- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
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Madam Speaker, that is an important question.
We do already require Canadian broadcasters to make those contributions that help support Canadian content. It is just not fair that we allow the web giants to get away with not making similar contributions.
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Madam Speaker, that is a bit of a perplexing question for me. Quebeckers have decided in referendums a couple of times that they wish to be part of Canada, so I will go with what they have decided.
However, I do think an important point we were raising in debate about this bill, outside the chamber, was whether Celine Dion, an example the Conservatives like to cite, would be such a big star without Canadian content. We were having a debate about whether it was the Eurovision Song Contest or the Canadian content requirements that allowed Celine Dion to build her world fan base. I do not have an answer to that question.
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Madam Speaker, we started with Bill C-10, which was definitely worse. I think what the member is referring back to are the concerns we were expressing at that time. Some of the changes that came in Bill C-11 reassured us, and one of those changes is the very one the Conservatives are harping on. That is the change that made sure that user-generated content is not affected by this bill.
What Conservatives are ignoring is that there is an exception. If those making their own content have a million subscribers and they are making money out of that, then, yes, the CRTC will have an ability to look at that. It is not what the Conservatives are saying, which is that we should have a blanket exemption that nobody who is making money on the Internet has to report to anybody or be accountable for anything. That was one of the major improvements between the first version of the bill and the bill that New Democrats are now supporting.
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Madam Speaker, what happens and what the Conservatives are failing to recognize is that business-dominated streaming services and Internet result in the most homogenous material going the farthest. It actually works against diversity. Those who have a smaller market, because they are appealing to serving their own local communities and their own local culture, will not advance as far in this free competition that the Conservatives see out there. What we need is a bill like this that would create that opening, that opportunity and that funding for Canadian content that will respond to the diversity of Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to say from the outset that I will be splitting my time with the member for Nunavut.
I am pleased to rise in this debate, and I will try to talk about Bill C-11, instead of all the other kinds of things not related to Bill C-11 that seem to have found their way into the debate today, because it is very fundamentally important to our Canadian identity. The way we learn to understand our country and ourselves depends on the stories we tell each other, the movies we watch and the music we listen to. Therefore, it is very important that there be a space created in this cacophonous world media that is emerging for Canadian content. Otherwise, we will lose our identity as Canadians.
This bill seeks to amend and to update the Broadcasting Act. It looks at making sure there is a level playing field for the new streaming services that have taken a great deal of control over what is happening. It is a very important bill. It asks that the streaming services, which take an enormous amount of revenue out of Canada without paying taxes here, for the most part, be obliged to contribute funds so that Canadian creators can continue to create that content.
The Conservatives are focusing on people who are creating content on the Internet. However, what I am talking about is music, publishing, television and movies, and it is essential that we have that Canadian content. If we tell artists to go ahead and create Canadian content, but the money has already been sucked out of the economy that would go to finance that, then that content will not exist. It cannot exist. The money will be invested and decisions will be made by the streaming services, and they will invest those Canadian revenues around the world wherever they think they can make the most profit. This bill asks that they make an equal contribution to the revenues they are taking out of this country to make sure that Canadian content in movies, television and radio continues to exist. To me, that is the importance of this bill.
A secondary part of this bill that is very important to me is that which updates the broadcasting policy to add a requirement that when we are looking at Canadian content it includes diversity. In particular, one of the things that has never been recognized is the importance of indigenous culture and indigenous languages in this country. This bill updates the Broadcasting Act to include an obligation that the Canadian content that is being protected would be inclusive of indigenous culture and indigenous languages. I think that is a very important step forward.
It also acknowledges other forms of diversity. No one would be surprised that I belong to one of those minority communities. I think it is important that all of that diversity, whether with respect to sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnic, racial or religious backgrounds, is represented in Canadian content. This bill would update those regulations to recognize how important that diversity is to who we are as Canadians. For that reason, I am supporting this bill. I have supported it from the beginning.
