44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 19, 2023
- This bill, called the Online Streaming Act, is an amendment to the Broadcasting Act in Canada. It aims to update and improve the broadcasting policy for Canada. Some key points of the bill include:
- Adding online undertakings (transmission or retransmission of programs over the internet) as a distinct class of broadcasting undertakings.
- Specifying that the Act does not apply to programs uploaded to a social media service, unless they are prescribed by regulation.
- Updating the broadcasting policy to serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including marginalized communities, Indigenous persons, and persons with disabilities.
- Enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities and supporting the use of both English and French in Canadian society.
- Giving the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the power to regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a way that cons
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Mr. Speaker, we must protect Canadians in the digital age, but Bill C-63 is not the way to do it. It would force Canadians to make unnecessary trade-offs between the guarantee of their security and their charter rights. Today I will explain why Bill C-63 is deeply flawed and why it would not protect Canadians' rights sufficiently. More importantly, I will present a comprehensive alternative plan that is more respectful of Canadians' charter rights and would provide immediate protections for Canadians facing online harms.
The core problem with Bill C-63 is how the government has changed and chosen to frame the myriad harms that occur in the digital space as homogenous and as capable of being solved with one approach or piece of legislation. In reality, harms that occur online are an incredibly heterogenous set of problems requiring a multitude of tailored solutions. It may sound like the former might be more difficult to achieve than the latter, but this is not the case. It is relatively easy to inventory the multitudes of problems that occur online and cause Canadians harm. From there, it should be easy to sort out how existing laws and regulatory processes that exist for the physical world could be extended to the digital world.
There are few, if any, examples of harms that are being caused in digital spaces that do not already have existing relatable laws or regulatory structures that could be extended or modified to cover them. Conversely, what the government has done for nearly a decade is try to create new, catch-all regulatory, bureaucratic and extrajudicial processes that would adapt to the needs of actors in the digital space instead of requiring them to adapt to our existing laws. All of these attempts have failed to become law, which is likely going to be the fate of Bill C-63.
This is a backward way of looking at things. It has caused nearly a decade of inaction on much-needed modernization of existing systems and has translated into law enforcement's not having the tools it needs to prevent crime, which in turn causes harm to Canadians. It has also led to a balkanization of laws and regulations across Canadian jurisdictions, a loss of investment due to the uncertainty, and a lack of coordination with the international community. Again, ultimately, it all harms Canadians.
Bill C-63 takes the same approach by listing only a few of the harms that happen in online spaces and creates a new, onerous and opaque extrajudicial bureaucracy, while creating deep problems for Canadian charter rights. For example, Bill C-63 would create a new “offence motivated by a hatred” provision that could see a life sentence applied to minor infractions under any act of Parliament, a parasitic provision that would be unchecked in the scope of the legislation. This means that words alone could lead to life imprisonment.
While the government has attempted to argue that this is not the case, saying that a serious underlying act would have to occur for the provision to apply, that is simply not how the bill is written. I ask colleagues to look at it. The bill seeks to amend section 320 of the Criminal Code, and reads, “Everyone who commits an offence under this Act or any other Act of Parliament...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.”
At the justice committee earlier this year, the minister stated:
...the new hate crime offence captures any existing offence if it was hate-motivated. That can run the gamut from a hate-motivated theft all the way to a hate-motivated attempted murder. The sentencing range entrenched in Bill C-63 was designed to mirror the existing...options for all of these potential underlying offences, from the most minor to the most serious offences on the books....
The minister continued, saying, “this does not mean that minor offences will suddenly receive...harsh sentences. However, sentencing judges are required to follow legal principles, and “hate-motivated murder will result in a life sentence. A minor infraction will...not result in it.”
In this statement, the minister admitted both that the new provision could be applied to any act of Parliament, as the bill states, and that the government would be relying upon the judiciary to ensure that maximum penalties were not levelled against a minor infraction. Parliament cannot afford the government to be this lazy, and by that I mean not spelling out exactly what it intends a life sentence to apply to in law, as opposed to handing a highly imperfect judiciary an overbroad law that could have extreme, negative consequences.
Similarly, a massive amount of concern from across the political spectrum has been raised regarding Bill C-63's introduction of a so-called hate crime peace bond, calling it a pre-crime provision for speech. This is highly problematic because it would explicitly extend the power to issue peace bonds to crimes of speech, which the bill does not adequately define, nor does it provide any assurance that it would meet a criminal standard for hate.
Equally as concerning is that Bill C-63 would create a new process for individuals and groups to complain to the Canadian Human Rights Commission that online speech directed at them is discriminatory. This process would be extrajudicial, not subject to the same evidentiary standards of a criminal court, and could take years to resolve. Findings would be based on a mere balance of probabilities rather than on the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The subjectivity of defining hate speech would undoubtedly lead to punishments for protected speech. The mere threat of human rights complaints would chill large amounts of protected speech, and the system would undoubtedly be deluged with a landslide of vexatious complaints. There certainly are no provisions in the bill to prevent any of this from happening.
Nearly a decade ago, even the Toronto Star, hardly a bastion of Conservative thought, wrote a scathing opinion piece opposing these types of provisions. The same principle should apply today. When the highly problematic components of the bill are overlaid upon the fact that we are presently living under a government that unlawfully invoked the Emergencies Act and that routinely gaslights Canadians who legitimately question efficacy or the morality of its policies as spreading misinformation, as the Minister of Justice did in his response to my question, saying that I had mis-characterized the bill, it is not a far leap to surmise that the new provision has great potential for abuse. That could be true for any political stripe that is in government.
The government's charter compliance statement, which is long and vague and has only recently been issued, should raise concerns for parliamentarians in this regard, as it relies on this statement: “The effects of the Bill on freedom expression are outweighed by the benefits of protecting members of vulnerable groups”. The government has already been found to have violated the Charter in the case of Bill C-69 for false presumptions on which one benefit outweighs others. I suspect this would be the same case for Bill C-63 should it become law, which I hope it does not.
I believe in the capacity of Canadians to express themselves within the bounds of protected speech and to maintain the rule of law within our vibrant pluralism. Regardless of political stripe, we must value freedom of speech and due process, because they are what prevents violent conflict. Speech already has clearly defined limitations under Canadian law. The provisions in Bill C-63 that I have just described are anathema to these principles. To be clear, Canadians should not be expected to have their right to protected speech chilled or limited in order to be safe online, which is what Bill C-63 would ask of them.
Bill C-63 would also create a new three-headed, yet-to-exist bureaucracy. It would leave much of the actual rules the bill describes to be created and enforced under undefined regulations by said bureaucracy at some much later date in the future. We cannot wait to take action in many circumstances. As one expert described it to me, it is like vaguely creating an outline and expecting bureaucrats, not elected legislators, to colour in the picture behind closed doors without any accountability to the Canadian public.
The government should have learned from the costs associated with failing when it attempted the same approach with Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, but alas, here we are. The new bureaucratic process would be slow, onerous and uncertain. If the government proceeds with it, it means Canadians would be left without protection, and innovators and investors would be left without the regulatory certainty needed to grow their businesses.
It would also be costly. I have asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to conduct an analysis of the costs associated with the creation of the bureaucracy, and he has agreed to undertake the task. No parliamentarian should even consider supporting the bill without understanding the resources the government intends to allocate to the creation of the new digital safety commission, digital safety ombudsman and digital safety office, particularly since the findings in this week's damning NSICOP report starkly outlined the opportunity cost of the government failing to allocate much needed resources to the RCMP.
Said differently, if the government cannot fund and maintain the critical operations of the RCMP, which already has the mandate to enforce laws related to public safety, then Parliament should have grave, serious doubts about the efficacy of its setting up three new bureaucracies to address issues that could likely be managed by existing regulatory bodies like the CRTC or in the enforcement of the Criminal Code. Also, Canadians should have major qualms about creating new bureaucracies which would give power to well-funded and extremely powerful big tech companies to lobby and manipulate regulations to their benefit behind the scenes and outside the purview of Parliament.
This approach would not necessarily protect Canadians and may create artificial barriers to entry for new innovative industry players. The far better approach would be to adapt and extend long-existing laws and regulatory systems, properly resource their enforcement arms, and require big tech companies and other actors in the digital space to comply with these laws, not the other way around. This approach would provide Canadians with real protections, not what amounts to a new, ineffectual complaints department with a high negative opportunity cost to Canadians.
In no scenario should Parliament allow the government to entrench in legislation a power for social media companies to be arbiters of speech, which Bill C-63 risks doing. If the government wishes to further impose restrictions on Canadians' rights to speech, that should be a debate for Parliament to consider, not for regulators and tech giants to decide behind closed doors and with limited accountability to the public.
In short, this bill is completely flawed and should be abandoned, particularly given the minister's announcement this morning that he is unwilling to proceed with any sort of change to it in scope.
However, there is a better way. There is an alternative, which would be a more effective and more quickly implementable plan to protect Canadians' safety in the digital age. It would modernize existing laws and processes to align with digital advancements. It would protect speech not already limited in the Criminal Code, and would foster an environment for innovation and investment in digital technologies. It would propose adequately resourcing agencies with existing responsibilities for enforcing the law, not creating extrajudicial bureaucracies that would amount to a complaints department.
To begin, the RCMP and many law enforcement agencies across the country are under-resourced after certain flavours of politicians have given much more than a wink and a nod to the “defund the police” movement for over a decade. This trend must immediately be reversed. Well-resourced and well-respected law enforcement is critical to a free and just society.
Second, the government must also reform its watered-down bail policies, which allow repeat offenders to commit crimes over and over again. Criminals in the digital space will never face justice, no matter what laws are passed, if the Liberal government's catch-and-release policies are not reversed. I think of a woman in my city of Calgary who was murdered in broad daylight in front of an elementary school because her spouse was subject to the catch-and-release Liberal bail policy, in spite of his online harassment of her for a very long time.
Third, the government must actually enforce—
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Madam Speaker, I am familiar with that idea. I heard those arguments when we were debating Bill C‑11, but I truly believe that there are advantages to having the provinces, the Quebec nation, first nations and every other group of Canadians work together to act as a counterbalance to this power south of the border that I am just as wary of as the member. It takes a counterbalance. If we are divided in 10, each with their own communications regulator, I think that will weaken us in the long term. Honestly, I very sincerely believe that.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, and I especially thank him for putting something into each sentence of his speech that would provoke questions or reactions from me and other members from the Bloc Québécois. I would need 15 minutes to ask all my questions and challenge my colleague on some of his claims, but I will try to be more constructive.
First, I would tell him that 82% of Quebeckers who were polled in March want the federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictions to be respected. Whether it is about health care or anything else, 82% say that everybody should mind their own business. That is clear.
