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.

Bill C-11

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians who have been shut out by Canada's traditional media gatekeepers are finding their voices on places like TikTok, Spotify and YouTube. It is amazing. I am talking about creators like Oorbee Roy, a South Asian mother from Toronto who shares her skill in and her love for skateboarding on TikTok. I am talking about Vanessa Brousseau, an indigenous woman who shares her artistry and her passion as she advocates for missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada.

These creators leverage digital platforms to share their uniquely Canadian stories with the world. Despite this, the government wants to kill their success and actually silence their voices. Through Bill C-11, the government would pick winners and losers by determining which content gets to be seen and which content has to be hidden.

As for everyday Canadian users, we are out of luck too, because whatever we post online, see online or hear online would be censored by the government. Hello, state censorship, and goodbye freedom. It is time for the government to read its notifications, because if it did, it would see there is a massive thumbs-down.

Government Business No. 22—Extension of Sitting Hours and Conduct of Extended Proceedings

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the House that I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon West.

Here we are again. I was in the process of recapping a bit of history on the draconian motions the Liberal government continues to bring. I had described Motion No. 6 in 2016. It was the same thing of wanting to extend the hours and basically obstruct, and that of course was where “elbowgate” came from. The Prime Minister was upset because there was legislation pending and many amendments were brought, so that evening turned into a fiasco.

The government then withdrew Motion No. 6. It realized it had pushed everyone too far and it was very undemocratic. In fact, I quoted the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, who said that the motion was fundamentally anti-democratic. The NDP seems to be supporting its costly coalition now, but at the time he said that it was fundamentally undemocratic.

Then the government came forward with Motion No. 11, which was about sitting until midnight, but not for everybody to be sitting until midnight. The Liberals and the NDP would have been able to be home in their pyjamas with Motion No. 11, because there would not need to be quorum. They would not need to have a certain number of people in the House, which is actually a constitutional requirement to have 20 in the House. They were recommending something that was not even constitutional back on Motion No. 11.

The irony is they have now brought Motion No. 22, which is twice as bad as Motion No. 11, and mathematically, people will see the irony there. On the one hand, we hear Liberal members say they are trying to give us more time to debate, but actually that would only happen when Liberal and NDP members would be here, and they would not need to be because we would not need to have quorum. It is a little insincere.

The other thing is that the government continually moves time allocation. It promised not to do that when it was first elected in 2015, back in the old sunshiny days. Its members said they would never move time allocation, and now they are moving it all the time.

Rushing things through the House can be disastrous. We saw that with Bill C-11, where all kinds of draconian measures were used. It was forced to committee, and it was time allocated at committee to get it over to the Senate. Now we can see there are so many flaws in the bill that the Senate is taking quite a bit of time with it and is likely to bring numerous amendments.

That is why we need to have time here in the House for reasonable debate. Debate means people need to not just speak but also be heard. For that to happen, one needs to have an audience, which of course Motion No. 22 would eliminate. The role of the opposition is to point out what is not good about legislation that comes before the House. It does no good at all for us to point it out if nobody is listening to what is being said.

I find it particularly awful that the Liberals talk about family balance and try to promote more women to come into politics. The member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake and the member for Shefford, who are young mothers, have stood up and said that this motion is not good for family balance. It is not that people do not want to work, but if we want to encourage more women to come in, these kinds of measures are not encouraging them. There is a lot of hypocrisy for the government to talk on the one hand about getting more women in politics and promoting that and on the other hand putting draconian measures such as this in place, where mothers with young babies would need to be here at 11:30 at night debating legislation.

I am very concerned about committee resources, and so that is really the amendment the CPC has brought. We have seen there has been a lot of trouble at committees getting interpreters and committees not being able to extend their hours when there are important issues because there are just no resources. A valid concern brought by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was that we want a guarantee we are not going to be shortchanged at committee. Perhaps at the end of the day, that is what the government is trying to do, which is to escape the examination it gets at committee. In a minority government, we can actually try to get to the heart of the issues the government would like no transparency on.

