Bill C-11

Online Streaming Act

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) specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation;
(c) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of the Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should
(i) serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including Canadians from Black or other racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages, and
(ii) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(d) enhance the vitality of official language minority communities in Canada and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs in both languages;
(e) 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 English, French and Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide English, French or Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) takes into account, among other things, the nature and diversity of the services provided by broadcasting undertakings,
(iii) ensures that any broadcasting undertaking that cannot make maximum or predominant use of Canadian creative and other human resources in the creation, production and presentation of programming contributes to those Canadian resources in an equitable manner,
(iv) promotes innovation and is readily adaptable toscientific and technological change,
(v) facilitates the provision to Canadians of Canadian programs in both official languages, including those created and produced by official language minority communities in Canada, as well as Canadian programs in Indigenous languages,
(vi) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities,
(vii) facilitates the provision to Canadians of programs created and produced by members of Black or other racialized communities,
(viii) protects the privacy of individuals who aremembers of the audience of programs broadcast, and
(ix) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which the Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on any class of broadcasting undertakings if that imposition will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(f) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(g) 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;
(h) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(i) 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;
(j) 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;
(k) 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;
(l) 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
(m) 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.

Online Streaming Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, first and foremost, the member referred to the Liberals and the NDP. It is the Liberal members of the House of Commons, the Bloc members of the House of Commons, the NDP members and the Green Party members. It is only the Conservative Party that is spreading the misinformation that is out there.

The member stood in his place and tried to give a false impression, saying that the government is trying to control what Canadians are watching. In no way whatsoever can the member cite anything within this legislation that would prevent a Canadian from watching whatever he or she wants to watch on the Internet. There is nothing there, so we would think that would stop.

The motivating factor for the Conservative Party on Bill C-11 is purely finances, feeding a frenzy of individuals it wants support from. I say “shame on the Conservative Party” for not protecting cultural industries and the arts in Canada.

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

Madam Speaker, normally, there would not be much debate in the House when we talk about making updates to the Broadcasting Act, which came into effect in 1991. At face value, most Canadians would say that a lot has changed since then. A little thing called the Internet came along, and most would agree.

I have talked about this topic in the House before and I am pretty proud of myself. I am pretty sure that I was the first MP in Canadian history to put Boyz II Men in the parliamentary record, when talking about the legislation before us, because times have changed a little bit. Back in 1991, Boyz II Men, Bryan Adams, MC Hammer and Monty Python were on the charts. I wanted to put that in the record again, and I am glad I have done that.

The goals of the Broadcasting Act have been reasonable: respecting official languages and providing an avenue for Canadian content in the traditional media at the time of TV and radio. Here is the thing I have said in the House, sadly, on many issues over and over again: Only the NDP and the Liberals, working together, can take something so mundane and so innocuous and make a disaster out of it when it comes to policy.

Here is how I know that. Outside of the Ottawa bubble, there are not too many Canadians who know what Bill C-4 or Bill S-252 or Bill C-39 is when it comes to government legislation. We know that the government is in trouble and we know it is on the wrong side of public opinion when a bill title becomes famous. In the last couple of weeks or couple of months, Bill C-21 has become synonymous with an attack on rural Canadians, indigenous communities and hunters, when the government tried to ban commonly used hunting rifles. Here we are now, with the famous term “C-11”, known by millions of Canadians across the country today as the most blatant attempt by the Liberals and the NDP, and bureaucrats in Ottawa, to have control over what Canadians see and what they search on the Internet.

If that was not convincing enough, Bill C-11 being a household name to millions of Canadians, we know we are in trouble when Conservatives and Margaret Atwood are on the same page, pushing back against the government. She is a wonderful Canadian, one of the most regarded and successful Canadian artists and content creators this country has ever seen. Canadians do not have to take my word for it or believe this side of the bench if they do not want to. Canadians will take Margaret Atwood's word on Canadian culture and content any day of the week over that of the Liberals and the NDP.