I particularly liked the example my colleague gave about the success of centralization when he mentioned the CRTC. This example is of particular interest to me because, first of all, I worked closely with the government to improve the Broadcasting Act with Bill C-11, and because I am a strong supporter of culture, language and all that.
However, I was taken aback to hear the CRTC characterized as a centralization success story. Without the intervention of the Bloc Québécois, almost no protections for francophone culture and Quebec broadcasters would have been included in Bill C‑11, which the CRTC is currently looking at.
I would like my colleague to tell us what he thinks of the idea that the Bloc Québécois has been promoting for years: to create what would essentially be a Quebec version of the CRTC to manage more to benefit—
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is in the midst of an identity crisis.
The Bloc Québécois is trying to go in two totally different directions. First, the Bloc Québécois claims to be a separatist party whose goal is to finally get rid of the federal government's control over the Quebec nation and the lives of Quebeckers. Then, according to its leader, the Bloc Québécois is a “progressive, socially democratic” party. It shares the same ideology as the current Liberal Prime Minister. The Bloc wants a big government that directs the economy with huge taxes, deficits, regulations, programs and industry subsidies. It wants a government that extends its tentacles everywhere.
Although I do not share these two objectives, namely socialism and sovereignty, a party in Quebec's National Assembly can coherently propose both at the same time. It can propose the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada and the creation of a massive welfare state in Quebec. I think it is a bad idea, but at least we know that it could be part of a coherent approach. The problem is that the Bloc Québécois is not a provincial party in the Quebec National Assembly. It is a federal party in Ottawa, and its socially democratic demands are helping to expand the size of the federal government.
In this zero-sum game, when the federal government has more money and power, this leaves less money and power for Quebec and Quebeckers. Every taxpayer dollar spent in Ottawa leaves a dollar less for the Government of Quebec or Quebec taxpayers. Do not take it from me; this comes from Paul St‑Pierre Plamondon, or PSPP. He calculated that Quebeckers pay $82 billion to Ottawa in taxes. Most of the taxes that Quebeckers pay the federal government goes back to Quebeckers in the form of child benefits, payments for seniors or transfers for health care and social services that are received by the Government of Quebec. PSPP seems to be saying that there is even more money that does not go back to Quebec. Where did that money go? It went to budgetary appropriations.
Budgetary appropriations refer to money that is voted on in Parliament and spent to fund the bureaucracy, consultants, agencies, contributions to corporations, and interest groups. It is basically the big federal monster in Ottawa that sovereignists want to separate from.
One would think that a separatist party would have voted against all the budget allocations that feed this federal monster, but that is not what happened. In fact, since arriving in the House of Commons in 2019, the leader of the Bloc Québécois has voted in favour of all of this Liberal Prime Minister's budget allocations. On 205 occasions, the Bloc leader has voted to authorize a total of $500 billion in additional government spending. That is almost equal to Quebec's GDP. We are talking about $500 billion, half a trillion dollars. That money did not go toward old age security or health, since such expenditures are already set out in legislation and we do not need to vote to authorize them. The Bloc Québécois voted in favour of the federal machine in Ottawa, in favour of hiring an additional 100,000 public servants and pumping 50% more money into the federal bureaucracy. The Bloc voted to double spending on private consultants. It voted for $21 billion in spending, or $1,400 per Quebec family, for federal consultants.
This includes financing ArriveCAN, which cost $25 million, when the Liberal government promised it would cost only $80,000.
Again, I find it fascinating that a Quebec party that calls itself separatist never supports measures seeking to reduce the federal tax burden shouldered by Quebeckers. It never supports income tax cuts. One would think a separatist party would always oppose Quebeckers being forced to send their money to Ottawa, but this is not true for Bloc Québécois members. They want, in their own words, to radically increase taxes. Furthermore, the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of Bill C-11, which gives the CRTC, a federal agency, full control over what Quebeckers can see and post on social media.
Even its support of Radio-Canada is paradoxical. The Bloc Québécois wants to separate from Canada, which would expel Radio-Canada from Quebec, but at the same time, it says that Radio-Canada is essential to the culture and media of Quebec. Apparently, it believes that Canada and the federal government are essential to Quebec life. This is not very separatist of them either.
The real question is, how would a sovereign Quebec under the leader of the Bloc Québécois be different from the Canada led by the current Prime Minister? The Bloc Québécois supports high taxes, massive federal debt and a bloated bureaucracy that meddles in everything but is good at nothing.
We should also remember that the Bloc Québécois supports a justice system that frees repeat offenders and bans hunting rifles. In fact, an independent Quebec with the leader of the Bloc Québécois as premier would be almost identical to the federal state led by the current Prime Minister.
Luckily for the Bloc Québécois, its fantasies of a welfare state have already become very real in Canada under the current Prime Minister, with all the government programs, bureaucracy, taxes, deficits and regulations. Everyone depends on the government. This is a dream for left-wing ideologues like the leaders of the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, but it is a nightmare for the working class, with housing, food and everything else being unaffordable. There is more homelessness, poverty and desperation.
The Bloc Québécois does not offer Quebeckers either sovereignty or independence. Instead, it offers a more costly, centralist and indebted federal government, exactly like the Liberals. The Liberal Bloc is not a pro-independence party but a pro-dependence party. It defends what it depends on. The Bloc Québécois depends on the federal government for its pensions and paycheques and for all its ideological dreams, which are in reality centralist.
However, with our common-sense plan, we will axe the tax, build the homes, not the bureaucracy, and fix the budget by capping spending and cutting waste. In short, with a small federal government, we will let Quebeckers make their own decisions. They could decide to keep more money in their pockets or to give more money to their government in Quebec City. It will be up to them. This is a message for Quebeckers: With the Liberal Bloc, the federal government is master of your house, but with the common-sense Conservatives, Quebeckers will be master of their own house.
Thank you very much.
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Mr. Speaker, I support this question of privilege in light of the violation of government's obligation to answer an Order Paper question, but I also add to it, considering how the government has taken steps to take control of the Internet in Canada.
It has done this through legislation like Bill C-11, which centralizes regulatory control of what Canadians can see, hear and post online based on what the government deems “Canadian”.
In addition, I highlight Bill C-18, which has resulted in the government being one of the biggest gatekeepers of news in Canada. This is a major conflict of interest and a direct attack on journalistic integrity in this country.
Now, most recently, through Bill C-63, the government proposes to establish an entire commission, yet another arm of the government, that would regulate online harm.
How can Canadians trust the government to police various aspects of the Internet if it cannot even be honest and tell the truth about the content requested to be taken down? Trust is pinnacle and frankly the government has not earned any of it. The truth must prevail.
Mr. Speaker, you have the opportunity to look into this and to get to the bottom of it, or you can keep us in the dark and allow secrecy and injustice to reign. I understand that you are the one to make this decision, and we are putting our trust in you to make sure that this place is upheld and democracy is kept strong.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for being so concise.
On this February 15, before I begin my speech, I would like to salute a few illustrious people, namely François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier, Charles Hindelang, Pierre-Rémi Narbonne, Amable Daunais and François-Stanislas Nicolas. We think of these persons today, as we have done every year on February 15 since 1839.
The bill we are discussing today is a very simple bill. What we are really asking is that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act be amended to ensure that Quebec is systematically consulted when the CRTC puts in place any regulations that would have an impact on Quebec culture.
It is a short bill involving one very simple amendment. Earlier I listened to my Conservative colleague recount the events that followed the passage of Bill C-11. When Bill C-11 was almost ready to be passed, the Conservative Party released a letter that was sent to the government, the Liberal Party, to the heritage minister at the time. That letter set out Quebec's specific demands with respect to Bill C-11, which reformed the Broadcasting Act.
I would like to provide a bit of context. With a little good faith, I think that my Conservative colleague will lend credence to what I am going to tell the House. The Conservatives unduly delayed and blocked the bill in committee for a very long time. Quebec had demands and it was not consulted during the study of the bill, at least not formally.
By the time Quebec's demands finally arrived, the bill was about to be passed. Does that mean that the demands therein were illegitimate? No, not at all. Realistically, however, it was too late to reopen the file in committee and go back to the drawing board, so to speak.
If my Conservative colleague had the slightest understanding of how the Government of Quebec operates in this kind of situation, he would not have talked about having Quebec's minister of culture and communications, Mathieu Lacombe, appear before the committee. If he had the slightest understanding of how the relationship between Quebec and Ottawa works, he would know that Quebec government ministers do not testify in committee. They have a nation-to-nation relationship with Ottawa. They speak minister to minister. Ministers from Quebec do not appear before committees. He should know this, but he does not. It was much more dramatic to take the letter and say that the Bloc and the Liberals do not listen to Quebec. He said the Bloc did not listen to Quebec, did not listen to cultural groups and did not listen to groups in Quebec's broadcasting sector during the study of bills on broadcasting, online news and anything to do with Quebec culture. What a joke. It is funny, actually, so that is how we will take it.
That being said, we have here Bill C-354, which was introduced by my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île. This bill addresses one of the most important demands set out in that letter from Minister Lacombe and the Government of Quebec. This is a natural demand and Minister Lacombe was not the first to make it. Quebec's need, its desire, its demand to have its say in the decisions that are made in Ottawa and that have an impact on francophone culture and the French language dates back to 1929 and has been kept alive by successive Quebec governments.
The premier at the time, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, saw this weird new technology called radio and thought that it needed to be regulated immediately. That is when a regulatory body was created to provide oversight.
To no one's surprise, instead of agreeing with what Quebec was doing and choosing to play a part in this regulatory body, Ottawa decided to do something else. It created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, or CRBC, the current CRTC's ancestor. Both organizations were developed in parallel, as is so often the case, with a tiny intrusion into Quebec's jurisdictions. It seems that this was even more commonplace back then and that people did not complain as much. There was no Bloc Québécois to fight for Quebec in Ottawa.
Long story short, wanting to have a say in French-language communications and culture in Quebec is not just a Quebec separatist or nationalist thing. Liberal governments also asked for it, and so did Union Nationale governments. Even former minister Lawrence Cannon, who was a Liberal minister in Quebec before becoming a Conservative minister in Ottawa, asked for it.
This is not a demand being made by spoiled sovereignist brats who want to repatriate all powers to Quebec. This is a reasonable request to ensure that Quebec is consulted on decisions made by the next-door nation that affect the Quebec nation's culture.
We will be voting on Bill C‑354 in a few days. We are not asking for the moon. At the moment, we are not even asking for the right to immediately create a Quebec CRTC, which is also among Quebec's requests and the Bloc Québécois's plans, and quite reasonably so. For now, this is not what we are asking. For now, we are simply responding to a straightforward request from Quebec.
