Bill C-11

Online Streaming Act

An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Broadcasting Act to, among other things,
(a) add online undertakings — undertakings for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet — as a distinct class of broadcasting undertakings;
(b) specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation;
(c) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of the Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should
(i) serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including Canadians from Black or other racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages, and
(ii) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(d) enhance the vitality of official language minority communities in Canada and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs in both languages;
(e) specify that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) must regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a manner that
(i) takes into account the different characteristics of English, French and Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide English, French or Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) takes into account, among other things, the nature and diversity of the services provided by broadcasting undertakings,
(iii) ensures that any broadcasting undertaking that cannot make maximum or predominant use of Canadian creative and other human resources in the creation, production and presentation of programming contributes to those Canadian resources in an equitable manner,
(iv) promotes innovation and is readily adaptable toscientific and technological change,
(v) facilitates the provision to Canadians of Canadian programs in both official languages, including those created and produced by official language minority communities in Canada, as well as Canadian programs in Indigenous languages,
(vi) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities,
(vii) facilitates the provision to Canadians of programs created and produced by members of Black or other racialized communities,
(viii) protects the privacy of individuals who aremembers of the audience of programs broadcast, and
(ix) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which the Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on any class of broadcasting undertakings if that imposition will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(f) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(g) replace the Commission’s power to impose conditions on a licence with a power to make orders imposing conditions on the carrying on of broadcasting undertakings;
(h) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(i) authorize the Commission to provide information to the Minister responsible for that Act, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, and set out in that Act a process by which a person who submits certain types of information to the Commission may designate the information as confidential;
(j) amend the procedure by which the Governor in Council may, under section 28 of that Act, set aside a decision of the Commission to issue, amend or renew a licence or refer such a decision back to the Commission for reconsideration and hearing;
(k) specify that a person shall not carry on a broadcasting undertaking, other than an online undertaking, unless they do so in accordance with a licence or they are exempt from the requirement to hold a licence;
(l) harmonize the punishments for offences under Part II of that Act and clarify that a due diligence defence applies to the existing offences set out in that Act; and
(m) allow for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties for violations of certain provisions of that Act or of the Accessible Canada Act .
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Bibic, you can be faulted for many things, but I don't think your support for Bill C-11 or Bill C-18 can be counted among them. You talked about the importance of the transition you're making to a digital company, and I think part of the work that we're doing, as a government, is to support that.

The work our government is doing and the support we have given to news media across this country is not intended for you to pay further benefits to your shareholders and senior executives.

Mr. Bibic, do you know who Scott Roberts is?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'll just conclude with this: You stated yourself that people don't want cable packages anymore. They want access to online streaming. Bill C-11 pulls people back from the future into an antiquated past. It's terrible legislation.

I'm passing my time on to my colleague.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Bill C-11 was created by the current government to stifle innovation and creativity. It shuts down YouTubers or digital-first creators, and it very much puts more money in the pockets of traditional broadcasters, such as Bell Media.

It's no wonder, then, that you would support this bill because, of course, it stifles competition and very much acts in your favour.

What's interesting, though, is that Bell is an incredibly profitable company and is already taking hundreds of millions of dollars from this government, yet it still stands with its hands out for more. It makes no qualms out of the fact that creativity and innovation in this country are being stifled.

Interestingly enough, one of the talking points that you keep returning to is that this is one of the big problems in this country: that creativity, innovation and productivity are being stifled. However, you're actually a part of that problem by supporting Bill C-11. You're a part of stifling that. You're a part of holding us back from going into the future, instead insisting that a broadcasting act that is incredibly antiquated in nature is applied to the Internet.

With all due respect, you are a part of the problem. It is for the sake of selfishness, and it is for the sake of lining pockets with more money that you want to be handed over, based on the creative content that is being generated by these digital-first creators and put out there. You want them to take 30% of their revenue and put it toward your antiquated model.

I find that alarming. I find it very concerning that Bell is functioning in that manner while receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the government.

[Mirko Bibic]

Is that the Online News Act?

No, Bill C-11 is the Online Streaming Act.

We did support the act in the sense that it was a good step towards fixing the broader issues, but it's only one step. Far more is required.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Bibic, I'm curious. Do you support Bill C-11?

