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

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

And the King of Kensington part, too.

Madam Speaker, we have some concerns with the legislation. There are some good things, like all pieces of legislation, but there are certainly things that provide some inequity that need to be addressed. There have been numerous studies done over the years about upgrading the Broadcasting Act.

In fact, just recently there was a recommendation from the broadcasting and telecommunications legislative review, which published a report in 2020. It was appointed a few years ago, and its purpose was to look at the key pieces of legislation that govern our communications sector. In that report, there were 97 recommendations based on the objectives of supporting the creation, production and discoverability of Canadian content, and improving the rights of the digital consumer, amongst other things.

In the report, it spoke specifically, and of course Bill C-10 speaks specifically, to online platforms. It speaks to financial contributions by broadcasters and online undertakings, and an update to Canada's broadcasting and regulation policy. It also gives the CRTC increasing powers.

For us, that is probably one of the most concerning parts of the bill, among some others, the fact that it can impose an administrative monetary policy for violations of certain provisions of the act, such as contraventions of regulations or orders made under the act, broadcasting when prohibited to do so and failing to submit information. There are numerous things that the CRTC will gain power on with respect to this. It also provides for oversight of the Canadian broadcasting landscape.

There are things within the bill that definitely need to be worked on. Here is one of the things that the bill does not address, and I want to spend a considerable amount of time on this. Recently I had the opportunity to meet with Metroland newspapers, which is part of the Torstar group. They were advocating on behalf of online digital content.

As members know, the inequity that is created, the disparity of online digital content is significant for those content producers. Oftentimes many of those stories will end up on Facebook or even Google, and a lot of the ad revenue that is being created does not go back to the content providers. That means there has been a significant change in the landscape of digital content in this country as a result of players like Facebook and Google. Facebook and Google profit significantly from that content that is being provided, but those content producers do not. It is causing a significant problem.

In meeting with Metroland, Shaun and Elise brought to my attention some of those concerns. My hope is, and I am writing a letter in support of their ask, that some of what they are suggesting to level the playing field is actually adopted by the government fairly soon. What the bill would not do is address the concerns of the digital content providers.

Their concern, of course, is preserving a functioning journalism industry. They said at the time that citizens around the globe are demanding high-quality journalism and investigative reporting. Nonetheless, the ability of news publishers to continue providing such critical information is under threat by the market power and preferential regulatory treatment of dominant platforms in digital information. Democratic governments are recognizing market failures in the market for news, and they are now working to implement policies to address them.

Just the other day, I was in a conference Zoom call with the new owners of Torstar, who own Metroland Media. Overwhelmingly, the consensus of the community leaders who were on that call spoke about the role of journalism, the role of truth and the role of providing balance, particularly in the case of local journalism. We had quite an interesting discussion about that because, as we see the evolution of social media platforms, there is a level of disinformation. Therefore, it comes back to a matter of trust in the content being provided by these digital producers.

France, Spain, the U.K. and Australia have already passed regulations. In fact, I am told that just today Australia passed legislation to level the playing field. Again, in the context of Bill C-10, none of this is addressed in this piece of legislation. What the Australian legislation is designed to do is to reduce the effects of the platforms' market power and to restore balance and fairness in the market for digital advertising and digital news distribution, which is exactly what I heard from Metroland representatives when I met with them.

Other countries, including the U.S., are now analyzing how the market is dominated through those digital platforms, and they are developing regulatory reforms and legislation and beginning antitrust proceedings to rectify the platforms' market dominance. The hope is to continue that discussion here in Canada and end up with either regulation or legislation that solves that inequity in the country. When many of our allies, and I do not mean that in a war context but in regard to the countries that we are aligned with digitally, are engaging in that process, we need to start doing that as a country as well.

Consumer demand for news obviously remains high, not just in the local and national content but also digital content. That speaks to the need for more credible and professional news as a result of that increased demand. There was a time when there was no social media, obviously, and as Canadians we received our news from reputable sources and reputable news people. There is an online demand for that news to continue, but in some cases it is not indicative of what is important or what is factual in a lot of cases.