As my Conservative colleague said earlier, the Conservatives tried to promote this request themselves, but it was already too late in the Bill C‑11 process. I presume that the entire House of Commons will support this very reasonable request when we vote on this amendment to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act.
Bill C‑354 was introduced in response to a request from Quebec, the Government of Quebec and the people of Quebec, and I think everyone in the House should agree that Quebec and the provinces that are concerned about preserving French in some of their communities should be consulted when regulations are put in place that will have an impact on the French language and culture in those places.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C‑354, which was introduced by the Bloc Québécois.
The Bloc Québécois's bill seems pretty straightforward. It states:
The Commission shall consult with the Government of Quebec about the cultural distinctiveness of Quebec and with the governments of the other provinces about the French-speaking markets in those provinces before furthering the objects and exercising the powers referred to in subsection (1) in respect of the aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system that concern those matters.
This seems like a fairly simple request for consultation, and it would require the CRTC to consult Quebec and the provinces.
Of course, I support the principle that the Government of Quebec should have the opportunity to express itself, especially when it comes to Quebec's cultural distinctiveness. The Government of Quebec and the National Assembly of Quebec are not shy about making their position known, especially when it comes to protecting the French language and Quebec culture.
As Conservatives, we on this side of the House recognize that French is the only official language that is in decline in Canada. As such, we have an essential role to play in protecting it.
To continue the debate, I would like to come back to Bill C-11, which amended the Broadcasting Act. The Government of Quebec had called for specific amendments to this bill so that Quebec's concerns would be heard.
In February 2023, Quebec's minister of culture and communications, Mathieu Lacombe, wrote to the then minister of Canadian heritage. I will read some excerpts from that letter to provide some context for the Bloc Québécois bill. At the time, the Bloc refused, for months, to convey this request from Quebec's elected officials to the House of Commons.
I will now quote Minister Mathieu Lacombe:
It is essential, both in Bill C‑11 and in its implementation by the CRTC, that Quebec's cultural distinctiveness and the unique reality of the French-language market be adequately considered. I would like to reiterate our demand that a formal, mandatory mechanism for consultation with the Government of Quebec be set out in the act to that effect....[Quebec] must always have its say before any instructions are given to the CRTC to direct its actions under this act when its actions are likely to affect companies providing services in Quebec or likely to have an impact on the Quebec market....
This letter that came from the Government of Quebec was sent to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, it seems that no one in the Liberal government saw fit to respond to this request. There was complete radio silence after that letter.
However, on this side of the House, the Conservatives heard this plea. The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent and the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles rose in the House several times to urge the government to receive the Quebec minister in committee in order to hear what Quebec was asking for and determine how Bill C‑11 could contribute to ensuring that the act takes Quebec's cultural distinctiveness into account. That is something tangible. We had a tangible request from Quebec to be heard on a bill that would have considerable repercussions on Quebec's cultural distinctiveness and on Quebec's language. We felt it was important to grant this request and allow the Quebec minister to come testify in committee.
Allow me to quote an article from La Presse from February 14, 2023. That was a year ago almost to the day. The headline of the article read, “Broadcasting Act reform: Conservative Party supports Quebec's request for a say”. That about sums it up.
I think La Presse hit the nail pretty much on the head. I will read some of the article:
The Conservative Party is urging the [Prime Minister's] government to refer Bill C‑11, which seeks to modernize the Broadcasting Act, to a parliamentary committee in order to examine Quebec's request for the bill to include a mandatory mechanism requiring the province to be consulted to ensure that the CRTC protects Quebec's cultural distinctiveness.
That article was written by Joël‑Denis Bellavance, someone who reliably reports the facts.
A little further on in the article, it talks about what happened here in the House of Commons when we discussed this issue. It states, and I quote:
In the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative member [for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles] and his colleague [from Louis-Saint-Laurent] both questioned [the heritage minister] on this subject and urged him to consider Quebec's “legitimate request”.
The article goes on to quote the question that was asked that day:
“[The] Quebec government is urging the Liberal government to include a mechanism for mandatory consultation in Bill C-11 to ensure the protection of Quebec culture....Do the Prime Minister and the Bloc agree with Minister Lacombe when it comes to Quebec culture and the fact that the government needs to send the bill to committee?” asked the member [for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles].
That is a very legitimate question that was asked in response to the letter published the day before by journalist Joël-Denis Bellavance.
The answer given by the then minister of heritage was rather cold. It was more of a diversionary tactic. The minister completely avoided my colleague's question. Instead, he chose to go on the attack and to completely avoid answering the simple question about the fact that the Quebec minister of culture and communications was asking to appear before the parliamentary committee.
During the same question period, my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent raised the issue again. I would like to quote from the article and the question at the same time:
“[H]ow can a member from Quebec, a minister from Quebec, refuse to listen to the demands of the Government of Quebec? I understand that the purpose of Bill C-11 is to centralize power in Ottawa, with help from the Bloc Québécois, which I might have to start calling the ‘centralist bloc’”, fumed [my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent].
Members will understand the reason for his anger, not only toward the governing party, the Liberal Party, but also toward the Bloc Québécois. The Liberal minister came out with a sledgehammer argument. Instead of answering the question and granting the Quebec minister of culture and communications' legitimate request to appear in committee, the then minister of heritage accused the Conservative Party of trying to stall the bill's passage again. It was as though asking to hear from the minister of a duly elected government was not a good enough reason to slightly delay a bill's passage in order to find out what Quebec had to say. That is unacceptable.
In his letter, Minister Lacombe argued that, as the “heartland of the French language and francophone culture in America”, Quebec considered it “vital to have a say in these instructions”. It seems to me that the committee should have listened to what Minister Lacombe had to say.
My colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent moved a motion in committee. Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party voted against that motion, which was intended to allow a discussion of the amendments proposed by the Senate and Quebec's request. Again unsurprisingly, the NDP sided with the Liberals. How did the Bloc Québécois member vote in committee? Did he seize the opportunity to be the voice of reason, speaking on behalf of Quebec and Quebeckers? After a formal letter from the Government of Quebec and a unanimous motion from the National Assembly, which side did the Bloc Québécois take?
The answer will shock everyone, even our our viewers: The Bloc Québécois voted against the common-sense motion moved by my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, which would have allowed the voice of a Quebec minister to be heard in committee. At the time, not only did we agree in principle, but we took concrete action to ensure that the Government of Quebec would be heard.
Now let us see how negotiations unfold in committee, so we can find out whether everyone really meant what they said.
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Mr. Speaker, the media crisis has once again swept away a part of our news media and a part of our democracy.
Bell is laying off 4,800 employees. This comes on the heels of more than 500 job cuts at Quebecor and 600 at CBC/Radio-Canada. The entire industry has been imploding for years with no meaningful response by the federal government.
Bill C‑11 is having no apparent impact because the CRTC is making zero progress on the regulatory framework. Bill C‑18 is all well and good, and we will happily accept Google's millions, but the job cuts continue.
When is the government going to take action?
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising in the House of Commons to talk about the $23 billion in inflationary deficits added by this bill alone. Here is yet another example of a Prime Minister who, after eight years, is not worth the cost.
When I say that he is not worth the cost, I am talking about his false advertising. Normally, in the private sector, false advertising is a criminal offence. If, for example, a business advertises a product at a certain price and does not deliver the promised product, that business may have to face criminal charges in court. Governments do it all the time. They ask for money to deliver a product to Canadians. We see the Prime Minister do that all the time.
For example, in very general terms, take his program to help the middle class. Eight years down the road, nine out of 10 middle-class young people are unable to afford a house and believe that will never change. Eight years on, the number of employed Ontarians using food banks has increased by 86%. These are middle-class people. They are suffering. They never needed to use food banks before, but eight years after the government floated the idea of helping the middle class, they need it now.
We have a Prime Minister who promised to help the media by giving them big subsidies to buy their love. How did that turn out? Media articles are now being erased from social networks.
There is also talk about a program to help kids get lunch at school. However, if we read the bill to find out what the program is about, no food is included. The money is for two federal ministers to hold consultations with provincial ministers and interest groups and write a report about a plan to create a policy to someday feed children. Here is just another example of a government that says it is going to feed kids, but then turns around and feeds bureaucracies instead.
Now let us move on to housing. While criticizing Jean Chrétien for eliminating housing bureaucracy at the federal level, the Prime Minister announced that the feds would once again fund housing by setting up major, $87‑billion programs for affordable housing. Eight years later, what has happened? Housing prices have doubled. The cost of a mortgage on an average home has more than doubled, with payments increasing from $1,400 to nearly $3,500 a month. The cost of a one-bedroom apartment has risen from an average of $900 to almost $2,000, and the down payment for the average home in this country has increased from $20,000 to more than $50,000.
The program proposes spending billions and billions of dollars on affordable homes and apartments. The result is that costs have doubled. That is exactly the opposite of what the ads said. Unfortunately, these ads sometimes appear in documents voted on in the House of Commons. For example, there are affordable housing programs that increase the price of homes, and millions or billions of dollars are provided to fund them.
In the private sector, charging money for a product and then failing to deliver that product would land a CEO in jail. The Prime Minister does that all the time, but he keeps his privileges while the population suffers.
That is why I created a monumental documentary on the housing hell that this Prime Minister has caused. The bought-and-paid-for media had a meltdown. They had a meltdown across the country, but they had a problem. They could not find a single error in any of the facts that were presented. I presented around 55 facts. The documentary introduces a new fact roughly every 20 seconds. There is not a single journalist who could find one factual error.
Let me review some of these facts. I found many of these facts in articles published by the media that attacked me for my documentary. They published those same facts. That is the problem. They published facts about the housing crisis, but failed to mention the Prime Minister who caused this housing crisis, who is in power and who has seen prices double.
Here are the facts.
First, nine out of 10 Canadians believe that they will never own a home. The journalist who wrote that is Shazia Nazir from Milton, Ontario. That is a fact. There is no denying it. Which Prime Minister created this phenomenon, which had never been seen before in our history? It is this Liberal Prime Minister.
Second, I demonstrated that it takes 66% of an average paycheque to make the monthly payments on the average single-family home. A Radio‑Canada journalist said that figure was made up, but it comes from the Royal Bank of Canada. It is published on the RBC website. Radio‑Canada could have found it, if its journalists had wanted to share the truth. It takes 66% of an average paycheque to make the average payments for an average home in Canada. The remaining 34% is needed to pay taxes, leaving nothing after that. People will not be able to buy groceries, do anything fun or go on vacation. They will have barely enough money to pay their mortgage. This is compared to 39% when I was the minister responsible for housing. Eight years ago, it took 39% of an average family's paycheque to buy an average home and pay the monthly expenses. That means the percentage of a family's monthly income needed to afford an average home has increased by half. That is after eight years under this Prime Minister, and it is a record. It has never been the case before now.