Government Responses to Order Paper Questions

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I support this question of privilege in light of the violation of government's obligation to answer an Order Paper question, but I also add to it, considering how the government has taken steps to take control of the Internet in Canada.

It has done this through legislation like Bill C-11, which centralizes regulatory control of what Canadians can see, hear and post online based on what the government deems “Canadian”.

In addition, I highlight Bill C-18, which has resulted in the government being one of the biggest gatekeepers of news in Canada. This is a major conflict of interest and a direct attack on journalistic integrity in this country.

Now, most recently, through Bill C-63, the government proposes to establish an entire commission, yet another arm of the government, that would regulate online harm.

How can Canadians trust the government to police various aspects of the Internet if it cannot even be honest and tell the truth about the content requested to be taken down? Trust is pinnacle and frankly the government has not earned any of it. The truth must prevail.

Mr. Speaker, you have the opportunity to look into this and to get to the bottom of it, or you can keep us in the dark and allow secrecy and injustice to reign. I understand that you are the one to make this decision, and we are putting our trust in you to make sure that this place is upheld and democracy is kept strong.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

In the last Parliament, the government tried to legislate algorithms through Bill C-10. It then backed off and brought in Bill C-11 this time. It said, “Look at us. Aren't we being nice? We're going to tell people how to write their algorithms and not actually look at them.”

In this bill, you have schedule 2, which is numbered as schedule 2, and schedule 1, and I'd like to know—

[Sarah Andrews]

I will give you the short answer first, which is yes. Then I'll expand a little bit on that.

When you are part of an oligopoly, you expect oligopoly margins on all of your business lines. The margins on news content can't remotely compete with what companies like Rogers and Bell are seeing on their wireless and Internet revenues, particularly when it comes to local news. One of the reasons they're earning these high margins on wireless and Internet is that they are an oligopoly and there is very little competition. This creates a totally unrealistic expectation that news, particularly local news, can or should earn similar margins, so it's like a bad feedback loop.

Notwithstanding this, private media companies have acquired and merged their way to a position of dominance in broadcast news, a critical public resource. Then, when they still don't get the same astronomical margins they get on wireless and on the Internet, the result is cuts and closures.

What is equally concerning is that giant corporations like Bell and Quebecor are now trying to completely get out of their current regulatory obligations to provide news. In fact, just after Bill C-11 passed, they started to make the case to reduce their obligations through the implementation of the Online Streaming Act.

The fact that these companies have been allowed to become an effective oligopoly and earn these high margins actually creates a corresponding obligation on them to protect and preserve news and journalism, given the critical role these things play in preserving our democracy.

[Sarah Andrews, Director, Government and Media Relations, Friends of Canadian Media]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, committee members.

Friends of Canadian Media is a non-partisan citizens' movement that stands up for Canadian voices in Canadian media. From public broadcasting to news, culture and online civil discourse, we represent hundreds of thousands of everyday citizens from across the country who want to protect and defend Canada's rich cultural sovereignty and the healthy democracy it sustains.

I would like to start by acknowledging Parliament's most recent actions. Bills C‑11 and C‑18 triggered considerable debate, but together these policies represent a necessary and vital impulse to do something, to act rather than to acquiesce, and to react to the eroding impact that foreign tech companies are having on our news, our culture and even our democratic health.

When it comes to the news crisis, many shrug their shoulders and suggest there is nothing to be done, that this crisis represents the irresistible march of time and technology, that we are powerless to act, and that the public doesn't even care, but that is wrong. Every day, our supporters tell us how much they do care and how deeply concerned they are about the future of the news sector. They feel what's being lost, and they want better.

They're not alone. Recent polling we commissioned shows that for all the downsizing and derision, Canadians still turn to so-called traditional media to get their news. Seventy-three percent of adults said they deemed news from television, radio and newspapers to be trustworthy and reliable. By contrast, social media was trusted by only 30% of Canadians. Sadly, nearly 80% of Canadians felt that it's getting more and more difficult to know what is true and what is not.

This last statistic should come as no surprise. With the relentless pace of news layoffs, editorially rigorous and trusted journalism is increasingly being replaced by misinformation and disinformation. Some of it is just sloppy. Some of it is ideological. Some of it is predatory trolling for profit. Some of it is outright malicious and even dangerous.

