- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Drummond
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $108,134.67
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank and congratulate my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his speech. We certainly did work hard on Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage with the other committee members. In general, we worked in a very constructive manner. I really appreciated that.
In September, I had the privilege of attending Mondiacult, a world conference on culture, in Mexico City. While I was there, I met with representatives from African countries, who told me that they were keeping an eye on the work that we are doing here in the House of Commons to regulate the news sector and the cultural sector with respect to the web giants. They told us that they are watching us because they do not have the same weight as Canada in terms of negotiating deals and in taking measures. They told us to stay strong.
Now we are seeing Google and Facebook threatening to remove or block access to Canadian news content. That is what Meta recently did. I would like to hear my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby's opinion on this. How important is it to take a firm stance with the web giants, knowing that we are setting an example for other countries and other nations that will soon have to make their own laws?
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Madam Speaker, it was very brave of you to ask my colleague from Winnipeg North to ask a very brief question, but he managed it, and I congratulate him. My answer will be brief.
I do not know. We will never know, because of the time allocation motion adopted earlier. I would have liked to give democracy a chance over the next few days to extend the debate into Thursday or Friday. We could have done that, correct?
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Madam Speaker, when a journalist loses their job in a region like Côte-Nord, it is not just serious, it is tragic. The news that comes from community media or other small regional media outlets, which are often newsrooms run on a shoestring budget, is vital.
It is these news media outlets, which are often run by passionate people covering three or four jobs in the radio station or the small local newspaper, that transmit critical news to residents. If this service disappears because Google and Facebook act in bad faith and neglect these media outlets in negotiations or simply skip over them and ignore them under any pretext, such as a lack of money, something absolutely must be done. We need to be there to support them and help them survive.
It is not the size of the media outlet that is important, or the number of journalists in the newsroom. As I was saying, they too must be saved because they are essential. Whether there are one of them or 12, they provide a service to the public that must be maintained at all costs.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Repentigny for her question and her hard work.
It is good to talk about Mr. Sims, because he gave us the Australian perspective. Australia is much further along in applying its code. Talking to Mr. Sims gave us a different perspective and insight into what our next steps would be. True, Australia has run into issues, but this did not diminish Mr. Sims' strong support for these regulations.
I do not know why he was unable to convince those who were not already convinced. This is often how it goes. The parties have already made up their mind at the outset. The other side can make all the arguments they want, but it takes a modicum of good faith to accept them, and there may not have been any.
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Madam Speaker, I think that every form of journalism that respects the fundamental rules of integrity, independence, meticulousness and respect for people and sources is essential. In-depth reporting by investigative journalists striving to dig deeper into the stories is also essential, and we need to keep it alive as well.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Bow River because he is a staunch defender of small media outlets and the regional media, the local papers he talks about so passionately. He did a great job of defending them and representing them during the committee study.
Originally, long before Bill C-18 was tabled, the Bloc Québécois's idea was that we should create a royalty fund financed by the web giants' profits. That is not what the industry wanted, so the Bloc got behind the idea of a bill based on what Australia did. That is what the industry and the whole community wanted.
However, if there are smaller media outlets or outlets that are not eligible but are still essential to regional news coverage, then we should implement emergency measures to help them and support them financially. The fund I was talking about earlier could be added to a measure like Bill C‑18. It could target and clearly identify small media outlets, like the ones my colleague from Bow River was talking about, that will have a hard time of it because they cannot get ahead. Once the bill has been implemented, I think that there might be more of an appetite for that type of proposal.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I too enjoy the work we do and our close collaboration at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Most of the time, our work has been constructive.
There is a reason journalism and news are called the fourth estate. The news media has a duty and an important role to play in society. I said “important”, but I really mean “essential”.
If Bill C-18 is not passed, more media outlets will shutter, continuing a more than decade-long trend. The news media are in trouble. Bill C‑18 is one of the tools we need to ensure their survival. If it is not passed, we could lose more media outlets, including regional media, which would be especially unfortunate.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to pick up where we left off last night.