A 57-year-old grandmother had to live in her van because of the housing crisis caused by this Prime Minister. Refugees have to live in the streets because the shelters are full. After eight years of this Prime Minister, there is no more room. Eight years ago, the average price of a house in Canada was $454,000. Now, it is about $700,000. With the higher interest rates, monthly payments are even worse.
The Liberals and their bought-and-paid-for media are trying to blame a global phenomenon, but that is not going to fly. Other countries are not experiencing the same crisis as we are here, in Canada.
All the international data show that prices in Canada have gone up much faster than in nearly every other country. Housing costs in Canada have outpaced wage growth faster than in all but one OECD country. On affordability, Canada ranks next to last out of almost 40 industrialized countries for the period from 2015 to 2023. Interestingly, the Prime Minister has been in power that entire time.
According to UBS Bank, Toronto has the worst housing bubble in the world. This is not a phenomenon observed in all of the world's biggest cities; it is just in Toronto. Moreover, Vancouver ranks sixth. According to UBS, these two markets were reasonably priced 10 years ago. That is another fact that the Prime Minister's bought-and-paid-for media tried to contradict, but they failed.
Houses near the border on the Canadian side can be three times more expensive than those on the U.S. side. How does that make sense if it is an international phenomenon? In general, prices in the United States are 25% to 40% lower than in Canada, even though the U.S. population is eight times the Canadian population and their land mass is smaller. After eight years of this Prime Minister, people can buy a Swedish castle for less than it costs to buy a two-bedroom house in Kitchener.
Of all the G7 countries, ours is the largest by landmass. A Radio-Canada reporter who was trying to save the Prime Minister's reputation said that that argument was ridiculous because people cannot live in Canada's far north, for example. He was suggesting that the only land available in Canada is in the far north. That is what is ridiculous. There is plenty of land around our big cities. If those claims are true, then why is the U.S. able to provide housing at a much lower cost, even though its population is concentrated in New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and other large cities?
Even if the population is concentrated in big cities, houses are a lot less expensive in the U.S. than they are in Canada after eight years of this Prime Minister. Those who say it is irrelevant to talk about the amount of land that we have to provide Canadians with property are forgetting that the reality is that supply and demand always determine the price. Prices should be very low in Canada because there is land available around cities, in southern Canada, western Canada, eastern Canada and even northern Canada, land on which we could be building housing, if we could cut through all the red tape put in place by governments at all levels.
The fact is, since this Prime Minister came to power, there are fewer houses per capita than before. Of all the G7 countries, Canada has the fewest houses per capita, even though it has the largest landmass available for housing. I find it very interesting that there were more houses per capita eight years ago, when there were no bureaucratic programs to make properties more affordable. Do my colleagues not find that interesting?
According to the Prime Minister, $87 billion was spent on building affordable homes. However, eight years later, there are fewer houses per capita. It is unbelievable. It is like being in a restaurant, ordering something that tastes terrible, getting the wrong order and terrible service, and then being told it is going to cost $500. Then we turn around and say it was a great meal because it cost so much. That is the Prime Minister's argument. His programs are expensive, so they must be good.
He just attacked us for voting against the money allocated for programs because he believes that money equals results, even if that spending results in the opposite of what the programs promise. He criticizes me for not having spent enough on housing. I delivered affordable homes and apartments when I was minister at a lower cost to taxpayers. That is good, common sense: lower costs for taxpayers and lower costs for those buying or renting homes. That is what it means to know the value of money. The Prime Minister does not understand that because he has never had to work in his life. He inherited his wealth and kept his wealth in a tax-sheltered trust fund. I understand why it is hard for him to grasp the value of money.
I will give an example. In 1972, 232,000 housing units were built in Canada. In 2022, 219,000 homes were built in Canada. In 1972, there were 22 million Canadians. Last year, there were 39 million. The Canadian population has practically doubled, but fewer houses are being built after eight years of this Prime Minister and after $87 billion of government spending to build more. This government spends more to build less at a higher price. That is its approach.
What is the highest cost of building a home today in Vancouver, for example? Is it lumber, the workers' wages, the land? No, it is not even the construction company's profits. It is government fees and red tape. Yes, the red tape is local. It comes mainly from local governments, but it is funded by the federal government.
The Prime Minister boasts about the fact that he is sending bigger cheques to municipal politicians to build a bigger bureaucracy to prevent construction in the name of affordable housing. In Nova Scotia, after completely failing to provide a decent quality of life for people in Halifax, after 30 homeless encampments cropped up around the city, the housing minister came along with money from the housing accelerator fund and gave millions of dollars to his friend, the Liberal mayor of Halifax. He said that it would speed up housing construction.
We later learned what that money will be used for. It is going to be used to hire more public servants, the same public servants who are preventing construction in Halifax. There is going to be more red tape thanks to the money the federal government is sending. The Prime Minister has learned absolutely nothing. That is why we need to make a common-sense change that will build houses, not bureaucracy. That is our approach.
Some people have criticized my monumental documentary. According to them, nothing can be built because there is not enough land in places where people want to live.
The Squamish people have proven otherwise. In Vancouver, the Squamish are building 6,000 apartments on a 10-acre property. On 10 acres, they are building an unbelievable 6,000 apartments. That means they are building 600 apartments per acre. These are outstanding results. This would have never happened if they had been forced to listen to the bureaucrats in downtown Vancouver. On their traditional land, a traditional reserve of their people, they did not need permits from local bureaucrats. That enabled them to build housing.
This proves that if we could cut out the bureaucracy, we could build more large apartments downtown and more houses in the suburbs at the same time. That is exactly the opposite of what the Prime Minister is doing right now.
I have heard other excuses from staunch defenders of the Prime Minister, who set up a huge fund to financially support the media and buy their loyalty. They say it is not the Prime Minister's fault that the cost of housing has doubled, because it was COVID-19 that drove up housing prices.
A Journal de Montréal columnist I admire said that COVID-19 has become a scapegoat. COVID-19 should have lowered housing prices, because there was less immigration during COVID-19. The immigration system was practically shut down for nine or 10 months, and it slowed down for another nine or 10 months after that. The figures show that there was less immigration, fewer jobs and lower wages.
All these factors would normally reduce demand in the real estate market. I am not the only one saying this. In spring 2020, the federal government's housing agency predicted that housing prices would drop by 32% because of COVID-19. They were wrong, but it is understandable why they predicted that prices would fall. When the country loses jobs and wages and closes its doors to immigration, the results are lower prices and less demand. However, prices have gone up. Why did prices rise in the two years following COVID-19? Because the central bank printed $600 billion. Money was created out of thin air.
The media said that that was not true and had nothing to do with it, but my documentary includes a Bank of Canada graph that shows the number of houses bought by investors doubled. It started in the spring of 2020, right when the Bank of Canada started printing money and buying bonds from banks and financial institutions, which flooded the financial system. All that money was loaned to investors that have relationships with the bankers. They are the ones who helped double the amount invested. Prices jumped by 50% after that massive injection of newly printed money. It was not COVID‑19. It was the sense that people had money that caused a sudden spike in housing prices.
In fact, the Liberals and their supporters in the bought-off media will say that all that government spending was necessary because of COVID-19. Is that really true?
There was a $100-billion deficit before the first case of COVID-19. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, 40% of new spending during the COVID-19 pandemic had nothing to do with COVID-19. The pandemic has been over for a year or two, but the deficits continue. The government can no longer blame COVID-19 and say that COVID-19 ate its homework, when the deficits were there before COVID-19, the deficits during COVID-19 were not related to the pandemic, and the deficits after COVID-19, in some cases, are increasing. Although COVID-19 is disappearing in the rear-view mirror, deficits continue to increase. We cannot accept the Prime Minister's excuse that the dog ate his homework. Printing money to spend recklessly was an irresponsible decision, and I warned against it. That is continuing to this day and it is driving up interest rates.
It just goes to show, once again, that every time this Prime Minister stands up in the House of Commons and says he has no other choice, he is spending money on all kinds of slogans. However, when we look at the results behind those slogans, it is the exact opposite of what has been promised. It is false advertising. That is why we often vote against spending that, according to the slogans, sounds great, but in reality does exactly the opposite of what the slogans promise. That is why we need a common-sense government. That is what I can offer as Canada's future prime minister.
A few months ago, the Bloc Québécois asked me what common sense actually is. I admire their humility in admitting that they have no idea what common sense is. I was able to help them by defining common sense. It struck them as a strange idea, because they live in a utopia. They are here in the House of Commons to make life more miserable, arguing that Canada should be split up into pieces. Again, to help the Bloc Québécois, commons sense actually means many things.
First, we need to bring back lower prices. How do we do that? We do that by axing the carbon tax that is increasing the price of everything. I know that the government wants to quadruple the carbon tax on farmers who produce food, on fuel and on all our industries. I know that the Bloc Québécois wants to radically increase the carbon tax. I know that there is a second carbon tax under the name fuel regulations. However, the Bloc Québécois is not satisfied. It wants to radically increase it. Only the Conservative Party will axe the tax on carbon to reduce the price of energy for all Canadians.
We will rely on technology to fight climate change. I know that the Bloc Québécois is against technology. For example, it is against the nuclear energy that France uses to produce electricity without any greenhouse gas emissions. The Bloc Québécois is against that. It is so ideologically radical. It is against nuclear energy and other sources of energy that do not produce carbon emissions. We will use these technologies instead of taxing F-150s in Saguenay or in Trois‑Rivières, where workers and farmers need their truck for work. These are good people. They work hard, and we are the only party for the vast regions of Quebec. That is all. That is the truth.
Another common-sense solution is to control spending. I find the Bloc Québécois funny. It always wants the federal government to do more. It is strange. The Bloc says that it wants to get rid of the federal government, but at the same time, it is always voting to increase the federal government's costs at Quebeckers' expense. The Bloc voted for all the spending increases that the Liberal government proposed. It voted against the financial discipline that we are proposing.
The common-sense idea I am proposing is a dollar-for-dollar law, which says that if we spend a dollar on one thing, then we need to save a dollar somewhere else. A law like that existed during the Clinton administration in the 1990s. It enabled the Democratic president to balance the budget and eliminate $400 billion in debt. That resulted in an enormous increase in jobs and wages, an increase in the stock market and plenty of other things. However, just after the law expired, the U.S. plunged back into a deficit and they are still in that situation today. That shows that politicians need a legal limit to control their spending. We are going to do things the same way that single mothers, small businesses and families do them. Every time a Canadian with common sense increases their spending in one area, they find a way to decrease it in another so that they can pay the bills, instead of just continuing to add expenses to their credit card. That is how we are going to impose discipline.
