Bill C-10 (Historical)

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) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of that Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should serve the needs and interests of all Canadians — including Canadians from racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds — and should provide opportunities for Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(c) 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 Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) is fair and equitable as between broadcasting undertakings providing similar services,
(iii) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities, and
(iv) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which that Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on a class of broadcasting undertakings if doing so will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(d) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(e) 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;
(f) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(g) 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;
(h) 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;
(i) 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;
(j) 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
(k) 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.

Broadcasting Act

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member and I know that when they begin to change those, the companies are not going to leave, as may have been suggested earlier. Netflix is not going away. The new platforms that are out there that a lot of students were on during the last eight months, the social media, those platforms are not going away. If they are faced with increasing costs, it is going to be the subscribers who pay for it. The subscribers are going to be paying those costs. It will not be anybody else except the user at the bottom end.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, this member offers a lot to the discussion today.

I have heard what he has had to say about this, but one of the concerns that I have, and I am continually hearing this from the Conservatives, is that they talk about the one or two problems they might see with the bill. This bill is at the first stage. If they are genuinely interested in seeing change, they would support the bill and send it to committee. This member said that the government members are the ones who run the amendments, but no, we are in a minority Parliament right now. All this member needs to do is get together with some other opposition members, and he can get his amendments into the bill.

Would he not at least support sending the bill to committee, so that he can bring forward his fine amendments he has been talking about so that they can be made part of the bill and make it a better piece of legislation?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the member for Kingston and the Islands. He has a fine mind for history. He understands history, respects it and comes from a community that is deep in history. I really appreciate listening to him when he talks about the history of his community. We have worked on committees together.

He may be right. One never knows. We might be surprised if this is sent to committee, and I think it will probably be sent to committee. However, I am not sure what we will get for amendments to fix a bill that has a lot of challenges in it.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I have a brief note. I know we are attentive to the rules that we would normally have in the House. Slogans and the pronunciation of views on controversial topics in our everyday clothing are not within our rules. I so enjoyed the last speech that I did not want to interrupt, because I agreed with what the member had to say—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I thank the member for bringing up that point of order. I did not quite hear the end of it. It was cut off.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, the rules of this place are clear. We cannot wear t-shirts that proclaim support for one view or another, nor can we wear buttons that have large declarations on controversial issues as a member of Parliament in this place.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I thank the member very much. I would tend to think that was for the previous speaker. I would ask all members to make sure they respect the decorum of the House. Even though we are doing it virtually, it is still considered to be in the House.

I do appreciate the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands's raising that. I am sorry. We just did a transition in the Chair and I did not notice that, so I thank the member very much.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise to speak to and give some thoughts on Bill C-10, which makes amendments to the Broadcasting Act with respect to changes the government is proposing.

As a parliamentarian, when I first learned of the legislation and began doing research on it, I realized it is important to give some context as to why this act requires amendments. It is 29 years old. To give some context as to what was happening in the broadcasting and entertainment industry back in the day, I was three years old. I do not remember when the original Broadcasting Act came into force in the Parliament of Canada very well. Bryan Adams was topping the charts, and the relevant music was by Paula Abdul and Boys II Men. I am not denying it was great music, just a little older. It was six prime ministers ago.

Three decades later, I think there is consensus among the parties in the House that we need to tackle this legislation and make updates to reflect the reality we are in today. The bill proposes to update a huge part of what was not there in 1991 regarding Internet and social networks. Today, if we go through the list, we have Facebook, Google, Netflix, Crave, Spotify and Apple Music. All these online platforms are new to the rules the federal government must regulate around. They are not the same as the conventional players we had when this act was enacted back in 1991. It is key that we find a balance between conventional media and the new online platforms we have around today.

Having said that, I am disappointed with the government side and not very happy with or supportive of the legislation as it stands today, not necessarily because of the direction it takes regarding some angles, but the lack of direction and answers we are getting on this.

Like many pieces of legislation, I would say there are parts I support and parts that I oppose. There are far too many I am not satisfied with, that would need serious amendments for me to support it in the end. I want to be clear when I say that. The frustration I am sharing regarding Bill C-10 is not because I do not believe we need or do not need to modernize the law; rather it is because of the many shortcomings I am hoping to address in my time here today.

I want to commend our shadow minister, the member for Richmond—Arthabaska, who kicked off the debate on this legislation. As a Quebecker, a Canadian and a francophone, he gave some great context about the importance of getting this legislation right.

In my time today, I want to talk about two things. One is Canadian content. Of course we all want more Canadian content. I also want to talk about the aspect of conventional broadcasters to give my constituents of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry who are watching this clip, or Canadians who may not be familiar with this legislation, the rules and background around it.

