Senator Miville-Dechêne: I do not think, as others do, that it is the most important event in an election campaign. All the evidence shows that debates have very little impact on voters’ opinions. That being said, it is still an event. If broadcasters are able to get along and organize one, that is just fine. I think they realized, after the disaster of 2021, that having five or six journalists moderate the debate is not a good idea. Maybe they’ll go back to simpler formats, especially with private broadcasters having less money and facing a broader crisis in journalism.

On the French side, the largest private broadcaster struck out on its own. It told Radio-Canada, “We don’t want to work with you. We’ll hold our own debate.” We are very well served in Quebec. The debate organized by Radio-Canada, with a few other smaller media outlets, is a bit more formal, and we also have a private sector debate with a moderator and some back-and-forth. Some say that it is a bit chaotic, but diversity is always welcome. Actually, Senator Dasko, since you ask me how I feel, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I can say that, at a time when Canadians have a tremendous need for public services, I feel that investing in an electoral debates commission when the entire media landscape is changing is a bad investment.

(On motion of Senator Clement, debate adjourned.)

[English]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the inquiry of the Honourable Senator Woo, calling the attention of the Senate to the one hundredth anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the contributions that Chinese Canadians have made to our country, and the need to combat contemporary forms of exclusion and discrimination faced by Canadians of Asian descent.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Honourable senators, I want to speak at third reading of Bill C-18, which I have been following closely in part because I was a journalist in my former life, but also because I met with several groups, read a lot of analyses and reports, and took part in the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications’ detailed study.

Essentially, Bill C-18 is a response to the fact that many media outlets, especially traditional ones, other than CBC/Radio-Canada, are struggling financially, having lost a significant portion of their advertising revenue to giants such as Facebook and Google, which are getting away with an awful lot — some would say too much — in our democracy.

That is a fact, and the government was right to intervene, because news and journalism contribute significant value to society in any democracy.

The chosen solution is based on the Australian model, which forces those platforms to either negotiate compensation agreements with media outlets or be designated by law and subjected to arbitration. The committee adopted an amendment I proposed, which states that the bill will come into force no later than six months after Royal Assent. That is essentially the window that Google and Facebook will have to negotiate voluntary agreements with the media.

However, the committee study revealed that Bill C-18 does have certain shortcomings, which concerns me.

I’m concerned because I want Google and Facebook, which are indirectly responsible for the crisis in the media, to contribute to the economic viability of these businesses, and because I also want Google and Facebook to continue distributing Canadian journalistic content.

Unfortunately, certain aspects of Bill C-18 could result in platforms deciding to stop sharing this content. Yet for many media outlets, being visible on Google and Facebook is essential. The availability and sharing of hyperlinks to news content on these platforms often drives over 50% of web traffic to the media. It would be regrettable — catastrophic even, in some cases — if this traffic were to disappear as a result of the bill’s overreach.

I want to highlight a number of things that I think are problematic in Bill C-18. First of all, while it was being studied, the House of Commons adopted amendments that significantly increased the number of media outlets eligible under Bill C-18. The list grew from about 200 organizations, which had been identified based on strict criteria of eligibility for tax credits, to 650 or 700. Actually, we don’t even know exactly how many there are, which makes it hard to determine how many agreements the platforms would have to enter into to gain an exemption. That makes the negotiation process unpredictable.

This expansion also distances Canada from what is happening in France and Australia, where the number of news outlets included in the negotiation process is much smaller.

I have a lot of sympathy for community media and student radio stations, where many journalists begin their careers, but I personally believe that these organizations would be better served by targeted federal or provincial support programs than by business deals with Google and Facebook. As I see it, it doesn’t really make sense to force those platforms to pay volunteer-run student radio stations for content that is of virtually no value to them.

During clause-by-clause study, the committee rejected an amendment that would have limited and clarified the number of media outlets covered by Bill C-18’s commercial negotiation regime. Unfortunately, this rejection could give Google and Facebook ammunition.

I have a second argument. In the Australian code that was used as a model for Bill C-18, the platforms can be exempt from the application of the law if they have, and I quote:

 . . . made a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry through agreements relating to news content of Australian news businesses. . . .

In the Canadian version, however, the possibility of being exempt depends on a long series of criteria that remain vague. For example, what is fair compensation? How will we know if the money received by the media goes toward the production of news? How will the platforms know if they have entered into enough agreements with diverse media? What is meant by the requirement that a “significant portion” of the agreements be concluded with official language minority communities?

I haven’t even mentioned the additional requirements that could be specified in regulations.

[English]

I have no doubt that the intentions behind these criteria are noble, of course. And, of course, I also want strong, diversified and financially healthy media in our country. But this long list of criteria gives the impression that the survival of Canada’s entire media ecosystem rests on commercial agreement with two — or one — foreign companies. Is this really the model that Canada wants to put forward? Do we really believe that the survival of Indigenous media, official language minority community media or local and community media should be made dependent on commercial agreements with American technological giants who can choose to remove this content from their platforms at any time? I am skeptical.

