservative platform, immediately after the part that I read, says, “It will: Adopt a made in Canada approach that incorporates the best practices of jurisdictions like Australia and France.”
What the Conservatives ran on is quite literally what we have before us now, with the exception of the fact that the legislation that we have here is even more transparent. I am finding it more and more difficult every time I come here. I was saying earlier that I never imagined I would be reading the Conservative platform into the record in the House of Commons so much, but here I am. Conservatives ran on this. They even referenced the best practices of Australia and France. They literally ran on what we have before us now. It is just like pricing pollution. The Conservatives ran on pricing pollution. This all happened under two years ago.
Now Conservatives come into the House and are so incredibly opposed to these ideas. With absolutely no shame, they are just completely brushing them aside as though they never had any interest in them whatsoever. Meanwhile, 338 Conservative candidates literally went knocking on doors in the last federal election, trying to sell Canadians on voting for them, because of what they were promising to bring in. Pricing pollution was one promise, and this exact legislation on digital advertising and the revenues that are associated with it was another.
I am at a loss that the Conservatives can do this with a straight face, as well as that they can come in here and can speak so adamantly against these concepts that they would have, presumably, been debating in their ridings under two years ago. They would have been sitting there with other candidates, pushing for these ideas and policies. Now they are just totally tossing them aside as though there is no way that they could have ever conceived of supporting them.
I will tell the House why I think this legislation is so important, as well as why it is so important to give the resources and tools to media outlets that are seeing their work exploited by these big tech firms. We all scroll on Facebook or Instagram or wherever it might be and come across stories. We are choosing that to be the location that we go to get the information.
I got a real kick out of it when I heard the member for Peterborough—Kawartha say earlier that people want to get on the biggest platforms, and that is where they want to share their information. It reminds me of people who say to artists, “Would you like to come and hang a painting here for exposure?” Exposure is not what artists really want; no, they want to be paid for the work that they do.
The member for Peterborough—Kawartha used the exact same logic by saying that people want the exposure from Facebook and Instagram. In her view, of course they want to put their stuff there, because that is how they are going to get exposed. These outlets do not need exposure as much as they need supports to survive and to continue. That seems to be completely lost on Conservatives.
I want to use an example of how misinformation happens, why we need press out there with the resources and tools to properly investigate and why this is so important. We do not have to go any further back than yesterday.
Yesterday, there was a big, false, misinformation-based story about the Prime Minister being investigated by the RCMP. We had one question in question period about it yesterday, but not a single one today. That is because even Conservatives have come to the conclusion that they probably could not exploit that one as much as they would like.
I will tell members what happened yesterday. An organization called Democracy Watch, which I do not know much about, had finally received a response to a freedom of information request. It interpreted, intentionally or not, information in that freedom of information report to mean that the Prime Minister was being investigated by the RCMP, so at 8:19 a.m., Democracy Watch tweeted out that the Prime Minister is being investigated. That was retweeted by Andrew Coyne of The Globe and Mail at 9:22 a.m.
The member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, my neighbour, then posted something at 10:52 a.m. in which he said, “Breaking: [the Prime Minister] and his former senior officials are facing an RCMP investigation, four years after the Prime Minister was found guilty of breaking ethics laws”, and it goes on and on, and then he adds another tweet.
I will note that the member has not, since this all happened, retracted this, apologized for it or suggested that he got the information wrong.
However, I do not want to skip too far ahead, because after he did that, the National Post tweeted it out at 12:55 p.m. Then, of course, it was tweeted by the Conservatives' favourite media outlet, Rebel News, which was really late to the game, because it did not tweet it until 1:29 p.m.
This is how misinformation gets spread like wildfire in today's day and age. It is all because this one organization misinterpreted the information in a response it received after it had requested information from the RCMP. Then, because we have organizations that could actually do the follow-up and look into the issues, we were able to determine that what had been claimed was categorically false. It was fake news. Rightly or wrongly, this one organization called Democracy Watch set off a series of events that spread like wildfire.
I am sure the Conservatives fundraised on that. There was a solid five and a half hours between the first tweet and when the National Post finally issued its correction. I am sure the Conservatives did not miss an opportunity to put some links in there to their website for donations. However, the point is that we need legislation like this because we need to have those independent agencies that are able to fact-check, look into issues and properly research information.
The Kingston Whig Standard, one of the first newspapers in our country, has literally been around for centuries, but it does not have the reporting capabilities that it did at one time. So much in The Kingston Whig Standard is just information that is being recirculated by its parent company, with very little local coverage. At least in the Kingston area, we can depend on other news agencies, such as the Kingstonist, for example, which has taken on a new format and actually goes out and researches and digs into these issues and does not just spread these pieces that it happens to see somebody else tweet out.
If our objective at the end of the day is just to receive information that has been tweeted out in 140 characters or less, then I think we are pretty much going to be in a very difficult situation when we are relying on that information to actually tell us the truth. I think that is what this comes down to.
I know that my time is limited and I am looking forward to sharing it with the member for Hamilton Mountain, so I will conclude by saying that this is important legislation and that it is something we can all adopt. It is certainly something that the Conservatives ran on in 2021. This bill is very important for us, and I think this entire House should adopt it.
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Madam Speaker, I have that ATIP right here. I did research this before making that speech and I think it is very convenient that the member read out one sentence of the entire document.
