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

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

moved that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to lead our consideration of third reading of Bill C-11, the online streaming act. This is not our first time dealing with this type of legislation. Bill C-11 is largely the same as the previous bill, which was adopted by the House on June 2021. The main difference between the two are changes in the approach to social media and the correction of drafting errors.

Our government reintroduced reforms to the Broadcasting Act in February of this year. Our goal with this legislation is to modernize the act so that it continues to serve Canadians in an increasingly digital age. Bill C-11 also delivers on our government's promise to update the act in support of Canadian content.

We Canadians are known for our rich and diverse culture. This is no accident. Rather, it is a consequence of bold action taken in the past. Our culture is the result of deliberate decisions Canadians have taken to support it, not the least of which is the Broadcasting Act, a crucial piece of cultural legislation.

The Broadcasting Act is not new. It was last amended in 1991, when I was still at Mary Ward elementary school in Niagara Falls. The years since have seen a rapid innovation in all sectors regulated by the act. The Internet has gone from a rarity to something that we hold in the palm of our hands. TV Guides have been thrown out in favour of on-demand streaming. Music has become ubiquitous, thanks to robust digital libraries. Films are now more available and instantly accessible, more than ever before. It is like having a Blockbuster store right in our own home. If we are talking about 1991 references, that is a good one to make.

In short, how we produce, access and think about content has changed dramatically. Our updates to the Broadcasting Act will continue to serve Canadians now and in the future as well as it has in the past.

I would like to highlight four main ways the online streaming act will serve Canadians.

First, Bill C-11 will ensure greater representation in our entertainment media for minority communities in Canada. Diversity is a cornerstone of Canadian identity but it is not a given. Representation matters. We must make sure that all Canadians can see themselves reflected in the stories they engage with.

Bill C-11 makes it possible for minority communities to be better seen and heard in our digital media. Some of these communities include francophones, indigenous peoples, minority language communities, LGBTQ+ persons and persons with disabilities. Canadian programming is telling those stories. It is up to us to make sure those voices are heard loud and clear, and that even more diverse voices can join them. Kim's Convenience, a show produced by CBC, follows a Korean family who runs a small business in Toronto, a distinctly Canadian experience. Schitt's Creek, another Canadian television program, leads with LGBTQ2S+ characters.

It is stories such as these that make us proud to be Canadian. They make us feel at home and they also make us feel seen and heard. We must not underestimate the power of seeing these kinds of stories on our screens. We must take action to make a welcoming space online for a diverse chorus of voices. This action includes taking steps regarding allocation of resources, which brings me to my second point.

The audiovisual interactive media sectors contributed over $19 billion to Canada's GDP in 2020. It is an important segment of the Canadian economy, yet industry trends are worrisome. Current market trends anticipate a decrease in the production of Canadian television content by approximately half a billion dollars by 2025, compared to 2020. That is a 13% decrease and 13% fewer Canadian voices to be heard.

The year 2020 was not an optimal year either. That year, Canadian television production declined by $320 million compared to 2018. These numbers are not figments of our imagination. They are facts. The industry is telling us that it needs our support and we should listen. Bill C-11 proposes interventions that can change the trajectory of these projections. If passed, the Department of Canadian Heritage projects that Canada's cultural production ecosystem could benefit by more than $1 billion annually in mandated contributions. Greater financing means that additional funding would be available to Canadian productions, which would lead to more diversity in our broadcasting.

The risk is not purely economic. We are also risking the livelihood of tens of thousands of Canadians. Film, television and broadcasting production sectors represent 165,000 jobs. We need to protect the stability of those employment opportunities, especially as we come out of a pandemic.

The pandemic limited the revenue steams of Canadian artists and creators. Many had to reinvent how they share their gifts with the world. We all benefited from their resilience. We found solace in their music, we travelled through film and we experienced community through television. Creators are there when we need them, and Bill C-11 is our way to give back to them.