I want to give members the dictionary version of what she said. She said some pretty harsh things, calling out the government on Bill C-11. When we break it down and use the dictionary to further define what she is calling out the government for, it is creating a centralized and dictator-like system of control that requires complete subservience to the state.

This is bad legislation. They know it. It has been ping-ponged back and forth between the House of Commons and the Senate. It is back in the House of Commons, and it is going to go back to the Senate. Every time there is a committee hearing, every time there are more witnesses testifying, there are more questions than answers about what the government is doing here with this bill. From consumer groups to legal experts to content creators, many, many groups from every walk of life and every angle on this topic are calling out the government's direction and how bad and how flawed the bill is.

I am proud to stand as a Conservative to say that when we form government, we will repeal Bill C-11. We will kill Bill C-11, as simple as that.

Let us get into the weeds and talk about some of these pieces bit by bit. One of the things we hear the Liberals and the NDP say is that we need to support Canadian content more.

When I think about that, I pull up a list and say, sure, let us support Canadian content, things like Deadpool. It was filmed in Vancouver, starring Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds, with a screenplay by Canadian Paul Wernick, based on a Canadian comic book character.

We have Canadian Bacon. Who could forget that? There is John Candy, a legendary Canadian actor, in a story involving Canada.

I talked about Margaret Atwood. We have The Handmaid's Tale, based on her book. When we look at the production, the series was filmed in Mississauga, Toronto, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Cambridge.

I think of Canadian content like All or Nothing, a series on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It is a five-part series that followed the Leafs for months during the 2020-21 season. It is narrated by a Canadian, Will Arnett. It used Canadian crews.

Is this all Canadian content? No, every one of those examples I just cited does not meet the definition and criteria for Canadian content in the definitions that we have.

Bill C-11 is currently 56 pages long, and any Canadian can go online and look at it. They can hit Ctrl+F and search. Nowhere in there does it talk about modernizing and cleaning up that definition. I will argue that this is not about Canadian content, but about something else.

Every time, we put an amendment forward to clarify. If the government wants to debunk a myth and say that what we are saying is not the case, it can clarify it and put in amendments to say what it is not, to exclude certain things. The government refused to do so. It says, “Don't worry. We are not going to determine that. It's going to be the CRTC.”

This brings me to my next point, about another fundamentally flawed part of the legislation. The CRTC is an Ottawa-based acronym. Federal acronyms go left, right and centre around here. It is an agency in Ottawa, and on the Quebec side as well, in the national capital region, full of bureaucrats who, behind closed doors, would not only set the rules for what is Canadian content, but also, through the bill, be directed to start controlling the search results we have on the Internet.

Members heard that right: “behind closed doors”. We have asked repeatedly to put some sunshine, sunlight and transparency on those protocols. There are no criteria in the bill. There is no public formula. There are no clarifications or guardrails on what those protocols are, so for Canadians, when it comes to what they search and what they want to see, whether it is searching on Google, Crave, YouTube or any other platform, as a Canadian here and now, the government will control what goes up in search results and what goes down, and we would not be able to find out the algorithms and calculations it uses, because of CRTC bureaucrats doing it behind closed doors. They never have to share their reasoning, or what I call “showing their homework”. That speaks volumes.

The Prime Minister and the NDP will say not to worry because the CRTC is an arm's-length agency of the federal government. “It is independent,” they say. Let us just debunk that right now. The CRTC reports to the Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage. Its chair and the commissioners who are working there and leading that organization are appointed directly by the Prime Minister and the Liberal cabinet.

Nobody believes it is arm's-length, and nobody believes the legislation is about Canadian artists and everyday Canadians, because if it were the right thing to do and the popular thing to do, and if there were no problems about it, the government would have made that whole process a lot more public, rather than punting it over behind closed doors.

The bill is not about sunlight. It is not about Canadian artists and content creators. I say the bill is a Trojan horse, because there are some very big cheerleaders for it. The bureaucracy at the CRTC would be exploding in size. The size of the Internet is massive. The amount of content uploaded every single day is huge. It is going to take an administrative swarm of new bureaucrats to go through, and the people who are going to hit the jackpot, the people who are doing cartwheels in downtown Ottawa, are the lobbyists who would be hired by all these groups, associations and artists to try to lobby to get them, when the CRTC goes behind closed doors, to take what is going on.