Therefore, supporting that level playing field for the digital content and the producers of it becomes critical in protecting the truth, and that is what the Metroland representatives are talking about. They are, in their words, approaching market failure because of the inequity that is happening. They reminded me that market failure occurs when participants in a market do not produce an economically and socially optimal outcome because of non-market factors. Examples might be the inclusion of regulatory barriers to enter or market power.

Market failures can take several forms and several of them are applicable to the market for digital ads and news in Canada. The most pressing failure that they indicated was the result of the market power of both Google and Facebook, which I referenced earlier. Google and Facebook, they say, are in an effective duopoly over the market for digital advertising in Canada and its peer nations. Those platforms have segmented the market between search, which is Google, and Facebook for social media, which limits the direct competition between the two.

I know I have spent a lot of time on levelling the digital playing field in support of local content producers, but the concern that I have and the hope that I have is that the government will recognize this inequity and will work toward regulation or legislation that allows for these local content producers and the individuals who work for them to be paid fairly, not just from a monetary standpoint in terms of income but also from advertising as well, because that becomes important to the viability, the sustainability and the legitimacy of the news business in this country, going forward.

I would be glad to answer any questions.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, a lot of what I heard from the member's speech I agree with, as there is a lot of misinformation on social media platforms. He talked about more credible news, and I believe he was referring to those online sources.

A lot of what gets spread around are conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories that are then repeated by members of this House, including the member who just spoke, who yelled out the other day an anti-Semitic trope talking about George Soros.

Could the hon. member comment on the misinformation he speaks out against and why he uses that in this House?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the context of Bill C-10, I am not even going to dignify that with an answer.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

He spoke at length about local content, but also about the media and journalism. The NDP is quite disappointed with the current bill. We hope we can improve it by amending it in committee.

Right now, many websites like Bing, MSN and Yahoo rebroadcast news content created by others, but they do not pay for the content. Unfortunately, Bill C-10 does absolutely nothing to force these web giants to pay for content created by real journalists.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is a very fair question. I think I addressed that at length in my speech on this bill. It goes back to precisely what I have been hearing from local digital content producers, not just from an advertising standpoint, but from an income standpoint. That inequity is existing and it is significant. It could lead to market failure from a digital content standpoint.

We must get to a point where we are able to provide that level playing field to allow the content to be shared. It will come. Other countries have done it, including Australia today. More importantly, the content producers and those who write must be paid fairly and quickly after this information is used by Facebook, Google or the other examples the member gave. Unless and until we get to that point, we are going to see a continued decline in digital content and sources in this country.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, there is a couple of concerning things about this bill.

Number one, it gives more power to the CRTC, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which is a big flag in this country. During the pandemic last summer, the CBC in its wisdom, decided to pull the local Compass, the half-hour newscast out of Prince Edward Island, with no consultation. It is their only newscast. The CRTC should be looking at the licencing agreement of CBC and Prince Edward Island, not just to give them a slap on their hands, but to fine the CBC for pulling that show, because it is in its licence agreement.

The other thing, and I want the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil to comment on this, is that order in council is given all precedent in this bill. It is the Cabinet and the heritage minister who will end making every decision at the cabinet table, which is absolutely wrong.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, to the latter point by the hon. member, we have seen that a lot of the legislation introduced in this place really has had that power consolidated through the executive branch of government. I look to some of the environmental bills that we have dealt with in the past, such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, for example, where the minister has the ultimate say. The power is not distributed among Parliament or even within the government, but within the executive branch. I am not surprised by that assertion, quite frankly, given the history of this government.

Secondly, the example in P.E.I. speaks to the insatiable appetite that people have for news, not just national or international news, but local news as well. It is not surprising to me when people push back as they did in P.E.I. They are seeking the truth as well.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to engage in this debate, which really does affect Canadian culture, how we see ourselves in the global marketplace and our identity as Canadians.