Here we are, knee-deep in a Canadian news crisis, but perhaps it's time to focus less on the result and more on the cause, because if we follow the money, it is clear that advertising revenues have fuelled this crisis in the news.

Over the past decade, GAFAMs—digital giants like Meta and Google—have made their way into our daily lives. These platforms are increasingly coveted and have used their global reach and unfettered market advantage to cannibalize advertising revenues. Not only have we enabled them to do this, we've encouraged it.

Currently, in Canada, advertising purchased on foreign digital platforms is considered a tax-deductible expense. In 2018, when our organization published our study “Close the Loophole! The Deductibility of Foreign Internet Advertising”, we estimated that $5 billion in advertising was being extracted from our economy. We need to close the gap and encourage Canadian advertisers to choose homegrown platforms.

However, we can't stop there. Programmatic advertising has spawned a veritable misinformation and disinformation economy in which toxic content is fuelled by a near-constant flow of advertising dollars. This disinformation economy is worth several billion dollars, most of which ends up in Google's pockets. The company systematically ignores its own standards and practices designed to ensure that digital ads are not placed on sites offering extreme content and ideas.

We can act by imposing transparency and accountability requirements that would help redirect advertising dollars to trusted sources of information, away from those whose business models allow them to profit from amplifying violence, hatred and disinformation.

We must also provide CBC/Radio-Canada with a sustainable funding model. It is the only broadcaster required by law to produce news in all regions. Unfortunately, however, it is crumbling under the weight of chronic underfunding, compounded by a freeze in the last federal budget. As private broadcasters continue to withdraw from news production, particularly local news, our national public broadcaster must have the resources to fill the void and fulfil its mandate. What's more, if CBC/Radio-Canada were better funded, this could reduce its dependence on advertising.

Before we wrap up and address any questions you may have, we want to answer this committee's central question about whether there is a need for a wider study of the Canadian news ecosystem. Our answer is a definite yes.

However, while that study is taking place, we do encourage Parliament to turn its focus to the advertising economy and its tremendous impact on our news, our culture and our democracy. Canadians are looking to you to take up this task, and we urge you to move swiftly and to take a big swing, because half measures have brought us here, to a news crisis that may quickly become a democratic one, and that would be unacceptable.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today.

[Scott Hutton]

We had additional resources to implement Bill C‑11 and Bill C‑18, on news content. It's been an enormous amount of work. Our new president and we are prioritizing these major files, and we're putting all our efforts behind implementing these bills.

If we're talking about Bill C‑11, I think it was enacted in April. Within a few weeks, we made sure we had launched four proceedings based on which—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hutton, I'll continue in the same vein. Earlier, you said that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, had a lot of work to do.

In recent weeks, Bell has laid off 4,800 employees, mostly in the broadcasting sector. One of the reasons cited is the slowness in producing the regulations for Bill C‑11.

Can you tell us if the CRTC has the resources to do all the work we're asking of it?

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for being so concise.

On this February 15, before I begin my speech, I would like to salute a few illustrious people, namely François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier, Charles Hindelang, Pierre-Rémi Narbonne, Amable Daunais and François-Stanislas Nicolas. We think of these persons today, as we have done every year on February 15 since 1839.

The bill we are discussing today is a very simple bill. What we are really asking is that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act be amended to ensure that Quebec is systematically consulted when the CRTC puts in place any regulations that would have an impact on Quebec culture.

It is a short bill involving one very simple amendment. Earlier I listened to my Conservative colleague recount the events that followed the passage of Bill C-11. When Bill C-11 was almost ready to be passed, the Conservative Party released a letter that was sent to the government, the Liberal Party, to the heritage minister at the time. That letter set out Quebec's specific demands with respect to Bill C-11, which reformed the Broadcasting Act.

I would like to provide a bit of context. With a little good faith, I think that my Conservative colleague will lend credence to what I am going to tell the House. The Conservatives unduly delayed and blocked the bill in committee for a very long time. Quebec had demands and it was not consulted during the study of the bill, at least not formally.

By the time Quebec's demands finally arrived, the bill was about to be passed. Does that mean that the demands therein were illegitimate? No, not at all. Realistically, however, it was too late to reopen the file in committee and go back to the drawing board, so to speak.

