- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Drummond
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $108,134.67
- Government Page
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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