The amendment that has been brought forward is a good one. Overall, I have seen an erosion of our democracy. I think this motion is fundamentally undemocratic, but I would add it to the list of attacks on our democratic rights and freedoms in this country.

We talk about freedom of speech, but we have seen a continual onslaught against it from the government through Bill C-10, Bill C-36 and Bill C-11, including when it comes to freedom of the media and freedom of the press. We have Bill C-18 at the heritage committee right now, and I have lots of concern about that bill. There is an erosion of freedom of religion in this country, from hiring a consultant who is an anti-Semite to advise the government on anti-racism, to having 15 Christian churches burn down in Canada, yet crickets are coming from the side opposite.

I am very concerned. I see the rise of Chinese influence in our elections. There are three police stations that China has claimed in Toronto. What is the government doing about any of this? Nothing.

This motion is just another in a long line of motions eroding our democracy, so I am certainly not going to support it. I cannot believe that the NDP is going to support the government when previously the New Democrats said this kind of motion was fundamentally undemocratic. I understand in no way why this costly coalition exists. The NDP got in bed with the Liberals to get 10 sick days, through legislation that was passed in December last year and was never enacted, and dental care for everybody, which they got for children under 12 and poor families who are mostly covered in other provincial programs, with nothing else coming until after the next election. On pharmacare, there are crickets.

Why is the NDP supporting the government on this draconian anti-democratic motion that is intended to take away the accountability of government? I have no idea. I am certainly not going to support it, and my Conservative colleagues will not either.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I could put up with all the other heckling, Mr. Speaker, but when the member for Winnipeg North says, “Go, Bombers”, I have to react to that and ask if that is parliamentary. I am pretty sure that should get him ejected from the chamber.

In a football context, imagine if the Bombers got the ball and they tried to unilaterally tell the referees they were not going to run the clock while they had the ball. It would not be fair. It is not part of the game. It is not part of how the dynamic works.

To have a situation mid-session where, all of a sudden, the Liberals were going to rig the clock, rig the calendar, to help them ram through more of their legislation, hoping to exhaust Conservative MPs from using our time in the House to make these points. It is not just about time, when the government counts the number of hours or days when the debate is actually going on. That is just part of the picture. We can think of many examples where, thanks to the debate taking some time, flaws in the bills were exposed. I can think of the medical assistance in dying bill that the chamber has debated in several Parliaments now.

I can appreciate the goodwill from members on all sides to try to get aspects of that right, and to put in proper protections for vulnerable Canadians. It was because it took time to go through that many people expressed their concerns and identified flaws in the legislation, saying that vulnerable Canadians, people with mental health issues, young Canadians and our veterans would be more susceptible. They may fall through the cracks and may have this type of medical action taken, maybe without their full consent or by catching them at a vulnerable time.

Conservatives used that time to help expose it and inform Canadians. As a result, we saw many disability groups and other types of groups become more engaged and ultimately try to make the bill better when it did get to committee.

There are lots of examples I could run through. Thanks to the fact that we had more time in the House, not just time in terms of hours of the day or number of speeches given, but literally days off the calendar, it gave those industry groups, stakeholder groups and people affected by the legislation more time to run through the bill and inform their members of Parliament. Therefore, before the bill even came to committee there was already a plan in place to try to fix the deficiencies.

Right now we have Bill C-11 in the Senate. It is a massive expansion of the government's power to regulate the Internet and control what Canadians could see and say online. If the government had had its way, it would have sailed through all stages and it would have been law by now. However, it was because we took extra time to debate it that more Canadians realized that this would have a massive negative impact on Canadians' abilities to express themselves freely. We were able to hear from content creators, who are very famous people with their own YouTube followings and social media presences. They talked to individual MPs and said that, as Canadian content creators, Bill C-11 would have a negative impact on them. They did that because we gave them that time to do so.

Rather than seeing the number of days as a problem, the government should see it as an opportunity and welcome it. What the government does has an impact on every single Canadian and I, for one, hope that it would want to get that right. That goal is actually good government not just Liberal priorities being passed.