Creators told us they did not want to be subject to regulations in the online streaming act, and we listened. Their work will not be considered commercial, regardless of how much money they make. Our legislation would ensure that productions of digital-first creators do not face additional hurdles. Traditional broadcasters have long been subjected to certain requirements that bolster Canadian creators. We must ensure that new broadcasters, such as streaming platforms, offer our sectors the same backing. Bill C-11 would make that a reality.

My fourth point is to do with the support of artistic innovation. We wrote Bill C-11 to advance artistic innovation, not to hinder it. One of the ways we would be advancing innovation would be by changing our primary regulatory tool. As it stands, broadcasters must obtain broadcasting licences from the CRTC before they can operate in Canada. This is the bread and butter of current regulations. In this legislation, we have adopted a new approach: the condition-of-service model. Under our new model, broadcasters, both traditional and digital, could operate in Canada as long as they respect the conditions laid out by the CRTC.

The new conditions of service could be updated at any time. Previously, updates would only be made during the licensing renewal process, or every five to seven years. Our proposed model would give the CRTC the ability to seek contributions from broadcasters in support of Canadian storytellers, be they musicians, TV producers or filmmakers. All of these updates would ensure that regulations can evolve alongside the industry, rather than chasing to keep up.

I would like to change gears for a moment. I have laid out the four key things the online streaming act would do to improve cultural development and equity in Canada, but let us take some time to look at what the act would not do.

I will start with the most fundamental point. Bill C-11 would not regulate the Internet. I will say it again, because we hear it from the other side: Bill C-11 would not regulate the Internet. Traditional broadcasters have been regulated by the Broadcasting Act for decades. Television personalities were never regulated by the Broadcasting Act. This principle would not change under Bill C-11. The legislation would update our definition of “broadcasters” to include the platforms many of us get our content from.

The online steaming act would regulate foreign streaming companies, such as Netflix and Spotify, and domestic ones, such as Crave. Social media platforms that function as broadcasters, such as YouTube, could also fall under these regulations, but only the social media service itself would have responsibilities under Bill C-11. Content creators would not be subject to regulations. Platforms are in, and users are out.

Bill C-11 would not control what Canadians view online. On the contrary, it would pave the way for folks to view more Canadian content. With Bill C-11 we would be making it possible for Canadians to create more stories that resonate with their fellow Canadians. This fact goes back to my earlier point about the need for equal representation on our screens and in our earphones. We want to ensure that Canadians in the cultural industry face no closed doors when they tell their stories. The online streaming act would not limit the choices of Canadians, and this bill would create more choices for consumption, not less.

I want to assure every Canadian that, if this bill becomes law, their ability to choose what they watch and what they listen to would not change. We will always protect Canadians' freedom of expression.

The legislation would not overturn the Broadcasting Act. It would modernize the Broadcasting Act so that the good of that legislation continues to be experienced by future generations of Canadians for years to come. History has shown us the importance of supporting broadcasting through legislation. Thanks to the Broadcasting Act and the work of parliamentarians who passed and amended it, we grew up consuming and loving Canadian content. This content has played a role in establishing our collective identity.

Our country is vast. Geographic separation can isolate us from province to province, territory to territory and region to region. Our shared experience of viewing and listening transcends the distance. It is one of the things that unites us. The actions and achievements of past parliamentarians made it possible to hear languages we did not speak, to see coasts of our country we had not seen and to listen to music unlike what we heard in our homes.

Our job is hold open even richer cultural experiences for coming generations of Canadians. Part of my identity as a Canadian is thanks to people who saw value in giving me those experiences. I would like to return the favour for future generations.