As I share my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, we will continue the commentary on this and how it works. If someone is a budding content creator in north Winnipeg, a Franco-Ontarian or an indigenous artist in northern Canada, in Nunavut, they can currently upload, and may the best content win. The cream of the crop rises. Canadians will determine what they like and what they want to watch, and that should be the most popular search result. That is the most organic way possible. Trust me, the best way is to let Canadians do their own work and let the organic way go. Good videos go to the top. We have thousands of artists who have made a living by creating content and continue to do so. We do not need to fix what is not broken.

I will wrap up by saying that Bill C-11 is bad. It is online censorship. Ottawa telling 37 million Canadians what they should watch and see is wrong. The Liberals and the NDP have had years to get this right, and now they are just being stubborn.

We oppose this bill now, and as a Conservative government, we would kill Bill C-11.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her passionate speech.

She began by talking about art. Art certainly offers a certain perspective on nature. Something becomes art when the viewer decides that it is artistic. An author once said that to read a book is to write another. The artistic aspect certainly lies in someone viewing it more than its distribution. We know that everything in the art world is what ultimately constitutes culture.

I want to ask my colleague what impact Bill C-11 will have on culture.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and represent Peterborough—Kawartha.

I will start by saying that art is subjective. Art is in the eye of the beholder. What may be amazing to me and what may be amazing to members is completely subjective. How in the world could we ever allow bureaucracy to dictate what is art? That is a question I would ask as we look into Bill C-11.

There is nothing more inclusive than the Internet. It does not matter where we live or what we look like, there is a place for us online, for now, but Bill C-11 jeopardizes this freedom. It jeopardizes this free market.

I can remember walking into a room with online content creators, mom bloggers who had created a community that literally saved the lives of women who were suffering with postpartum, who were suicidal, who were struggling with their mental health. These women were extreme introverts, meaning they otherwise would not have been able to create this medium if there were not able to flip open their computers and write something online that connected them to hundreds, thousands and millions of people, built a community and allowed their voices to be heard.

If we go to the Canadian government website, it states this about competition: “Competition pushes individuals, firms and markets to make the best use of their resources, and to think outside the box to develop new ways of doing business and winning customers. This not only drives productivity up, it also improves our own standard of living.”

Bill C-11 would go after a competitive market that needs zero government interference. Online content creators are making their own destiny. They are building communities. They are raising money for not-for-profits and charities. They are connecting people all over the world. It is a major concern when the government wants to interfere, dictate and control what it thinks people at home should be watching.

Artistry and creation are not a choice. If we ask artists, they will tell us they did not choose it; it chose them. They have to create. It is what fuels them. It is simply who they are.

What someone values as art or great content is completely independent of the consumer. I may love Cat and Nat, two Toronto-based “mompreneurs” who built an empire by creating an online space for moms. They were, for the record, turned away by countless broadcast agencies and had the door slammed in their face multiple times, but because of the free market of the Internet, they were able to build an empire and connect millions of moms. They are from Toronto, Canadian content creators.

What about “Train with Joan”, made by the 70-year-old Cobourg-based woman who transformed her life using physical fitness and now reaches millions of people online? She is the inspiration so many of us need to know that it is never too late to change our mind and body. Would she have been given an opportunity on a broadcast station? Would she have been given the same opportunity that the Internet allowed her to reach the people she reached?

It is called choice. It is called the freedom to find and choose what to watch. Why in the world would we ever want the government to decide what is worthy of being seen and what is not? This is what Bill C-11 would do. It would give the Liberals the control to decide what we see and watch online.

