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.

Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C‑11

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a really good question and I am grateful to have received it.

Many experts are saying that the Internet is different and that the people who wrote this legislation clearly do not understand how the Internet works. I have a further quote from Michael Geist. He says:

...regulating user-generated content in this manner is entirely unworkable, a risk to net neutrality and a threat to freedom of expression. For example, the European Union...distinguishes between streaming services such as Netflix and video-sharing services such as TikTok or YouTube, with no equivalent regulations such as those found in Bill C-10 for user-generated content.

They are completely different platforms and that is not how the Internet works. This is what we are hearing from the experts.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, it should not come as a total surprise that the Liberal government would make strategic moves to limit my freedom of speech as a member of Parliament who wishes to speak to the topic of freedom of speech. It seems very ironic.

Today, we are talking about a programming motion that would cut off debate on the substance of a very important piece of legislation: Bill C-11. I am hearing from so many constituents who are deeply concerned that their freedom of expression on the Internet would be impaired by this legislation. People want the Internet to remain free. It is the new marketplace for the exchange of ideas, and people are starting to wake up to the thought that their government wants to regulate this forum, this new public square.

What is the big holdup? What is the big rush? Why, in this last week of Parliament, does the government feel that it has to push this legislation through? The big open question hovering over this legislation is whether Bill C-11 would regulate online audiovisual material uploaded to sites such as YouTube and TikTok, which is user-generated content. That is the big question that needs to be answered.

An earlier draft of this legislation, because this is the second time it is before the House, was Bill C-10 from the last Parliament. It was clearly offside, flawed legislation, although the minister at that time said he wanted to make it crystal clear that the “content that people upload on social media won’t be considered as programming under the Act”. That is as clear as the minister had wanted it to be, or thought it was, and this legislation, I am sure, would have proceeded through the normal debate and legislative process, would have passed both Houses of Parliament and today would be law. However, it was flawed, it was poorly thought out and it got bogged down in the Senate. The backlash from social media users, amateur content producers and social media sites was swift and very harsh.

As an aside, I feel compelled to note, as we are thinking about why there is a big rush, that a year ago this could have been put through the House, but the Prime Minister saw that his popularity numbers were up a bit in the middle of a pandemic and decided to call an election. Then everything fell off the table. This very important piece of legislation fell off the order table and was basically put right back to square one. However, there was one positive outcome from the election that nobody wanted and was a waste of $610 million, and it is this: Bill C-10 fell off the order table.

We were optimistic that with a new minister, new Parliament and an opportunity to start afresh, we would see a substantially revised and improved piece of legislation, but bad ideas rarely die in the Liberal Party. The bill came back pretty much the way it was before, and things are getting bogged down again. Now the Liberals are saying that it is all the fault of the official opposition; we are obstructing the bill. Well, if they come here with good legislation, we will help them pass it through the House. Now, instead, they have to rush it through.

This is the biggest revision to the Broadcasting Act in 30 years. Many voices need to be heard. Many people have expressed themselves publicly. They need to come to committee and we need to listen to what they have to say, but sadly that is not going to happen because of this programming motion.

I do want to give credit where credit is due, and there are some good pieces in this bill. The government says that it wants to level the playing field and we the Conservatives support that. As the member of Parliament for Langley, where there is a big and burgeoning movie industry, I have heard from a lot of stakeholders, and they are telling me that there are good pieces to this legislation.

I have a quote from somebody who wrote to my office just the other day. He is a producer in the movie industry. He said:

Please pass on to Tako my sincerest thanks for making the time and listening to my feedback related to building a strong film industry in Langley and Canada. It was a great meeting. I appreciate Tako's thoughtful commitment to the modernization of the Broadcasting Act, and to the benefits such work will have for Canada's film workers and production companies.

That is positive. They are positive comments. He goes on to say, “I am concerned about unintended consequences and protecting the freedom of expression within user generated content.” Even from somebody who is generally supportive of Bill C-11, these concerns are being expressed, and they need to be listened to.

I will concede this: The government's intentions were good, namely to promote Canadian content on the Internet, as we have grown accustomed to on legacy media platforms. It was good for them, so why is it not good for the Internet? That is a very important question to ask. However, I am reminded of Napoleon's famous quote: Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. I think that is what we have today. We have legislation that is written incompetently.

This is what Ms. Morghan Fortier, CEO of Skyship Entertainment, told the heritage committee on May 24: “Bill C-11 is not an ill-intentioned piece of legislation, but it is a bad piece of legislation. It's been written by those who don't understand the industry they're attempting to regulate”. She is one of Canada's leading experts in the field.

Matt Hatfield, the campaign manager of OpenMedia, at the same meeting of the heritage committee, said this: “We would never tolerate the government setting rules specifying which books must be placed at the front of our bookstores, but that's exactly what the discoverability provision...of Bill C-11 is currently doing.” He calls that unacceptable.

The minister says they are all wrong, they are misreading Bill C-11 and they are misunderstanding it. He says that is not what the intention is. Law professor Michael Geist, who has been quoted here a few times, is trying to reconcile the difference of opinion between what the minister thinks Bill C-11 means and what many other experts think it means or what the consequences of it are going to be. In response to the minister's comments, Professor Geist said this: “While this is true in the sense that users are not regulated like platforms due to an exception in the bill, the truth is the bill regulates indirectly what it cannot do directly.” Therein lies the problem.

The minister further tries to explain or attempts to clarify what this bill means. I was not at the meeting, but I did read about it. He said he is focusing now on commercial user content. That is what will be regulated. When he was pressed on what “commercial” means, as there is no definition, he said it is tied to whether the person uploading to social media is earning revenues.

When he was grilled on how much revenue that is, he was not answering. Either he does not know or he has not thought about it yet. Better yet, I think he is going to delegate that to the CRTC to decide, so he can let someone else decide and let someone else take the heat. That is unacceptable. The Liberals are in government. They need to write laws that are going to make sense, that are going to work and that are based on what experts are telling us.

Here is where we are. We have poorly thought-out legislation, objections from many stakeholders, a summer recess looming and the government wanting to rush things through so it can say it has accomplished something. We also have a programming motion that is going to cut off further debate. We have today for all amendments to be submitted by midnight and have one day for clause-by-clause scrutiny. Then June 14 is for voting on all amendments and we will have a final vote by the end of the week.

This is important legislation and there are voices that still need to be heard. We need to hear them. This needs to go back to committee for further study.

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

Madam Speaker, before I get under way here this afternoon, I just wish to tell everyone that I am going to split my time with the member for Langley—Aldergrove. We get the good 10 minutes at the later part of the speeches, so I will set him up for it.

I am very thankful to speak to the bill today, Bill C-11. It is the programming motion regarding the online streaming act: the successor to, or should I say the copy of, Bill C-10, which we debated here in the House of Commons. Let us step back. We really did not have any debates last June on Bill C-10. It was pushed through the House with no amendments to it.