The COVID pandemic was a challenge for many of us. We watched local businesses struggle, community theatres close and film productions cease. Despite all of this disruption and chaos, many large streaming platforms had pandemic gains. Netflix is one example. The company gained 16 million new subscribers at the beginning of the pandemic. Fairness is paramount, and streaming services should hold no preference. As they solidify their place in our media landscape, they must be subject to wise and fair regulations. Bill C-11 could require online streaming platforms to contribute to the production of Canadian audio or audiovisual content. This bill could also require them to financially support the training of Canadian creators. This kind of financial support makes a big difference in the lives of many people.

Bill C-11 is before us today, thanks to the dedication of Canadians, public servants, industry professionals and parliamentarians. The Broadcasting Act guided the creation of great Canadian content for many years. We are grateful for the experiences it enabled us to share in the current era it helped us usher in, but we cannot let past decisions determine what tomorrow looks like. It is time for Canada to take greater control in today's digital era to fight for greater representation; to strengthen cultural growth and cultural sectors; to safeguard jobs and music, film and television production; and to evolve with the times and not fall behind them.

I am proud to stand behind legislation that will help Canada do that. I would like to commend the Minister of Canadian Heritage for his passionate defence of this legislation. His leadership has been critical in getting the bill to this point. I would also like to thank the Minister of Environment for the work he did on this legislation when he was the minister of Canadian heritage.

Now it is our turn to act. In passing this legislation, we will bring about a new era of Canadian content creation. We will ensure a promising future for our artists, our creators and our storytellers. We will shape what future generations think of when they picture what it means to be Canadian. Let us give them a future they can see themselves in.

With that, I invite my hon. colleagues to support this legislation.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are two comments that stood out in that speech.

At one point, the member referenced that the bill would not control what people would say, but would only open the door for more Canadian content. In other words, that is the government, through this bill, controlling what people would see on the Internet, even if it is more Canadian content. The member might agree that seeing more Canadian content online is good, but again that is the algorithms taking away choice and determining what Canadians will actually see and be pointed to in their viewing activities on the Internet.

Second, I believe that during the committee hearings, Mr. Scott, the head of the CRTC, stated in reference to section 4.2 that this bill “allows the CRTC to prescribe by regulation user-uploaded content subject to very explicit criteria.” How does the member square what the CRTC is already saying about this bill with his words today here in the House?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as for controlling what Canadians watch, the Broadcasting Act regulates television. I do not make the member watch Roughriders games, nor does the government or the CRTC make him do that. If he wants to watch the BC Lions, he is free to do that. If he wants to watch American football, he is free to do that.

With respect to algorithms, the law specifically prohibits the CRTC from regulating algorithms. With respect to what Mr. Scott said, what the member and Conservatives have left out is that Mr. Scott said the current legislation, as drafted, already allows the CRTC to regulate online platforms, but that Bill C-11 builds a wall around it. Platforms will have obligations; users will not. That is how it has been for the last 50 years under the CRTC for traditional broadcasters. It will continue to be the same for online streamers.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech. I am going to give him a break from questions about censorship and the CRTC's control over the Internet, if Bill C-11—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I must interrupt the member. It seems there was a problem with the interpretation, but it is working now.

The hon. member for Drummond can restart his question.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I will give my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, a break. I will not talk about censorship. I will not talk about the enormous power that the CRTC will have over what Canadians and Quebeckers can and cannot watch online either. I think that we agree that the bill we are discussing contains no such horrors.

However, in the short time we had to discuss the amendments, there was something that troubled me, and that was the issue of the degree to which foreign companies will be required to use homegrown talent and creators.

We tried to submit a minor amendment that would have forced online companies to maximize their use of homegrown talent, creators and artists, but it was rejected. I would like to hear the reasoning behind this refusal to also make foreign companies maximize their use of Canadian and Quebec resources.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question and his collaboration during the debate and throughout committee work.

I know the Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP work very well together to ensure that we do hear diverse voices and that we do act to protect the French language, both within Quebec and outside of Quebec. That is what we are building on. In the Broadcasting Act, we are building on the others who have come before us in order to ensure that the voices and how Canada looks, how Canada sounds and how Canada communicates are reflected back at us.