Do I think the government has done the best job of communicating its messages here? Frankly, no, I do not. Do I think it has done the best job of getting this done in a timely fashion? Obviously it has not. We had an unnecessary election that caused us to start over on this bill. However, that does not make any difference to the final outcome.
We are talking about Senate amendments today. Everyone knows that I am not a great fan of that other place. Most of the time, I think the House should reject all amendments from the Senate. Very few senators even show up to vote on legislation, and they are not accountable to anyone. Therefore, I have no hesitation at all in saying that we will look carefully at amendments that come forward. However, if we in the House do not think they are good amendments, we have every right to reject them, because we are the elected members who represent Canadians in the House. I have no problem sending the amendments back to the Senate, thanking it very much, and telling it that we, the elected members, will decide on legislation.
Having said all of those positive things, I cannot avoid talking for a minute about this other world that the Conservative caucus seems to be living in. It is a world where the Internet is unregulated in a free market where quality rises to the top. I do not live in that world. It is not the real world. The web giants control the content and who rises to the top already. Through their algorithms, they determine what Canadians can see. Google decides in its search engine what will be prioritized.
I belong to the interparliamentary group working on online anti-Semitism, and we have been trying to get those web giants to acknowledge their role, in this particular case, in promoting anti-Semitism in the way that their algorithms function. We had a great deal of trouble getting the attention of parliamentarians from 12 countries to this problem, which they create through their algorithms. They say those algorithms are a business secret. They cannot share how those work. They cannot let anyone have any role in those algorithms. Those are theirs, and they make profit out of them. The bill says that, in terms of discoverability, there be a way that Canadian content created in Canada can be discovered through those search engines.
Yes, there is an intervention about content and what we see. It is not an attempt to censor. It is an attempt to create opportunities for diverse material to make its way forward through the business-controlled algorithms that determine what people see and watch now. There is no wild frontier out there where everybody competes equally on the Internet. We hear the Conservatives saying there is an attempt to censor. There is an attempt to create an opening for more diversity and an opening for Canadian content. That is not censorship.
We heard very extreme statements about Canadian content here, which would, I would say, throw the baby out with the bathwater. They are saying for all these years we have had Canadian content, which has helped Canadian filmmakers and Canadian singers establish a base that they have been able to use to go on to become stars on the world stage. They want to throw that away and say no level playing field and no resources for Canadians against the rest of the big streaming giants who are funding things elsewhere.
That is not the Canada I want to live in, and that is not the way we should approach what is absolutely a changed environment. That is what this bill tries to do. It tries to respond to that changed environment that the streaming companies have created and to make sure there is a role for our stories, our music, our movies and for us as Canadians on the world stage.
That is why I will continue to support Bill C-11. I hope the Conservatives believe what they are saying. I am not sure they do, but I hope that they are arguing from a very honest perspective. I just do not understand how creating opportunities for Canadians is censorship.
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Madam Speaker, it is very important for us to look back on the Canadian content requirements from the past and realize they offered the chance to have conversations with each other as Canadians and not some form of tyranny.
Is the hon. member, like me, puzzled about why the Conservatives seem to prefer letting the web giants and the streaming services determine what we watch, instead of supporting a bill such as this that would make room for indigenous people, Quebec content and the diversity that is Canada? I fail to understand why Conservatives prefer to let the big web giants and streaming services determine what we see.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Trois-Rivières for his speech and in particular for reminding us all that philosophy can help us grapple with everyday issues so eloquently.
I do not know the cultural scene in Trois-Rivières well, although I did spend a summer in immersion at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières some time ago. Nevertheless, I am sure that Trois-Rivières has its share of cultural workers and cultural production despite the pull of Montreal and Quebec. I am also sure that the loss of revenues during COVID for those organizations has left many of them struggling.
My question for the member is pretty simple, and I am sure he will agree with me. It is really important that we scoop back some of those revenues that were taken by the web giants and streaming services and direct that revenue to cultural production in our ridings across the country.
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