We will also eliminate waste. The Canada Infrastructure Bank costs $35 billion and has not delivered one single infrastructure project. We will get rid of ArriveCAN. We will get rid of the Asian Infrastructure Bank, which sends our money to China to build pipelines. We are building pipelines in China and banning them here in Canada. That makes no sense. We are not here to build the ancient Chinese empire. We are here to build a good quality of life for Canadians here at home. That is common sense.
We will tell municipalities that, if they want infrastructure money, they have to approve more housing construction. The reason we do not have enough homes is that there is too much bureaucracy getting in the way of construction. Canada is the second-slowest OECD country when it comes to granting construction permits. How will we get municipalities to speed up the permitting process? We will say that the amount of infrastructure money they are going to get is tied to the number of houses built. It will be based on results. I will tell every municipality to allow 15% more construction. If they do more, they will get bonuses. If they do less, they will lose money. Those bureaucrats will be paid like realtors. Realtors get paid according to how much they sell. The federal government will pay municipal bureaucrats according to how much construction they allow. We will demand that every public transit station be surrounded by apartments. The money will flow once those apartments are built and occupied by people.
We are going to sell off 6,000 federal government buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build new homes. We are going to ask the federal agency that approves financing for apartments do so in two months instead of two years, or else we will fire their executives. It is easy. If you work in a senior position in my government and you do not keep your commitments, you will be fired. That is life. That is the real world. That is how life works for a carpenter or a mechanic. That is also how it will work for executives in my government. Eventually, this will speed up construction, after eight years of delays and people finding they can no longer buy houses.
Common sense also means putting real repeat offenders in prison instead of allowing them to commit the same acts of violence against Canadians over and over again.
We understand that some young people make mistakes. I get that, and we are going to rehabilitate them. However, we are not going to let people commit 40, 50 or 60 crimes over and over, each one more violent than the last, by releasing them, like the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals want to do. We want these criminals to go to prison. We do not want to let them out on bail or stay at home. We are going to offer treatment to people who are addicted to drugs, and we are going to stop targeting hunters and sport shooters.
The Bloc Québécois tried to help the Liberals ban hunting rifles. When the Liberals published 300 pages of hunting rifles that they wanted to ban, the Bloc member was there. It is on the video. They can deny it if they want, but there is video evidence. He was there and even said that it was his dream to see 300 pages of hunting rifles banned. Then all of a sudden, the Bloc members realized that there were hunters in the regions in Quebec.
That was quite a realization for the Bloc members, who spend most of their time with the lefties in Plateau-Mont-Royal, so it never occurred to them that there were hunters in Quebec. Like the Prime Minister, the Bloc Québécois had to back down because of Conservative pressure. The Bloc had to apologize and say that they would not try to ban hunting rifles after all, after hearing the Conservatives' strong arguments. Now that is common sense.
We know that this radical coalition will once again try to ban our hunters. People in the regions of Quebec will have to depend on the Conservative Party to protect their traditions, which have existed in Canada for thousands of years among indigenous peoples. I want to thank first nations for defending their right to hunt and opposing the Prime Minister's plan to ban their hunting rifles.
We are the only party that believes we should instead invest money in tightening the border against illegal guns. At the same time, we will put the real criminals in jail, while respecting hunters and sport shooters. That is common sense. Common sense is such a strange concept to our Bloc Québécois friends.
Common sense also means protecting our freedom. The Conservative Party is still the only party that voted against the censorship law. The Bloc Québécois voted to give Canada's federal bureaucrats in Ottawa the power to prevent Quebeckers from watching certain things online. Imagine a supposed sovereignist from Quebec saying that an official from a woke agency in Ottawa should be able to control what Quebeckers see and say on the Internet. We will never agree to that. The Conservative Party is the only party that will defend freedom of expression. Accordingly, we will scrap Bill C-11.
We cannot have freedom of expression without national freedom. That is why the Conservative Party is going to rebuild our army. This Prime Minister has wasted so much money by bungling procurement and delaying the F-35 aircraft replacement, for example. We are going to wipe out incompetence and waste and invest in helping our soldiers and rebuilding our army. We will stop giving money to dictatorships, terrorists and international bureaucracies and bring that money back here to Canada to rebuild our armed forces. We will defend our freedom by defending our military.
In conclusion, I know that, for most Canadians, things are miserable in Canada right now. Everything is broken. Do not take it from me. That is coming from two-thirds of Canadians polled. We have a Prime Minister who always wants to promote negativity. He is always negative. He tries to divide people.
I am here with a positive message, a common-sense message that gives hope to Canadians across the country. Yes, the future will be better than the eight years we have just gone through. Yes, we can have a country where people are free to earn big paycheques to buy food, fuel and affordable homes in safe communities. That is the goal of the Conservative Party. That is the goal of bringing home common sense.
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Some hon. members: More, more.
Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, I can only go where my caucus leads, and they are asking me to continue speaking. I can do no other. I am but their humble servant. The member across the way is also very humble, and he has much to be humble about, indeed, as does his entire government.
Today, I rise to speak about false Liberal advertising. What we have in the private sector are laws that could lead to the criminal prosecution of any business that advertises one thing and delivers the opposite. If somebody goes on television, tries to sell a product and then fails to deliver it after collecting payment, they can be sued civilly and maybe even charged criminally.
Weirdly, in politics, we call it law-making. We have a Prime Minister who literally brings programs before the House of Commons that do exactly the opposite of what they say. For example, he said he was going to spend millions of dollars buying back hunting rifles. What has this resulted in? A 100% increase in violent crime. He has a program that he says will help protect the media that has actually removed the media from social networks. We have a Prime Minister who has an $87-billion affordable housing program that has doubled the cost of housing. This the exact opposite of what he promised, and yet he took billions of dollars from Canadians in order to pay for it.
The Liberals were trumpeting their idea of an affordable food program for kids, and then we found out that there is no food in the program. We found that the program does not provide a single dollar for food. Here is what it does, and I have it right from the bill:
The Minister must, in consultation with the Minister of Health, representatives of the provincial governments responsible for health and education, other relevant stakeholders in those fields and representatives of Indigenous governing bodies, develop a national framework to establish a school food program
Let us just walk through all the steps, because we know that normally, in the real world, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but there were many points that were unrelated to kids actually having food in their belly. One minister would consult with another federal minister, who would consult with provincial ministers, who would consult with stakeholders, which is code for lobbyists, who would then develop a national framework to establish a school food program.
I note that the bill actually did not provide a single dollar to source anything of nutritional value, not a single calorie of nutrition is funded by the bill. It does not feed kids, it feeds bureaucracy.
This is an example of all of the wonderful labels and slogans Liberals put on their spending that actually does not deliver anything to the end-user. It is more self-service, not public service but self-service, of the bigger and fatter bureaucracy and the ecosystem of lobbyists, interest groups, researchers, bureaucrats, Crown CEOs and contractors who feast off all of the money that is hidden under these beautiful and unimpeachable slogans. There is the beautiful “Let's Protect Innocent Kittens Act”. Liberals will spend a billion dollars on that, but they will hire a bureaucrat who will create a department that will consult with paid interest groups, which will contract out their report writing to those who have expertise in PowerPoint. They will have hundreds of people feeding off this program, and the poor little kittens will be forgotten about in the end. Who thinks of the kittens? They do not actually get anything, not even a little bit of milk, because Liberals will carbon tax that as well.
That is the system of the government: It spends more to achieve less. As I said, there is an $87-billion housing program that is supposed to make housing affordable but that has doubled the cost of housing, doubled the rent, doubled the mortgage payment and doubled the needed down payment. Let us go through the numbers. When I was housing minister, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment was about $950 a month; now it is just under $2,000 a month. The average mortgage payment on an average home, newly purchased, was $1,400; today it is $3,500. The average down payment for a newly purchased standard-price home was $20,000. Imagine that. We almost cannot imagine it. The $20,000 amount for a down payment almost seems quaint. That was only eight years ago. Now, it is over $50,000.
The Prime Minister's main criticism of me is that I did not have big enough bureaucracies at the same time as I was making housing affordable. His measurement of success is not whether one delivers an end product to the end-user; it is whether one builds a big enough bureaucracy and line item in the budget to pay for it. Failing is bad; failing expensively is worse, and, boy, has he ever failed.
I recently produced a documentary called “Housing Hell: How we got here and how we get out”. Has anybody heard of it? I see that even some random Liberals on the backbench have heard of it, and that is nice, because they do not really get put to any good use. It is good that they were able to have a quiet 15 minutes to soak in the production.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, maybe I will make a few more that will add up to an hour, and then the member will have something to do with himself when he is away on Christmas break. Maybe that will be the Christmas gift that appears under the member's tree when he wakes up and opens his phone.
We have seen an absolute meltdown by the bought-and-paid-for media. First of all, they were furious that I went around them. How dare I communicate directly with Canadians, they asked. They proceeded, with no success, to try to poke holes in the documentary, which introduces a new fact roughly every 20 or 25 seconds for the entire 15-minute period. The media was desperate to find an error or a problem, and they could not find a single factual error in the entire documentary. They tried.
Let me review some of the undisputable facts, because they are all publicly sourced, with proof to show where they come from. For example, one headline said, “Nine out of 10 Canadians believe they will never own a home, survey shows”. That is right out of the Milton Reporter on April 25, 2022. It is so much worse now than it was back then. This headline was in The Globe and Mail: “This 57-year-old grandmother didn’t choose the van life. The housing crisis chose it for her”. That was in May 2023. Imagine the miserable life of this wonderful grandmother after eight years of the Prime Minister. Another news headline was that students are forced to live under bridges.
One might ask why I am quoting the media, of which I am critical, and it is because they fail to mention in any of these articles who the Prime Minister is who presided over the housing hell. They fail to assign blame to the person who actually caused the problem in the first place.
CBC/Radio-Canada, desperately flailing around trying to find fault with my documentary, recently said that I had no proof that it takes 66% of an average family's monthly income to make payments on the average home. The report comes from RBC, in its quarterly housing affordability calculation. It has been doing it for 40 years, and it is now higher than it has ever been in its recorded history. That is because housing costs have not only grown but have also vastly outgrown our very poor and miserable wage growth under the Prime Minister.
CBC/Radio-Canada then went on to its next excuse, claiming that Canada's housing hell is just part of some global phenomenon. That is an easy claim to dispute and disprove because, of course, our housing hell is so much worse than that of any other country on earth. For example, Toronto is rated by UBS Bank as the worst housing bubble in the world. Vancouver is the sixth. Both of them were rated as moderately expensive only 10 years ago.