I am really desperate on this one because I thought the government learned last June about Bill C-10 and the flaws that we moved forward now on Bill C-11. As most remember, the Liberals tried the same tactics here in the House with the deeply flawed Bill C-10. It was wrong and undemocratic then. Nothing has changed. It is still wrong and mostly undemocratic now. The Senate is not even going to deal with the bill. To say that we need to pass it in the House today is ridiculous because the Senate, at best, will not see the bill until October.

Bill C-10 drew much controversy in the previous Parliament, and I talked about that, due to the proposed infringements on free expression, and massive granting of powers to the CRTC. I have talked for over a year and a half on the CRTC, and I will have more to say on that body and the potential to open up the Internet to broader regulations in a moment, among other serious concerns that I have.

Bill C-11 is the same flawed Liberal bill that could have potentially disastrous consequences for Canadian content creators, and most importantly for consumers. Conservatives said then that Bill C-10 needed more study, and we continue to say that today with this bill, Bill C-11.

As a former broadcaster, members can believe that I completely understand how desperately the Broadcasting Act needs to be upgraded. It has been 31 years since we started. The act is indeed badly outdated. It does not address the realities of modern broadcasting and content creation, and Canadian broadcasters and creators today are struggling because of that.

We absolutely need to put foreign streaming services and Canadian broadcasters on a level playing field, whatever that looks like. However, the solution, I feel, is not simply to force new realities into this old and outdated structure, or to have the CRTC regulate to its heart's desire.

The CRTC is in charge of broadcasting. Seventeen months later, it still has not updated the licence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It has been 17 months, and we have heard nothing. That is the CRTC's responsibility today: local licensing. We have heard nothing from chairman Ian Scott on CBC, saying, “We are busy. We are going through it.”

Seventeen months later, the public broadcaster still does not have a licence, because the CRTC is looking at it. I do not have to tell everyone in the House, all 338 of us, that we desperately want a three-digit suicide line. As of the month of June the request is a year old. We still have not got it. Why? It is because of the CRTC.

Do we see where I am going on this? It is not capable today of doing anything. As for its chairman, Ian Scott, his five-year term is up and he is leaving in September. We are going to have a new chair. He or she will get a five-year term and they will have to be re-educated on what the CRTC actually delivers to the citizens of the country.

Regulating the Internet, the Pandora's box that is being opened up in this legislation, is also simply not in the best interests of Canadians. We need to make sure that we are protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians. Ensuring those protections cannot start by regulating the Internet and restricting the free speech that we have in the country today.

These are issues that need further study at committee. There are dozens of important witnesses that still wish to be heard. As for one of those witnesses, it is kind of interesting to listen to everyone talking about indigenous voices, because we have not heard from the indigenous peoples television network, APTN. We have not heard from it.

The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network has not come to committee to speak about what Bill C-11 would do for that network, which was started years ago because the public broadcaster did little with indigenous programming. That is why APTN started: it heard voices. In fact, I was at an event on Saturday in Saskatoon, and the Filipino community is asking about Bill C-11. The Filipino community does a half-hour televised tape show in Saskatoon on cable, and they have asked about whether they can continue if this bill passes. I had no answers for them.

This is the diversity we are hearing in our country that Bill C-11 has not answered in committee. We have not had a chance to even slice through the first level of onion to get to this bill, and now the Liberal government, as it did last year with Bill C-10, is pushing it through the House, but this time there is no excuse for it. The Senate will not even look at this bill until maybe late in September or early in October. We have all summer to deal with Bill C-11.

I remember when the government came into power, and we all remember when it came into power in 2015. It promised sunny ways and made a commitment not to use closure and time allocation as the Conservatives did in the previous government. They have forgotten that in six and a half short years. All I have heard is “Harper this,” and “Harper that”. Now, I am going to suggest that it is the member for Papineau who is shutting everything down in the House of Commons.

Now, whenever there is the slickest push-back against the Liberals' agenda, they go straight to time allocation and, today, the programming motion. I participated in the study on Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament, when the government passed a similar programming motion. Several legal and industry experts came before the committee and raised concerns about the legislation. They were the same concerns from 2021 that have come in 2022. As legislators, have we looked at this bill and said we have done the best we can with it? That is our job. We 338 are elected to get the best bills coming out of the House. Have we done that? We have not done that at all, and the Liberals agree with that, yet they are moving forward today.

Tomorrow we will have a full day, going through from noon to nine o'clock, with amendments, then we will push the amendments through from nine until midnight without a word we can say or object to. We proposed further witnesses and debate in the last Parliament, and Canadians deserve better on this bill. The government, however, is clearly sick of hearing about the problems with the legislation. We have gone through two heritage ministers already, and probably will a third when we come back in the fall, and shut down Bill C-11. Thankfully, Bill C-10 did not complete the legislative process because of a useless election. What is it going to be this summer?

Now, the chamber has a second chance to get this bill, Bill C-11, right. This time we have the opportunity, as members of Parliament, to give Canadians what they want out of this bill, Bill C-11.

First of all, despite claims to the contrary by the minister, Bill C-11 absolutely would leave the door open to the CRTC regulating user-generated content online. In other words, the CRTC could still, under Bill C-11, decide what Canadians can and cannot see. These powers pose a clear threat for free expression in this country, which is the most fundamental right in a democratic country. Under Bill C-11, the CRTC could regulate away free expression online.

Second is the fact that the powers the bill grants to the CRTC are so broad and wide-ranging that they empower the commission to essentially regulate any content in a manner it sees fit, and I have talked enough about the CRTC, but that second bullet should be a concern to everyone in the House of Commons.

What will happen to the foreign services that are small players in this Canadian market? Where did the Canadian market go? In a small part of the user base, we have new regulations and requirements that we can thrust upon them.

Third, the government is asking us to vote on legislation that we do not have all the pieces to. The government says it will address the problems through ministerial order, but it has not shown us what the orders will be. Bill C-11 is a flawed bill.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask the hon. member a fairly specific question about the content of his speech. He spoke about charter statements and the importance the government attaches to charter statements. We have seen multiple cases in which the government has table-dropped amendments to its own legislation and it has not offered a revised charter statement to line up with that change in policy.

We saw that in another case with Bill C-7, where the government changed its policy in response to a Senate amendment but did not offer a revised charter statement. On the previous version of this bill, Bill C-10, we saw the government adopting changes from government members in committee without revised charter statements. This is a government that, through the Emergencies Act, has suspended the charter and then we have had contradictory stories told by the minister.

I am very suspicious of the stated commitment to the charter. It seems increasingly like these charter statements are then subsequently ignored through amendments and not updated. It suggests that this is just an effort by the government to whitewash an attack on human rights.

Most specifically, why does the government not have a practice of offering updated charter statements when bills are amended as a result of the amendments government members have put forward when they come out of committee?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is the second time I am rising in the House to speak to this bill. I also spoke when Bill C-10 was introduced and first debated. I have been very interested in this subject for many years.