I have to say I was a little disappointed. We had a great opportunity to debate Bill C‑18 last night, but we were cut off at about 6:30 p.m. in the middle of my speech. I had about 12 minutes to go. The classy thing to do would have been to let me finish my speech before interrupting the proceedings. Let us not talk about that right now. Let us talk about Bill C‑18 for the time we have left because, as everyone knows, the House just voted in favour of time allocation.
During the debates on Bill C‑18, there was a lot of talk about money. Basically, people talked about the financial difficulties news outlets have been experiencing for decades, ever since the web giants came on the scene and helped themselves to the lion's share of advertising revenue. People have talked a lot about money, which is certainly important because that is the crux of the matter, obviously. That is what news outlets need in order to succeed and keep providing the essential service they provide: high-quality, independent, fact-checked, thorough information; essentially, news that meets recognized journalistic standards.
Bill C‑18 will benefit the news sector. It will most likely help save many news businesses. That is the objective of the bill, and I think that it will largely achieve that objective. Today, I also wanted to talk about something else that Bill C‑18 will help preserve or even save, and that is journalism itself. We have heard all kinds of things about eligible news businesses and which businesses would benefit more than others from this bill and from the regulations and regulatory framework that will be put in place by Bill C‑18. However, we are forgetting to define and discuss journalism itself.
With the advent of social media and digital platforms, it is true that we have seen the emergence of new types of news media, new types of businesses, new ways of disseminating information. However, we have also seen more news businesses engaging in what we might call advocacy journalism. In some cases, it could even be described as activist journalism, a form of journalism that involves embracing a cause and using the medium to provide news to the public in a way that is biased in favour of that cause. One example would be environmental journalism. We agree that the cause is worthy, but environmental journalists will always deliver the news with an activist slant. I have nothing against that, but is that journalism in the true sense of the word? No, not really, in the same way that a certain type of media outlet might have a political bent. I know some people will say that CBC/Radio-Canada has a pro-government, pro-Liberal bias.
What is journalism, really? Journalism is a profession that demands a lot of meticulous work and a lot of passion. It has certain standards, certain rules that I would hazard to say are accepted around the world. Its first guiding principle is independence. What does independence mean for journalism and for journalists? It means the ability to work unfettered by the influence of a government, company, movement or cause. That is what journalistic independence means. The second guiding principle is handling the news in a meticulous way. That means having an almost obsessive passion for truth-seeking and fact-checking, while remaining objective.
The other guiding principle is respect for individuals and groups and respect in handling sources.
These are the guiding principles of the journalism profession. I am not saying that advocacy journalism, activist journalism or opinion journalism are bad. However, they are not necessarily what we are trying to protect through Bill C‑18. That is why we included eligibility criteria in Bill C‑18. News outlets eligible under the regulatory framework proposed by Bill C‑18 will have to espouse a code of ethics. The code in question may not necessarily mirror the journalistic standards and practices of CBC/Radio-Canada or the ethics guide of the Quebec Press Council. However, the media outlet would need a code, even one scribbled on a piece of paper, that reflects its commitment to complying with the guiding principles of journalism.
I think this should offer some comfort to people who think that Bill C‑18 will favour certain large media outlets that they believe show a bias for the government and could act as a conduit for the government's opinions.
I do not think that what I am about to say will be a big surprise to members who did not participate in the debates on Bill C-18. My Conservative friends were not very supportive of this bill and they do not generally like what we call the mainstream media, the major news media outlets. I am talking about traditional media companies like CBC/Radio-Canada, Vidéotron, Bell Media and Québecor, of course. I am talking about these major companies that produce the news. The Conservatives find them biased because, in general, they take positions that are not relayed as the Conservatives would like, for all sorts of reasons. Generally, the populist spin gets filtered out in the mainstream media, which adopt journalistic standards and adhere to broad journalistic principles.