If my Conservative colleague had the slightest understanding of how the Government of Quebec operates in this kind of situation, he would not have talked about having Quebec's minister of culture and communications, Mathieu Lacombe, appear before the committee. If he had the slightest understanding of how the relationship between Quebec and Ottawa works, he would know that Quebec government ministers do not testify in committee. They have a nation-to-nation relationship with Ottawa. They speak minister to minister. Ministers from Quebec do not appear before committees. He should know this, but he does not. It was much more dramatic to take the letter and say that the Bloc and the Liberals do not listen to Quebec. He said the Bloc did not listen to Quebec, did not listen to cultural groups and did not listen to groups in Quebec's broadcasting sector during the study of bills on broadcasting, online news and anything to do with Quebec culture. What a joke. It is funny, actually, so that is how we will take it.

That being said, we have here Bill C-354, which was introduced by my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île. This bill addresses one of the most important demands set out in that letter from Minister Lacombe and the Government of Quebec. This is a natural demand and Minister Lacombe was not the first to make it. Quebec's need, its desire, its demand to have its say in the decisions that are made in Ottawa and that have an impact on francophone culture and the French language dates back to 1929 and has been kept alive by successive Quebec governments.

The premier at the time, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, saw this weird new technology called radio and thought that it needed to be regulated immediately. That is when a regulatory body was created to provide oversight.

To no one's surprise, instead of agreeing with what Quebec was doing and choosing to play a part in this regulatory body, Ottawa decided to do something else. It created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, or CRBC, the current CRTC's ancestor. Both organizations were developed in parallel, as is so often the case, with a tiny intrusion into Quebec's jurisdictions. It seems that this was even more commonplace back then and that people did not complain as much. There was no Bloc Québécois to fight for Quebec in Ottawa.

Long story short, wanting to have a say in French-language communications and culture in Quebec is not just a Quebec separatist or nationalist thing. Liberal governments also asked for it, and so did Union Nationale governments. Even former minister Lawrence Cannon, who was a Liberal minister in Quebec before becoming a Conservative minister in Ottawa, asked for it.

This is not a demand being made by spoiled sovereignist brats who want to repatriate all powers to Quebec. This is a reasonable request to ensure that Quebec is consulted on decisions made by the next-door nation that affect the Quebec nation's culture.

We will be voting on Bill C‑354 in a few days. We are not asking for the moon. At the moment, we are not even asking for the right to immediately create a Quebec CRTC, which is also among Quebec's requests and the Bloc Québécois's plans, and quite reasonably so. For now, this is not what we are asking. For now, we are simply responding to a straightforward request from Quebec.

As my Conservative colleague said earlier, the Conservatives tried to promote this request themselves, but it was already too late in the Bill C‑11 process. I presume that the entire House of Commons will support this very reasonable request when we vote on this amendment to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act.

Bill C‑354 was introduced in response to a request from Quebec, the Government of Quebec and the people of Quebec, and I think everyone in the House should agree that Quebec and the provinces that are concerned about preserving French in some of their communities should be consulted when regulations are put in place that will have an impact on the French language and culture in those places.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C‑354, which was introduced by the Bloc Québécois.

The Bloc Québécois's bill seems pretty straightforward. It states:

The Commission shall consult with the Government of Quebec about the cultural distinctiveness of Quebec and with the governments of the other provinces about the French-speaking markets in those provinces before furthering the objects and exercising the powers referred to in subsection (1) in respect of the aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system that concern those matters.

This seems like a fairly simple request for consultation, and it would require the CRTC to consult Quebec and the provinces.

Of course, I support the principle that the Government of Quebec should have the opportunity to express itself, especially when it comes to Quebec's cultural distinctiveness. The Government of Quebec and the National Assembly of Quebec are not shy about making their position known, especially when it comes to protecting the French language and Quebec culture.

As Conservatives, we on this side of the House recognize that French is the only official language that is in decline in Canada. As such, we have an essential role to play in protecting it.

To continue the debate, I would like to come back to Bill C-11, which amended the Broadcasting Act. The Government of Quebec had called for specific amendments to this bill so that Quebec's concerns would be heard.

In February 2023, Quebec's minister of culture and communications, Mathieu Lacombe, wrote to the then minister of Canadian heritage. I will read some excerpts from that letter to provide some context for the Bloc Québécois bill. At the time, the Bloc refused, for months, to convey this request from Quebec's elected officials to the House of Commons.