I would like to share an experience I had before I was elected. I was a legislative assistant to my predecessor, the well-known Quebec and Canadian politician Clifford Lincoln, who, at the time I worked for him, was the chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in the 1990s. Mr. Lincoln is a visionary. He wanted the committee to undertake a fairly thorough, wide-ranging study of the Canadian broadcasting system. The study was spread over several meetings, over several weeks and months. In the end, the committee produced a huge document, an extraordinary tome, on Canada's broadcasting system. I think it was even used in some post-secondary courses, because it essentially became the bible on our broadcasting system.

We realized, even then, that the system was changing very quickly with the new technologies. The committee hired two researchers on contract for the adviser: an academic from the Université de Montréal and an academic from the University of Calgary. I remember that one of the academics, who was an expert, said that in a few years, everyone would be their own documentary filmmaker. He said we would have a device that we could use to film all sorts of things and create our own videos and our own high-quality films, real documentaries of everyday life. In fact, that is where we are now. The broadcasting system has changed extremely quickly.

This bill is essential if we want to adapt to new realities, and we need to adapt urgently. Franco-Canadian and Quebec culture are under constant pressure—obviously we all know that, it has been said in the House—by the cultural machine that exists for the most part in the United States. It is well funded, very powerful and it attracts a wide audience on a regular basis. That means there is enormous pressure on Canadian culture, including Quebec culture.

When the Conservatives constantly challenge this bill and, before that, Bill C‑10, they are not doing any favours to those who want to protect and promote Canadian and Quebec culture. By dragging their feet, the Conservatives, in my opinion, are harming our Canadian creators, including our Quebec creators.

We keep hearing from the Conservative opposition that Bill C-11 is a form of censorship and citizen control by the government, and that Canadians will somehow have their freedom of thought limited by seeing a streaming service menu with a smattering of Canadian works visible on it. I ask members to think back to the 1970s, when the federal government created the MAPL system for radio. Suddenly, we had to listen to a minimum percentage of Canadian music on the radio. Imagine: a kind of music dictatorship.

The boost to Canadian musical performances was significant after the MAPL system was instituted. By the 1990s, Canadian music artists dominated the charts around the world in multiple categories. Actually, by the 1990s, Canadian women music artists dominated the global market. Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain and Diana Krall come to mind.

We do not hear the Conservatives referring to the introduction of the MAPL system as the dark age of radio censorship by the Liberal Pierre Trudeau government. After all, unlike today, there was a limited of number of musical outlets available to access music then. There were no Internet-based music platforms, only a finite number of radio stations owned by corporations, not listeners.

Why did the Conservatives at the time not cry “censorship” or “lack of free choice”? Why did they not say, “We cannot choose what we want to listen to”, “There are no alternative sources”, “There is a limited number of radio stations”, or “If we want to listen to something else, we have to pay at the music store, which is a form of taxation”?

Why did the Conservatives not say, “Stop telling us what to listen to on the radio”? They never asked, “Why will these Liberals in Ottawa not let us listen to what we want?”, or “Why do we have to listen to The Band, The Guess Who, Susan Jacks, Robert Charlebois, Ian and Sylvia, and Michel Pagliaro, alongside the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and so on?”

Do members know why? It is because the Conservatives had moderate and reasonable leaders in those days, such as Robert Stanfield, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. Do members know why the Conservatives do not object to CanCon in radio today? It is because they know Canadians love their Canadian music and Canadian music artists, and to attack Canadian music would be unpopular, even among the members of their base.

To say the government would be censoring the Internet through Bill C-11 is laughable. No, it is actually preposterous. Such talk creates unfounded fears, and it alarms Canadians for no reason. To say one can censor the Internet today is akin to standing next to Niagara Falls and saying that one can stop the massive and endless flow of cascading water. There is as much chance of the government being able to censor the Internet as there is of me capturing air with my hand, so let us stop the hyperbole and let us stop the antics. They are not worthy of this place.

I received an email from a constituent the other day who strongly opposes Bill C-11. They were obviously on the Conservative Party blast email list. I could tell by some of the themes that kept coming up. I wrote back to explain the facts about the bill, including the reference to charter guarantees in the body of the bill, so I think I will take a moment to read some of these charter guarantees.

It says this quite clearly in the bill:

10.‍1 For greater certainty, the Commission shall make orders under subsection 9.‍1(1) and regulations under subsection 10(1) in a manner that is consistent with the freedom of expression enjoyed by users of social media services that are provided by online undertakings.

It is here in black and white. It is in the law.

We can tell the opposition not to worry about it, that it is in the law and that all these guarantees are laid down in the law, but they will not believe it. They still send those emails to their supporters saying the Liberal government is trying to censor their thoughts and trying to influence the way they think for political purposes. It is in the law.

It says this as well, in proposed subsection 2(3), under “Interpretation”:

(3) This Act shall be construed and applied in a manner that is consistent with

(a) the freedom of expression and journalistic, creative and programming independence enjoyed by broadcasting undertakings

It is not even legalese. It is extremely clear, and even a non-lawyer like me can understand it.

When I wrote back to this individual, I also referenced the mandatory charter statement that accompanies all bills tabled by the government, a requirement, as members know, that was instituted by our Liberal government. This was not a requirement before 2015. At that time, when the government introduced a bill, there was no independent charter statement by Department of Justice lawyers, who have the professional responsibilities of integrity and calling it like it is. There was no independent charter statement on a bill, so we saw a lot of bills being introduced by the Harper government that really pushed the limits of charter rights.

I told the individual who wrote to me that the bill is an extension of the decades-old policy of taking measures to ensure Canadian culture is supported in a cultural marketplace dominated by a powerful cultural industry centred outside of Canada and whose priority is not, understandably, Canadian cultural content, to be honest. The person wrote back and said that if Canadian cultural products cannot stand on their own and if they cannot compete in the Canadian cultural marketplace, those products should be left to wither. I thought deep down that this is exactly the Conservative mindset when it comes to culture.

The problem with this view is that it is based on a naive conception of the marketplace and on how the marketplace works in today's reality. It is the ideological belief that today's marketplace is Adam Smith's marketplace: a small town square market where there are no power imbalances between buyers and sellers, and no one buyer, seller or small group of these distorts transactions and bends them to their financial interests. However, that is not an accurate description of the modern marketplace, and I think members will agree.

The fact is that whoever controls distribution controls the market. They control what the market has the opportunity to choose from and consume. This is true in the market for goods and services, which is why, as we know, the banks want to get their hands on insurance. They want to monopolize that market and make sure we buy insurance from them in addition to everything else. This is a normal impulse on the part of market actors, but it is the job of the government to make sure that there are measures in place to prevent this natural tendency toward market dominance from taking place.

In the cultural marketplace, the distributor decides what the audience will see. That is why we have worked so hard to maintain a Canadian-owned broadcasting system in Canada. It is about maintaining an independent distribution system for programming, domestic homegrown programming. If we did not have CTV, Global, CBC/Radio Canada and Télé-Québec, and only had ABC, CBS and NBC in the Canadian broadcasting space, none of the popular Canadian programs we have come to know and love over the years would ever have seen the day. It is that simple.

It is important to mention that streaming services are both distributors and producers. They therefore have an interest in showcasing their own content. The Internet and streaming services are, by definition, not traditional broadcasters, but they are distributors of cultural products nonetheless, and powerful and ubiquitous ones. There is no reason they should not contribute financially to the creation of Canadian cultural products. There is no reason they should not pay their fair share like everybody else.