If it should come to light that there is a flaw in a bill or unintended consequences, it should welcome that the same way that a small business owner does who hears from one of their staff that the way they operate is making them lose money or annoying customers. A good small business owner wants to hear that. Any business owner wants to hear that. I want to hear from my own family if there are certain things we do that have a negative impact on one of my kids or my spouse. We want to hear that. We want to have a good family environment, and business owners want to have successful operations with happy employees and happy customers. We should welcome that.

When Conservatives say they want another day of debate or we want to talk about this a little bit longer, the government should say that is great and it wants to hear what we have to say and the constructive feedback. The government House leader spoke at great length about this type of thing, encouraging conversations, encouraging feedback and critiques and admitting that the government does not get it right all the time. That is why it is so hypocritical to hear a House leader talk about all this context while he is putting through a motion that is going to assist the government to ram through its agenda at an even greater pace. That is why Conservatives are opposed to this piece of legislation.

We are in favour of good government, we are in favour of good legislation and we will do our part. The government continuously ignores the feedback from Canadians. When Canadians are saying they do not want record-high inflation and to stop the printing presses, stop the deficit spending and stop borrowing money to throw it into an economy that drives up prices, it is not listening. We have to be that voice. It is our constitutional role to do that. We actually have a moral obligation as the official opposition to do that. We are not going to be cowardly or apologetic just because the government is frustrated with its timelines.

To close, it is so difficult to hear a Liberal member of Parliament, the government House leader, talk about cultivating a climate of respect and talk about cordial and constructive conversations when his leader, the Liberal Prime Minister, speaks with such contempt for anybody who disagrees with him, pitting Canadian against Canadian and dividing us.

Remember the government's reaction during the pandemic when many Canadians wanted to make their own health care choices and make their own determination for themselves as to what medicines they put in their body? The reaction from the government was that it forced people to choose between keeping their jobs and taking a medical treatment that they may not have been comfortable with. That does not sound very constructive or respectful to me.

Then the Prime Minister openly asked if they should even tolerate these people. That is the type of language we hear horrible dictators use against segments of their population that they would rather do without. We saw the contempt that he had for those who came to Ottawa to fight for their freedoms. He invoked an Emergencies Act that had never been used in Canadian history. By the way, now it is coming out how flimsy the excuse was for doing that, as police entity after police entity, from the Ottawa police to the Ontario Provincial Police are all saying that they did not ask for it and that existing laws were sufficient to do the work that they were asked to do. We have a Prime Minister who insults, demonizes and bullies.

The government House leader talked about the impact that type of toxic environment has had on its own family, yet he sits in a caucus where many members on this side witnessed the Prime Minister get up out of his seat, walk over and bully a former Black female member of Parliament who was forced to leave politics. She said that one of the reasons she was leaving politics when she did was the personal treatment that the Prime Minister inflicted upon her.

The Prime Minister fired the first female indigenous justice minister. What did he fire her for? She would not go along with his corruption. She had the audacity to stand in her place and say no. As the former minister of justice and the attorney general, she had a higher obligation to the law than to her political master. He fired her.

The government House leader has no problem sitting beside the Prime Minister and supporting the Prime Minister in all he does. It is a bit rich. The reason the opposition party does not put a lot of stock in his words is that he is clearly quite comfortable with the toxic behaviour that his own Liberal leader has put his own colleagues through.

Since it is a massive undermining of a very important check on the government's ability to ram through its agenda, because of the hypocrisy of a government that has so mismanaged its own timetable and its own calendar and because of the direct impact that this motion would have on committees, Conservatives cannot support this motion.

Since we are hopeful that some of what the government House leader said may have been sincere, we are hoping that they may support an amendment to specifically protect the very important work that committees are doing.

I move:

That the motion be amended, in paragraph (a), by replacing the words “and that such a request shall be deemed adopted” with the words “and, provided that if the Clerk of the House personally guarantees that there would be no consequential cancellation or reduction of the regularly scheduled committee meeting resources for that day, the request shall be deemed adopted”.