If one wants a different measure, go to Demographia, which has a very simple formula. It divides the average house price in a country or a city by the average income. Based on that measure, Vancouver is the third and Toronto the 10th most overpriced housing market in the world, worse than Manhattan; Los Angeles; Chicago; London, England; and even Singapore, a country with 2,000 times more people per square kilometre than Canada has. Look at the comparison with the United States. The average American housing prices, depending on the measurement, are 25% to 40% cheaper. In border towns, house prices on the Canadian side, 15 minutes away, are often double or even triple the prices of those south of the border.
A two-bedroom house in Kitchener now costs more than a castle in Sweden. In fact, the OECD did a measurement of the growth in house prices relative to the growth in incomes in all of the roughly 40 OECD countries, and Canada saw the second-worst deterioration of housing affordability since the Prime Minister took office in 2015. No, one cannot blame it on some global phenomenon; it is a uniquely Canadian hell and a uniquely here-and-now hell. The Prime Minister is responsible.
I find they say that the Prime Minister really has nothing to do with housing—
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to speak to this important issue and this very interesting bill, which was introduced by our colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île. I thank him for initiating this debate.
I am also very proud to be part of a political party that has recognized Quebec as a nation for many years, even before this Parliament did so. Other political parties did so too. We just heard the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent talk a little bit about that a few moments ago. I am not just mentioning it because he was motioning to me that I should emphasize that. It is true.
What is a nation? I am not going to give a sociology lesson, but I think that we can all agree that the things that define a nation are language, history, culture, institutions, lifestyle and other factors. Some of the essential components of culture are the singers and songwriters, music and TV shows we are exposed to. I was lucky to grow up in a house where we were surrounded by books, by Quebec and French literature, as well as by music by Quebec and French singers and songwriters. We listened to Félix Leclerc, Georges Brassens, Diane Dufresne, Claude Dubois and many others.
Because we were immersed in this atmosphere, we fell in love with the French language, with Quebec culture, with our Quebec songs and TV shows. Now I am about to say two things that will give away my age. First of all, when I was a kid, if we wanted to change channels, we had to get up off the sofa. There was a little dial on the television set, and there were not many stations either. Second, I am of the generation that grew up watching the original Passe-Partout.
The whole atmosphere of Quebec television and music shapes each generation and creates cultural touchstones. This builds connections between people and communities. We had these major television events that everyone tuned in to watch. They often reached the rest of Canada too if they were broadcast by Radio-Canada. The TV show Les Beaux Dimanches, for example, featured classical music and theatrical plays. It was broadcast everywhere.
These were major television events. It is important for us to have them, because it is important to preserve social cohesion and this bond that unites all Quebeckers and, if possible, all francophones across Canada. However, that bond is eroding over time. In my family, there are four children between the ages of 13 and 23. Their reality is completely changing, completely different. As a parent, I remember that the last big TV show in my house was Les Parent. We watched it as a family with the kids. There was also Les Bougon at one point. There is also Tout le monde en parle, which is still a great television event.
Of course we need a way to ensure that the CRTC's regulatory framework respects the linguistic and cultural requirements of Quebec, which is a nation. What Bill C‑354 proposes today is not all that complicated. It proposes that Quebec be consulted before any regulations are made and come into force if they relate to Quebec's cultural distinctiveness. This is no big deal. It is nothing revolutionary. I think it makes a lot of sense. It is just plain common sense, which should make my Conservative friends happy. We should be able to go knock on the door of the Government of Quebec to let it know about regulations that will impact broadcasting in Quebec, so that we can gather its feedback and figure out a way to work things out. I do not think that is asking too much at all.
As a New Democrat, I find it interesting that the Bloc Québécois's bill states the following: “to provide that the [CRTC] must, in furtherance of its objects and in the exercise of its powers, consult with the Government of Quebec or the governments of the other provinces, as the case may be, before regulating aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system that relate to the cultural distinctiveness of Quebec or that concern French-speaking markets”.
The bill therefore includes francophone minorities outside Quebec. That is very important to us, too, because this is not exclusive to the Government of Quebec, and it could be just as important for the CRTC to consult francophone communities outside Quebec, such as New Brunswick Acadians. Manitoba also has a sizable francophone community. This can have repercussions for those communities.
I think that, when Bill C‑354 goes to committee to be studied and improved by amendment, we absolutely have to make sure that representatives of francophone communities outside Quebec and Acadian communities can come and be heard. They should have a chance to tell us how they see this, whether they think it is a good thing, what the obligations should be and under what circumstances the CRTC would have an obligation to consult them or their provincial governments. This is something that matters very much to the NDP caucus. This is the kind of thing we will want to clarify, verify and maybe amend in committee.
I also think that the committee's study should include some reflection on the rules governing radio and television broadcasting of content in indigenous languages. There are two official languages, of course, one of which is and always will be endangered and vulnerable, given our demographic position in North America. However, there is also the recognition of indigenous nations, which are producing more and more interesting content in television and especially in music. I was at the ADISQ gala recently, and some very successful, talented people won awards. How can we make sure we do not forget about the cultural vitality of many indigenous nations, the Métis and the Inuit? They also need to be taken into consideration to ensure they are not shunted aside and forgotten, as they were for far too long in the past.
I think we also need to collectively reflect on how to make francophone and Quebec content more attractive, but also more accessible and discoverable. There are some absolutely extraordinary musical works, TV shows, videos and movies out there. How do we make sure that they are seen by our young people, teenagers and young adults? How do we make sure that this content, which is truly a reflection of who we are here in Quebec, Canada or North America, can be seen, heard, listened to and shared?
My fear, which I shared a bit earlier today, is that we do not live in the same environment as the one I grew up in, where I had to get up off the sofa to change the channel. The vast majority of the content that is promoted to our young people comes from the U.S. and is in English. I think that we need to reflect on this and find a way to give make these works and this Quebec and francophone content easier to access.
It is hard because we cannot go into every teenager's iPhone or iPad and tell them what they should do or listen to. I think this is an extremely serious cultural problem: the loss of major television events and the fact that our cultural offerings often come under the heel of American imperialism. Our offerings are so fragmented and so broad that it makes us wonder how we are going to be able to legislate and regulate all this. Can we really have a francophone and Quebec culture that is going to be vibrant, attractive and seen, but also profitable? These artists and artisans need to be able to make a living from their work, after all.
I think that we need to do a lot of collaborative thinking. We started to do so awhile back with Bill C-11 on discoverability, on the idea of forcing these digital platforms to promote French-language content and make it visible. These international companies are highly resistant to any attempt to force them to put prompts on their home pages to ensure that these songs, movies and TV shows are accessible and profitable. We can no longer rely on the traditional over-the-air channels to present these works. They need to be on YouTube, Netflix and Spotify. They need to be discoverable. There needs to be a French or Quebec category. How can we ensure that these web giants accept the unique status of Quebeckers and francophone minorities outside Quebec in order to make that possible? We need to find the right restrictions or incentives to make that happen. I think that this bill is a good start when it comes to consulting the Government of Quebec, but we need to put our heads together to take this a lot further.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate on a bill introduced by my Bloc Québécois colleague.
We obviously agree with the principle that Quebec should be heard in this situation, and I will tell you why. We need to go back to last February when the Government of Quebec, through its culture minister, called on the federal government in Ottawa, the Liberal government, to listen to what it had to say and to consult about Bill C-11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act.
I will read the letter that Minister Lacombe sent to his federal counterpart. It says, “It is essential that the distinctiveness of Quebec and the unique reality of French-speaking markets be properly considered in Bill C-11 and in its implementation by the CRTC. In that regard, I want to reiterate our requirement that the act include a mandatory, formal consultation mechanism with the Government of Quebec for that purpose.” Furthermore, Quebec “must always have its say before instructions are given to the CRTC to guide its actions under this act when those actions could affect businesses that provide services in Quebec or the Quebec market.”
That was from the letter that the Minister of Culture sent to his federal counterpart on February 4. The government's response? Radio silence. It eventually acknowledged receipt of the letter, but that is all. The government never stepped up to be proactive and hear what Quebec had to say on the matter. In fact, the National Assembly went so far as to adopt a unanimous motion calling on the House of Commons to consult Quebec in a parliamentary committee so that it might voice its demands with respect to Bill C‑11. Unfortunately, the Liberal government's response was once again complete and utter radio silence.
We Conservatives brought the voice of the National Assembly to the House of Commons not once, twice or three times, but about 15 times. We did it right here during question period all the way from February 14 to March 7. My colleague, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute‑Saint‑Charles and our political lieutenant for Quebec, and I asked the government 15 questions about why it was refusing to hear from Quebec in committee. Of course we did. When a national assembly speaks with a unified voice and a government demands to be heard, that is the very foundation of parliamentary democracy. People deserve to be listened to, all the more so when a government like the National Assembly and its 125 elected members demand to be heard. Of course they should be heard. They were not heard, however. It has been radio silence here, and nobody else has said a word either.
That is too bad. We wanted Quebec to be heard during the consideration of Bill C‑11, but that never happened. However, my colleague for Charlesbourg—Haute‑Saint‑Charles and I raised the issue in the House about 15 times during question period. We also took the debate to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage at its meeting last March 10, when I moved a motion specifically asking that Quebec be heard on this bill. Unfortunately, but predictably, the Liberal Party refused.
Quite surprisingly, even the Bloc Québécois voted against the motion we brought forward at that meeting, which asked that we reconsider the bill and hear from the Government of Quebec on the matter, because the Senate had proposed quite a lot of amendments. Strangely, the Bloc Québécois did not vote in favour of our request. That is too bad.
For these reasons, we certainly want to hear what Quebec has to say about its cultural distinctiveness, particularly in the context of Bill C-11. Speaking of which, let us keep in mind that yesterday, the government puffed out its chest and made a financial announcement that it had secured $100 million from Google. Interesting. That is exactly what the government could have gotten a year ago. That is basically what Google offered. In the end, it took a year to come up with pretty much the same proposal that Google had made.
On the radio this morning, many people were wondering whether Radio-Canada would have access to the $100 million. The answer came this morning in parliamentary committee, thanks to my colleague, the member for Lethbridge, who asked specific questions to find out where things are headed. The minister quite clearly confirmed that Radio-Canada would be among the media receiving part of this sum, which is precisely the opposite of what the Quebec government was calling for again this morning through its culture minister, Mathieu Lacombe.
Now we have a bill that has been introduced. However, the part of the conversation that cannot be ignored is the fact that we Conservatives have been asking for weeks and weeks for Quebec to be heard. The government refused to listen. We asked for this in parliamentary committee and, oddly enough, the Bloc Québécois voted against it, which was unfortunate. Now, however, the Bloc is introducing this bill.
For us, it is important that linguistic minorities be heard and that provincial governments tell us what they have to say on the matter. These things are not mutually exclusive. It goes without saying that minority language communities must be heard. That is actually part of the legislation governing the CRTC, but we still need to go a step further. We must ensure that all avenues are preserved.