In the online world, we often hear of a term called “organic reach”. This is the ultimate goal for a content creator. A creator puts content online and the free market decides if it is worthy of liking, sharing and commenting. We have already seen organic reach being meddled with by Facebook and other platforms because of paid reach tactics, a play-to-play system, which has caused problems, so why in the world would government want to meddle even further with this system? Why in the world do we want the government to decide what we watch and see?

Jim Morrison said that those who control the media, control the mind. I really want people to think about what this legislation is and why it is being tabled. Famed Canadian author, Margaret Atwood said it best, saying that this is not a problem that needs fixing. She said, “It is creeping totalitarianism if governments are telling creators what to create.”

The approach of how this bill has been managed is awful and simply undemocratic. In the House, for those who do not know, a bill must be approved at all three readings before it is sent to the Senate to be approved and given royal assent. The Senate should be a safeguard for Canadians when major concerns are raised. There were 26 amendments put forth by the Senate. This is a very high number and speaks volumes to the fact that this bill should be thrown out.

What is the point of the Senate and expert testimony if the Liberals refuse to listen? How is this supposed to build trust with Canadians when people are silenced? When people are silenced, that is censorship, and it is our job as elected officials to bring balance to this room, to find the common ground, to listen to both sides.

I will tell the Liberals, as somebody who has a background in broadcasting, the Broadcasting Act one hundred per cent needs to be updated, but this bill is trying to regulate a free market space of the Internet, and there is no place for the government to do that.

Simon Wiesenthal, a famous Nazi hunter and fighter for human rights, said, “Freedom is not a gift from heaven. One must fight for it every day.” The Tour for Humanity bus was here on Parliament Hill yesterday. I had the opportunity to tour it.

Censorship does not work. History has shown us this over and over again. The Liberals have refused to make the policy direction to the CRTC on how the legislation would be implemented public until after the bill is passed. Let us think about that for a second. The Liberals have refused to make the policy direction to the CRTC on how the legislation would be implemented public until after the bill is passed.

If the Liberals main intention is to promote Canadian content, why in the world would they ask us to sign first and ask questions later. This is so sketchy. Why not just tell Canadians now? What are they hiding? Why are they not being transparent?

Critics are furious, and so they should be, because the heritage minister announced a complete rejection of the senators' work that excluded user content from CRTC regulation after he said they would not. Somewhere right now there is a quirky, talented, gifted content creator who has not discovered that they fit somewhere. They have been told no. Maybe they have not found their community. Maybe they have not found their tribe. However, they hit the upload button, and all of a sudden, their world changes and so does that community's world.

There is much that is great about the Internet. For better or worse, it is here. I have to be honest, I am absolutely shocked that the NDP does not see the value of independent, free market content creators who are doing so much good for social justice and all the things they fight for in the House. It is shocking to me that we are having this fight when we are here to elevate voices of Canadians, to give them the freedom to use their voice for good. It makes no sense to me why we are fighting this bill.

I came here with an open mind, with optimism that we are here to elevate voices. This bill is censorship. It makes no sense. I appreciate and agree a hundred per cent that the Broadcasting Act needs to be updated, but this bill is not achieving that. Its intent is to control online content.

I will end with this: Enough is enough. Stop with the controlling legislation, and please, kill Bill C-11.

The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate on Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, and of the amendment.

Canadian Heritage

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague was saying, we are now in the home stretch of the passage of Bill C‑11.

I would like to remind members that Bill C‑11 seeks to ensure that Quebec culture and Quebec and Canadian artists have their place and can succeed in the new digital world.

The Government of Quebec shared its demands concerning Bill C‑11. It is asking that Quebec have a say in CRTC decisions that impact Quebec culture and that the Quebec act respecting the status of artists be respected.

How will the minister respond to Quebec's demands?

Freedoms in Canada

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Speaker, “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind” is a quote from musician Jim Morrison. Bill C-11 aims to do exactly that. This far-overreaching bill gives control to the government to decide what online media is and is not shown to Canadians.

Famed Canadian author Margaret Atwood said it best, “All you have to do is read some biographies of writers writing in the Soviet Union and the degrees of censorship they had to go through - government bureaucrats.... So it is creeping totalitarianism if governments are telling creators what to create.”

