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Nov/9/23 3:00:57 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, in the next few weeks, the government is going to release its economic update. I think this would be a great opportunity for the government to express its concerns over the future of the news media. Our media industry is struggling. Our print media, electronic media, local media and regional media are struggling. Frankly, I think they need a break. Bill C‑18 will not take effect in the short term. Meanwhile, some newspapers will close. Will the Minister of Finance announce the creation of an emergency media fund until Bill C‑18 comes into force?

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Jun/20/23 1:19:14 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:39:05 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:37:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:35:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:34:01 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:31:35 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:29:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 12:16:51 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Jun/20/23 11:20:40 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-18 Bill C-10

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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Jun/20/23 11:00:50 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

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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Dec/13/22 3:45:13 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Madam Speaker, I, in turn, congratulate our colleague from Sarnia—Lambton for Saturday's happy occasion. I wish her many years of wedded bliss. I heard my colleague express some concerns about the eligibility of news businesses. I just want to distinguish between Bill C‑21, which we have also been hearing a lot about, and Bill C‑18. Unlike the first bill, in Bill C‑18, the government did not include a list of businesses that are excluded or included. On the contrary, the bill has a list of criteria that businesses must meet to be eligible. This clause was improved by an amendment that requires eligible businesses to also follow a code of ethics based on fundamental principles of the journalism profession. I want to know if my colleague, who voted against this amendment with her Conservative colleagues, believes that this amendment actually guarantees that eligible businesses will be serious, rigorous news businesses. I would like to hear what she has to say about that.

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Dec/13/22 3:28:38 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Madam Speaker, again, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby. As I said earlier, it is a pleasure to work with him at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. It is true that the NDP proposed many amendments and spoke for labour representatives, such as representatives from Unifor, who proposed many amendments that were championed by my colleague from the NDP. Several of these amendments were good ones, and some were adopted. I would like to ask my colleague if there are any amendments he was disappointed did not get adopted. Would any of the amendments that did not get adopted have greatly improved the bill, in his opinion?

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Dec/13/22 1:51:22 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, you can see how hard it is to rein in our young colleagues' enthusiasm. I thank him for his impromptu member's statement and I agree wholeheartedly. That is precisely the purpose of Bill C‑18, specifically, to ensure that these news stories, which make local residents proud of what is happening in their communities, can continue to receive the prominence they deserve and have space to evolve in our increasingly digital world.

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Dec/13/22 1:49:29 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saskatoon—Grasswood for his comment, which was more of a comment ending with a question. I will not fall into the trap. I am not going to do what the Minister of National Revenue did last week and take a swipe at the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I think that, for numbers, I would place more trust in the Parliamentary Budget Officer, despite the great respect that I have for the officials of the Department of Canadian Heritage. I thank my colleague for his question.

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Dec/13/22 1:47:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his comments and also for being such a pleasure to work with. We enjoy ourselves, but we also work efficiently. I think he too has a strong desire to improve the bills that are brought before us. That was certainly true of Bill C-18. Several very important amendments were made to this bill, which is much better today than it was in April, when it was introduced in the House. Obviously, I have a soft spot for the amendment I proposed to demand a certain quality of journalism by imposing, as part of the eligibility criteria, a code of ethics that must be followed, with the basic principles of journalism. My colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby also proposed some very significant amendments on which we were in complete agreement, particularly on the recognition of community media and the importance of indigenous media in Bill C-18. Some very important progress has been made. Now, how will this work out in practice? I look forward to seeing how the businesses in question will benefit. However, one thing is certain. The amendments have considerably improved the bill.

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Dec/13/22 1:45:04 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his comments. I reminisce about the handshake my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and I shared with the member for Winnipeg South Centre. It was a poignant moment. I did not realize things would happen so fast after that, and I thank my colleague for his kind words. In answer to his question about publications left stranded by Bill C‑18, I think we will have to come back to that and consider publications and magazines with specialized content that have also been taken over by digital intermediaries, by web giants. We need to have a thoughtful conversation about those types of media too. At this point time, I think it was urgent to deal with news media. We really had to take action to protect news content creators. I think this is the first step, but it paves the way for us to keep working on this, which is what I think we need to do.

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Context: House Hansard - 142 - Dec/6/22