There is a rule for conventional broadcasters in this country that anywhere between 25% to 40% of their content must be Canadian. When we talk about conventional broadcasters, it is important to understand who they are. We are talking about CTV, Citytv, CBC and Global. Those companies have an easier time of meeting the requirement for Canadian content because they broadcast sports and have news programming. They also have to contribute a percentage of funds to the Canada Media Fund, which supports the production of Canadian content in this country. As parliamentarians, the challenge we face is that we need to debate and have good legislation on where these online platforms fit into that. Netflix has talked about wanting to create more Canadian content, but it is concerned, and this is where we get into a bit of red tape, that it is harder for it to meet that threshold because it does not have the sports and news programming a conventional broadcaster does.

Here is the crazy part and where the red tape is outdated and needs updating. My colleague, the shadow minister, mentionedThe Decline in his speech, a Quebec feature film that was done in partnership with Netflix, and I believe was filmed in his riding. It used Canadian actors, had a Canadian crew and was filmed in Quebec. The economic impact was that it brought over $5 million in economic growth to the province of Quebec. It checks all the boxes, except it could not be certified as Canadian content because it was financed and produced by Netflix, which is not recognized.

This speaks to where we literally have millions of dollars in economic development and a film based in Quebec with Canadian actors that cannot get recognized with some of the red tape and rules that are in place today. Netflix is trying to make an effort, but cannot get there. One would think that, when we talk about updating Bill C-10 and modernizing some of these laws, it would encompass some of those areas. Unfortunately, from what we have seen to date, without serious amendment, I do not believe it is there.

One of the concerns we have with the legislation before us is that, for a lot of these parts, it would kick the can down the road on a lot of these decisions, saying that there is the intention to do something but will let the CRTC come up with the rules, regulations and deadlines on it. However, as a Parliament, I believe it may be our role to set those benchmarks. As well, there are provisions in the bill that would take away Parliament's ability to scrutinize some of these decisions and give that ability over to the CRTC.

To my colleagues on the government side or any party that, when my constituents ask me what I did to support Canadian content and the industry in Canada, if I were to say that I supported a bill that passed it over to the CRTC to deal with, I do not think they would be very happy with that.

I apologize in advance to the interpretation team because I am still in the process of learning French.

I am an anglophone from the very anglophone Dundas County, where there is not a lot of French-language content. There is a little in the Township of North Dundas and Dundas County.

Nevertheless, I feel that French-language content is very important, and not just for people living in Quebec or for francophones, but for all Canadians. Canada needs lots of French-language content for people like me who want to study a second language, as well as for people who want to get to know French and francophone cultures.

A law like this would mean we would have to pass even more laws. I do not think this law is acceptable because it is not nearly good enough.

One thing we need to do is send Bill C-10 to committee. As we debate the bill in the coming weeks and months, likely with the Christmas recess coming up, I would encourage my colleagues on the government side and perhaps other parties that may be inclined to support the bill to make sure that we are modernizing, that we do not have a piece of legislation to say that we checked a box to make amendments to the Broadcasting Act, but rather have tangible, meaningful ways that update conventional broadcasters in the online industry.

We can all agree that we need modernization of this law. We can agree that we need to have more online platforms, get with the times and understand what is there. However, this legislation as a whole would kick the can down the road and would not address a lot of the key issues that Canadians expect with legislation such as this.

I am supportive of more francophone and French content, LGBT content and first nations content, absolutely, but it is our Parliament with the oversight that we deserve here to hold the government of today and future governments accountable to those rules. We can go back to our constituents to say that we are doing meaningful things, not passing it to another body and not reducing transparency, but making it stronger than ever.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on Bill C-10 today. I look forward to following the debate in the coming months and, as always, I look forward to questions from my colleagues on the legislation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's approach in dealing with the legislation.

The member is right in the sense that a lot has changed and that we need to modernize the legislation. I suspect that I have a little more confidence in the CRTC than the member opposite as I see the high level of expertise that is there, but I share the concern regarding how important it is that we have Canadian content. I think we could find some common ground.

The member is right in the sense that, if by chance, the bill went to the committee stage prior to us recessing, it would provide the committee the opportunity to do a little more work potentially. Does the member have some specific amendments in mind that he may have shared with the department? I would encourage him to share, particularly with the minister, who I know would be open to changes that would improve the legislation.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member for Winnipeg North adding more comments, as he does on many pieces of legislation.

There is unanimous agreement that we need more Canadian content. The issue is how best to do that. We will hear more from our shadow minister. His opening speech was about 20 minutes and it gave a lot of details. It talked about the Quebec feature film, about updating the rules to say that players like Netflix have the opportunity to create more Canadian content and about some of the red tape and rules around how we can do that.

