Hon. Fabian Manning: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada.

When I spoke to this bill at second reading, I began by noting the government’s claims as to the objectives it has for this piece of legislation. The government believes that its bill will address the problems that have been faced by traditional media over the last decade. We heard the minister say that he wants to build a fairer news ecosystem where legacy and traditional media can receive the support they need in order to remain viable. Senator Harder, as the sponsor of the bill, has repeated those same arguments, of course.

Both Senator Harder and the minister have repeated the assertion that, since 2010, about one third of journalism jobs in Canada have disappeared, and Canadian TV stations, radio stations and newspapers have lost around $4.9 billion in revenue. At the same time, they argue that online advertising revenue has grown considerably.

There is no question that the changes that have occurred over the past 15 years or so have had a very serious and negative impact on traditional media in Canada. What is less clear are the reasons for those changes. Nor is it clear that Bill C-18 is, in any way, a remedy for the problem.

When Professor Dwayne Winseck of the School of Journalism and Communications at Carleton University testified before our committee on May 10, he pointed out that the causes for the decline in traditional media are multi-faceted. In response to a question I posed to him at committee, he said:

. . . I do not believe that Facebook and Google caused the crisis of journalism. . . . A decade ago revenue started to fall. . . . The crisis of journalism is multifactorial. It depends on where you want to start. Basically, per capita newspaper circulation begins to decline in the 1980s and 1990s. Revenue peaks around 2005-2006 and then starts to go down afterwards. And why? Because of the global financial crisis. These companies were ill prepared because of consolidation, and they were debt addled exactly as advertising started to plunge and the internet giants began to emerge.

So Professor Winseck emphasized this: Google and Facebook are not the cause of the crisis in journalism.

Yet then Professor Winseck went on to state that he does not believe this bill will do anything to address the monopoly concentration that he argues has occurred over the past decade and a half. Professor Winseck argues that this foundational failure in the bill will harm Canadians by not paying sufficient attention to what he believes should be the equitable distribution of whatever fruits are born out of this legislation to support smaller, upstart news entities that could liven our news ecology. He argues that this failure in the bill is a problem.

Other witnesses took a somewhat different perspective, though they tended to arrive at the same solution when it came to their analysis of the bill. Peter Menzies, a former vice-chair of the CRTC, told our committee on May 2 that “bill C-18 ultimately helps neither those that are struggling to survive nor those looking to enter the market . . . .” Mr. Menzies agreed that there has been tremendous dislocation in the news market in Canada and around the world during the last number of years. He noted that about 473 newspapers have died in Canada, but in his view, new entities have stepped in to take their place. He noted:

Up to 700 websites owned by licensed commercial broadcasters, many of which look very much like an online newspaper, have launched.

He argued that this has occurred without state subsidies: “. . . 216 web-based news and commentary platforms have been launched by innovators and entrepreneurs.” These include many diverse news and commentary platforms.

This is a somewhat different perspective from that held by Professor Winseck, but where these and many other witnesses seemed to have agreed is that Bill C-18 will not solve the problem it has supposedly been drafted to address. Minister Rodriguez has repeated many times that this bill is important to protect the free and independent press, but it seems clear from the witness testimony that we heard at committee that the bill will likely fail in that regard.

First of all, there were serious questions that were raised at committee in relation to who will benefit from this bill. According to testimony from government officials, Bill C-18 is forecast to generate about $215 million for eligible news businesses. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, had a somewhat higher estimate of close to $350 million. As the PBO points out, about three quarters of that amount, or about $240 million, will go to the largest broadcasters, with the CBC, Bell Media and Rogers Media being the largest beneficiaries. Whatever remaining sum of money ends up flowing to smaller eligible media and Indigenous news outlets, that amount will have to be spread across the country to multiple news businesses.

Personally, it leaves me to wonder what level of funding will actually end up being available for smaller media in my own province of Newfoundland and Labrador. When we asked that question about likely provincial breakdowns, officials could not tell us. They didn’t have any answers to our questions.

When the bill was reviewed at committee, Senator Carignan proposed a very reasonable amendment to exclude state broadcasters that already receive government subsidies from benefiting from the provisions in Bill C-18. But the majority of senators on the committee rejected that amendment. That means there will be less money for smaller news businesses and for Indigenous news outlets. Evidently, the Liberal government favours that outcome over giving yet more subsidies to state broadcasters.

That is unfortunate because even if we take the most optimistic number from the Parliamentary Budget Officer and then look at the likely per capita share for Newfoundland and Labrador’s smaller news businesses, the amount comes out to less than $2 million — a paltry sum for those news outlets struggling to survive in today’s market.

In the face of this reality, it is scarcely surprising that many witnesses were very skeptical that Bill C-18 will actually be successful in building the fairer news ecosystem that the minister claims to want. The potential of less than $2 million for smaller news businesses in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador will be the most optimistic scenario.