The Broadcasting Act has not been renewed or reviewed for 28 years, so it is time that we get this done. The problem is that, as is so typical with the Liberal government, it has brought forward legislation that is so deeply flawed that we, as Conservatives in the House who want to get it right, just cannot support it. I am going to go through some of those flaws, because they are significant, but the reason we are even talking about reviewing the Broadcasting Act is because the whole environment in which broadcasting takes place has changed.

We have moved from an environment in which digital forms of communication were mostly unknown to an environment in which we have digital platforms that are, in fact, challenging the role of conventional broadcasters in Canada. We have to get this right, because there is a lot at stake. What is at stake is Canadian content and making sure that we, as Canadians, see ourselves in the products we see on television, on streaming services and in the movies. It is also important that we recognize that there are individuals and companies within Canada that are producing content, really good and in most cases Canadian content, that are actually not being reimbursed and compensated for that content.

I will start by highlighting that this bill, and this is one of the positives in it, will effectively add online businesses to our broadcasting regime. This is to make sure that we capture everything that is happening online of a broadcasting nature, and we include it in the regulations and the legislative regimes that we put in place. We do not want conventional broadcasters, which already operate within a set of rules, to be placed at a disadvantage when we have a whole set of other online content providers that operate either under a different set of rules or, in most cases, in the absence of rules. We want to get this right.

One of the challenges of this bill is that it does not address the monetization of content on some of the largest online content providers, the Facebooks and the Googles of the world. Recently, I met with Ken Goudswaard and Carly Ferguson from the Abbotsford News, our local newspaper. It is an excellent newspaper focused on the local issues that matter to our residents.

I met with them and the first thing they raised with me was the Broadcasting Act and the fact that they operate in an environment where the big players, such as Facebook and Google, take advantage of them. I asked how that happens, although I had an inkling of what they were going to say. They said they are producing 100% Canadian content within our community, the city of Abbotsford. They are the ones who pay the reporters, the layout people and everybody else who works in the newspaper office. They are the ones who pay for all of it. They then put that content online, and Facebook and Google get to then advertise off of that content without compensating the Abbotsford News for any of it. It is, in fact, a freebie.

These are the largest corporations in the world. They are also among the most profitable corporations in the world. They are not sharing their wealth and the income that our local content producers rightfully deserve. That is one of the failings of this legislation. It does not adequately address that challenge.

To Ken and to Carly, I say I am advocating for them. We Conservatives are advocating for them in the House. We want to make sure that those who deliver content, Canadian content, in Canada are also properly compensated for it, and that others do not get rich off their backs.

One of the other considerations is that the bill has a lack of clarity when it comes to the powers that would be granted to the CRTC. My colleague rightfully raised this challenge earlier in that much of the decision-making is vested in the Governor in Council. For Canadians who are wondering who the Governor in Council is, it is effectively the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the cabinet, who can simply, by fiat, say that this is what we are going to do and this is how much will be committed to Canadian content.

As members know, in Canada our broadcasters have to invest in Canadian content. They have no choice. We want to make sure that we, as Canadians, see ourselves in the products of online content, as well as in our broadcast media. They are committed to taking anywhere from 25% to 40% of their content and ensuring that it is Canadian. They also have to contribute 5% to the Canada Media Fund, which is a separate fund that helps Canadian content producers deliver Canadian content in a way that does not bankrupt them.

These support mechanisms are in place for Canadian broadcasters, the conventional broadcasters, but we have this whole other realm of content producers and content streaming services, the online platforms that are not part of that broadcasting regime. We want to make sure that they also play by the same set of rules that our domestic broadcasters have to play by.

Unfortunately, the powers to direct this are vested in the cabinet and the CRTC, but those powers are not clear on exactly what kind of requirements would be imposed upon our online streaming services when they deliver content to Canadians. There is no certainty, and if I were someone who was leading one of these streaming services, I would think that, until I had clarity from the Canadian authorities as to exactly how much I had to invest in Canadian content and how much it was going to cost me, I would probably hold off on any further investments, and that is not good for Canada.