I will now quote Minister Mathieu Lacombe:

It is essential, both in Bill C‑11 and in its implementation by the CRTC, that Quebec's cultural distinctiveness and the unique reality of the French-language market be adequately considered. I would like to reiterate our demand that a formal, mandatory mechanism for consultation with the Government of Quebec be set out in the act to that effect....[Quebec] must always have its say before any instructions are given to the CRTC to direct its actions under this act when its actions are likely to affect companies providing services in Quebec or likely to have an impact on the Quebec market....

This letter that came from the Government of Quebec was sent to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, it seems that no one in the Liberal government saw fit to respond to this request. There was complete radio silence after that letter.

However, on this side of the House, the Conservatives heard this plea. The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent and the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles rose in the House several times to urge the government to receive the Quebec minister in committee in order to hear what Quebec was asking for and determine how Bill C‑11 could contribute to ensuring that the act takes Quebec's cultural distinctiveness into account. That is something tangible. We had a tangible request from Quebec to be heard on a bill that would have considerable repercussions on Quebec's cultural distinctiveness and on Quebec's language. We felt it was important to grant this request and allow the Quebec minister to come testify in committee.

Allow me to quote an article from La Presse from February 14, 2023. That was a year ago almost to the day. The headline of the article read, “Broadcasting Act reform: Conservative Party supports Quebec's request for a say”. That about sums it up.

I think La Presse hit the nail pretty much on the head. I will read some of the article:

The Conservative Party is urging the [Prime Minister's] government to refer Bill C‑11, which seeks to modernize the Broadcasting Act, to a parliamentary committee in order to examine Quebec's request for the bill to include a mandatory mechanism requiring the province to be consulted to ensure that the CRTC protects Quebec's cultural distinctiveness.

That article was written by Joël‑Denis Bellavance, someone who reliably reports the facts.

A little further on in the article, it talks about what happened here in the House of Commons when we discussed this issue. It states, and I quote:

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative member [for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles] and his colleague [from Louis-Saint-Laurent] both questioned [the heritage minister] on this subject and urged him to consider Quebec's “legitimate request”.

The article goes on to quote the question that was asked that day:

“[The] Quebec government is urging the Liberal government to include a mechanism for mandatory consultation in Bill C-11 to ensure the protection of Quebec culture....Do the Prime Minister and the Bloc agree with Minister Lacombe when it comes to Quebec culture and the fact that the government needs to send the bill to committee?” asked the member [for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles].

That is a very legitimate question that was asked in response to the letter published the day before by journalist Joël-Denis Bellavance.

The answer given by the then minister of heritage was rather cold. It was more of a diversionary tactic. The minister completely avoided my colleague's question. Instead, he chose to go on the attack and to completely avoid answering the simple question about the fact that the Quebec minister of culture and communications was asking to appear before the parliamentary committee.

During the same question period, my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent raised the issue again. I would like to quote from the article and the question at the same time:

“[H]ow can a member from Quebec, a minister from Quebec, refuse to listen to the demands of the Government of Quebec? I understand that the purpose of Bill C-11 is to centralize power in Ottawa, with help from the Bloc Québécois, which I might have to start calling the ‘centralist bloc’”, fumed [my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent].

Members will understand the reason for his anger, not only toward the governing party, the Liberal Party, but also toward the Bloc Québécois. The Liberal minister came out with a sledgehammer argument. Instead of answering the question and granting the Quebec minister of culture and communications' legitimate request to appear in committee, the then minister of heritage accused the Conservative Party of trying to stall the bill's passage again. It was as though asking to hear from the minister of a duly elected government was not a good enough reason to slightly delay a bill's passage in order to find out what Quebec had to say. That is unacceptable.

In his letter, Minister Lacombe argued that, as the “heartland of the French language and francophone culture in America”, Quebec considered it “vital to have a say in these instructions”. It seems to me that the committee should have listened to what Minister Lacombe had to say.

My colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent moved a motion in committee. Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party voted against that motion, which was intended to allow a discussion of the amendments proposed by the Senate and Quebec's request. Again unsurprisingly, the NDP sided with the Liberals. How did the Bloc Québécois member vote in committee? Did he seize the opportunity to be the voice of reason, speaking on behalf of Quebec and Quebeckers? After a formal letter from the Government of Quebec and a unanimous motion from the National Assembly, which side did the Bloc Québécois take?