Art is subjective. The Liberal government will stop at nothing to control what Canadians see online.

If Bill C-11 passes, it kicks open the door to government censorship, empowering the Liberals to strengthen voices they deem good and silence those they deem bad.

Conservatives trust Canadians to choose what they want to watch online.

Enough is enough. Let us stop with the controlling legislation and kill Bill C-11.

Online Streaming Act

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Madam Speaker, the misinformation that I have heard is from the government that says that this bill would not impact user-generated content. The proof that is not true is that it will not accept amendments. It did not accept amendments in the House from the Conservatives and it has not accepted Senate amendments that would have specifically excluded user-generated content from the bill.

The fact that the government will not clarify, the fact that it will not confirm that it does not want to control user-generated content proves to us that is exactly what it wants to do. It wants to impact the ability of creators to connect with their customers, with the people who watch their channels. It wants to get in the way, and a Conservative government will get Bill C-11 out of the way.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the people of Chilliwack—Hope. I want to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member for Peterborough—Kawartha.

What we have seen throughout the debate today is the concept of what the government is trying to do through Bill C-11. The Liberals are trying to give more control to the government and its well-connected friends and provide less freedom for Canadians.

We saw this in how the debate on Bill C-11 unfolded in the House. The government, with its enablers in the NDP, rammed this bill through the House by invoking time allocation and limiting the ability of the representatives of the Canadian people to speak to this bill. The Liberals shut down debate throughout the entire process to ram this bill through the House.

It is kind of indicative of their approach with Internet regulation. They want fewer people who disagree with them to have the freedom to express themselves. They want to control the House of Commons and they want to control the message that comes out of the House of Commons by shutting down Conservative members who want to speak.

We saw that mainly at the committee as well. We had dozens and dozens of content creators from across the country come to appear before a House of Commons committee for the first time because they were alarmed at what this bill proposed to do and the limits it would place on their ability to get their messages out to their consumers, which is anyone who can access the Internet. The government's problem is that it did not have control. It could not get between those content creators and their audiences. That is what the government wants to do here. It is what the members of the government are insisting upon doing here with Bill C-11. They need that control. They crave that control and now they are going to try to force that control through this law.

Those were individuals who had never engaged in the political process before, including YouTubers and TikTokers, people who post videos and have become popular in their own right not because the government has done anything for them, but because they actually produce content that Canadians and others around the world want to watch. However, that is not good enough for the government members. They need to get in between and ensure consumers are consuming the right content. Even if it is from Canadians, if it does not go through a particular process, then it does not count as being Canadian content.

Creators from across the country who had never lobbied the government, had never been members of a political party and had never come to a parliamentary committee tried to have their voices heard at that committee, but the government could not control them so it shut that down too. There were dozens of witnesses who applied and wanted to come and share their experiences. It was not just Bell, Rogers, Shaw and Corus. Those were always heard. Those have highly paid lawyers and lobbyists who have privileged access to the Prime Minister's Office and every member of the Liberal cabinet.

They were heard, but the content creators who came to Ottawa to be part of that process were shut down by the Liberals and their NDP enablers. They shut down that process and they shut down the process as well when amendments were proposed when we consulted with those content creators. Hundreds of amendments were not even allowed to be raised at the House committee. They were simply voted on without debate and without context because the government could not control that process, so the Liberals shut it down.

Then, after they shut down debate in the House at second reading, shut down debate at the House committee and shut down debate at third reading, the bill went to the Senate where the government does not have control. It had a very lengthy review, the most comprehensive legislative review ever conducted by the Senate.

What happened when the Senate, led by Senator Housakos, Senator Manning, Senator Batters and others, stood up to the government and stood up for Canadian content creators? The Senate came back to the House with amendments from Liberal appointees who said that the government claims that this does not affect user-generated content and that it is just for the big companies. Liberal-appointed senators put forward amendments that were accepted by the Senate, which said that, if that is what the government said, it would take it at its word.