It is time for the Conservatives to get on board, stand up for Canadian culture and creators and stop telling Canadians that there is a conspiracy to control what they see, think and feel. Such persistent efforts, in my opinion, are a nefarious form of disinformation, and that is why we are at this point here today where we have to get on with the bill. It is a bill that has covered two legislatures and time is pressing. The cultural sphere is galloping ahead with new technologies and new streaming services surrounding us and, of course, providing cultural content that we like to consume. It is not all going to be Canadian, but we should be able to see what the Canadian offerings are.

Somebody asked me the other day if I guessed this means that the CRTC, that great force of evil in the Conservative mind, is going to be writing algorithms for Netflix and Crave TV and whatever other streaming services that we have. The bill says, in black and white, on page 14 of the bill, “The Commission shall not make an order under paragraph (1)‍(e) that would require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code.”

Why does the opposition not come clean and mention this in its speeches? It is here in black and white in the bill. The opposition does not care. Even if it is in the legislation, somehow it does not exist. Let us keep going with the talking points that we probably see, I do not know as I do not subscribe, in those blast emails that are moving around the cybersphere as part of the Conservative leadership campaign.

It is here in black and white in the bill. It is also in black and white that the bill does not apply to users of social media. I think it is time to move on. Canadian culture needs the support. It needed the support yesterday. It certainly needs it now. It is time.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. We worked on Bill C‑10. We consulted the entire creative industry, all the groups, all the associations. In the end, we failed because the Senate blocked it. We started over with Bill C‑11, which is more fleshed out. We tweaked a few details to keep everyone happy. We have been working on this for two years. An extra month will not change anything. Everyone has been consulted, everyone agrees and everyone is eagerly awaiting this. Everyone in the creative industry is waiting.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I cannot believe that it is mid‑June and we are still debating the long-awaited bill to reform the Broadcasting Act. We have been waiting for 30 years.

My colleague, the member for Drummond, and his colleagues at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage almost managed to pass Bill C‑10, the first version of the current Bill C‑11, in the last Parliament. Our democracy and our work are dependent on royal assent, which was refused. We had to start over.

I applaud the very useful work done during the 43th Parliament on the former Bill C‑10, which resulted in the current bill, Bill C-11, being more substantive. It has already been well-received by the creative industry. We therefore saved time.

However, today, I am getting the unpleasant impression that this is the same movie over again. All that does is fuel cynicism among Canadians. I wonder if those who are dragging this out by filibustering really care at all about culture itself, its creators, its broadcasters and its audience. The audience is worried there will be no new content. They are worried about losing their content creators, who are stretched thin. That would mean losing the thing that has been giving life to modern societies, all the way back into antiquity: culture.

For those watching our debates, I want to talk about the crucial steps involved in creating a finished work, or rather one that has been allowed to leave the nest. Indeed, a work is never really finished. It is a bit like raising children: We pour our love, values, time, energy and emotions into them, but there comes a time when we simply have to let them fly on their own, taking the best we have given them. A work of art is the same thing.

I could talk about creating a painting, a dance, a circus show or a sculpture, or writing a novel or a play, but my world is music. Music is what I know.

I know that all artistic endeavours go through essentially the same stages: research, development and creation of the idea through to final composition, preproduction, production, deciding where to release the work and how to promote it, marketing, and public performance. No matter the art or expression, there are many stages, all of them demanding.

It is important to remember that, for many singers and musicians, the creative process does not end with recording their music and songs.

Artists have to work on their instrument. Singers have to develop and refine their vocal technique. They have to pay a voice coach to help them manage their energy and polish their raw talent, just like professional athletes train to master their technique. It is hard work, and the best trainers are expensive.

Singers also have to develop their musical ability. Many accompany themselves on an instrument or two. Those musical instruments are pretty much essential tools for setting lyrics to music. The next step is a comprehensive creative process that unites words and music.

Some participate in workshops. Others are more self-taught. Still others call on the musical talents of veteran musicians. Eventually inspiration strikes. As if by magic, lyrics find their musical match, words weave their way in and out of chord progressions. That is the joy of creation.

Once the song is written, or rather, the songs are written, because it takes more than one to market an artist, some fine-tuning is needed. Artists have to surround themselves with good musicians and find a producer to finance the recording of the songs, since the basic vehicle for the art of songwriting is people hearing the songs. Some will invest the money and produce it themselves. Others, a very small percentage, might be able to access a few government incentives. Most—and I emphasize that word—are their own producers and will invest their own money, or worse, go into debt to try to break into a market that has become increasingly opaque.

Let us talk about the production stage. I will talk about my own experience, because it is mine, and it is the one I know best. I recorded one of my albums at my family's home in Isle-aux-Coudres. I wanted my collaborators and the musicians to be captivated by that majestic river, which I wanted to celebrate in song. I was hoping the setting would enrich their musical performance and therefore further enhance my songs.

My father, who had always been a bit skeptical about this whole singing business, and who thought, like many people, that it was easy, fun and simple to make music if you had a bit of talent, was genuinely amazed at the science behind the recording process and the amount of time it requires. When he saw that it took half a day just to balance the drum and bass levels, he could hardly believe it.

For a good week we worked on guitar, violin, the accordion, keyboards and vocals. We started the preproduction; we played all the songs to become familiar with them, to find the sounds and harmonies, to find the right instruments for each song. Then we were finally ready to record.

Each song has its own universe. We start by recording a guiding vocal track. It is not the final vocal track, it is just the one that will guide the musicians. Then we record one by one and we record the final vocals and the vocal harmonies that support and enhance the whole work. We do all that for the 10 or 12 songs that will be part of the album that we hope will be the best one of our lives.

Is that it? No, far from it. Then each song needs to be mixed, because all these sounds need to have a pleasant balance and appropriate audio to make it pleasing to the ear, which will drive the rest.

After the mixing, is it done? No, not at all; then comes the mastering, what we call matriçage in French. We need a master in the art to ensure that every volume is appropriate for the different broadcasting forms, either the radio, headphones or outdoor broadcasts, at low decibel levels or high decibel levels. It is an art and it is expensive.

Is it done? No, not yet. The next step is to find a graphic artist who will be able to showcase the entire work and create an attractive presentation for a CD booklet, the cover for a vinyl record, which is my favourite medium, or the visual accompaniment for the music on streaming platforms.

Now is it done? No, not yet. The artist still has to get their music out there by hiring a manager or an agent, as the case may be, to promote the album to various broadcasters and promoters. It is of course imperative to create a show in order to bring the work to life. Then the process starts all over again: looking for a venue, a sound technician, a lighting technician and a stage manager, finding some available musicians and putting on a show. If, and only if, the work is a success with the public will the artist earn a little income from the process.

I have to emphasize that, regardless of the artist's popularity, it is only if streaming platforms have copyright and reproduction rights obligations that all these efforts and the financial risk taking will be compensated with a small amount of royalties.