I know we can quibble about amendments and I know the member was very passionate about that amendment, but I know we both stand behind the principle of this legislation, which is to ensure that strong voices in Canada, including strong francophone voices, are heard in our digital landscape as they have been heard under the Broadcasting Act with traditional broadcasters.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, modernizing the Broadcasting Act is important, and levelling the field between Canadian broadcasters and web giants is essential. Even with these needed changes, Netflix, YouTube, Facebook and other web giants still do not pay their fair share on the profits they make here in Canada.

Why is the government delaying the implementation of a digital services tax? Why are they protecting the profits of the web giants and refusing to make them pay their fair share?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have to be careful, because there are web giants—and I know Netflix was mentioned in that group—that contribute heavily to Canadian production, employ many Canadians and provide many good union jobs as well. We should be careful when we are lumping everyone in to one particular group.

I agree that this legislation is about ensuring a level playing field. Our traditional broadcasters, although people will say what they will about the Bells and Rogers of the world, are Canadian companies. Large foreign companies should have to play by a similar set of rules. I do not know why the Conservatives are taking the side of huge foreign companies like Google or a Chinese company like TikTok over Canadian companies in Canada. It has been disappointing this entire time.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated the member's speech. It gives Canadians a very good understanding of what the bill does and what it does not do. As a member of Parliament, my job is to be out there on the ground speaking with constituents and finding out how they feel. I am sure my colleague, in his constituency and in travelling as part of his job as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, is also travelling across the country and having those discussions.

What are the creators and artists on the ground saying this will do for them? Are they happy with this or not?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to speak to creators large and small across the country. We had Gord Sinclair of The Tragically Hip before our committee. The member for Kingston and the Islands will not like me phrasing it this way, but a band from a small town in eastern Ontario that grew to be a huge success across the country benefited from previous legislation. He came to our committee to say he wants to see the next Tragically Hip and that Bill C-11 will do that.

We have been hearing that from artists across the board who have had significant success, and some who have not. The artistic community has been united in their support, from what I have heard on Bill C-11, and it is something I ask all members of this House to pass so that we can get that help to our artists.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on this rare occasion, I actually had an amendment passed on Bill C-11, and it was with the aid and assistance of the hon. parliamentary secretary.

I wonder if he would like to expand on that experience of collaboration in the interest of community broadcasting and engagement of citizens through community non-profit activity, an aspect of Bill C-11 that has not been referenced much so far in this round.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. Once again we find ourselves working together on a piece of legislation in a collaborative way. As we saw, amendments were accepted, I believe, from all parties in this House, including the Green Party and the Conservative Party, which stands opposed to this legislation.

I had the opportunity to meet with community broadcasters, which are a fundamental part of who we are. I would like to thank the hon. member for her amendment and for taking the time to stand up for those voices, because it is important for us to be local as we move out in the digital age. A lot of times we lose that local experience, which is so important in knowing what is going on in our communities in a basic way. In an era of disinformation, more local sources provide us with better context and better information than the information we get from strangers on YouTube, so I want to thank her for helping to strengthen the Broadcasting Act in that way.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend made reference to the industry as a whole, and it is a very important industry nationwide and in our communities, where literally hundreds of jobs are generated that support our arts. I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to the size of the industry and how much that means to Canada.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a multi-billion-dollar industry. As I said in my speech, the industry employs 165,000 Canadians, and it is not just traditional broadcasters or traditional industries but digital creators too, and we do not want to separate them; they are all artists. Digital creators and traditional creators are all creating and benefiting our economy. It is important that we stand up and contribute and grow that number of 165,000 people employed in this industry, and Bill C-11 will help us along that way.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, freedom of speech is a fundamental right in Canada. It is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms in fact. Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

These rights are what makes Canada a modern democracy. They are not trivial principles. They should not be up for debate. Interfering with fundamental rights is the sign of a dying democracy, yet the Liberals have shown, time and time again, that they are dead set on desecrating this right by regulating and censoring the social media content that Canadians are able to see online.