That was a huge mistake, by the way, but they said they would take the government at its word and would narrowly focus an amendment that excludes user-generated content from the bill. The Senate was taking the government at its word that it was not intended for them.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Liberal government have rejected that Liberal amendment because it would take away their ability to control. The government could not abide even Liberal amendments that would have focused this bill on what it said it was supposed to be focused on.

Michael Geist is a professor whom the Liberals used to like to quote when they were in opposition. Now, I am sure, they wish did not have his words being read in the House, though they are about to be. He said:

...the Senate passed compromise language to ensure that platforms such as YouTube would be caught by the legislation consistent with the government's stated objective, but that user content would not. Last night, [the Minister of Canadian Heritage] rejected the compromise amendment, turning his back on digital creators and a Senate process lauded as one of the most comprehensive ever. In doing so, he has left no doubt about the government's true intent with Bill C-11: retain power and flexibility to regulate user content.

That is what this is all about. The government has left no doubt it wants to regulate that user content.

Michael Geist, when he appeared at the House committee, said, “To be clear, the risk with these rules is not that the government will restrict the ability for Canadians to speak, but rather that the bill could impact their ability to be heard.”

That is exactly what the government is insisting on. It is insisting on the fact that it has the power, that it retains the power, to direct the CRTC to determine what Canadians can or cannot see, to filter it, to adjust the algorithm, to direct people away from the content they want to see to the content the government wants them to see.

Every single time the government has had an opportunity to do the right thing, which is to let content creators thrive, to let them reach out to their audiences without interference from the government, it has not been able to handle the lack of control. The loss of control is just too much for it, which is why it has rejected the Senate amendments.

The Senate amendments, by the way, only made a bad bill slightly less bad. Let us be clear that the amendments were an improvement to a terrible piece of legislation. That is why, quite clearly, the Leader of the Opposition has made it clear that a future Conservative government would kill Bill C-11, would repeal it, because we believe in content creators. We believe in the ability of Canadian content creators to engage, not only with Canadians but with the world. The government simply needs to get out of the way and let them do what they are already doing so successfully.

We do not need the Liberal government acting as an intermediary and putting its fingers on the scales of the Internet, putting its fingers on the algorithm to direct Canadians to viewing things that they want to see. They are already doing that quite successfully. They do not want this bill. In fact, they have said that the rejection of the amendment to exempt user-generated content from this bill is like being spit in the face. These are people, again, who are not professional lobbyists. They do not have great connections inside the PMO. They do not have expensive lawyers to make their case and buy the Liberals fancy dinners. They do not have that ability.

They simply are creating the content, doing the things that make them happy and doing the things, quite frankly, that make them money. They are allowed to do this. They do this without any interference from the government, but now the government is set to interfere, to affect their livelihoods. Again, they engaged in that process in good faith. They engaged in the Senate process in good faith. They believed, after they had convinced the Senate to do the work that the government refused to do, that there was hope, that they would be exempted from this bill. The government just could not handle it. Conservatives reject the government's rejection of these amendments. We reject Bill C-11, and a Conservative government would repeal it.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I salute my colleague. I worked with him previously, as we were both journalists. He worked for TVA and I worked for TQS. He had fewer viewers than I did, in Quebec of course. I should not have mentioned it because my friends at TVA will be upset with me, but we were number one when I worked at TQS.

What the member said is quite true. However, I would like to remind him why we are so dead set against Bill C-11. It is because the federal government is giving itself all the power to dictate to the CRTC what will be allowed in the algorithms of digital platforms. We cannot accept that. I know that the member is a proud nationalist, that he is proud of Quebec. How can he accept such a blatant abuse of power by the federal government with respect to Quebec?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will begin by expressing my disappointment. I am disappointed because I really do value my colleague who just spoke. I think he is a man of great intelligence and exemplary quick thinking, as he has often demonstrated. Unfortunately, this morning, he seems to be embarking on a global disinformation campaign on behalf of his pan-Canadian, pro-oil, pro-pipelines-in-Quebec political party, by telling lies, by saying that Bill C-11, will, for one, control the content that people will be able to view on the Internet. That is not true. He should reread the bill. There is nothing in the bill that does that. What the bill will do is promote Quebec content. I will never believe that my colleague disagrees with promoting Quebec content, without imposing anything, without imposing a menu choice, but by making it visible on the platforms. That is the essence of what the bill does.

