Senator MacDonald: Could you repeat the question, please, senator?

Senator Dalphond: Thank you for agreeing to answer my question.

In a country where a majority government can be elected when one party wins between 37% and 41% of the vote, that means that 60% of the people did not vote for that government. Are you saying that if there are ever changes in government, we should speak for the 60% who didn’t vote for that government and prevent its bills from being passed?

Senator Plett: Yes.

Senator Plett: Ten days before Canadians voted in the 2019 federal election, the CBC used tax dollars, government dollars — you are the Government Representative, or the Leader of the Government, in the Senate — to sue the Conservative Party. The CBC continued to pursue this lawsuit for a year and a half before it was tossed out. By not answering my questions, the CBC has hidden the financial costs from Canadians ever since.

Are we expected to believe it’s just a coincidence that the video clips the CBC objected to were critical of Prime Minister Trudeau and his government? For example, one of the clips that the CBC didn’t want voters to see was taken from a public town hall meeting in Edmonton in early 2018. The Prime Minister famously told a veteran that they were asking for more than his government could provide. His shameful comments were widely reported. The CBC sued the Conservative Party anyway.

This week, the Prime Minister claimed the CBC is a foundational Canadian institution. Is hiding information from the public for two years the way a foundational institution should behave — yes or no, Senator Gold? How much did the lawsuit cost?

Senator Gold: As I have stated on a number of occasions, the Special Rapporteur the Honourable David Johnston will be advising the Prime Minister. When that advice is given and considered, decisions and announcements will be made.

Senator Housakos: Certainly.

Senator Cotter: I have two brief observations, Senator Downe, and I appreciate your observations. In my research, which was not absolutely comprehensive, I found two examples. You identified one, and the free trade agreement was another. I accept the idea that there could easily be exceptions, but, in my view, they have to be awfully big exceptions. I would suggest that this isn’t one. Thank you.

Senator Gold: That is a good question, but I don’t really have the ability to answer it adequately. Our relationships with the world — whether it’s commercial, political, strategic, intelligence sharing or others — are complex, polycentric and multi-faceted. In that regard, there is, no doubt, going to be tensions, pushes and pulls between the various objectives that characterize our foreign policy.

Canada’s feminist foreign policy is a serious engagement by this government, and, indeed, it is emulated and admired by others, and will continue to be, notwithstanding the fact that we live in a complicated, messy world — and our actions on behalf of Canadians, companies and individuals may not always line up with everyone’s expectations of what the priority should be.

Senator Cardozo: There are some who believe that the Charter ensures this new thing, “the right to offend.” There are others in last year’s convoy who believed that they had the right to park their rigs in front of the Parliament Buildings forever, because it was in the Charter. It seems that we are seeing the rise of polarization, extremism and anarchy.

Does ensuring human rights into the Charter allow for anarchy?

Senator Batters: Senator Gold, it’s how the mandate is structured. The terms of reference for Mr. Johnston’s mandate are massive, including investigating foreign election interference now and historically; studying all communications between the PMO, Trudeau’s ministers and their offices on this issue to find out what they knew, when they knew it and what they did or didn’t do about it; determining what Canada’s security intelligence services recommended to fight foreign interference; resolving any outstanding questions not dealt with by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, NSICOP, and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, NSIRA; recommending:

Senator Batters: Senator Gold, it’s how the mandate is structured. The terms of reference for Mr. Johnston’s mandate are massive, including investigating foreign election interference now and historically; studying all communications between the PMO, Trudeau’s ministers and their offices on this issue to find out what they knew, when they knew it and what they did or didn’t do about it; determining what Canada’s security intelligence services recommended to fight foreign interference; resolving any outstanding questions not dealt with by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, NSICOP, and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, NSIRA; recommending:

. . . changes in the institutional design and co-ordination of government assets deployed to defend against or otherwise deal with such interference; and

To report on any other related matters of importance.

How on earth could one person do all those things? I guess that’s why they needed a special rapporteur. Mr. Johnston is supposed to do an interim report on all this by May 23, then continue “rapporteuring” until October 31.

However, if he were to decide next month that there should be a public inquiry, what would be left to “rapporteur” on? Prime Minister Trudeau has structured Mr. Johnston’s mandate to try to placate Canadians and replace a public inquiry by putting a less transparent process in the hands of a trusted family friend and Trudeau Foundation member.

When will this government drop the smoke and mirrors and just call a public inquiry?

Senator Carignan: Government Representative, the room at Prospect Real Estate Villas in Ocho Rios is available next week. A seven-day stay would cost $53,541. Unfortunately, the Senate is in session, so I won’t be able to go. Why does the Prime Minister tend to pick hotel rooms that cost more than $6,000 a night? Why does he need a hotel room that costs more than $6,000?

Senator Gold: Unfortunately, as I said, I do not have an answer to that question.

[English]

Senator Housakos: Jean Chrétien, a great prime minister who made a great appointment. I don’t want to leave out, of course, Prime Minister Chrétien and Prime Minister Martin. I’ve been here so long, Senator Cordy, my memory is starting to fog up.