I just want to go back a little with the history. This bill was first introduced back in November 2020, as Bill C-10, and by February 2021, the Liberals had removed a clause from the bill exempting user-generated content, which extended the legislation to encompass everyday social media content created by Canadians. Before the bill could pass in the last parliamentary session through both Houses of Parliament, I raised a point of order and exposed the Liberals' reckless approach to implementing this bill. I submitted in my point of order that several of the amendments to Bill C-10 that were made in committee needed to be struck down because the government's committee government members had grossly exceeded their authority in more ways than one.

This point of order, which was upheld in its ruling, effectively defeated the chances of the bill being able to proceed before the Liberals called their early election back in 2021. Then, of course, to no one's surprise, when Parliament reconvened after that election, the bill was re-introduced as Bill C-11, which we have before us.

In order to ensure its passage, the Liberals decided to pass Motion No. 11 in the House, which has allowed them to push through the passage of this legislation by bypassing standard procedure. When that was not enough, the Liberals decided to pass several motions to shorten the committee's study and to limit witnesses, and then accused Conservatives of filibustering every time we opposed one of those anti-democratic motions.

Last week, the Liberals finally moved closure through Motion No. 16 to force the bill through committee clause-by-clause consideration with limited or, in many cases, no debate. On June 14, just last week, the Canadian heritage committee was forced to sit from 11 in the morning until 12:15 at night to complete clause-by-clause of 172 pages of amendments, over 100 of which were passed without allowing for so much as one second of debate.

I would say that bypassing debate and rushing through an unprecedented bill is an insult to Canadians, and it only allows the government to avoid accountability. Parliament has a democratic responsibility to thoroughly examine the implications of Internet regulation, and Canadians deserve to know the truth about this deeply flawed bill. The Liberals are stifling freedom of speech by curtailing parliamentary process.

Ironically, by limiting MPs' ability to speak, the Liberals are symbolizing the censorship contained within this bill. The government does not just want to regulate the Internet and hinder freedom of speech, it is also determined to interfere with parliamentarians' right to speak and debate the same legislation that is looking to interfere with people's rights and freedoms.

Back to the bill itself, under the auspices of amending the Broadcasting Act, the legislation contained in Bill C-11 infringes on the rights and freedoms of every single Canadian who uses social media. This bill would give bureaucrats at the CRTC sweeping powers to regulate online social media content based on famously irrational criteria. It would allow the CRTC to decide what content it considers to be Canadian enough, and then force social media companies to promote that content and bury the so-called un-Canadian content, so it would be nearly impossible to find. This would effectively result in censorship.

Moreover, analysts are saying that the bill could allow the CRTC to automatically subscribe Canadians to a certain list of Canadian YouTube channels, such as the CBC, without even asking their permission. It already mandates that cable providers do this in the subscriptions they offer to Canadians, so for the CRTC officials, I am sure doing so online would only be the next logical step in their mind.

Essentially, the government has decided that Canadians are not responsible enough to choose for themselves what they want to see on social media, so it is turning on the parental controls. This notion that Canadians need to be made to watch certain content that has been deemed as socially and culturally appropriate by the government and discouraged from watching other content is the result of an out-of-touch, paternalistic approach to governing what seems to stem from Liberal elitism.

As it stands now, Bill C-11 would determine what content is Canadian enough based on a famously flawed and outdated points system, which was developed in the 1980s, decades before the advent of social media. This black and white points system designed for legacy media, has resulted in a series of truly embarrassing rulings from the CRTC in recent years. For example, an Amazon Prime series focused entirely on the Toronto Maple Leafs was ruled to be not Canadian enough under this points system. The film adaptation of the famed Canadian novel The Handmaid's Tale was also deemed to be not Canadian enough, and Deadpool, the award-winning Marvel movie based on a Canadian character, filmed in Vancouver and co-written by a Canadian, was also deemed to be not Canadian enough under this system.