Dec/13/22 1:23:36 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-18

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my speech by saying that on entering the House of Commons earlier, I felt a twinge of sadness at seeing the bouquet of flowers placed on the desk of our departed colleague, the member for Winnipeg South Centre. Last week, I was lucky enough to have the privilege of shaking his hand after his very moving speech on the bill that he was sponsoring. The bouquet of flowers placed on his desk today is a lovely tribute to him. I think that the thoughts of all members of the House, especially my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, are with Mr. Carr's family, to whom we offer our deepest condolences. We are now at third reading of Bill C‑18. Earlier, I was listening to my Conservative colleague answer questions after his speech, and I noted that the Conservatives, in good or bad faith, are lumping Bills C‑11 and C‑18 together. Perhaps it is a matter of opinion or belief, I am not sure. They are lumping them together using the same unfounded, fallacious and somewhat warped arguments. One claim in particular is that, through these bills, the government is going to be able to control the news, entertainment content, music content, and so on that Quebeckers and Canadians consume on the Internet. Perhaps it is time people heard the truth. I am not saying that there is no need to discuss these issues, because they are concerning, but it should be done using facts, not just the spin coming from those who oppose regulating the companies that have been running the show online for too long already. Let me summarize briefly. Since day one, Facebook, Twitter and Google, but especially Facebook and Google, of course, have been appropriating news articles and reports without compensating the authors, media outlets or journalists. For too many years, these digital giants have been instrumental in methodically dismantling our traditional media. They may have done so involuntarily, but because they are corporations whose sole purpose is to generate revenue, they can hardly be blamed for doing so by any means at their disposal. That is why the time has come to set up a framework to govern these sectors, which can no longer develop in a healthy way for everyone involved. A legislative framework is a must. We need rules. Contrary to what some of our colleagues would like, it cannot be a wild west. Some advocate for a free market, free access, and no rules governing these web giants, but the impact on some people is major and, in some cases, devastating. Web giants like Facebook and Google have appropriated advertising revenue from local advertisers. This revenue is often the bread and butter of regional media and small weekly papers in small rural communities. In fact, it may even be their only means of keeping the lights on, paying their staff and journalists and providing high-quality news. In short, it may be their only means of survival. It is estimated that web giants appropriate, or essentially swipe, 80% of advertising revenue, to the detriment of our regional media. Those web giants have never been asked to pay anything. Their revenue has never been taxed. They are not held to account. Even though it took some time, I think that we need to commend the government for taking the initiative, even at this late stage, to legislate and put its foot down. Oddly enough, there is only one party in the House that opposed this initiative and stood by its point of view throughout the study of Bill C-10, which became C-11, and of Bill C-18, which is currently before us. There are dozens of media outlets, dozens of small newspapers that closed their doors over the past few years because of this crisis. Since I took office as the member for Drummond and as the communications critic for my party, not a week has gone by that news media stakeholders have not expressed their concerns to me. One weekly newspaper in a region represented by a colleague wanted to be reassured. I was asked where we in the Bloc Québécois stood and what we were doing. I was asked if they would get what was rightfully theirs and if we would create a more balanced market. That is what Bill C-18 does. This is not at all about controlling what people see on the Internet. We will refute those lies. I will do that a little later. Let me digress for a moment to talk about newspapers. Everyone has noticed this. My children are puzzled by the thing that lands on our doorstep every Saturday. I renewed my subscription to a newspaper that is delivered every Saturday, and my kids ask me what it is. The media world has changed. Printed newspapers are rarely seen anymore. Until very recently, the Journal de Montréal was the only newspaper that still distributed a paper version seven days a week. Quebecor announced last week that it could no longer continue publishing print editions seven days a week beginning in 2023. It is going to stop delivering the paper version on Sundays. The entire industry is changing. News organizations keep us informed and up to date, but in order to keep doing that, they will need to have the best possible resources and take advantage of the technology that is becoming the primary means of transmitting information, whether we like it or not. Quebec and Canadian news media moved very quickly in 2020 to ask the government and elected officials for regulations. At the time, the government had commissioned the report "Canada's Communications Future: Time to Act". No one remembers the real name. It has been referred to so often by its other name that it is now known as the Yale report. It was an excellent working document that suggested that part or all royalties should contribute to the production of news. Then the COVID‑19 pandemic hit, exacerbating the difficulties facing news media, and that increased the urgency for and the pressure put on the government by these businesses to follow Australia's lead and put in place a code or legislation similar to what was enacted there. Paul Deegan, president and CEO of News Media Canada, said at the time that the negotiating framework with arbitration, inspired by the Australian approach, is the best solution to the news media crisis. Initially, the Bloc Québécois proposed an idea that I still think is excellent. It was not what the industry wanted. It was not in keeping with the existing consensus within news media groups. We proposed taking a percentage of the web giants' revenues. The exact amount had not been determined, but around 2%, 3% or 4% of their revenues earned on Canadian soil would have been used to create a fund from which we could have generated royalties based on needs that we consider essential, such as protecting regional news companies, which are often the most affected by the arrival of web giants. The industry preferred something inspired by the Australian model. I think that I speak for my 31 colleagues in the Bloc when I say that we are committed to representing the people who elected us. We will not go against the will of those we want to represent, so we went with what was proposed, namely legislation inspired by what was done in Australia. Bill C‑18, the online news act, requires digital platform businesses, that is, digital news intermediaries, to negotiate agreements with news businesses. That is a pretty broad summary. From there, we had to determine which news businesses are eligible to negotiate, which created an interesting challenge. In clause 27 of the bill, eligibility for news businesses relies mostly on fiscal