[Dr. Taylor Owen]

I don't want to speak to Bill C-11, as it's not the topic of this discussion, but I don't think that Bill C-18 is, no.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today to take part in this important debate we're having.

I have a fairly simple question for Mr. Owen.

When people criticize the web giants, we hear a lot of people say that they're attacking free speech. We saw it in Parliament when we were considering Bill C‑11, and we discussed it a lot. Here we are doing it again with Bill C‑18.

Mr. Owen, do you share that opinion? Is Bill C‑18 an attack on free speech in Canada?

[Randy Kitt]

Journalism is extremely expensive, and investigative journalism is expensive. What we see is just less of it. The papers are smaller, and the news online is less. I think our newspapers are doing a tremendous job pivoting to the new digital realities, but there's just less. There's less investigative news; there are fewer stories. We talk about how there are so many small towns and cities that just don't have reporters at city hall. There are so many news deserts in this country.

I was looking at the broadcasting news in New Brunswick for the Bill C‑11 hearing and going through the list of stations in New Brunswick. It turns out that most of their news comes from either Halifax or Toronto. Lethbridge has just announced that they're going to—

Finance

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I will give some other examples. What is happening in the area of culture? What is being done for our artists and creators? Instead of helping culture by supporting Bill C-11, the Conservatives are blocking the bill in the Senate. Once again, instead of defending our culture, our music and our television programs, the Conservatives are repeating the web giants' messages. For once, instead of repeating the rhetoric of Facebook and the web giants, the Conservatives should stand up for Canadians.

[Philip Palmer]

Thank you for the opportunity.

No, I think there is a great deal of work that needs to be done. My concern with Bill C-11 and with this legislation is that none of it is taking a comprehensive look at the Internet. This is piece by piece. The pieces don't necessarily all fit together. There's not a comprehensive vision on the side of the government that's proposing these various measures.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Palmer, I'd like us to go back to the regulation of companies that do business primarily through online platforms. We talk a lot about Google and Facebook, but you care more about the entire Internet. You care about making it easy for everyone to access and enjoy what the Internet has to offer.

Do you believe that commerce carried out by businesses should not be regulated in general, or do you primarily object to bills like C‑18 and C‑11?

Is your position on this general? Could you define it?

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Chair, tonight I am thinking about my dad quite a bit, clearly because I'm going to share another one of the phrases he used to repeat to us all the time. It was, “A lack of planning on your part does not make for an emergency on my part.” I understand the timelines that are related to this bill, but we had literally 11 hours discussing this bill. If this was such a key, pinnacle piece of legislation, the government could have introduced it weeks earlier. It chose not to. It chose to use a guillotine motion. It chose to allow us to have two hours of witnesses before the committee to study this.

I was looking up, just for my own interest, Bill C‑11, which was almost verbatim to what it had been in the previous Parliament. It was studied in the previous Parliament. Parliament fell, and then it got brought back. It was allowed to have 80 witnesses come to committee. I think that perhaps that was a little excessive, but we were allowed to have two, and they were ministers.

Frankly speaking, I understand that there is a timeline, but this is a timeline that was fully within the control of the Government of Canada. It was fully within the control of the ministers who brought this legislation forward. Had the government House leader done his due diligence, he would have brought this legislation forward much earlier and we would have had an opportunity to provide more meaningful contribution to and study of this bill rather than be pushed into an absolute corner.

I'm sorry. I think this entire process highlights that this is broken. We're not even following our own Standing Orders. This is a sham and an absolute shame.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

That's exactly what I asked the CRTC representatives, who answered that their agency would be the one establishing the criteria. Consequently, perhaps it's up to us members of the committee to incorporate them in the bill. I understand that you'll be receptive to those types of amendments.

Earlier you said you were receptive to and interested in foreign legislation. I don't know whether you're aware of this, Minister, but I attended a world conference on culture in Mexico not long ago.