That is what creating involves. Creators are resilient, patient and firmly convinced that their works play an important, not to say fundamental, role in the social universe of the community.

The last time that I rose in the House to speak to Bill C‑11 was 34 days ago.

According to the former minister of Canadian heritage and current Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, for every month that goes by without passing this bill, creators lose roughly $70 million. Using cross-multiplication, we can calculate that the creative industry has lost a little over $78 million since my last speech. Since the beginning of this Parliament, our culture and its content creators have been deprived of $1.33 billion.

We cannot wait any longer to pass Bill C‑11. The survival of our artists, the very essence of our cultural past and future, has been hijacked by these political squabbles. We need to stop treating creators like drones that create art to entertain us. Yes, they do entertain us, but that is their job. It is a demanding job that requires a lot of discipline and courage. It is also, above all, how they earn their living.

Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C-11

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I am going to share my time with one of my Bloc Québécois colleagues.

It is a pleasure to speak to Government Business No. 16, which is for Bill C‑11. Unfortunately, it is not exactly a great pleasure because it feels like Groundhog Day. We went through essentially the same thing with Bill C‑10, which was introduced in the previous Parliament and was kind of hit or miss as far as the wording went. A lot of work was done. A year on, I feel like we are still bogged down for various reasons that are not necessarily the fault of a single person. All parties contributed to the delays in modernizing the Broadcasting Act. The problem is that, in the meantime, artists and small radio stations and media outlets are suffering and struggling to survive in this high-tech world.

I would like to begin my speech with a look at the current situation. A year has passed and, not surprisingly, the situation is no less urgent. In an article in La Presse just this morning, Alexandre Sirois wrote about the “digital barbarians” that have to be reined in. Here is what he said:

A bill like this to rein in the “digital barbarians” is long overdue. Alain Saulnier uses that colourful expression as the title of a very relevant essay in which he explains the massive devastation caused by companies like Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Google.

The journalist explains that the fate of local culture on the web giants' platforms is quite similar to that of the soft drinks that are relegated to the bottom shelves in grocery stores because the big brands monopolize the best spots.

“That is why access to our content, its discoverability, is the most important issue for the future of all non-U.S. cultures.”

Discoverability is at the heart of this matter. It reminds me of a little anecdote. I was fortunate enough to be part of a delegation abroad recently, along with some of my colleagues from English Canada. Something really struck me. When we were talking about culture and what we watch on TV and listen to on the radio, I noticed that there were almost no common references between Quebec culture and English Canadian culture. Our common references are to American culture. This illustrates how global U.S. culture has become and what a strong impact it has on other cultures, to the detriment of our local culture.

We need to urgently legislate the broadcasting situation because of the repercussions it is having on small players in a context of globalization and the Internet, which is an ever-growing presence in our lives.

Some reports published in 2020, including one by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, or CAB, projected losses for radio and television broadcasters to the tune of $1.6 billion between 2020 and 2022. That is major. CAB also mentioned that, in the six months following the 2020 report, there could potentially be 50 radio stations at risk of closing and no fewer than 150 more in the next 18 months. That represents a potential loss of 2,000 jobs, or the equivalent of roughly 24% of the jobs that existed in 2019.

Revenues are down across the board. Roughly 40% of private stations have posted a negative net income over the past few years. It is a disaster. This is a huge loss of $336 million between 2010 and 2020 for general television networks. Things are not going very well at all. We also know that this erosion is having an impact on local content in traditional media to the benefit of everything that is on the Internet. Roughly 52% of audiovisual content produced in Canada is not Canadian content. We import a tremendous amount of products because our products are less discoverable.

In this context, production by francophone minority communities is only 4%. Meanwhile, the digital platforms are thriving, but our local content is not on those platforms because of the discoverability issue. Only 2.7% of the 10,000 most popular songs on digital platforms are French songs, so there is also a linguistic aspect that is worrisome here.

I am not saying that Bill C-11 is perfect. Some parts could be improved, or have been improved compared to Bill C-10. One of the issues that the Conservatives were particularly concerned about was algorithms, and that has been addressed. With the first version of Bill C‑10, the CRTC would have been able to intervene and require businesses to change their algorithms to improve discoverability. That was taken out of Bill C‑11. I would say that may be a good thing because, at this time, we may have a tendency of being more preoccupied with the letter of the bill than the spirit. The bill now better reflects the spirit. We want local content to be more discoverable, but we will let the companies determine how to achieve that through advertising, suggestions or other means.

People have mentioned and are still mentioning that there are concerns about the platforms that could be included. The bill does not set out which platforms are included and which are not. Things are being left open so that more platforms could be added in the future. I tend to think that might be a good thing because the bill needs to be adaptable, given how quickly things change in the online realm.

Finally, some definitions may not be clear. The bill is perhaps not perfect, which is why it would be a good idea to give members more time to work on amendments in committee. However, I understand that the Conservatives have been filibustering and putting up roadblocks. I would have liked to talk more about this, but I do not have much time left.

I do want to say, however, that what the Conservatives are unfortunately doing to interfere in this file is a tremendous act of bad faith. The Bloc Québécois recently moved a motion on what happened at Hockey Canada, and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage must be the one to look into these allegations of assault. The committee members proposed adding hours so that we could deal with both issues at the same time, but the Conservatives refused. This shows that they are more interested in wasting time than anything else.

There was also a motion to allow the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to travel. At the same time, the Conservatives denied approval for the foreign affairs committee to travel, showing once again that this is a tactic to waste the House's time. Conservative members claim that there is not enough time to hear from witnesses, but when asked how many witnesses would be enough, they are unable to provide a number. This, even after the committee already heard from a number of witnesses, including some YouTubers who came to testify in committee not once, but twice.

That said, the Liberals are not beyond reproach either. The time that was allocated to debating Bill C‑11 in committee could have taken place between June 2021 and February 2022. Last June, we knew that we were on the verge of an election, which is why the Bloc Québécois supported a closure motion that was much more restrictive than this one. The super-closure motion we are debating today makes the seven other motions recently voted on in this place look like mere technicalities.

If the House had not shut down for an election, we probably would have been able to get Bill C‑11 through third reading, get it through the Senate and get it passed. All of the time we lost from June to February is much longer than the time that the Conservatives have wasted here in the House.

No one is without blame here. One side is unfortunately systematically obstructing our work. I can understand, to a certain extent, the use of some form of closure on this matter. This is why the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of closure on Bill C‑10 the last time, in a completely different context, because we knew that we were headed into an election.

That does not justify this closure motion, which is much broader and less appropriate given the urgency. In fact, we know that even if we vote in favour of closure now, the bill will not make it through the Senate in time, since there will only be a few days left for the Senate to sit after the motion has been passed in the House, most likely around June 20, 21 or 22, depending on how things are going, and if there is another filibuster.

Unfortunately, no one is without blame here. As I said at the outset, the two main parties in the House keep this going like Groundhog Day. Sadly, the ones who are paying the price are our small traditional media.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is the question: why? Why would the government not just be open and transparent and release the policy directive?