I will now digress briefly, since we are talking about CBC/Radio-Canada. I know someone who has worked in the news service for a good part of his career and who received complaints from the public. On the French side, Quebec separatists have often accused Radio-Canada of being federalist and not reporting the news or doing so in a biased way when it comes to the separatist cause. Conversely, Quebec federalists find that Radio-Canada is a gang of separatists. This person I know told me that when it comes to the news, if he receives the same number of complaints from people who complain that they are being too federalist relative to those who complain that they are being too separatist, he feels that they did a good job, that they worked objectively and that they were “on the right track,” as my friend, the House leader of the Bloc Québécois and member for La Prairie might say. In short, it is all a matter of perception.
However, there is something that is different about the mainstream media. I do not want to advocate for CBC/Radio-Canada, but in general, these major media companies are objective. Obviously we see biases from time to time, but not serious ones. These major media outlets must change course and correct the situation when they make a mistake, when they err, when they are, for example, partisan, or biased, or handle a news item badly. They all have mechanisms for receiving complaints, processing them and making retractions as needed. Knowing how to make retractions after recognizing that a mistake was made is also one of the major principles of journalism.
I am talking about mainstream media, but I also spoke earlier about the new media, new forms of news media that we have seen emerge, media of all kinds. There is a lot of opinion news, as I said. I wondered whether these media had to be neglected. The answer is obviously no.
Changes are happening in the news sector. Everyone acknowledged that when we studied Bill C‑18. A lot has changed. The fact is that news companies need to adapt, transition to digital technologies and make sure they reach people where they are.
Consumer habits have changed in recent years when it comes to the news. People get their news on social media. They go on Facebook, for example, or they search for a particular piece of news or subject using Google. These are now the ways we get our news. What is more, these outlets and general content companies sell huge amounts of advertising, since 80% of advertising is said to now be in the digital sector. I think it is normal that these outlets and these companies, which profit heavily from the news sector and the content generated by newsrooms, contribute to the content they are benefiting from. It is the least they can do.
I am well aware of the fact that Bill C‑18 will not solve all the issues with the news sector, the media in general and culture, the latter being addressed more specifically in Bill C‑11. Bill C‑18 will not solve everything. There will still be problems and challenges. In my opinion, it is normal that governments come to the aid of a sector as fragile as the news sector. It is a fragile sector, but it is essential.
Clearly, we will need more tools to help the media. That is obvious. The fund the Bloc Québécois is proposing would be a very effective tool, allowing us to collect royalties from the digital giants that are making outrageous profits and use them to support more fragile media, such as regional media. I think that would be a good solution.
Once again, the Bloc Québécois is the party proposing solutions rather than simply opposing suggestions and obstructing Parliament. I would be very pleased to discuss this with my colleagues and to make a more detailed proposal to the government.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to the minister's heated reaction. We know he is quite a passionate man and that this bill is important to him, but I believe he misunderstood the meaning of my question earlier. I really want to refocus my question on the concept of a closure motion.
In its entire history, the Bloc Québécois has supported under 10 closure motions. When it did give its support, it was because it was truly crucial that the bill being considered at the time be freed up. In 2021, in regard to Bill C‑10, the Bloc Québécois even suggested publicly that closure be used and recommended that the Liberals impose a time allocation motion because the government had lost control of the agenda. Something needed to be done to move the bill forward.
Right now, the government has not lost control with Bill C‑18. Everything is going pretty smoothly. We are in the final stage and there is no need to, say, free up something stuck somewhere due to filibustering. Earlier, I asked a question about the fact that we have two or three days left to debate Bill C‑18.
Yes, I want to see it passed this week at all costs, but my question was whether the minister had given up hope of having the bill passed in the usual manner by the end of the week and that was why he was imposing the closure motion today.
I would like to hear from the minister on this.
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Madam Speaker, I really do not like that they are imposing time allocation. I think it is an insult to democracy and parliamentary privilege.
That said, I do not agree with my Conservative colleague who said that people were not heard in committee when it studied Bill C‑18. I think everyone spoke to that bill. The committee heard as many people as possible and we had ample time to debate the bill.