I spoke with representatives of other countries that are monitoring what we're doing with bills C‑11 and C‑18. I mention those countries because, in many instances, they're small countries that likely aren't being as strong as we are compared to the web giants and that therefore have decided to see how the biggest countries legislate in this area. Then they'll feel they have allies when they have to implement their own regulations.

That's mainly why I'd like us to have sound criteria for the quality of businesses that want to be recognized as eligible. The Internet is global, and information circulates across borders. Those same rules will therefore be much easier to enforce in countries that are in a slightly weaker position relative to the web giants.

We have to set an example, hence my concern. We need to apply extremely strict criteria to prevent foreign disinformation and propaganda media from infiltrating our journalism world. That's what I'm referring to.

In view of that, don't you think we should be stricter and more rigorous and demanding of the businesses we recognize?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Scott, the last time you were at committee I was asking you questions with regard to Bill C-11. There was a point in our conversation when I think perhaps you felt a little overwhelmed by my questions and you said that well, the Canadian public just needs to trust us. They just need to trust us. That was was what you said.

Mr. Scott, this summer it came to the attention of the Canadian public that over half a million dollars was given to a public anti-Semite, a bigot, a racist, and that this money was given by the CRTC.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you. We'll make sure that it gets to the clerk right away.

For the benefit of the committee, just to clarify, it's a pretty simple motion. What we're asking for is a minimum of three more meetings with regard to Bill C-18. We're asking that the Minister of Canadian Heritage be a part of one of those meetings, so that we would have an opportunity to hear from him with regard to this piece of legislation. We're asking for this to take place before the committee moves to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.

I will continue to speak to that.

We've seen a pattern in the past where pieces of legislation have been rushed through without due process. Bill C-11 was one such example, which, if successful, will have a significant impact on the virtual sphere. Bill C-18 will also have a significant impact on news outlets, on publishers, on—

[Cal Millar]

The trouble is that the ILNF support, which is based on a percentage of revenue contributions from licensed television distributors, or BDUs, is declining just as the needs are increasing, which is why this bill and Bill C-11 are so important to us.

The other important lesson from our history is this: I challenge anyone to find any evidence that the support and subsidy we have received from funds like LPIF or ILNF have affected our editorial slant or our independence in any way. I can tell you categorically that they have not and they will not in the future, whether they come via the CRTC funds, Bill C-11 or Bill C-18. As long as support is transparent, automatic, not discretionary and from a body that is at arm's length from government, there is simply no real trigger or basis for government or other third party influence over that editorial.

To conclude, in our view, Bill C-18 meets the twin test of introducing a mechanism to provide material support for local news and doing it in such a way as to preserve editorial independence.

Should the committee choose to entertain amendments, we do have one suggestion. We believe that both for the purposes of fair bargaining and to provide greater public transparency, there should be greater public disclosure on deals—namely, on all news businesses that do deals with platforms, including exempt deals, and including the total consideration, if not the deals themselves. We understand that Friends has proposed a specific amendment to clause 32 in this regard. We support that proposal.

Thank you for allowing us to make this presentation. We'd be pleased to respond to any questions you might have.

[Cal Millar, President, Channel Zero]

Thank you, and good morning.

We appreciate the opportunity to appear today.

My name is Cal Millar. I am the president of Channel Zero, which is an independent Canadian broadcaster, and the owner-operator of CHCH television in Hamilton.

With me today is Greg O'Brien, who is head of news at CHCH and also the former editor and publisher of Cartt.ca, which is Canada's leading news outlet for our broadcasting and telecom sectors.

In our brief opening comments, we want to speak to three things today.

First, we'll speak about what the history and current operations of CHCH tell us about the importance of local news, and how it has never been profitable on its own and has always required subsidy.

Second is how government support, designed correctly, does not compromise journalistic integrity or editorial independence.

Third is how Bill C-18 checks both of these boxes, which is why we support it.

As you know, and also as specifically recognized in Bill C-11, local news is key to local broadcasting. Unfortunately, while in the past local news was sustained with a cross-subsidy from profitable U.S. programming, the draining of Canadian ad revenues to U.S. platforms now makes that impossible.