Bill C-11 would provide the CRTC with a significant of regulatory authority, but without the direction from the government, we do not know how the CRTC will interpret that regulatory authority, and we will not know until after we have already been forced to vote on this bill. That is the issue.

If the government wanted to be open and transparent, it would table that document today, as it did with Bill C-10. The question is, what is the government trying to hide?

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find it so ironic that a bill about communication, about streaming, about communicating with each other is not allowed the proper time for communication in this chamber and at committee.

Why does my colleague suppose that the government would release a policy directive in the previous iteration, Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament, and refuse to do so at this point?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is a dull rumble in the room because everyone is so outraged about this motion that they cannot constrain themselves, given the concern they have.

Folks at home might have read the newspaper over the weekend and wondered why there is a rush with this programming motion. The Minister of Canadian Heritage himself said that he was not going to force it through the Senate and that it is not going to become law before the summer, so why the rush to force it through the House? In fact, in The Globe and Mail this week, an article by Bill Curry and Michelle Carbert said this:

The Liberal government says it will not press the Senate to rush the Online Streaming Act into law before the summer recess, even though it moved Friday to shut down debate on the bill in the House of Commons.

In a statement to The Globe and Mail, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said the government does not expect the Senate to rubber stamp the bill after it receives final approval in the Commons.

He does not expect a rubber stamp in the Senate, but here in the elected House of Commons, where each of the 338 of us was elected by 100,000-plus constituents to represent 100,000-plus constituents, we are expected to rubber-stamp this piece of legislation. We are expected to rubber-stamp the largest change to the Broadcasting Act in over three decades.

The government wants to say that the bill has had plenty of debate, that it has had tons of time for debate. Do members know when the bill first came before the heritage committee? The first day of meetings on Bill C-11 at the heritage committee was May 24, less than three weeks ago. We have had less than three weeks to hear from parliamentarians and hear from witnesses across the country.

After that, we were still receiving requests to appear before committee, requests from concerned stakeholders across the country who were not able to testify before the committee. These are Canadians and owners of small businesses who will be personally and directly affected by this piece of legislation, but Parliament and its committee could not hear from them. That is what has brought us to this programming motion to force the bill through the House without meaningful debate.

We as parliamentarians have a duty. We as opposition parliamentarians have an exceptional duty and a role to play. I would like to draw the House's attention to one of the great former leaders of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the right hon. Bob Stanfield. In a memo to his caucus, he said this: “Not only is it unnecessary for political parties to disagree about everything, but some acceptance of common ground among the major parties is essential to an effective and stable democracy. For example, it is important to stability that all major parties agree on such matters as parliamentary responsible government and major aspects of our Constitution.”

Like the great Bob Stanfield before us, we agree on the importance of parliamentary responsible government, whereby Her Majesty's loyal opposition holds the government to account. When certain parties decide that this is no longer necessary and we are derelict in our duties as opposition parliamentarians, we get a motion like this.

I always like to use a thought exercise. What would members of the House, members of the Liberal government and members of the New Democrats say if Stephen Harper had brought forward a motion as draconian as this one? They would be up in arms. They would be up in question period. They would be up in the House complaining about the draconian measures. However, members of the Liberal government, who for years ridiculed and raised the alarm on closure and time allocation, are the worst perpetrators.

As I mentioned, the bill did not come before the heritage committee until May 24, yet here we are. This is not the first time, either. We will recall that this is the same playbook the Liberals used for Bill C-10, the predecessor to this piece of legislation. They used Motion No. 10 to force Bill C-10 out of committee and into the House.

The government wants to say that we need to get this bill through immediately, but what happened with Bill C-10? The government called a summer election and killed its own legislation. It is awfully rich today to hear the Liberals say that we need to act with great haste to pass this piece of legislation when it is just going to sit in the Senate all summer long.

Many of my colleagues have not yet had a chance to speak to this bill, and will not have a chance to speak to it because of the government using time allocation. This is a piece of legislation that will not only impact the entire broadcasting industry, but also every Canadian who listens to music or watches videos online. This motion is being rushed through to meet an arbitrary deadline.

Last week, on Tuesday, the clerk of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage sent to members 20 different submissions. Among them were submissions from the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund, the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, the Canadian Ethnocultural Media Coalition, Blue Ant Media and Spotify, all of which have been denied a chance to appear before the committee by the government. Now, the government House leader has decided they do not deserve an opportunity to speak before the committee.

There are, in fact, many witnesses who have yet to be heard despite the fact that Bill C-11 would have detrimental impacts on their businesses. These include Anthem Sports and Entertainment, the Consumer Technology Association, the Ontario Association of Broadcasters, which represents radio stations, Blue Ant Media, which I mentioned earlier, the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and Ethnic Channels Group.

The government could have taken a different approach to how to modernize the Broadcasting Act that meets both the needs and technological realities of today, but does so without impacting digital-first creators and new technologies moving forward. Unfortunately, instead of modernization, it is forcing a 30-year-old regulatory system onto Canadians using new technology that old rules are not compatible with. Perhaps most disappointingly, the government ignored those in the digital media sector and went so far as to accuse them of spreading misinformation.

The tactics the Liberal government has used have been an attempt to discredit anyone who has raised legitimate concerns about the implications of this bill. It has been shameful, and it is not up to the standards of decency Canadians expect from their government.

There are obviously several crucial flaws with this bill that need to be fixed. First and foremost is section 4.2. It is a legislative pretzel: an exception to an exception, and a clause in the bill that leaves open to regulation content that indirectly or directly generates revenue. It seems the government does not even understand how the Internet works or how indirectly gaining revenue works.

I draw the House's attention to an expert, Morghan Fortier, who runs the largest YouTube channel in our country and has found great success globally by using new technology. She says the following when referring to the bill:

It's been written by those who don't understand the industry they're attempting to regulate, and because of that, they've made it incredibly broad. It mistakes platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Facebook for broadcasters like the CBC, Netflix and Amazon Prime. It doesn't understand how those platforms operate, and it ignores the fundamental importance of global discoverability. Worst of all, proposed section 4.2 hands sweeping power to the CRTC to regulate...small businesses like mine that are not even associated with broadcasters.

This is from the person who has Canada's most successful YouTube channel. She has found success globally, yet this piece of legislation would constrain and restrain that success globally.

They have said time and again that the CRTC will not regulate user-generated content, but the bill, in black and white, gives it the power. Worse yet, despite repeated requests, the government has refused to release its policy directive to the CRTC that would provide the interpretation of how this bill would be implemented. This “just trust us” approach that the Liberals are following does not inspire confidence.

In fact, just last week, the Minister of Canadian Heritage appeared before committee and told us outright that he would not provide the policy directive until after the bill had received royal assent. After the legislation has been passed, after parliamentarians have passed the legislation, only then will the government tell us how it will be interpreted and how the CRTC will do so.

What is more is that during the minister's appearance at committee, he refused to offer a definition of discoverability. In fact, discoverability is mentioned in the piece of legislation. It is mentioned in Bill C-11, but it is never defined. Until we see the policy directive, we do not know how the CRTC will be directed to implement discoverability.