During our hearings, we also heard sharply contrasted views between the media and the platforms on the object of the negotiations. In its briefing documents, the government states that:

Bill C-18 proposes a market-based approach that seeks to ensure digital platforms and news businesses reach fair commercial agreements based on market value. . . .

However, several news outlets have said that they expect Google and Facebook to pay around 30% of their newsroom payroll, which sounds more like a subsidy.

The question therefore arises: Is Bill C-18 proposing a subsidy model for newsroom expenses or a commercial negotiation based on the exchange of value between two parties? Unfortunately, the bill did not really settle this question.

In a brief submitted to the committee, Konrad von Finckenstein, former chairman of the CRTC, noted this problem. He writes:

The Act should spell out the specific subject of negotiation (...). Without such precision negotiations (and possible arbitration) will be unfocused and raise issues not germane to the question to be determined.

The amendment we proposed, which was adopted by the committee, was inspired by testimony from government officials and even the minister, who all agreed that the negotiations should be about the value of the content of news for the platforms and the value that the big platforms bring to the media — in other words, an exchange of value.

[Translation]

In his testimony before the committee, Minister Pablo Rodriguez described the process set out in Bill C-18 as follows, and I quote:

 . . . what we want is to have them both sit down at the negotiating table and to make sure all of this is based on free and informed negotiations. The platforms would be on one side of the negotiating table and the news media would be on the other. The platforms will say that the fact that they’re sharing the news media’s content and that they’re on their platforms has value — which it does — and the news media will say that they do research and that that has value. They will sit down together and negotiate based on that.

In light of this testimony, the committee adopted an amendment that spells out the purpose of the negotiations and that is also based on the Australian code, which served as our model.

The new clause 18.1 reads as follows, and I quote:

The purpose of the bargaining process . . . is to determine the value that each party derives from the news content of an eligible news business being made available by a digital news intermediary and to determine the portion of that value that will be transferred to the eligible news business.

Of course, this amendment doesn’t fix all of the problems with the bill, but it may help to clarify its objectives and bring the parties together.

In conclusion, as you can see, I’m more critical of this bill now than I was when I began my research. For example, I don’t think Bill C-18 should cover mere hyperlinks. The European model seems to have a more balanced approach to that.

Google has actually entered into agreements that with 1,500 news outlets in 15 European countries. Those agreements don’t cover hyperlinks.

Bill C-18 certainly has its flaws, but at least it offers an action plan to rebalance the power dynamics. The government drew on the Australian model in good faith. That was a good idea.

Obviously there’s no way to predict what happens next. The government says the platforms are bluffing. Are they? They keep saying they’re serious. Are they?

What happens if Google and Facebook take news content off their platforms, the media outlets don’t collect a dime and their web traffic plummets? Le Devoir told us that nearly 80% of its web traffic depends on links from various platforms. What impact will this have on news available to Canadians?

I have to say that I’m concerned because it’s clear that Google and Facebook see Canada as a bit player in an international negotiation and believe that we are out of our league.

I will therefore be voting in favour of the bill, but what I really hope, beyond this debate, is that the government’s gamble will pay off. Thank you.

Senator Miville-Dechêne: First of all, Senator Housakos, journalists do have a choice of whether or not to post their articles online.

I know that you believe very strongly in the principle of individual choice. However, we are talking here about a complete paradigm shift. That means that if media outlets don’t allow their articles to be shared, then they lose a lot of readers. It’s a bit of a paradox because the survival of journalism depends in part on really solid content, the kind of journalism that is different from what circulates on social media.

We know that stand-alone, isolated media outlets will not be able to reach enough people. They are therefore obligated, in this new universe, to make their content available by agreeing to share it. The real problem is that we don’t know how much that journalistic content is worth to a platform like Google. Of course, Google won’t give us its figures. As a result, it is extremely difficult to implement a bill like this one, which seeks to put a value on journalistic content, because we have no idea how much that content is worth to the platforms or what it brings to individual media outlets.

We know they no longer get any advertising revenues because the entire advertising market has been picked up by the platforms, but we don’t know whether that could make a difference in terms of traffic. For example, people from the daily newspaper La Presse told me that they were bringing in decent advertising revenues. It wasn’t a windfall, but they had what they needed to survive. That’s why everyone wants to be on social media. Did you have another question?

[English]

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Australia certainly isn’t a perfect model, but we noticed that journalists were hired there after the secret agreements that Google and Facebook unfortunately reached with media outlets. We also noticed that, according to some sources, larger media organizations have more money than small ones but that small community media organizations received some money.

As for the Uber that gets you to the restaurant, I tend to agree with Senator Harder because I’m not convinced that’s a good analogy for what’s really happening. There is an exchange, but we don’t really know if the value of journalism to these platforms is equal or unequal to the value journalists derive from being broadcast on these platforms.

[English]