That is certainly part of what we want to do, not just our Quebec team or our francophone team. We will be coming up with a lot of suggestions and perhaps amendments.

Respectfully, we are going to need some serious changes and a commitment to serious changes at committee or before final reading, if I am to support it. I will follow this and see what happens. My commitment is always to try to be constructive and give ideas to get more Canadian content in the coming months.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest. The problem we are dealing with is that we have the best solution of 1995 for a problem of 2020. We all agree about the incredible power of the Canadian cultural industries, and that is now an issue we can expand internationally. That is the one issue.

The other is, how do we hold the tech giants accountable? To turn it over to the CRTC is ridiculous. We have a couple of key issues here. Facebook is still not paying taxes. We will not see the Liberal government tell Mark Zuckerberg to pay tax. If Facebook paid taxes, we would have a lot of resources, but the Liberal government will not do that.

The safe harbour provisions allow Pornhub to host child pornography right in Canada. The Liberal government will not take on the safe harbour provisions, because it will not stand up to Google or Facebook. It will punt it to the CRTC and tell us how great it was back when we had the King of Kensington, and we could do those days again. Those days are gone.

We need a plan to deal with the tech giants and to hold them accountable, the way other jurisdictions are. Then we need to discuss how we promote Canadian content. There are two issues, but they have been blurred into this menage that is not coherent.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find myself saying this too much when we have these debates, but I agree with the member for Timmins—James Bay. I cannot believe I am saying this, that we have some agreement on the frustrations.

I go back to the member's point about kicking the can over to the CRTC. Parliament needs to be more active in the promotion of Canadian content and in the regulation of this. I agree with him when we talks about the giant tech companies like Facebook and Google.

The frank reality is that we need to have more tough conversations about these companies and what they are doing. We can talk about MindGeek and Pornhub and what they are not doing from a perspective of revenue and contribution to our Canadian economy, but also from a public safety perspective.

I was horrified to see a story in the last few days, I think it was in The New York Times. It talked about MindGeek and the lack of protections. In the year 2020, for all the advancements we have made in online broadcasting and technology, to still have these gaps from a tax perspective, a government perspective, a privacy perspective and safety against children from being victims of sex trafficking, sex crimes perspective, whatever it may be, says a lot.

I will go back to the same thing about Bill C-10. It does very little to actually resolve the key issues that Canadians want to see addressed.

[Derek Sloan, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to Bill C-10. To quote the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the official background documents for the legislation, it states unequivocally:

Canadians have a right to recognize themselves in the music they listen to and the television they watch. We are proposing major changes to the Broadcasting Act in order to ensure online broadcasting services that operate in Canada contribute to the creation, production and distribution of Canadian stories.

I share the minister's support of Canadian music, movies and television, or as I will call it throughout this speech, CanCon. However, the bill may do exactly the opposite of supporting CanCon. It is not about the intent of a bill but about the reality, and I believe we will all see room for some serious concerns on this issue during my talk today.

I would like to point out that notwithstanding any criticisms I make, changes need to be made to rules surrounding production and creation of CanCon. We need to revisit the content qualification rules that specify whether something is Canadian. We heard a great example in the speech just prior to mine about a production in Quebec that did not qualify as CanCon even though it was produced in Canada and told Canadian stories.

There is a real need to look at these thresholds. However, when we dig deeper into what is being proposed by the minister, his commentary about wanting to licence Canadian Internet content producers, the realities of digital content creation and the big tech corporations that dominate the media landscape today, it becomes apparent to me that the bill has serious shortcomings. The bill may lay the foundation in the future for a series of government interventions that have the potential to damage the creative and innovative Canadian media producers in the digital field.

On November 3, the day the legislation was introduced by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, several Canadian media experts spoke out publicly against Bill C-10.

An article published in The Globe and Mail, for example, entitled “Broadcasting bill targets online streaming services”, mentions digital media expert and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist. I have enjoyed reading his daily blog posts on this issue. It is very informative. He said that the policy foundation behind Bill C-10 was very weak and that the government's claims that the Canadian film and television production industry was in crisis was not supported by evidence.

Mr. Geist said, “The truth is that the market has been working...well as Canada being an attractive place to invest in these areas.” He further stated that what was actually at risk was that some of the largest investors in film and television production would pull back until they had more certainty on their obligation and that new services would think twice before entering the Canadian market.

Perhaps more concerning for the government is that in that same news article, the well-known advocacy group, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, which specifically promote Canadian content, called the bill “a mess that fails to ensure the companies are subject to specific requirements for using Canadian production teams.”

I am personally concerned by the fact that the legislation does, as mentioned by the member prior to me in his speech, give a vastly enhanced range of abilities to the CRTC. For example, it grants it full enforcement powers, while at the same time providing no fulsome detail as to the guidelines for Canadian content production and future contributions to the Canadian media fund.