The bill was debated in the House and it was studied in the Senate. This week, the government is moving forward by imposing time allocation, and I find that deplorable. I would like to ask the minister if he believes that we could have dealt with Bill C‑18 in the House this week without resorting to time allocation. Or, on the contrary, does he believe that the Conservatives would have done everything possible to drag things out to ensure that the bill, which they oppose, does not pass?
I deplore time allocation. Was it absolutely necessary to use it today? Could we have dealt with it this week in the normal course of debate?
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Madam Speaker, we talked earlier about Quebec's demands. This is a very important subject.
Quebec's demands are extremely important, even Quebec has not communicated them to all the parties and to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage which is studying the bill. We are preparing to vote, under a gag order, on a bill that will have a significant impact on broadcasting in Quebec and on Quebec culture. Quebec is making a legitimate demand. It is asking that Quebec be consulted on all matters relating to francophone broadcasting and culture.
How will the government respond to these very legitimate demands from Quebec, even though we are passing Bill C‑11 under a gag order?
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Madam Speaker, it is too bad that we are facing yet another closure motion on such an important bill. It is true that hours and hours have been devoted to studying this bill in committee. Those hours were often monopolized by the Conservatives, who did not want to allow the work to advance because they were sticking to their position and were inflexible. A little more flexibility could have led to a compromise, but that did not happen.
My colleague from Lethbridge talked about the Quebec government's requests. I think it is very interesting to hear the Conservatives suddenly take an interest in Quebec culture. Quebec's requests were made to the government and not necessarily to the entire committee.
Was it not the government's responsibility to take that into account when the time came to do so and at least share the the Quebec government's requests with all the members of the committee?
The Conservatives might not have been here today making this argument, and we might have been wrapping up the work on this very important bill that our culture and broadcasting system have been so eagerly awaiting.
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby on his speech.
In his speech, he talked a bit about certain artists. I was also listening to my colleague from Kingston and the Islands talk about the Tragically Hip. We could talk about Rush, Bryan Adams, the Montreal band The Box, from the 1980s and 1990s. Goodness, there are tons of many Canadian artists who broke through and went on to have great careers.
Thanks to these pioneers who benefited from measures that were implemented to promote and highlight Canadian content and francophone content, especially in Quebec, an entire industry developed, and now it is flourishing and reaching audiences around the world.
Without the discoverability measures that were put in place in the traditional media to allow Quebec and francophone content to grow, it simply would not exist. I know that my colleague talked briefly about this earlier in his speech, but I would like his thoughts on the potential that this new bill holds for all creators, including digital creators from Quebec and Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his question. I too really enjoy working with him on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
No, I do not see those things. As I said earlier, misinformation is being used to fearmonger regarding issues like freedom of expression and the freedom to surf the web without impediment or constraints. I think this has more to do with bad faith and fearmongering, to serve their own interests. I guess it pays off politically. I confess that I do not resort to spreading disinformation, or at least as little as possible. If I do, it is truly accidental, and I apologize in advance.
No, I do not at all see what the Conservatives see in this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, Drummond's troops are at the Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot border as we speak. I believe this dispute will be resolved.
The concern he mentioned is well founded, given that we are seeing interference of all kinds from foreign powers nowadays. There are media outlets putting out dubious propaganda originating from various countries. The CRTC took measures to block some of them, but this is clearly not a tool that is being used willy-nilly. I think that so-called alternative content will continue to be accessible, provided it is not subversive. That is clear.
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Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my speech just now, I commented on how much I appreciated the collaborative atmosphere at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. To be clear, I was speaking directly to my colleague from Bow River, who is a big fan of culture. He was right at home on the heritage committee. I really enjoyed our conversations.
Now, visual arts—painters and that whole side of things—are holding their own. However, in today's world, a world where things are opening up and borders are disappearing, the digital world, social media and major broadcasting platforms have to be accessible. It is much harder for a small francophone market in an anglophone sea to gain access. That is why Quebec artists, francophone artists, our very own creators, need that support in order to be seen, to get their names out there. They do not want to force themselves on the rest of the world. They just want a way to be visible on those platforms. That is what this is really about.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his great question.
