I will turn to my colleague.
Evidence of meeting #102 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was media.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #102 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was media.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:15 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage
I will turn to my colleague.
10:15 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Cultural Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you for the question.
What we see in the world is that there have been two general approaches to this problem. You have seen Europe pursue an approach based on giving news publishers a form of copyright for their content when it gets shared. The outcome in Germany that you are referencing would be under that kind of copyright royalty framework.
The other model was—
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
I'm sorry, but how much approximately annually are the Germans seeing out of the deal?
10:15 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Cultural Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage
I believe the media reports the minister referred to—I don't have the precise currency figure—mentioned that it was five million, but I can't remember if it was dollars or euros. It was in that range.
The other model is the Australian model. That was a bargaining framework, which is what Canada has pursued here, in part because it provides the ability to have these commercial agreements and to not get involved in setting a copyright royalty rate for this kind of activity on platforms.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Thank you.
In my riding in Vancouver there are a number of smaller online publications and others that are really trying to make a go of it. A number of them have reached out to say they are quite happy with this. A couple have said they like where they think this is going.
What assurance can you as officials give them that indeed this is a deal that will support ethnic media and support small local media and others, not unlike the ones that all of us have in our communities?
10:15 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage
The answer is really in the act and the results of your work. In the act, the criteria are already baked in. There is not going to be any exemption and, therefore, no deals by Google will be accepted unless they deal with media from all the groups you mentioned. The criteria in the act are very specific, so no deal will be accepted unless it meets the criteria in the act.
That's another difference. It's more transparent but it's also ensuring, contrary to the case in Australia, that the smaller media, the ethnic media, the indigenous media and the local media will be part of these deals.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I think that's the end of our question-and-answer session.
With it being 25 after, if someone would move to adjourn the meeting....
10:20 a.m.
An hon. member
I so move.