What is specifically in here is reference to a whole host of grievances that have been put into the ATIP. To extract that one sentence to mean the Prime Minister is being investigated for a particular incident is an exaggeration. I know that the Conservatives know this too, because they did not once bring it up in question period today. If the Conservatives thought there was a scandal to be had, can anyone imagine them just sitting on their hands over there and pretending it does not exist? Why will the member not bring it up in question period?
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Madam Speaker, the member brings up a really good point about having a separate fund specifically for small and medium-sized outlets. I would love to have a discussion about it, but I will reflect on the first few comments she made about talking in the lobby with a colleague about how badly this bill needs to get through. Let us remind ourselves that there is only one political party in this House that is opposing this bill, and it also happens to be a political party that put it in its platform less than two years ago.
The Conservative Party of Canada is holding up this legislation right now for no reason other than it just happens—
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Madam Speaker, that is why this legislation is before the House. It is here specifically for the purpose of trying to give those resources to those news organizations. In my speech, I spent five minutes describing a set of conditions yesterday that led to a wild spread of misinformation. We need this legislation to help combat that kind of stuff.
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- Jun/20/23 5:29:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I note that the member brought forward a petition to this House on March 2, 2022, and what makes it interesting is that the individual who initiated the petition is from Vancouver, so not even within the same province as the member. What is most interesting about the petition that he brought forward is that it calls upon the Government of Canada to suspend the use of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women, children, youth and adults of child-bearing age. That is a petition he presented for Canadians, and it was a petition initiated outside his riding.
I am curious if this bill goes far enough for him, or if he would like to see the COVID-19 vaccines banned for pregnant women, children, youth and adults of child-bearing age.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly hope that nobody will need to go to the Library of Parliament anytime soon to look up any information on vaccines because we do not have a librarian as a result of the petty politics being played in the House.
Typically, we will just approve the librarian through a UC motion. We did it in 2018 for this particular librarian, but the Conservatives are not even willing to let us appoint a librarian. How much more political can they get on an issue than to refuse to appoint a librarian?
Moments ago, the member for Calgary Centre called me a “jack dot, dot, dot”, and members can fill in the blanks, as a result of questioning why the Conservatives would not approve a librarian, but here we are. I hope we do not have to go to the library to get any information on vaccines any time soon, because we do not have a librarian.
In any event, I am talking about Bill C-278, which has come forward, presented by the member for Niagara West moments ago. We are having second reading on this. I am particularly concerned. I do not think it should go without saying that I will not be—
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to do it anyway.
In 2018, we appointed our current librarian. I would bet that the member does not even know the librarian's name. I would bet that just about everybody in this room probably does not know the librarian's name. We just attempted to extend that appointment for 16 months through a UC motion, like we did in 2018, but the Conservatives are insisting on having a vote from the House. That is what just happened.
The member for Calgary Centre called me a—
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Madam Speaker, the best part about that, and what the public could not see, is that while I was giving that answer, another member went behind the curtain to meet him. He got the name, and then he jumped up to say that, so the member did not know the name. In any event, it is irrelevant.
Let us talk about the bill. I do not think it should surprise anybody that the government will be opposed to this bill. This is not a bill that respects the will of Canadians. I do not think it would accomplish what the member is seeking to do.
The member for Niagara West mentioned a couple of times about charter rights and EI. I would remind the member that this has been challenged in some courts, including the EI scenario specifically, all of which have been struck down by the courts. Therefore, when we talk about the court involvement in the House, perhaps it is wise to indicate the outcomes of those courts, which were not in favour of what this member would probably like to have seen.
I will reflect on the fact that this bill would specifically also amend other acts in addition to the first part about ensuring public sector employees could not be required to be vaccinated in certain settings. The bill states that it would amend other acts:
to provide that no regulation, order or other instrument made under any of those Acts to prevent the introduction or spread of COVID-19 may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting a person from boarding an aircraft, a train or a vessel solely on the ground that they have not received a vaccine against that disease.
These were some of the most influential policies the government created and they led to our success, relatively speaking against other countries, when it came to dealing with the COVID-19. It was the Conservatives who were calling for certain measures in the beginning of the pandemic, who now seem to be confused by the fact that these actually worked. Restricting people's ability to move on trains or airplanes helped to prevent the spread of the virus.
Members should not take my word for it. Why do we not listen to a former Conservative prime minister? I am reading from an article, which states that just days ago, Brian Mulroney “praised the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, its [dealings with] NAFTA and its ongoing support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.” This is what former Conservative prime minister Mulroney said: “I have learned over the years that history is unconcerned with the trivia and the trash of rumours and gossip floating around Parliament Hill. History is only concerned with the big ticket items that have shaped the future of Canada”.
The article continues: “He said [that the current Prime Minister] and the premiers 'conducted themselves as well as anybody else in the world' in dealing with COVID, something Mulroney called 'the greatest challenge that any prime minister has dealt with in Canada in 156 years.'”
That is former primer minister Brian Mulroney praising the work that this government did in dealing with the pandemic. This is a former Conservative prime minister, a Progressive Conservative prime minister, I might add. I am not sure where we are today. The Conservatives keep moving further and further to the right. This piece of legislation that has been introduced today is just another example of that.
However, at the end of the day, we did what was needed to be done. We see that through the fatality rate in Canada. Not one death should be considered acceptable, but when compared to our counterparts throughout the world, we did an incredible job of dealing with this pandemic. That is something that has been reverberated not only in the House of Commons by Liberals here, but also by a former Conservative prime minister just days ago.
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