I will even add that, once Bill C-11 is passed and the reform of the Broadcasting Act is implemented, it will enable certain TV and radio broadcasters with very specific missions that serve under-represented communities to survive and blossom.
As for my colleague's question about the Conservatives' stand, yesterday, I was very perplexed by the speech given by one of my Conservative colleagues, in which she talked about how much she loves artists in general, but especially digital artists. I am very perplexed that the Conservatives moved an amendment to do away with the bill, rather than trying to improve it. I think that says it all.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question. I think there are a lot of things that are going to have to be uncovered as the act is implemented. I also think this legislation will open the door to more creation, and that includes new types of creation as well. I think digital creators are going to benefit in the long run.
I want to tell the digital creators who have expressed concerns to us about Bill C-11 to wait and see what happens when the law is implemented. We will make adjustments if necessary. I am confident that it will be fine, but if they still have concerns after these changes to the Broadcasting Act are in place, we will always be there to represent them and make the necessary adjustments.
In fact, the Bloc got sunset clauses added to Bill C‑11, which means that the act will be reviewed every five years. That will ensure that we do not spend another 30 years with problems building up, as was the case with the last version of the act. Every five years, we will be able to do a review and correct the things that need to be corrected.
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Mr. Speaker, as I was just saying, when I heard the comments made by my colleague from Lethbridge suggesting that the artists would not benefit from the reform of the Broadcasting Act, I made a few phone calls. I contacted a few of my artist friends to ensure that the bill would benefit the cultural associations and businesses and not just the broadcasters. They all told me that artists and creators have been awaiting the bill just as eagerly as cultural businesses have.
In all humility, I have to say that I am not the most artistic member of the Bloc caucus. The member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, Caroline Desbiens, had a brilliant career in television and theatre. There is also the extraordinary artist we call “La Marsouine”, the member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. She is a songwriter whose work is well known among the international francophonie. There are people in the Bloc Québécois caucus who know what they are talking about.
We were inspired by these people and we fought for this bill on behalf of our colleagues who were themselves part of the arts scene. They can tell us how regulating the broadcasting sector benefits our artists.
Here we find ourselves at another stage of Bill C-11. This may be the last step; we hope it is. As we have seen, our Conservative colleagues are once again trying to kill this bill.
After finding some particularly creative ways to delay its study in committee, yesterday they even brought forward an amendment to completely gut the bill. All this after accusing the Bloc Québécois of failing to stand up for the demands of the Quebec National Assembly.
Let us talk about the demands of the Quebec National Assembly. I found it quite rich to hear the Conservatives say that the National Assembly opposed the passage of Bill C-11 as is when, in June 2022, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution that stated the following:
Whereas the federal government is under pressure from multiple sources to ensure social media is not subject to Bill C-11, while many companies commercially stream musical and audiovisual content;
THAT the National Assembly recall that Québec’s cultural production and its uniqueness are strongly disadvantaged by the lack of regulation of online streaming platforms and social media;
THAT it affirm that it is essential that all online streaming platforms, including social media, be subject to federal and provincial laws, such as C-11, so that all digital broadcasters, whether Canadian or foreign, contribute to the creation, production, broadcasting, promotion and discoverability of Québec content;
I will spare members a reading of the full text of the resolution. It concludes as follows:
THAT, lastly, it urge the federal government to include social media governance in Bill C-11 to amend the Broadcasting Act.
Obviously, that does not align with the Conservative position.
I want to talk about Quebec's Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, who did a bunch of interviews recently, answering journalists' questions about the mandate he took on last fall. When asked, “Should streaming platforms be forced to highlight homegrown content?”, he instantly replied “Yes, this is about Quebec's distinct culture”. Speaking to various media outlets, Minister Lacombe emphasized the importance of discoverability for francophone content from Quebec, meaning how easy it should be to access homegrown content on major digital platforms like Netflix and Spotify, for example. That is what Minister Lacombe said. The National Assembly is hoping for a speedy passage of Bill C‑11.