Despite asking MPs to vote in support of the legislation, it is hard to shake the fact that the lack of details creates a situation where we have to trust the government and see the details later. We should all find that problematic.

To go back to some comments made by Mr. Geist, the law professor in Ottawa, the primary concern to examine, in his view, is that the policy foundation for the bill is weak. He has stated that CanCon is not in crisis and the level playing field claims are misleading. The example of the CanCon production here is relevant. The minister has acknowledged that foreign-based streaming companies are investing directly into Canada, but the minister wishes to compel such investments to be made mandatory.

In the words of Mr. Geist, this indicates a lack of confidence in our ability to compete and in fact flies in the face of all the evidence. Just hear me out here.

The CRTC chair, Ian Scott, has already said that Netflix is probably the biggest single contributor to the Canadian production sector today. The Canadian media industry has received record amounts of investment for film and television production. Over the last decade, investment levels have nearly doubled. Certified Canadian content has grown, with two of the largest years on record for CanCon television production having taken place within the last three calendar years. Last year was the biggest year for French language production over the last decade.

When we dig down into the available provincial data, we will find further evidence of production levels setting new records. Earlier this year, the Ontario government's agency for cultural creations, called Ontario Creates, announced that it had a record-breaking year for Ontario's film and television sector, with more than $2 billion in production spending for well over 300 productions.

Professor Dwayne Winseck at Carleton University is on record. In his annual review, he finds film and television production in Canada has continuously increased for two decades, most recently driven by massive investments from streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

These facts and figures show that the basis for which the minister claims Bill C-10 is necessary are actually contrary to reality and once again raises the issue of the unintended consequences of interfering in the wrong way in this sphere.

The second issue noted by Mr. Geist is that as opposed to creating certainty, the bill would create enormous short-term uncertainty. For those companies that do invest, they may not know if their investments will count.

I suspect that Amazon, Netflix and these types of companies will keep investing regardless of whether the bill is passed or not. However, many smaller streaming services, BritBox, Spuul, Crunchyroll, are not household names, but are among dozens of streaming services that have emerged in recent years to serve a global audience. Unless the CRTC provides specific exemptions for these niche services, many are likely to forgo the Canadian market entirely, given all the new regulatory costs. Many multicultural markets will be especially hard hit by what will amount to, by the bill, a regulatory firewall in Canada.

Another very interesting point that has been raised by certain critics is the topic of trade threats and retaliatory tariffs. This concern should be on all of our radar screens. According to Mr. Geist, in this case, Bill C-10 violates the general standards in the USMCA. The government is relying on the cultural exemption to allow for this, yet even with the exemption, the U.S. will still be entitled to levy retaliatory tariffs.

Given the claims by the minister that this will generate billions of dollars in financial benefit for the industry, the retaliatory tariffs could be enormous and given the reworked structure of the USMCA, the tariffs the U.S. launches against Canada need not be limited to cultural tariffs. It could target any sector it likes. This is a potential concern that needs to be examined.

The legislation is likely to result in less competition and higher costs. If we generate large revenues, we will face mandated CanCon payment requirements that make no sense given the content. If we stay small, we will still have to comply with disclosure requirements that have no real incentive to grow past the threshold. That is assuming we see an actual threshold as none was listed in this legislation. This will result in less competition and less choice for the Canadian market.

I believe that the Netflixes and the Amazons will continue to invest, but as I mentioned earlier, some of the start-up companies that have specialized content, maybe multicultural content, will not know whether to invest in Canada or not because of the uncertainty around the bill. This will lead to a scenario where they will just avoid investing in Canada. We need to think about what this mean for the future of Canadian content.

My view is that the bill is not protecting Canadian sovereignty. The legislation basically surrenders it to the Internet giants. Therefore, they will keep investing here, but I do not know if it opens up the ability for some of these other start-ups to do so. They will become the dominant funders and purchasers of Canadian content. Canadian broadcasters may not be able to compete for Canadian content, given the desire of the giants to meet their CRTC obligations. This would force big decisions to Amazon and Netflix and leave Canadian broadcasters and smaller streaming services on the outside looking in.

I would ask all of us here to heed the warnings of different experts who have raised valid concerns, whether they be trade or investment related, and let us take a look at amending the bill in a way that will answer those concerns.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Madam Speaker, I am a very firm proponent for freedom of the press and freedom of speech, but after hearing my colleague's comments on Bill C-10, I believe him to be of the view that there should be very limited regulation on the part of the government with respect to the information that is disseminated on the Internet through web giants, as he describes them.

I would ask him if he believes there should be some role for government to play with respect to regulating information that appears online, for example, anti-vaccine campaigns or other information that is not based on science.