This bill was last introduced in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2021.
Steven Guilbeault Liberal
In committee (Senate), as of June 29, 2021
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
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.
Broadcasting ActGovernment Orders
December 10th, 2020 / 1:10 p.m.
St. Catharines Ontario
Liberal
Chris Bittle LiberalParliamentary 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) Alexandra Mendes
I ask for a brief question from the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Madam Speaker, it is hard to ask a brief question, because I am so deeply engaged in Canadian content and creativity.
I want to ask the hon. member if he thinks it would be better to keep the current section 3 of the Broadcasting Act. We do need modernization, but by getting rid of the language in section 3 regarding deeply embedded Canadian content, we would weaken the act.
I married into a family of actors. I am going to give a shout-out to my stepdaughter Janet Kidder, who is starring in Star Trek: Discovery. She plays Osyraa, an evil green villain, not like me, so—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Alexandra Mendes
I have to allow time for the member for Abbotsford to give a very short answer.