Certainly, Quebec had demands, legitimate demands, such as being consulted on regulations that will impact broadcasting in Quebec and Quebec culture. The unanimous National Assembly motion that set tongues wagging recently reads as follows:
THAT the National Assembly acknowledge that the federal government could soon pass Bill C‑11, which aims to amend the Broadcasting Act;
THAT it underline that this bill does not recognize the application of Québec laws regarding the status of artists;
THAT it recognize that this bill, as it is currently written, grants Québec no rights of inspection on the directions that will be given to the CRTC, and that those directions will have a significant impact on Québec’s cultural community;
THAT it remind the federal government that Québec’s linguistic specificity must be respected;
THAT it highlight for the federal government that as a nation, it is up to Québec to define its cultural orientations;
THAT it demand that Québec be officially consulted on the directions that will be given to the CRTC regarding the bill and that, for this purpose, a formal mechanism be added to the bill;
THAT it affirm that Québec will continue to apply, in its areas of jurisdiction, the laws democratically passed by the National Assembly;
THAT, lastly, the National Assembly inform the federal government that Québec will use all the tools at its disposal to continue protecting its language, culture and identity.
The minister has the means and the tools needed to respond to these demands from Quebec. The real question is whether he will do the right thing through ministerial directives to the CRTC. We will see over the next few days, but I really hope he does. We in the Bloc Québécois will continue to properly and faithfully stand up for Quebec's demands to ensure the protection of its culture and broadcasting sector.
Recently, my colleagues and I have all been getting a rather impressive number of emails from people who are opposed to Bill C-11. Oddly enough, they are not well-crafted emails written by an organization representative like the ones we received in previous weeks and months. They are very short emails that are more focused on the issue of censorship and control over what Quebeckers and Canadians will be able to watch online once Bill C-11 is passed.
I have no qualms about saying that this is blatant misinformation. However, I want to talk about it a little and explain to the millions of Quebeckers and Canadians who are watching right now what these scare tactics are all about. The word “censorship” is one that has been coming up a lot. People are talking about a law that is going to censor Quebeckers and Canadians and undermine their freedom of speech.
If we stop for a second and think about this, we realize that a person would have to be totally disingenuous or a complete conspiracy theorist to believe that, here in Canada, in our current system, a government could impose censorship with impunity like they do in totalitarian states. Feeding that fear is an act of bad faith and intellectual dishonesty. I am not sure that that is very healthy. It may be politically advantageous, but that is another issue.
People wrote to us with concerns about the control the government will have over what we can see online and what it wants to ban from being seen online.
Bill C‑11 does not say that the government will be able to force people to binge Les filles de Caleb on the weekend. Bill C‑11 seeks to have content produced by creators from here, to showcase stories from here, that our culture and the talent of our creators have their place on streaming platforms. No one is saying that people have the right to watch or not watch this or that. No one is preventing any content from being streamed.
I have lost track of how many times I have heard about the manipulation of algorithms. Web giants talked about it at committee meetings. It was like we were asking those companies for the recipe to build a nuclear bomb. It was a bit excessive. I do not think that anyone at the CRTC is going to tell Spotify to open its code so they can mess with it. That is just silly.
However, we need to give the CRTC the latitude and the tools it needs to ensure that the objectives are met.
Traditional radio used what were known as logger tapes. For younger folks, such as the member for Thérèse-De Blainville, these were reels that turned at very slow speed and recorded 24‑7. It was easy because radio programming was a continuous broadcast on a single frequency. Obviously, the same mechanism cannot be used with online platforms. However, it is important that the regulator responsible for verifying that the objectives are being met actually has the means to verify that they are, in fact, being met. Algorithm manipulation should therefore not be permitted. It is essential to keep the door open to allow future verifications, if this is how verifications must be done.