To their credit, companies such as Netflix, Crave and Amazon Prime and others like them do invest in Canadian content already, but they are not subject to the same rules as our Canadian broadcasters and content providers, and that needs to change. What we are doing is levelling the playing field. Unfortunately, we do not know what the rules are for that level playing field.

Effectively, the government is saying to trust it. When have we heard that before from the Prime Minister? The irony here is that we have a Liberal government that is bringing forward Bill C-10 with changes to the Broadcasting Act that are supposed to enhance Canadian content. This is to drive home the fact that we are Canadian, we have a Canadian identity and we want to see ourselves in that content.

However, this is the same Prime Minister who publicly said that Canada has no core identity. Do members remember when he said that? We have no core identity but we want Canadian content. Members can see that there are so many flaws in this proposed legislation. Step by step, we need to deal with the Broadcasting Act in a manner that actually delivers exactly what Canadians need.

The last point I will make is that there is no reference at all to taxing the big boys. The Facebooks and Googles of this world are still not paying taxes in Canada. Are Netflix, Crave, Amazon Prime, Spotify and the others paying taxes in Canada? No, but they are driving major revenue growth from delivering their content here in Canada.

This is all about fairness. Bill C-10 does not deliver fairness, and for that reason we, as Conservatives, will be voting against the legislation.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member raised this a number of times in his speech, and I agree with him that the Internet giants not paying their fair share. However, I believe Crave may be a Canadian company, but I am happy to be corrected on that.

The member briefly touched on this in terms of taxation, but what does he think the role of the federal government should be, and what should it do to ensure that the Internet giants like Facebook pay their fair share?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think if we were to ask Canadians what they expect, they would say they simply expect fairness. They are not asking us to overtax companies from other countries that are investing in a very good service for Canadians and in Canadian content. That is a good thing, but we need fairness. Fairness means a level playing field for everybody, so taxation should not only focus on Canadians, but focus on everybody who derives income from delivering content within our country.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my Conservative colleague for his truly passionate and fascinating speech.

I fully share his indignation about the fact that web giants do not pay taxes. However, I have some reservations when I consider the past few years. It seems to me that the Conservatives were in power from 2006 to 2015, and they did not do a single thing to fix this problem.

I do not understand why, because Google, Facebook and all these web giants did not spring up in the past couple weeks. They have existed for at least 15 to 20 years. Why did the Conservatives do absolutely nothing to address this when they were in power ?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that 10 or 15 years ago, Facebook, Google and some of the streaming services were not anywhere close to as pervasive as they are today. Today Canadians know that the big boys are the ones that deliver content and that many of them are getting away with not paying the requisite taxes they should be paying in Canada. I am in favour of making sure the playing field is level and that there is fairness for everybody.

Here we are in 2020. It is not 2010 or 2006, when the former Conservative government was elected. The digital online environment is dramatically different today than it was 15 years ago.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam President, I am pleased to hear that my Conservative colleague is finally on board with our position of advocating tax fairness and requiring web giants to pay taxes in Canada.

I would like to ask him about workers. The current act states that predominant use must be made of Canadian talent, meaning Canadian or Quebec workers. Today, in this bill, there is no mention of this, which means that our workers will be used only where possible, subject to certain circumstances. We believe that this weakens the act. We are concerned for our artists, artisans and technicians. What does he think of this?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague raises a good point, and it is another one of the major flaws in this legislation and why the Conservatives cannot support it.

I do not know if he and the NDP will be supporting it, but the reality is that when we walk through Bill C-10 step by step, we see flaw after flaw. We could have done much better. Unfortunately, the bill is fundamentally flawed, which is why the Conservatives will not support it, but it is time to review our broadcasting environment in Canada and introduce fairness onto the playing field.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I ask for a brief question from the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.