New technology means that people can go anywhere. Earlier, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie said that young people no longer watch television, or at least they do not watch it like we used to do. Now they can go on Spotify or on any other global platform. Indeed, this poses some challenges. That is why we need to pay even more attention to linguistic cultural minorities in every community and every province.
I will remind members that we asked for Quebec to be heard. This is particularly important because we are talking about Quebec, which, as we know, is the home of the French fact in North America. As we know, the French language is currently vulnerable, and always will be. Now, with numbers to back it up, it is clear that French is under threat in the province of Quebec, particularly in Montreal, where more than half—or close—of the province lives. We must remain vigilant. We must wage a constant battle to ensure that Quebec does not lose ground.
An editorial in Le Devoir said that Quebec should definitely have a voice in the study of Bill C-11. I would like to quote a February 16 editorial written by Louise-Maude Rioux Soucy, who said, “The National Assembly's unanimous adoption of a motion demanding ‘that Québec be officially consulted on the directions that will be given to the CRTC’ makes perfect sense”. That is exactly what we Conservatives have been asking for in the House and in committee, and the author of the editorial confirms it by saying the following:
That is also the opinion of the Conservatives, the Legault government's objective allies in this inelegant showdown. It is up to Quebec to define its cultural orientations in order to protect its language, culture and identity. BIll C-11, like Bill C-18, which seeks to ensure the fairness and viability of the Canadian digital news market, cannot escape this imperative. Minister Lacombe is right to speak up.
That sounds a lot like what we Conservatives have been saying for weeks and weeks here in the House and in parliamentary committee.
This bill will obviously be studied in committee. It needs to be examined. There are a few items that need to be clarified. We believe that it contains a lot of vague elements and that definitions need to be incorporated. We will have the opportunity to delve deeper into the bill when it is studied in committee.
In closing, I cannot overlook the extraordinary affection that our leader, the member for Carleton, has for the francophone community and especially for Quebec. I will quote from the speech he delivered at our national convention in Quebec City. He said:
Quebeckers are fighting to preserve their language and culture.... That is why Ana and I are determined to speak French to our children and to send them to a French school. That is also why I voted in the House of Commons to recognize the Quebec nation. I will always be an ally to Quebec, the Acadian people and all francophones across the country. A less centralized government will leave room for a greater Quebec and greater Quebeckers.
It was the leader of the official opposition who said that. I also want to note that for the leader of the official opposition, the member for Carleton, Quebec is a model that should inspire English Canadians. Once again, I will quote the speech he delivered in Quebec City.
He said, “This business of deleting our past must end.” He also said, “And this is a matter on which English Canada must learn from Quebec. Quebecers—and I’m saying this in English deliberately—do not apologize for their culture, language, or history. They celebrate it. All Canadians should do the same.”
Those are the words of the future Prime Minister with whom I am very proud to serve.
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Madam Speaker, on September 19, Bill C-354, an act to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act regarding the cultural specificity of Quebec and the Francophonie was tabled and read for the first time. From the outset, I would like to thank the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île for giving me the opportunity to reiterate our government's commitment to supporting the French language.
Bill C-354 aims to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, and this is closely tied to the government's ongoing work to ensure a broadcasting system in Canada that reflects the evolution of our digital world and in which all Canadians, including Quebeckers and members of the Canadian Francophonie, see themselves represented. In fact, closely linked is an understatement. The government's efforts have already been going very much in the same direction as the objective of this bill.
On February 2, 2022, our government introduced Bill C-11, aimed at reforming the Broadcasting Act so that Canadian laws reflect the evolution of our digital world. The latter aimed to clarify that online broadcasting services fall under the act, to ensure that the CRTC has the appropriate tools, to encourage greater diversity and inclusion in the broadcasting sector and to better reflect Canadian society.
The legislative process surrounding Bill C-11 took a very long time. Indeed, one year to the day passed between the initial tabling of the bill in the House and its adoption at third reading by the Senate. Both the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications spent many hours dissecting, analyzing, hearing from witnesses and refining Bill C-11. During the same legislative process, several modifications were made to Bill C-11 to strengthen the commitment to the French language and official language minority communities.
The Broadcasting Act, as recently amended, put in place new guarantees to ensure continued support for the production and broadcast of original French-language productions, the majority of which are produced in the province of Quebec. What is more, the CRTC is required to interpret the Broadcasting Act in a manner that respects the Government of Canada's commitment to promoting the vitality of Canada's French-speaking and English-speaking minorities and supporting their development. Added to this is the fact that the act provides that regulations must take into account regional concerns and needs. It should also be noted that the government is already actively consulting the provinces and territories, particularly when it comes to broadcasting.
At each stage of the process surrounding the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, the provinces and territories were consulted. In particular, the government consulted its provincial and territorial counterparts as part of the consultations related to the decree of instructions proposed to the CRTC concerning the implementation of the law.
The final decree also contains various instructions to support the official languages of Canada and official language minority communities. The decree recognizes, among other things, the minority nature of the French language in Canada and North America and the fact that the broadcasting system should promote the development of Canada's official language minority communities and promote full recognition and use of French and English in Canadian society. A section was even added to the final version of the decree to support the creation and availability of programming in French.
In addition, for its part, the CRTC has published a road map describing the main stages of the implementation of the act and is already actively consulting the public. It should be noted that as an administrative tribunal, the CRTC already holds in-depth consultations before making decisions under the rules of practice and procedure that it adopted in order to respect the principles of procedural fairness and of natural justice incumbent upon it. Provinces and territories have the opportunity to participate in CRTC consultations. To this end, the provinces and territories, including Quebec, can already present observations to the CRTC on issues of provincial interest during hearings and consultations.
It is important to specify that the Government of Quebec has the right and already uses its right to intervene in the CRTC's consultative processes. The Broadcasting Act provides for three forms of consultation, depending on the decisions it is considering. They are, in no particular order, one, with official language minority communities on any decision likely to have a detrimental effect on them; two, with CBC/Radio-Canada on its conditions of services; and three, with any interested party for decisions regarding conditions of services. The latter is an open consultation, where provinces and territories and, in fact, any interested intervenor can put forward their opinions and concerns.
In other words, the addition of the consultation obligation provided for by Bill C-354 could raise concerns that are being addressed in the course of the work of the CRTC and under the requirements of the Broadcasting Act. An obligation for the CRTC to consult elected provincial governments could also have an impact on public confidence and the independence of the CRTC. It is important that we are all mindful of not just the independence of the CRTC but the importance of that independence.
As outlined, “The CRTC is an administrative tribunal that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in the public interest. [It is] dedicated to ensuring that Canadians have access to a world-class communication system that promotes innovation and enriches [the] lives [of Canadians].”
Further to this, under the section of the CRTC's own website entitled “We listen and collaborate”, it states that, in order to “fulfill [its] mandate, [it] must understand the needs and interests of Canadians who make use of broadcasting and telecommunications services.”
In conclusion, the government supports and will continue to support the French language. The Online Streaming Act and the act to amend the Official Languages Act are concrete examples of our commitment to the French language. Once more, the government regularly consults the provinces and territories, including Quebec.
The minister has consulted her counterparts on numerous occasions when it comes to regulating the broadcasting sector. The government will welcome any questions from members regarding Bill C-354 as the debate on this legislation continues.
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moved that Bill C‑354, An Act to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act (Quebec's cultural distinctiveness and French-speaking communities), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois's Bill C‑354 seeks to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act so that the CRTC must consult with the Government of Quebec about the cultural distinctiveness of Quebec and with the governments of the other provinces about their French-speaking markets before carrying out its mandate and exercising its powers with regard to aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system that relate to those things.
Essentially, Bill C‑354 seeks to protect Quebec's cultural distinctiveness and the francophone community in the enforcement of the new Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act. That involves organizing consultations with the Government of Quebec and the provincial governments before regulating aspects that relate to the cultural distinctiveness of Quebec.
This bill responds to an official request from the Government of Quebec during the debates surrounding Bill C‑11 for the federal government to set up a mandatory, formal consultation mechanism with the Government of Quebec. Quebec wants to have its say before the CRTC takes any action that could affect businesses providing services in Quebec or the Quebec market. The motion adopted by the Quebec National Assembly in this regard specifies that Quebec intends to use all of the tools at its disposal to protect its language, culture and identity.
Bill C‑354 also constructively responds to the federal government's disturbing decision last year to end the tradition of alternating the CRTC chairship between francophones and anglophones. The bill is also consistent with the House of Commons' recognition that Quebeckers form a nation. Quebeckers form a distinct people, a nation with a unique identity based on our history, and particularly on our culture and language. It is only natural, and even essential, for a nation to manage its culture. Access to Quebec's common public language and culture allows newcomers to participate in and enrich Quebec society, and to enjoy the same rights and obligations as every Quebecker.
The idea of being sovereign in telecommunications management is not new. In 1929, Quebec Premier Louis-Alexandre Taschereau passed the law governing broadcasting in that province. However, instead of working with Quebec, in 1932, Ottawa responded to Taschereau's idea by creating the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, the forerunner of the current CRTC, under the Canadian Broadcasting Act. The idea of being sovereign in telecommunications management remained alive, despite federal interference.
In 1968, Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson said the following:
The assignment of broadcasting frequencies cannot and must not be the prerogative of the federal government. Quebec can no longer tolerate being excluded from a field where its vital interest is so obvious.
Between 1990 and 1992, the Quebec minister of communications at the time, Liberal Lawrence Cannon, prepared a draft Quebec proposal that read as follows:
Quebec must be able to establish the rules for operating radio and television systems, and control development plans for telecommunications networks, service rates and the regulation of new telecommunications services.... Quebec cannot let others control programming for electronic media within its borders.... To that end, Quebec must have full jurisdiction and be able to deal with a single regulatory body.
In 2006, that same Lawrence Cannon became a minister in the Conservative cabinet under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
On April 9, 2008, Liberal ministers Christine Saint‑Pierre and Benoît Pelletier sent a letter to the Conservatives in Ottawa—Josée Verner and Rona Ambrose at the time—to conclude repatriation agreements in the culture, broadcasting and telecommunications sector.
This is what it said:
The purpose of this letter is to express the will of Quebec to engage, as soon as possible, in discussions on concluding a Canada-Quebec agreement on the communications sector...and a Canada-Quebec agreement on culture.
Considering the distinct culture of Quebec, the only French-speaking state in North America, we believe that concluding such an administrative agreement would make it possible to better reflect the specific characteristics of Quebec content in broadcasting and telecommunications, and would serve as recognition of the importance of protecting and promoting Quebec's specific culture.