The minister was absolutely unable to explain, when he appeared at our committee, what will happen if some of the big digital news intermediaries, such as Meta, Google and perhaps others, simply stop linking to news in Canada. Meta witnesses who appeared before our committee were quite clear that they would not participate, while Google witnesses noted that their company has not yet made a determination. The non-participation of just two large platforms would reduce the amount of funding for eligible news businesses by up to 30%.

Senator Simons asked the minister a very direct question on this at committee. She asked what happens if on July 1 the platforms have disengaged from the Canadian news market and have ceased to share Canadian content. A fair reading of the subsequent exchange between the minister and Senator Simons is that the minister simply refused or could not answer the question.

Once again, Senator Carignan proposed an amendment to at least try to address part of this problem by removing hyperlinks as part of the definition of news content. This might have assisted in perhaps keeping platforms, which, after all, are at the heart of the government’s funding model, within the funding regime. But, once again, the majority of senators on our committee — ironically including Senator Simons — said no, but I am encouraged by her speech here today about what will happen when it comes time to vote.

Colleagues, that should worry us all because it leads me to believe the government has no idea what will happen if the bottom drops out of the bill’s funding model.

With the passage of this bill, many small news outlets in this country are on a journey to the unknown — a sad reality indeed. In that sense, the bill is a plunge into darkness, and I fear it is a plunge into darkness in another sense as well.

There is little question that the bill has serious trade implications for Canada. Last year, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, issued a press release in which she expressed concern:

. . . about Canada’s proposed unilateral digital service tax and pending legislation in the Canadian Parliament that could impact digital streaming services and online news sharing and discriminate against U.S. businesses.

Earlier this year, the U.S. embassy also stated, “We have concerns it could impact digital streaming services and discriminate against U.S. businesses.”

True to form, the government has responded by saying that it would not be intimidated. Not being intimidated is all well and good when one has a sensible strategy to deal, but based on the witness testimony we heard, it is far from clear that Bill C-18 constitutes such a sensible strategy. In fact, Bill C-18 is creating the very crisis, I believe, which the government now has no strategy to address.

During my critic briefing on this bill, officials were asked what the likely hit will be on Canadian businesses should U.S. initiate trade retaliation. Officials responded that the hit would likely be equivalent to whatever the U.S. believed U.S.-based digital news intermediaries had lost or were losing as a result of Bill C-18. In other words, whether the amount is just over $200 million, as the government forecasts, or whether it is $330 million, as forecast by the PBO, U.S. trade retaliation will potentially wipe out all those gains. Once again, one is left wondering what the end net benefit of this bill will actually end up being.

I have to admit that I was extremely surprised and disappointed as several senators on our committee who profess a great knowledge and understanding of the media world here in Canada — much better than I do — did not do much to address many of the issues and problems that our witnesses raised during our committee meetings.

There are additional concerns with this bill which relate to the implications that this legislation has for journalistic independence. In their brief on Bill C-18, the Internet Society – Canada Chapter issued a warning about the implications that this bill could have for journalistic independence. Their brief stated:

The Online News Act will make news organizations dependent on direct cash-flows from online platforms; it will give those platforms, under CRTC supervision, intrusive oversight powers over news organizations’ business operations; it will undermine journalistic independence . . . .

This, of course, assumes that online platforms will actually participate in the regime that the bill creates, but if they ever do, concerns about the implications of this have been systematically ignored.

Further concerns were raised about the powers granted to the CRTC to compel the provision of any information it deems necessary from any news organization.

Phillip Crawley, Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of The Globe and Mail, raised this specific matter with our committee, asking that the information-gathering powers of the CRTC be “. . . limited to information necessary to confirm the eligibility of news organizations, or to investigate a complaint. . . .”

Here again, Senator Carignan proposed a very reasonable amendment to limit the authorities of the CRTC in exactly that way. But once again, the majority of senators on our committee defeated the amendment.

At the end of the day, none of the minor amendments adopted at committee have addressed any of the bill’s fundamental flaws. Friends, we did not change the water into wine; we just muddied the water more.

Based on witnesses’ testimony, there is absolutely no assurance that Bill C-18 can deliver support for eligible news businesses that the government claims it will. Those who will lose the most as a result of this will be the smaller news businesses in Canada. That is the sad reality of this piece of legislation. But all Canadians will lose if Bill C-18 fails to deliver on its objectives and if all that results from this bill are unfulfilled expectations and yet another trade war with the United States.

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications had an opportunity to send to the government a sensible message on all of these concerns. I believe we had a duty to exercise sober second thought on this bill; however, the majority of senators failed to do that, and it is Canadians who will now live with the consequences. In our democracy, the majority rules, and I fear that it is Canadians who will now have to live with the consequences of the decision to pass this bill. I wish that it could have been otherwise. Thank you.