It comes back to what the Liberals said they would never do. In their 2015 election platform, the Liberals said, “We will also change the rules so that Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries no longer have a vote on committees.” That did not last very long, because now parliamentary secretaries not only sit on committees, but they also have votes and are directing the work of committees.

In fact, last week in the House of Commons, the government House leader said, “let us talk about some of the things we do not do. What we do not do is use parliamentary secretaries in committee to control committees and not allow members to ask questions.”

A little more than one hour after the government House leader said this, it was none other than the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage who, at the beginning of questioning witnesses, filibustered witness testimony to try to move a motion without debate and to move to clause-by-clause. This not only prevented members from questioning witnesses, including the Minister of Canadian Heritage himself, but it also would have had the effect of preventing dozens of other witnesses who wished to testify from testifying.

On Monday and Wednesday of last week, it was again the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage who introduced motions to end study and proceed to clause-by-clause, while dozens of witnesses who wished to appear had been prevented from appearing.

Perhaps what is most concerning is that last week, the Liberal chair of a committee accidentally let it slip that the Liberals had been instructed by their party leadership to have the bill sent back to the House quickly. The member for Vancouver Centre said, “we do not have a lot of time to stretch anything out, because this bill is supposed to be reported back to the House before June 23”. It is supposed to be by who? It is by the Liberals.

The Liberals are directing the chair of a committee to report a bill back. It is shameful. In fact, this closure motion, Motion No. 16, I would dare say is a vote of non-confidence in the Liberal chair of the committee: the member for Vancouver Centre.

I also want to share the words of a digital-first creator, Oorbee Roy, one of the very few digital-first creators who had the opportunity to appear before our committee. She said, “I literally have never gotten a seat at the table—except now, as a digital creator, I'm getting a seat at the table. Representation matters.... Please don't suppress my voice.” Again, that is from Oorbee Roy who found success online as a digital-first creator. As a skateboarding mother, she found success in that market globally. Under this bill, the Liberals are trying to prevent that success.

We in Her Majesty's loyal opposition want to see Canadian creators succeed here in Canada and around the world. We want to see them be able to access and use the tools available to them through the Internet to find that success globally so that Canadian stories, Canadian voices, Canadian music, Canadian television and Canadian film can be enjoyed around the world. Is that not what it is about? It is about sharing the talents of Canadians globally.

I have been very clear that we support making sure that the major streamers, the international foreign streamers, contribute to Canadian productions. We want to see that happen more, and we applaud those companies that are already doing it. We applaud the billions of dollars that Netflix and Disney are investing in Canada and in Canadian-made productions. We want to see more of that. We want to encourage more of that. What we do not want to see happen is Canadian creators being hampered by their ability to export.

We have made some clear commitments about what we want to see changed with Bill C-11. We want to see the removal of section 4.2 to ensure that user-generated content is not subject to CRTC regulation. We want to see a clear definition of discoverability, so we can ensure that one Canadian performer is not lower down to another. We want to see an equality on the Internet to ensure that Canadian arts and Canadian programming are able to excel. We want to see a threshold so that small, independent creators are not captured in a large, cumbersome bureaucratic process.

We want to see updates to the Canadian content definition so that Canadian stories are being told by Canadians. The current definition often sees Canadian stories not being considered Canadian. A perfect example is The Handmaid's Tale. It was written by the great Margaret Atwood and filmed in Ontario, but is not Canadian.

Before we move forward with Bill C-11, we have to get the definition of Canadian content right. Finally, we need to see the policy directive. We need to see the government's instructions to the CRTC of how it will interpret Bill C-11. In the former Bill C-10, the government did that. It released its draft directive before debate in the House of Commons. This time, it refuses to do that.

Bearing in mind these important things and the lack of witnesses we have yet to hear from, I move, second by the hon. member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington:

That the motion be amended:

(a) in paragraph (a),

(i) by substituting subparagraph (i) with the following:

“(i) the committee be instructed to continue hearing from witnesses, including especially Canadian content creators, this month and through the summer adjournment,”,

(ii) by substituting, subparagraph (ii), all the words after the words “11:59 p.m.” with the following: “on Monday, September 19, 2022”,

(iii) by substituting, in subparagraph (iii), all the words after the words “no later than” with the following: “Tuesday, September 27, 2022, provided that the committee has reported back to the House in relation to its order of reference of Thursday, June 2, 2022, in relation to Hockey Canada”,

(iv) by deleting subparagraph (iv) and (v); and

(b) by deleting paragraphs (b) and (c).

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, none of what the minister just said is accurate.

The Senate is not going to pass this bill before the end of June. We just heard that the committee has been considering this bill since the middle of May. I have been to that committee. What the cabinet is calling filibustering is what I call debate and raising the issues our constituents are raising.

Thousands of Canadians emailed us and said they did not want to see what was called Bill C-10. The government brought it back as Bill C-11. The bill has not been fixed. They have not fixed section 4.2, which does generate the ability of the government, through the CRTC, to moderate and censor the content uploaded by users.

This motion is truly a lack of confidence in the chair of the Canadian heritage committee. This is entirely of the government's making and entirely the government's fault. This legislation has not been reviewed or debated in 31 years. There is no reason to rush it through in the next few weeks. The government is being completely inaccurate in the way it is presenting it. It is a darn shame that we will not be able to review this bill as it deserves to be reviewed, because Canadians are interested to know if they will still be able to use the Internet, their YouTube channels, their Facebook and their TikTok in the ways that they have always been able to without the censorship of government and the CRTC.

Instruction to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to correct the record and confirm that the Conservative Party, as of last Friday, has submitted a number of amendments to the committee clerk for the purposes of this legislation, but we are not done. We have not finalized all of our amendments because we have not finalized the review of this piece of legislation.

We have made very clear publicly, and did so in a release, the challenges and concerns we have with this piece of legislation, including section 4.2, the definition of discoverability, the redefinition of Canadian content and the thresholds that these institutions ought to meet.

The question I want to ask to the NDP House leader is very simple. Much of this interpretation will be left to the CRTC, based on the policy directive of the minister. The minister has said that he will not release it until after this piece of legislation receives royal assent. Would the member not agree that it would be better for transparency and for the benefit of all of us in the House who are debating and voting on this legislation if the minister would simply, as the government did with Bill C-10, release the draft policy directive to the CRTC so that we can see it, review it and make a judgment on it before we vote on Bill C-11?

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

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that, during its consideration of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, the committee be granted the power to travel throughout Canada to hear testimony from interested parties and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee, provided that the travel does not exceed 10 sitting days.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke for seconding what I believe to be a very important motion.

As members are aware, Motion No. 16 was presented today. It is basically a draconian way of dealing with issues and matters of the House by the government. It is a way of stifling debate. It is a way of silencing the voices of millions of Canadians who sent their elected representatives here to Ottawa.

Bill C-11 has been universally panned, for lack of a better word, by content creators and others who are concerned about censorship on the Internet and concerned about content creation. We heard this morning the member for Perth—Wellington give a very good description of some of the concerns with this bill.