If my colleague is such an ardent champion of Quebec, the day his party wants to ram an oil pipeline down Quebec's throat, will he stand up and support Quebeckers?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, when it benefits them, as my colleague so aptly pointed out.

What is really going on? While we, the Conservatives, stood up 20 times to ask the government to accommodate Quebec's request, the Bloc Québécois maintained radio silence. It is a fitting metaphor, since we are talking about the CRTC. It was radio silence, not a word. They were missing in action, nowhere to be found.

Where is the Bloc when it is time to defend Quebec and speak for Quebec's National Assembly? They drop out of sight.

Speaking of the Quebec National Assembly, do members know that, about a month ago, on February 5 and 6, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted three motions condemning the federal government's action? Do members know that those three motions were directly related to positions defended by the Bloc Québécois in the House on Bill C-5, Bill C-11 and the immigrants at Roxham Road? The last motion severely condemned the use of the term “all-inclusive”, which was said in the House by a member of the Bloc Québécois. We know that Bloc members recognized that it was not the best idea. They said it in the House. The Quebec National Assembly did not like that and adopted a motion condemning that statement.

I was a member of the Quebec National Assembly. I, too, have had occasion, several times, to vote in favour of motions unanimously condemning an act of the federal government. This time, there were three motions in 20 hours, over two days, unanimously condemning the action taken by the federal government with the support of the Bloc Québécois. When the Bloc Québécois says that it is there to defend Quebec, defend the Quebec consensus and speak on behalf of the Quebec National Assembly in the House, it is not true.

That is why we keep saying that it is very important to know how to protect the choice of jurisdictions. Why does Quebec stand up and want to be heard on this bill? This is essential in our debate: Clause 7 states that the government grants itself the power to give directives to the CRTC, which in turn will be responsible for the government's directives to then rework and give directives on the algorithms that will have to be processed by the public. This has many people concerned.

That is why the Financial Post said in an editorial that if the government's bureaucrats were given the right to decide what content is imposed on Canadians there is a real risk that the government will be tempted to use its screening power to silence its critics. That is not good.

Former CRTC chair Ian Scott said that he did not want to manipulate the algorithms. Rather, he wanted the platforms to do that so as to “produce particular outcomes”. That is how an expert sees it. A former head of the CRTC said that.

That is why, as long as this government wants to give itself excessive powers to control what Quebeckers and Canadians have access to, we will be against this bill.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to take part in this debate about how the Liberal government is taking excessive control over Canadians' choices.

Let us not fool ourselves. This bill gives way, way too much power to the federal government, which wants to impose its vision on the choices Canadians make when they use the Internet to watch movies and documentaries and enjoy Canadian culture.

The government wants to direct Canadians' choices by issuing orders to the CRTC. That is why we are fiercely opposed to this bill, which is a direct attack on people's freedom to choose whatever they want to see on digital platforms. We are not the only ones concerned about this. Many people who work in the industry are sounding the alarm. I will say more about that in a bit.

For now, let us concentrate on what has happened in recent years. We have been talking about this bill for years. Some people keep saying that this needs to get done fast, it is urgent, people want this bill and it is taking too long to pass it. We have been accused of filibustering.

The reality is that this bill has been delayed the most by the Liberal government itself. Previously, this bill was known as Bill C‑10, and it was introduced before the unnecessary election that cost $620 million in taxpayers' money. We had to carry out the study all over again.