To continue my train of thought, we all have an obligation to our constituents. When we give a mandate to our committee to go do the robust, in-depth study that we did and hear so many voices, literally millions of people, user-generated content producers — which means, again, in brackets, Canadians: your kids, your nephews, my children, artists, singers — when these individuals come to us as their last hope because they see a piece of legislation that is riddled with potential dangers — and there is a possibility the CRTC will do the honourable thing, and there is a possibility that politicians and Heritage Canada will be true to their word.

However, I see no obstacle here — no issue why particular amendments that were put forward by Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Simons that were so responsive to the outcry of citizens — this isn’t a political agenda; this isn’t a partisan issue. This is senators from all groups at committee who heard a large constituency of Canadians who said, “Please, take this issue outside of the pressure cooker of politics of the House of Commons and do the right thing, apply your sober second thought, make the amendments that give us a chance and give us a sense of confidence that the government will not get in our way and destroy our successes.”

Senator Plett: Hear, hear.

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Gold, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator LaBoucane-Benson:

That, in relation to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, the Senate:

(a)agree to the amendments made by the House of Commons to its amendments; and

(b)do not insist on its amendments to which the House of Commons disagrees;

That the Senate take note of the Government of Canada’s stated intent that Bill C-11 will not apply to user-generated digital content and its commitment to issue policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission accordingly; and

That a message be sent to the House of Commons to acquaint that house accordingly.

And on the motion in amendment of the Honourable Senator Gagné, seconded by the Honourable Senator Tannas:

That the motion be not now adopted, but that it be amended by replacing, in the second paragraph, the words “stated intent” by the words “public assurance”.

Senator Housakos: I’m standing with the digital-first producers in this country.

“User-generated content,” colleagues, is a digital term, and it’s Canadians. Every time you hear “user-generated content” or “digital-first providers,” just substitute the word “Canadians.”

I’m not standing up for Meta or Google. Unlike this government, I’m not standing up for CTV, Quebecor or Rogers either. If they have issues with their business model and they’re not feeling that they’re competitive enough, that is, philosophically speaking, for them to address. It’s not for legislation to address it or for me as a legislator or any government, Liberal or Conservative alike, to intervene in that particular marketplace to help a business model, because at the end of the day, I’m of the view, “Where does it end?” It has to end somewhere. We don’t have unlimited amounts of money. I know this current government thinks we have unlimited amounts of money, but we don’t.

The truth of the matter and why we’re so persistent, and why you see the subamendment from Senator MacDonald to insist on the amendments that we collectively all voted for — we voted for these amendments at committee; we voted for them here at this chamber. We did that not on a whim but because we are truly a chamber of sober second thought. We did all this because we heard so much testimony from so many witnesses about user‑generated content producers (Canadians) — millions of Canadians who came before our committee and pleaded with this institution.

We are their last hope. These are people who are creating on a daily basis. They’re generating income for the Treasury Board of this country. They’re generating content that is being spread around the world in a very successful way. We see now particularly young Canadians who have completely transformed themselves from the cable broadcasting industry; they’re all online.

As I have said this before in my speeches, I’m still of the old generation. At 9:00 or 10:00, I run to “CTV National News” to watch the news. My boys come walking by the family room laughing at me and spewing out all the news at me at miles an hour because they’re on all these platforms, and they feel they’re getting their news quicker, getting more options, getting more in‑depth news, and they call me a dinosaur.

The issue we have as an institution, Senator Cotter and Senator Dalphond — I listened to your speeches very attentively and I didn’t hear much being addressed in regard to Bill C-11. I did hear a lot of constitutional arguments about how this place is an unelected body. I heard arguments about how it is not our role to push back on government legislation from the other place because they have the elected mandate from the people and so on and so forth. But I just want to go back and remind everyone that it hasn’t been that long since Senator Serge Joyal — an eminent senator who, of course, has argued on behalf of the judiciary on this floor on many occasions what our rights and privileges are — has said many times, including on his way out of this place, that we have to be relevant, relevant to our constituency.

So to both Senator Cotter and Senator Dalphond, with all due respect for their arguments, I said to Senator Dalphond that probably what I do think will happen for years to come is the government leader of future governments will probably be quoting his speech on a number of occasions in the future. That is fine, because he put on his judiciary hat, as he was an eminent judge, and did a very good job at making a judicial argument on the floor, but I as a legislator have had the privilege of working at the feet and learning about Parliament from giants such as Serge Joyal and Lowell Murray and others who came before me.

More importantly, I also was privileged enough when I studied political science at McGill University — there was a professor named J.R. Mallory, who also taught me a thing or two, a renowned constitutional expert in this country. He told me that we live in a country where we have separation of the executive, legislative and judiciary bodies.

So with all due respect to judges who are now, of course, legislators, I want to point out that we have supreme constitutional authority on legislative issues, to step in and articulate and craft legislation to the best of our ability, listening to our constituents, even though we’re not elected. I know we’re all appointed by a prime minister — Prime Minister Trudeau or Prime Minister Harper; I don’t think there are any Prime Minister Martin appointees left — but, at the end of the day, we’re still accountable to our constituents, to our provinces.