Effectively, what Motion No. 16 has done is basically taken the work out of the hands of the committee on this extremely important bill. The government is ramming it through, with the help of its NDP partners, in order to get it passed through Parliament without addressing many of the concerns that are being brought up by those who, as I said earlier, are expressing significant concerns about issues related to censorship.

I have been hearing from my constituents on this. Over the last two or three days, Canadians have become increasingly engaged on this issue. They are finding out what is going on.

Similar to a previous iteration of this bill, Bill C-10, Canadians are concerned. In fact, I would suggest they are more concerned about what is going with Bill C-11 and the impact it is going to have on their ability to see what is on the Internet and produce what is on the Internet. There are concerns, as we heard, as to the power the bill gives the government and the censorship role it gives to the government. It contributes, in my opinion, even more to what we see as a decline in democracy here in Canada, whereby millions of voices, including the Speaker's voice, is silenced as a result of draconian measures.

What this motion would do is allow the committee to travel across the country to hear from those who it has not heard from before. This motion is important because the Conservative opposition has said we are not going to agree to committee travel. The motion highlights the importance of hearing from those in Canada who are extremely concerned about this bill and the censorship it can create. It would allow the committee to do its work, function properly and hear the voices that are being silenced in this place. “Parliament” comes from parler, or “to speak”, yet we are being silenced on this bill.

There is another interesting part to this. I have been watching closely the deliberations at the heritage committee and have been speaking to our shadow minister of heritage about the level of dysfunction that has been created as a result of the chair of the committee not coming to Ottawa and being on Zoom. It speaks to the overall dysfunction of this place. Hybrid Parliament is having such a tremendous impact on the ability of the committees to do their work, and there are health implications for the people who work here, namely the interpreters.

In my opinion, it is time for hybrid Parliament to end. We need to get back to normal. That forms the basis of every argument we have been making in this place.

I am moving this motion in the hopes that we can allow the committee to have its deliberations and speak to Canadians who are concerned about government censorship and the impact this bill will have. We need the support of Parliament to allow the committee to do its job.

Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C-11

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South says there cannot be more, but there is more, unfortunately.

The government has tools available to it in the House to force through legislation. On motions it can use what is called closure, and on pieces of legislation it can use time allocation. That is the traditional process. If Bill C-11 were to be reported back to the House and the government felt that it was not proceeding as fast as it would like, it could move time allocation. However, it did not. At least with time allocation there is an opportunity to put questions to the minister for a period of 30 minutes. It is not a lot and it is not sufficient, but at least there is a process. Motion No. 16 pre-emptively time allocates this piece of legislation before clause-by-clause happens, before the process even begins.

I want to quote paragraph (b) of the motion. It states:

not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at report stage, and that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders that day, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment

That means one day for Bill C-11 at report stage.

Canadians listening at home may not quite grasp the severity of this provision. In the House, there are certain days of the week when government orders are debated for a lengthy period of time, for multiple hours. Sometimes when the government moves time allocation, it will say five hours. This is still, in my opinion, not enough time for an important piece of legislation, but five hours is more than what is foreseen for this piece of legislation.

If Bill C-11 is called before the House at report stage on a Wednesday afternoon or on a Friday, there will be not more than two and a half hours of debate in the House on each and every report stage amendment that may be brought forward. There is no discussion to extend hours. There is no discussion of additional time for Canadians to hear from their elected representatives.

I know that in my caucus, my Conservative colleagues want to discuss this bill. Many of them have eagerly volunteered to sit in on deliberations at the Canadian heritage committee because they have an interest in this piece of legislation. However, they have not had a chance to speak to it in the House of Commons. Why? It is because at second reading the government moved time allocation and they did not have a chance to speak.

My friend from Cumberland—Colchester is here today listening intently because he wanted to speak and did not have the chance. It is the same for my friend from Beauce. He has not had a chance to speak to this piece of legislation, and neither has my friend from Calgary Signal Hill. Each of them has been denied the opportunity to speak to this bill, and now they will be pre-emptively denied the opportunity to speak to the bill because of the limited time available for it.

That is not all. The final paragraph of this motion time allocates the bill at third reading. Paragraph (c) of Motion No. 16 states:

on the day the bill is considered at the third reading stage, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be midnight, and that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders that day, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

That means one day of debate for the third and final reading of this piece of legislation.

I will remind members of the House that this bill only got to committee and began the committee process on May 24. Now, less than four weeks later, the government wishes to see this bill arrive at third reading and pass without meaningful debate in this place and without meaningful debate during clause-by-clause in committee.

Earlier this week, the Minister of Canadian Heritage appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I was in the chair for that meeting, and as members know, the chair does not actively participate in the debate. However, I listened intently to the Minister of Canadian Heritage in his opening comments. He made the comment that when the committee was finished its process, there would be more debate in the House of Commons at report stage, at third reading and then in the Senate. Then, just three days later, on notice on the Order Paper was this guillotine motion, which does not fulfill the minister's commitment to allowing more debate on this bill.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and I get along very well, so I take him at his word that he was committed to more debate. Unfortunately, the government House leader's failure to manage the legislative agenda of this place means that our colleagues, members of the House, will not have the opportunity to fulfill their duty as parliamentarians, to fulfill their duty to the people they represent.

It is interesting that with the current government, what was old is new again, because in the previous Parliament there was a similar motion. It was Motion No. 10, and it also dealt with a bill, Bill C-10, the predecessor to this bill. It forced Bill C-10 through committee, forced it through the House of Commons and forced it into the Senate.

Had the government actually been committed to passing that piece of legislation, it could have, but something else intervened: the political interests of the Prime Minister. We saw the political ambitions and self-interest of the Prime Minister in his attempt to try to win a majority government during a pandemic, when he and every Liberal member on that side had committed to not calling an election during a pandemic.

They saw an opportunity to try to get their majority, and they did not. However, what happened is that every piece of legislation that was before the House or the Senate died on the Order Paper, including the previous Bill C-10. To hear Liberal members and ministers talk about having to expedite legislation through the House and through committee because it has to get through is simply horse feathers. It is horse feathers because they had an opportunity to do so but killed their own legislation by forcing an unnecessary election, which included the dissolution of Parliament.

However, the Liberals do not learn their lesson. These undemocratic processes keep coming back time and time again, and we have seen this with different pieces of legislation. I know I have heard Liberal MPs talk about the other matters we need to get to. Our Conservative Party put forward a proposal at the heritage committee to prioritize a review of Hockey Canada. We put forward a motion to prioritize the review of the disgusting situation we have learned about from four years ago. That should be our priority at committee. That is what we as parliamentarians should be looking at.

I see that I have one minute before question period, and as I assume I will have time to resume my comments after question period, I will leave with a few interim closing comments.

Canadians expect us to do better. Canadians expect us to review legislation. They expect opposition MPs to improve flawed legislation, and that is what we as Conservative members of Parliament will do. Regardless of the outcome of this motion, we will do what we can to protect Canadians, to support our creators and to ensure that Canadian creators are able to succeed at home and around the globe.

I look forward to resuming after question period.