criteria, the same criteria used to determine eligibility for various journalism assistance programs. All of this is reasonable, but there are some gaps. News businesses eligible for compensation were originally required, and still are, to be designated as qualified Canadian journalism organizations, or QCJOs, under subsection 248(1) of the Income Tax Act. A non-Canadian company could also qualify if it meets certain criteria of a QCJO, namely, if it regularly employs two or more journalists in Canada, operates in Canada, actively produces news content, and is not significantly engaged in producing content that promotes the interests or reports on the activities of an organization. That said, the bill also excludes magazines, companies that make specialized news content. For example, companies that publish automotive or sports magazines are not considered eligible under Bill C‑18. The Bloc Québécois succeeded in getting what I felt was an essential amendment made to Bill C‑18. We want to protect news, but news evolves. The definitions of news and journalism have been watered down in recent years. There seems to be a lack of understanding, some difficulty distinguishing journalism from opinion pieces, columns and editorials. I felt it was very important to make that distinction. In essence, what we want to protect is journalism, journalistic coverage, news, especially regional news, and weekly papers and small media outlets, which are vulnerable. These tend to be in the regions we represent that are more rural and located outside of major centres. Their reality is very different from that of big media outlets. We felt it was important to have criteria relating to the quality of journalism, so we proposed an amendment after consulting with media organizations, such as the Quebec Press Council. We suggested adding the requirement that a news organization be a member of a recognized journalistic association or that it follow the code of ethics of a recognized journalistic association or that it have its own code of ethics that adheres to basic journalistic principles. This is where the basic criteria and the principles of journalism need to be defined. We must not be too precise in doing so, because trying to be too precise can sometimes leave the door open to interpretation, which we do not want to see in this kind of legislation. The three basic principles of journalism are as follows. The first is independence, which means avoiding conflicts of interest, ideological influences and commercial policies. The second is rigour, which refers to the accuracy of information, impartiality and the presentation of balanced and complete information. The third is fairness, which refers to respect for privacy and dignity, the absence of discrimination, openness to the right of reply and prompt correction of errors. These are the three basic criteria for journalism. In the discussions on our amendment, some people raised certain fears. People wondered what would happen if, for example, a particular media outlet expressed an opinion that was not in line with what the government wanted to hear. Once again, I want to come back to the difference between journalism produced in a newsroom that applies these fundamental criteria from the outset and opinion journalism, such as columns and editorials, that are based on opinion, a bias or a biased or different point of view. They certainly do not constitute impartial news coverage or information. That gave rise to some interesting discussions both in society and in the journalism community, which is an ever-evolving environment. It was very important for us that this amendment be included in Bill C-18. It was important that these rigorous criteria, namely the basic principles of journalism, be included in the eligibility criteria for companies that can benefit from the bill's legislative framework. Bill C‑18 does not solve all the problems. I think everyone knows that. There are still major challenges facing news organizations, as is also the case for the cultural industry and any business working in an industry affected by web giants like GAFAM. That basically means every business because these days pretty much everyone is affected by the web giants. What will have to be done to again protect regional news media? The government will have to continue supporting them and maintaining its programs. Clearly, this is not an easy task, and this bill will not suddenly and magically address all the problems the industry has been grappling with over the past 25 years. The sector still needs to be given a huge amount of financial support through existing programs, which will have to be enhanced, tweaked and made permanent. That remains to be done. What also remains to be done is to see what will happen to specialty magazines, such as consumer, automotive or sports publications. We will have to see how these magazines, which publish content shared by digital intermediaries, will fare in the digital world. We will have to watch them and possibly support them. We will have to ensure that we stop believing all the lies and disinformation and that at some point we use common sense. We will have to stop believing everything we hear. This is not a dictatorship or a banana republic, despite what we may think from time to time when we see some of the programs managed by the government. I do not have an example. If I gave examples, I would be here all night. No one is going to start controlling what people can and cannot watch online. When we talk about giving our media, our companies, a place, that simply means rebalancing a market that clearly disadvantages our local businesses. Hundreds of our news businesses and media outlets have shut down. Billions of dollars in advertising revenue for those companies have been lost. That is what this legislation seeks to correct. In that sense, it is very good. This is not going to penalize Google and Facebook. Believe me, they are not short on money. The other lie or disinformation—whatever we call it—is that the lion's share will go back to the major industry players, while the little guy will be left behind. There is no set amount. Nowhere does it say that $500 million will be shared and that the bigger companies will take the largest share, with nothing being left for the smaller companies. It does not work like that. Should this not work, there will be a negotiation process with arbitration. That model seems equitable for both smaller and major players. What is more, if the small players wish, they can come together and stand united to have more weight in the negotiation. I think everything is quite clear, that everything is in place to give the smaller players as much of a chance to get ahead as the major players. I will conclude on the issue of CBC/Radio-Canada. I heard my Conservative colleague mention it earlier. It is a good question. Do we allow CBC/Radio-Canada to have the same negotiation rights and earn revenue from sharing their content on digital intermediaries or not, given that CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded? The principle here is not how the CBC is funded. The issue is whether those who produce content shared through digital intermediaries should be paid for it. The answer is yes. I am open to the idea of having another debate on funding for CBC. I am sure there will be some good suggestions. However, for now, this is how Bill C‑18 is structured. It is not a perfect bill, but it is a good one. It is a good starting point, and we will support it.

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