The Bloc Québécois is convinced that telecommunications and broadcasting are of capital importance for the vitality of Quebec culture. That is clear. That is why we are of the opinion that, ultimately, these sectors need to be regulated by Quebec. This should happen under a Quebec radio-television and telecommunications commission, a QRTC. That is the only approach that would allow us to have full control, to be masters of the decisions that concern our language and culture.
Quebec must have the tools needed to promote a diversified Quebec offer in the television markets and on digital platforms, which are increasingly predatory. As the serious media crisis in the province shows, from the small regional newspapers to the restructuring of Groupe TVA, it is crucial to maintain a francophone diversity of information sources and plurality of voices, regardless of the size of the media group.
Furthermore, the Internet deployment strategy must be better aligned with Quebec’s interests, particularly to ensure the right to a stable, affordable, quality connection. Quebec’s cultural development hinges on the ability to determine its own transmission terms, namely for television, radio and new media. Should the government of Quebec deem that a decision goes against the public interest, it is the National Assembly that would call for a review.
The closure of radio station CKAC in 2005 illustrates the government of Quebec’s inability to influence decisions that directly impact its duty to develop, promote and disseminate our culture. Despite a unanimous motion from the National Assembly, adopted on March 10, 2005, calling for CKAC to stay on the air, the CRTC kept silent and allowed this historic radio station to shut down.
Furthermore, this is not even a partisan issue in Quebec. All governments since the Taschereau era have argued for Quebec's independence in managing its telecommunications. It is therefore particularly frustrating to run into refusals or downright ignorance. The many times Ottawa has stayed silent demonstrate contempt, if not federal indifference, toward Quebec’s culture and its political institutions.
That said, our right to develop our own culture will not be won through the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly ruled that telecommunications and broadcasting fall under federal jurisdiction. However, the members of the House of Commons have the authority to delegate this administrative power if they are willing to do so. One such agreement already exists. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police delegated its powers to the Sûreté du Québec to protect the province. The Sûreté du Québec manages interprovincial heavy transportation and issues freshwater fishing licences. All it would take is a bit of political will to sign an administrative agreement that would change the fate of Quebec culture.
If it so wished, the federal government could change the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act today to include such an administrative agreement. This is how EI pilot projects are integrated into the Employment Insurance Act.
Introducing Bill C‑354 is a modest attempt to ensure that Quebeckers enjoy a modicum of respect when it comes to their right to culture and managing their telecommunications. It is the least that can be done.
In an ideal world, the Quebec government would pass legislation to create a Quebec radio-television and telecommunications commission, a QRTC. The CRTC could then delegate the management of Quebec's licenses to the QRTC, which would regulate telecommunications and broadcasting companies that operate in Quebec. This would remedy the injustice that has persisted for a hundred years.
The decline of the French language and culture is undeniable. It is now crucial that we take the necessary steps to protect them.
We therefore invite members from all parties who care about Quebec culture and the francophone community to vote in favour of our bill.
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Madam Speaker, it is called the chamber of sober second thought, but right now that chamber seems to be drunk on power. When it finds problematic elements in bills like Bill C-11, that is one thing, but I would implore all of my colleagues to consider if this was their private member's bill. Let us say it passed through the democratically elected House of Commons, only to have, for the second time, a motion that senators decided was so important, despite having no involvement with the legislation, that they needed to amend the bill to make sure it cannot be renewed through an OIC and it has to go through a long bureaucratic process again. If that is what the senator felt so compelled to do, I feel sorry for her, because this House passed the bill and the Senate needs to pass it too.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my Conservative colleague for her comments today.
I admit that the members of the Bloc Québécois have mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are tempted to agree with what the Conservatives are saying about the Senate today, but on the other, we have a duty to defend the process that is under way.
I am fascinated to see that the Conservatives take a different view of the Senate's work depending on whether or not they agree with the bill it is studying. I remember when senators took the time they needed, and then some, before passing Bill C-11. We never heard anything from the Conservatives about how senators are unelected and had no business delaying a bill that way.
Today, I fail to understand the Conservatives' attempt to literally gag the Senate. We have mixed feelings about that.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts about this. What is the problem? Bill C-234 is at third reading in the Senate. That is how things are usually done. Now, the Conservatives are acting almost like Bloc members, denouncing these unelected members of the Senate who are making decisions that should be made by the House of Commons.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.
Today, I rise to speak to the government's legislation, Bill C-52, enhancing transparency and accountability in the transportation system act. The bill was initially introduced by the former minister of transport. Bill C-52 has far-reaching implications for Canada's transportation system, and as the official opposition, it is our duty to ensure it will truly meet the serious and ongoing concerns many Canadians have within the transportation sector.
The bill proposes to set publicly reported service standards for private sector companies and government agencies responsible for air travel at Canada's airports almost exclusively through regulations, which would be created by the minister and the cabinet.
Furthermore, it proposes to require airport authorities to formalize noise consultation processes and environmental standards, and to publish information on their directors and senior management. Finally, Bill C-52 aims to amend the Canada Marine Act regarding the setting of fees by Canadian port authorities.
First and foremost, the timing of the bill's introduction raises concerns. Bill C-52 was presented on June 20, just one day before the House recessed for the summer. That raises questions about the government's motivations and intentions. It is essential to consider whether the timing was chosen to deflect attention from previous travel-related crises and to create an impression of swift action.
Between the summers of 2022 and 2023, Canadian travellers faced a disastrous travel season with numerous flight cancellations and unacceptable delays. Previous to that was the disastrous mismanagement of passports that affected travellers, but that is a whole other issue. In particular, the Christmas travel season last year brought further chaos and frustration in airports. Those events highlighted the need for significant improvements in our transportation system.
However, the Liberals are focusing on announcements and consultations rather than delivering tangible results for Canadian travellers. What is their solution? It is to empower themselves further.
One of the most pressing issues within our transportation system is the backlog of complaints with the Canadian Transportation Agency, the CTA. This backlog has grown by 3,000 complaints per month and has resulted in a staggering 60,000 complaints now waiting to be adjudicated.
That backlog represents thousands of Canadian passengers who had their travel experiences disrupted or delayed, or had some form of service situation, and all those people are awaiting resolutions. Those passengers have been unable to resolve their compensation claims with airlines, and they have now been asked to wait over 18 months to have their complaints considered by the Canadian Transportation Agency.
This adds insult to injury and prolongs what could be serious problems. People are out-of-pocket, and airlines are not being held accountable for mismanagement and poor service.
Most recently, we heard damning reports of Air Canada's and WestJet's treatment of passengers with disabilities. For Air Canada, in one case in May, two employees, instead of being trained on the proper equipment, attempted to physically lift a passenger but ended up dropping him. In another report, a woman's ventilator was disconnected and a lift fell on her head. A man was forced to physically drag himself off a flight in Vancouver. Air Canada admitted it had violated federal accessibility regulations.
We heard that those passengers got notice, forgiveness and, hopefully, amends to which they are entitled, and Air Canada said it would be looking to ensure proper compliance. I am looking forward to ensuring that Air Canada's CEO will be appearing before the human resources committee I serve on, as we have called for him to testify and to explain to Canadians exactly how this airline intends to comply.
The latest example was from WestJet where a paralympian was forced to lift herself up the stairs to the plane. It was reported that she commented that she was frustrated and humiliated, and there was a ramp within 50 metres.
All those situations are disturbing, disappointing and unacceptable for persons with disabilities to have gone through. Unfortunately, Bill C-52, which we are debating here today, does not provide solutions to eliminate the complaints backlog or set specific service standards within accountability mechanisms.
Federally regulated entities involved in air travel must also be held accountable for delays or cancellations. They include airlines, airports, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, Nav Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency. However, this legislation falls short of those expectations.
While the bill addresses some aspects of accountability and transparency, it fails to hold all relevant entities responsible for ensuring smooth and reliable air travel. A comprehensive approach to accountability should encompass all stakeholders involved in the travel experience. One of the significant concerns with Bill C-52 is the concentration of power in the hands of the minister and the cabinet to develop regulations in the future.
While regulatory flexibility can be useful, this bill does not include concrete improvements in legislation. We see this often with the Liberal government, where so much is left to regulation, which leads to uncertainty and lack of transparency. We saw this with the Internet censorship bill, Bill C-11, and with the disability benefits bill. Instead, this legislation relies on promises of future regulations, which raise concerns about vagueness and the potential for arbitrary decision-making. It is not even a band-aid. It is an IOU for a band-aid.
In a matter as critical as transportation where there is essential service provided, and the comfort and convenience of the Canadian people are at stake, it is crucial that regulations are well defined and not left to the discretion of the government and the minister of the day. The lack of this clear direction with specific remedies in this bill to address the long-standing problems in our transportation system is a significant shortcoming. While the bill aspires to enhance transparency and accountability in the transportation system, it fails to deliver. It fails to provide the concrete solutions to the issues that have been plaguing the system for years. As for the results and who will be held accountable, there are no answers in this legislation.
We need legislation that not only identifies problems but also provides tangible solutions. It is our responsibility as legislators to ensure that any legislation passed is effective and beneficial to the Canadian people. Bill C-52, as it stands, is lacking.
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Mr. Speaker, there are some good ideas in Bills C‑11 and C‑18, but, for now, they are not working. They are not doing anything. That is why, pending the conclusion of negotiations with the web giants in the case of Bill C‑18, an emergency fund for the media is required. That is reasonable. It is essential to maintain the diversity of information in the short term. In the long term, much more will be needed.
Now, we can send a clear message to our media that we are taking action to save them. Will the minister quickly set up an emergency fund before we find out that other newsrooms are closing in our media?
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Madam Speaker, once again, our thoughts are with the workers and their families, particularly as the holiday season approaches.
This situation could have been avoided and all of those workers would still have jobs if the Conservatives had not spent the past few years opposing Bill C-11. Yes, Bill C‑11 is enough. Yes, we are here with a bill that is in place to help save media jobs. We managed to get Bill C‑11 passed, and it will provide solutions to protect thousands of well-paying jobs.
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Madam Speaker, a full-blown atomic bomb has dropped on the world of Quebec television. TVA, the most-watched television network in Quebec, will be laying off 547 people, a third of its workforce. We are losing extraordinary artisans of our culture. It is catastrophic.
It is catastrophic, but not surprising, unfortunately. If this is happening to TVA, all of our media are at risk. We have to rethink everything, if we want to save our media. A massive undertaking is needed.
Does the Minister of Canadian Heritage seriously think that Bills C-11 and C-18 are enough to save Quebec media?
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Madam Speaker, my heart goes out to the journalists and workers at Quebecor and TVA, all the 500 employees who lost their jobs yesterday. This is not good news for Quebec. This decision was made by a private company. We always support journalism and information sharing.
That is why Bill C‑11 is so important. We hope that the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives will vote with us to support Canadian and Quebec journalism.
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