Senator Housakos: That is an excellent question, Senator Dalphond.

First of all, as you know, our small group of Conservatives speaks for the majority of Canadians, since we won the majority of votes in the last election. This is an important vote, and we still won more votes than the party that was in power. We won more votes than the current government in two consecutive elections.

It goes without saying that even a democratic parliamentary system is perfectly imperfect. I would also point out that the government is of course elected based on its electoral platform. However, we must not forget that in any election platform, like the Liberal Party platform, it is one thing to say that the Broadcasting Act will be reformed. But the details of the reform process aren’t included in the election platform. The details come later, in a bill, and if there’s any time for the upper house to do its job, it’s to study all the details. An election platform is very general.

Furthermore, I would never argue that we should support a bill simply because reviewing it was part of a political party’s platform, since that is entirely contrary to the idea of the independence of this great parliamentary institution.

[English]

Senator Housakos: Now, at the end of the day, colleagues, let’s be clear: Senator Dalphond and Senator Cotter, we get our legitimacy when we speak for voices from those who feel they haven’t been heard in the House and other places. That’s where we get our judgment day.

The risk we have — and I’ve seen it in my 15 years here many times, with all stripes of governments — very often we acquiesce to the will of those who brought us here. When we acquiesce to the will of the executive branch who brought us here, we silence those constituents who are always calling upon us to represent them and speak for them.

Senator Cotter, I thank Senator Downe, because he has been here longer than I have and he appropriately pointed out that the Senate has exercised its constitutional authority on a number of occasions when the Senate thought we were speaking for a large number of Canadians who felt the executive branch was imposing legislation upon them that they thought was so egregious that we were their last hope to stand up in their defence.

When we choose not to do that for a variety of reasons, I believe — and again, if we listened to Senator Joyal on his way out of this place — this place loses a notch of credibility in the eyes of the public. All of the new senators who came here after me, you all know the biggest challenge we face is our legitimacy, because we’re an appointed body. Too often, I’ve seen a large number of voices in this country — it doesn’t matter if it’s Indigenous people, underprivileged people — whatever the issue may be at whatever time — we agree or disagree — whatever side of the fence you stand on — but a lot of those groups feel that we always acquiesce more often than not to the executive branch. We have heard the argument, both in the media and from the public: “You guys are a rubber stamp.”

So, this is the one occasion where I disagree with Senator Dalphond and where we can exercise our constitutional rights when there is such an outcry. As Chair of the Transport and Communications Committee — I was there on the front line with my colleagues — there is a clear lack of consensus.

There is a particular divide between generations in this country. I think we will also be sending a strong message to a younger generation of Canadians who are asking themselves, “What does that unelected upper chamber really do?” I’ve seen it among witnesses — vloggers and streamers — who came before our committee, both francophone and anglophone. They were like, “Senator, for the first time, we see there is actually a value for this upper chamber. Please exercise your authority.”

That’s why I am speaking in support of the amendment from Senator MacDonald. I don’t think we will be overstepping or overreaching our authority by sending this message back to the government and saying to them, “We strongly recommend you listen to our sage advice and take note of the amendments that are put forward” — by senators appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau.

Again, I reiterate that this is not strictly a partisan issue, and this is not an issue of us defending — as many are trying to turn this into an issue — the multinational digital companies. It is defending average Canadians who are looking at this institution as their last hope.

I’ve been pleading and begging, both in public, outside of this place, and in this place, for us to do the right thing. We want to send a message of independence. We want to send a message that we will stand with people and not stand on the side of government. This is the issue.

Thank you, colleagues.

Senator Plett: What is the purpose of this Senate?

If after four months of hearing from witnesses on this issue, the Senate immediately throws in the towel as soon as the government says “no,” then we have, very simply, failed in our legislative duty, and we have failed as Canadians.

Don’t call ourselves “independent” if we are just going to roll over at the first available opportunity. That is not independence, colleagues. That is not independence.

I believe that is why we must insist on our entire amendment package.

The people whom I am most concerned about are the smaller players who will be impacted by this bill, people like Oorbee Roy, Vanessa Brousseau, Darcy Michael, Justin Tomchuk, J.J. McCullough, Frédéric Bastien Forrest, Scott Benzie and others, all of whom appeared before our committee. These people do not represent big corporations or big media concerns. I submit, colleagues, that at minimum we have an obligation to insist that this tone-deaf government listen to these individuals. Beyond that, we all know — or at least suspect — that this bill is deeply flawed and has serious freedom of speech and freedom of the press ramifications.

Given those ramifications, colleagues, we cannot now back down at the first sign that the government is not willing to take our amendments seriously.

Senator Cotter: I got the question. I’m a bit troubled that someone from your province didn’t at least celebrate my metaphor in the question. Having said that, I’m hardly an expert — may I complete the answer?