I am prepared to listen to the comments of those accusing us of talking for the sake of talking and other such things. That is political rhetoric. However, the reality is that those who have delayed the debate and passage of this bill the most are not the Conservative members. It is the Liberal government, which triggered an election and even prorogued Parliament to avoid the WE Charity scandal. The election essentially changed nothing. The government spent $620 million of public money to change absolutely nothing, and this delayed debate of the bill, which, at the time, was known as Bill C‑10, and which is now Bill C‑11.

We are not the only ones in Quebec to have reservations about this bill. Indeed, the Quebec government wants to have its say on the bill. This is nothing new. Almost 11 months ago, on April 24, the Quebec government sent a letter to the Minister of Canadian Heritage informing him of Quebec's major concern about the unprecedented power that the federal government was giving itself under clause 7. This clause gives the executive branch, meaning government and cabinet, the power to give the CRTC directions to dictate what Canadians will be able to watch, by creating algorithms for browsing online platforms.

That is why the Quebec minister of culture and communications, Mathieu Lacombe, repeated that on February 4 in a letter in which he stated that it was “essential...that Quebec's cultural specificity and the unique reality of the French language market be adequately considered”, that “Quebec was the homeland of the French language and francophone culture in the Americas”, it was essential that it be heard. He also said that it was essential “to ensure that Quebec's legislative powers were recognized but that these conditions have not yet been met”.

The Quebec government raised its concerns last April. Following that letter, the National Assembly adopted a unanimous motion asking the federal government to let the Quebec government have its say in committee. The federal government did absolutely nothing. The minister received the letter and could barely be bothered to send an acknowledgment of receipt. After that, as I said last week in the House, he stuck it on his bedside table, under a pile of other papers, and did nothing about it for an entire year.

On February 4, 2023, Minister Lacombe got angry and sent the federal government another request, saying that time was up and that the Quebec government demanded to be heard. The Minister of Canadian Heritage did absolutely nothing.

It is not for lack of trying on our part. The hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, our political lieutenant for Quebec, and I asked not two, not three, not four, but 20 questions to make it clear that Quebec wanted to be heard on the matter of this bill.

We asked 20 questions, and what did the Minister of Canadian Heritage do each time? He resorted to theatrics. He bragged and blustered, he gave a grandstanding response, but he offered nothing for Quebec.

It is scarcely surprising that the centralizing Liberal government should take this approach. I could spend days and days reminiscing about how this government and all previous Liberal governments were eager to commandeer the provinces' political powers. In fact, we are currently seeing how the government has made a specialty of sticking its big fat nose into provincial jurisdictions, where it does not belong.

It is not surprising that the government is doing that. However, it is disappointing to see the Bloc Québécois abetting this usurpation of ministerial responsibility and especially of Quebec's jurisdictions. These people get elected by saying that they speak for Quebec in the House of Commons and that they express the unanimous opinion of Quebeckers. They play up how important that is.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know whether I am going to have enough time to address all of the nonsense that was said in the past 10 minutes. The most scandalous thing my colleague said was that this bill is not about culture. It makes absolutely no sense to say such a thing.

For those who may not know, I am an actor. Before I got into politics, I worked in the film and television industry. I recently played a role in a series that was released a few days ago called Désobéir: le choix de Chantale Daigle about a precedent-setting case in Canada on abortion. It is a truly wonderful and remarkable series. I would encourage the members of the Quebec caucus of the Conservative Party to record it and send it to all of their Conservative caucus colleagues. It could prove useful to them. Until we pass Bill C-11, we will certainly not have the chance to watch this series.

When this show first aired two days ago, I met with producers, screenwriters, artists and actors. They all asked me what we were waiting for to pass Bill C-11.

What are we waiting for? When will we pass this bill?

I would like to remind my Conservative friends that 80% of the members of the Union des artistes au Québec still earn less than $20,000 a year. We need to pass Bill C-11 now.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, yes to CBC and yes to Bill C-11. I would invite the member opposite to tell me what he thinks Canadian content is, why he will not define it in the bill and why he is misleading Canadians, to say that the CRTC, the Chair of which is appointed by him, will not regulate what Canadians see and hear on the Internet. He is misleading the House, and he knows it.