Senator Housakos: We have cell bills and internet bills or connectivity bills, right? See what those giants are charging Canadians compared to other nations around the world.

By the way, they’ve become as big as they are because they gouge consumers and taxpayers and because of the regulatory protection we have afforded them for decades through the CRTC and through governments — successive governments, by the way — Liberal, Conservative and other ones. At some particular point, we’ve got to stand up for the consumer and for Canadians and say, “Enough is enough; some competition is good.” And let’s stop saying every time we have a business model that is failing because somebody is more innovative, more cost-effective and is garnering more customer service that we’re going to step in and we’re going to make it an equal playing field. We’re going to help those with the bad ideas and bad fiscal results and we’re going to prop them up with taxpayers’ money. Let’s call this what it is: a shakedown in an effort to protect the status quo.

Big tech isn’t stealing content. They aren’t taking the work of journalists and profiting off it without journalists being fairly compensated. The passage of Bill C-18 won’t result in one journalist in this country getting a raise. More importantly, let’s also keep in mind that a lot of the content that we are talking about that’s being stolen by tech companies is being downloaded and placed there by journalists themselves.

As I have said many times before, these platforms are actually providing a service to news outlets to drive traffic to their products and to their content. We aren’t talking about the reproduction of content without fair attribution or compensation. We’re not talking about links taking consumers to the actual Global News or CTV News websites.

I consider Facebook to be the Uber or even the cab driver, and Global News is the restaurant. Would we expect the cabbie to give the restaurant a percentage of the fare that was collected? Of course not. Just because someone, in this case, has figured out a way to monetize someone else’s product, it does not mean they are stealing that product. It doesn’t mean the manufacturer of that product is being any less fairly compensated. As long as the copyright laws are being respected — and they are here — nothing is being stolen.

None of us are forced to post our work. Senators, local restaurants, every single business in the country, artists of all sorts — they’re posting their stuff. We’re all posting our stuff on these websites, and we’re posting it because we’re getting more reach. We’re getting more of our constituents in our home provinces to see the work we do here in the Senate, advocating on their behalf.

Journalists add their links to their stories on Facebook because it accentuates their work; it drives more people to their website. So if you’re writing articles for La Presse in Montreal and you post it on your Facebook account, it’s because that journalist is benefiting from people that are being driven to La Presse‘s website, and, of course, that’s a paywall. If more people are driven to the site because of a journalist promoting their product, that paywall grows, and that business grows.

By the way, back to my earlier point, there is a lot of print media in the country that is flourishing because of digital platforms. There are a lot of them that have to be lauded because they were ahead of their time and they realized they needed to adjust. The Globe and Mail adjusted. The Globe and Mail is as effective today as they were when I was a kid. They have great coverage. They still have a great product, and they are still making money, but they were also one of the first to sit down and make a deal with these platforms, and the platforms understood that this was a good product for them to make a good deal with.

And there are many more. Village Media was cited by one of the colleagues who spoke earlier. They’re a huge success story, as is Western Standard News Media Corp. There are so many out there, and, really, I don’t want to miss any, but Blacklock’s Reporter is another one. They’re an online subscription digital paper. They’re doing as well as ever.

The only one trying to steal their content, colleagues, is the government. They are in court right now because the Trudeau government that wants to protect independent journalistic organizations has been taking their product and spreading it around ministries without giving them their due. But Bill C-18 is going to save the industry? Why don’t we start with having our government departments respect paywalls of journalists and respect their content before we start passing legislation to protect certain giants?

Traditional media and some journalists themselves are struggling to adapt to the digital world and what that means for delivery and consumption of news. Shaking down big tech and driving them to the point where platforms like Meta and Alphabet will stop promoting your content is not the win this government and a lot of people in media think it is. I fear this legislation will have the opposite of the desired effect.

We have seen how serious Meta is about stopping the dissemination of news information. The people that will be hurt when that happens — and I believe it will happen. I think there is no reason why a business model that’s designed to be free to give consumer choice and to drive traffic is going to continue to drive traffic for the media and the journalists in this world if they have to pay for that service. Their whole business model will be disrupted, and the loser will be Canadian consumers. The loss will be the taxpayers’ because I think there will be a detrimental growth. We had witnesses who came before our committee, including print associations that represent journalists in this country, who say that thanks to Meta, their traffic is up as much as 31%, 32% or 33%.

We all know that the only way you make money — I don’t care if you’re a journalist or if you’re selling hotdogs or if you’re a local gas station — is you need traffic and you need people to be attracted to your product. The only people who don’t need to attract consumers are government agencies or government Crown corporations, because they have taxpayers’ money to compensate, so they don’t have to be that agile and they don’t have to be that good. That’s the truth.

Facebook and Google are at a point right now where, like any business, when you have a government that wants to come in and regulate you and tell you what to do with your business enterprise — and I don’t care who it is — at some point, you’re going to say, “You know what, I’m going to shut down and go elsewhere; there’s no future here.” Again, the loser will be our country because we live —

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