Hon. Leo Housakos: Not to belabour the point, but user-generated content is definitely scoped into this bill. That was the opinion of the chairman of the CRTC when he testified before our committee. That was the opinion of the legal expert of Heritage Canada who, on numerous occasions, was asked directly about the language that Senator Cardozo referred to. It is clear that the government is refusing to tighten that language and accept reasonable amendments that state, in black and white in law, that user-generated content will be excluded. Nonetheless, I also want to correct a couple of things.

In his exchange with you, Senator Gold, Senator Cardozo highlighted really what the problem is between those who are fine with the bill and those who are against the bill. I know that the CRTC has the authority to make regulations because the law that we’re about to pass and the government wants to pass is giving that authority. In the old Broadcasting Act and the current Broadcasting Act, our colleague Senator Cardozo is right: The government and Canadian Heritage can not only influence the regulatory framework; they can give directives and overrule the CRTC. That’s precisely why when you have laws like the Broadcasting Act that leave this Parliament and become law, there have to be safeguards to make sure whoever is in government has parameters that they have to work within that we parliamentarians give them. And if we’re negligent in our responsibility in making laws that are clear, that’s when, of course, problems can occur.

Now, in terms of the regulatory framework, it is so customary on bills that are technical — like Bill C-11 — for governments to attach regulatory frameworks in advance. With Bill C-10, the precursor bill of Bill C-11, if you remember, at the final stages of that bill, under a lot of pressure from work in this chamber, the government came out with a framework at that particular point in time. It wasn’t a very good one, but they came up with a framework. It doesn’t require tossing it to the CRTC for two years.

But I don’t want to digress. I want to get to my follow-up question because there are a lot more problems with this bill than just user-generated content.

When we’re reforming the Broadcasting Act, one of the main pillars that needs to be reformed, which was not even looked at in this bill, is CanCon. My question to you, government leader, is the following: How could a story written by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, with Canadian actors, filmed in Canada, with a Canadian director and so on and so forth — how could something like that, in the eyes of this current bill as we want to pass it, not qualify as Canadian content?