Then, there is the age-old issue of infringement on freedom of expression. I do not understand how anyone could believe that we could pass laws that literally infringe on freedom of expression. For some, any attempt to address disinformation and ensure that people have access to reliable, verified information amounts to an infringement on freedom of expression. We are certainly going to hear about it at length when we debate Bill C-18, but freedom of expression will not be violated by Bill C-11. In any case, a law passed by the government that would infringe on freedom of expression obviously would not stand up in court and would be quashed very quickly.
I do not see a problem with imposing discoverability obligations, obligations to promote Quebec, Canadian, French-language and indigenous content, and to showcase the distinct nature of the Quebec nation and of Canada on the online platforms of digital giants. I came up with what I thought was a useful analogy. For those opposed to regulating GAFAM, the major online broadcasting companies, I will present the following analogy.
Imagine if, instead of offering cultural content, these businesses were serving food. Would there be any objection to these food service companies being subject to the same health regulations that traditional restaurants are? I doubt it. I doubt there would be any objection if the rules set by MAPAQ, Quebec's department of agriculture, fisheries and food, which apply to restaurants, were also applied to any business that serves food. Even though we talk about a free market on the Internet, there are limits that must be applied there as well. I thought that was an interesting analogy for illustrating the importance or relevance of regulating online businesses as well.
I do not want to spend all day debating this. We have debated it extensively, and we are at the stage where we want to come to an agreement as quickly as possible and return this bill to the Senate so that it ultimately gets approval. Then we can move on to the much-anticipated implementation stage of this bill, which is eagerly awaited by the entire cultural community and by broadcasters. However, I am going to move an amendment in closing. It is an amendment to the amendment moved yesterday by the member for Lethbridge.
My amendment to the amendment is as follows: that the amendment by the member for Lethbridge be amended by replacing all the words after the word “that”; the motion be amended by adding to the last paragraph “further calls on the government to establish a process for consultation with the Quebec government so that Quebec's specificity and the unique reality of the francophone market are adequately considered by the CRTC” and recalls that the federal Status of the Artist Act respects Quebec's jurisdiction and is consistent with Quebec legislation on the status of the artist.
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Mr. Speaker, the last time I stood up to speak to Bill C-11, I said that I hoped it would be the last time, so that we could finally get to the final stage of this very important bill that has been long awaited by our broadcasters, our cultural industries.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the first version of this bill came to us in November 2020. At that time it was introduced by the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who was then the minister of heritage. As I like to say rather often, the first version of this bill looked like a document that someone threw on the table saying, “Here are some blank pages, we need to fill them up”. I also said that it was like a paint-by-numbers that someone had forgotten to colour in. A lot of hard work has been done since then, though.
Now that we are at the point of responding to the government's response to the Senate amendments, I would actually like to take this opportunity to recognize the members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for their hard work and engagement, no matter their opinion or point of view. We had quite a few differences of opinion. Early on, before something happened that triggered all kinds of obstructive manoeuvres by the Conservatives, we had some pretty good chemistry and collaboration around the table. I want to applaud the member for Richmond—Arthabaska, my fellow vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage at the time, for his work. Our collaboration was excellent. Even though our Conservative colleagues had different views on all kinds of factors and topics, we were able to discuss cultural issues and move things forward anyway. It is really impressive how constructive our work was despite our differences of opinion. I want to recognize that.
Then there was the removal of what was then the proposed section 4.1. This unleashed the wrath of our Conservative friends, who officially withdrew their support, in as much as they ever supported this bill. Let us just say that the collaborative spirit at the time eroded a bit.
That being said, a lot of hard work has gone into this bill. I want to acknowledge the efforts of government representatives, the NDP and my Bloc colleagues who also took part in the study of this bill. They all worked for artists, for our cultural industries, and for our broadcasters in a spirit of co-operation and solidarity.
I often hear people say that this bill does not really meet the expectations of artists. We know that it is extremely important for the cultural industry, but is it true that this bill does not meet the expectations and needs of artists?
I completely disagree with that statement. Yesterday we heard the speech by the member for Lethbridge, who suggested that the unions were the ones who would benefit from this reform to the Broadcasting Act and that the artists would not come out ahead at all. That is completely untrue. I even went to the trouble—
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