The answer will shock everyone, even our our viewers: The Bloc Québécois voted against the common-sense motion moved by my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, which would have allowed the voice of a Quebec minister to be heard in committee. At the time, not only did we agree in principle, but we took concrete action to ensure that the Government of Quebec would be heard.

Now let us see how negotiations unfold in committee, so we can find out whether everyone really meant what they said.

[Jen Gerson]

There are two points I would make in response to that question.

The first is that if we're sitting here at the heritage committee deciding who's going to cover the drink tab of the national forum, I'm all for it. If you're going to have a collection of journalists, we would expect an open bar.

Second, if I'm the federal government and I'm concerned about the democratic deficit this country is facing as a result of a decline in media or the collapse of the business model in media, I already have two extremely big sticks that I can use to start to bring things into a more proper balance without talking about Bill C-18, without talking about Bill C-11, without talking about new legislation and without necessarily talking about new funding from taxpayers.

The first stick is the CBC, and I believe Ms. Lindgren already made this point. If we are concerned about local news and we're concerned about news deserts, it seems to me that the place where the federal government already has an enormous impact on this industry is through public media.

I had some very interesting conversations with Conservatives, who are very angry with the CBC and perceive the CBC to be very biased, which is—rightly or wrongly—where I think a lot of Canadians are positioned across the political spectrum. I think the CBC in its current formation can't serve the function it needs to serve to try to fix a lot of the democratic deficits we're facing.

I think you need to look at a fundamental reimagining of what the CBC is, and also to reimagine it as a much more locally focused news outlet, potentially one that is not competing with private outlets and potentially one that has, for example, mandated reporters in every town of about 100,000 people. It's potentially a CBC that sees itself less as a private broadcast competitor and more as a public library of journalism. It may be a CBC that sees itself as providing news, video and audiovisual content to all Canadians to do with as they wish so they can use that to create their own local journalism practices, podcasts and so on. I think there is an obvious place for the federal government to focus its energy here.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for taking the time to be with us today. Some of you, I know, came on quite short notice, so we very much appreciate the efforts you've put into arriving.

My first question has to do with some of the things we've observed of late—just in the last few days. We know that Bell made the determination to lay off about 4,800 employees and that they purported to make this decision based on government regulations. Bill C-18 and Bill C-11 were detrimental to them, but so was the requirement to share spectrum they had built infrastructure for. The policies that came from the federal government were actually incredibly harmful, not only to Bell but also to the news industry. We know that 600 of those employees were journalists.

That being the case, here today we're discussing the federal government extending its hand again by being involved in a forum—or at least the terms of a forum—and whether or not it would be appropriate for news outlets to host such a thing. It seems like a bizarre question to me that the government would somehow determine whether or not it is even appropriate for news businesses to meet, as if it's the government's decision. Why can't news businesses meet all on their own accord, have a fruitful discussion and, should they wish to, invite government stakeholders to the table to listen to what they have to say?

Nevertheless, I would also highlight the detrimental effect Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 have had. Bill C-11, of course, built walls around digital first creators. To the point raised by Ms. Gardner and Ms. Gerson—and I believe one other witness raised this point as well—really, so many people are obtaining their news from digital first creators and digital platforms. Through Bill C-11, walls have been built around them, therefore stifling their reach. Furthermore, Bill C-18 has prevented Canadians from being able to access news. It has not generated more for the public good. Rather, it has taken away from the public good.

Further to that, what was supposed to be about $300 million to $350 million given to the news industry to help prop them up, and in particular was touted as something that would support newspapers.... In fact, Facebook said no to being regulated. Then Google went behind a closed door with the government, entered into a shady backroom deal, actually got an exemption from Bill C-18 and instead created some other contractual deal in which they're giving $100 million to the news media of, really, their choice. Further to that, the $100 million isn't actually a full $100 million because supposedly $25 million of that was already granted, so it's really only a new $75 million. All of that is to say there's been a lot of over-promising and under-delivering when the government gets involved.

My question will be for Ms. Gerson first. If the government is not to be involved—I believe I've laid out a few points as to why that would be a bad idea—then what are the alternatives so the news industry in Canada has longevity?