Maybe we should take some comfort in the fact that the minister responsible has promised to review and update these criteria for determining what is Canadian enough, but, then again, maybe not. Strangely enough, the minister boasted about a meeting with the German minister of culture to consult with her about how to update these criteria for determining what should be considered Canadian content. He decided it would be a good idea to get on a plane, fly across the Atlantic on the taxpayer dime, and talk with Europeans about the best way to approach Canadian legislation on what is Canadian content. Maybe the minister could have consulted with Canadians instead. They are the people he has actually been elected to serve. This is just an idea.

Of course, the minister has said that he will not reveal how he is planning to change the rules until after the bill passes through Parliament. By doing this, he is leaving both Canadians and parliamentarians completely in the dark about what his legislation is going to look like in practice. It begs this question: What content will the Liberal government deem to be Canadian enough on people's social media? Will it have to be made by Canadian citizens? In that event, what about permanent residents or people here on study or work permits? Will it have to be produced in Canada? What would that mean for Canadians living abroad who make social media content? Will it have to be only in an official Canadian language? What would that mean, then, for cultural groups in Canada who speak another language?

Perhaps, and I suspect this is the actual plan, the Liberal government will require that content producers subscribe to a certain set of values to be truly considered Canadian content. The Liberals already demand faith-based groups to adhere to the Liberal Party's stance on certain issues to meet the eligibility criteria for the Canada summer jobs program. Therefore, it would be fair to assume that they will likely do the same in determining what content would be considered Canadian on the Internet or on social media.

The most alarming power given in this legislation is slipped into an unassuming clause buried in the text of the legislation that quietly allows the CRTC to create regulations “respecting such other matters as it deems necessary for the furtherance of its objects”. These 14 little words give the CRTC a blank cheque to act however it likes and arbitrarily create regulations whenever it feels it is necessary. CRTC bureaucrats are not elected officials, and they do not answer to Canadians. They should not be able to unilaterally create new regulations. It would be undoubtedly undemocratic to give them such broad, sweeping powers.

Under Bill C-11, the minister responsible assured Canadians that amateur content such as cooking videos or cat videos that people upload online would not be regulated under this proposed regulation, but officials at YouTube Canada were quick to respond to this comment by asserting that they had studied the legislation and the bill certainly would give the government the power to regulate amateur content.

I certainly know who I would believe with respect to that. That means that any content posted on any social media service could be subject to these arbitrary standards. One thing is clear. The Liberals are determined to censor our social media content, and that, by itself, is wrong.

On top of that, with the legislation being this broad, it is impossible to discern why something could be censored or the motivations behind it even. The Liberals are essentially saying to Canadians that they are going to censor what social media content we can access. They will not even tell us how they are going to censor it, but that it is okay and to just trust them on this one. I do not think so. I do not think most Canadians think so. We have seen far too many examples of the government trampling on charter rights to trust it.

We have seen how, under the Prime Minister, the government tested facial recognition technology on millions of travellers at Toronto Pearson International Airport without their knowledge or their consent. What happened to freedom?

We have seen how the government has been collecting cellphone data since the beginning of the pandemic without the consent of Canadians. What happened to freedom?

We have seen how, during a largely peaceful protest in downtown Ottawa, the government invoked the Emergencies Act to use unjustified and extraordinary powers against its own citizens. What happened to freedom?

We have seen how the government has discriminated against people based on their personal medical choices to bar them from air travel, despite a complete lack of scientific evidence. What happened to freedom?

In a recently revealed submission to the Department of Canadian Heritage, Twitter protested the recent proposals that would allow the government to block website access on the Canadian Internet saying that the measure would be similar to the kind of censorship found in places like China, North Korea and Iran. The submission goes on to say that the proposed measure “sacrifices freedom of expression to the creation of a government run system of surveillance of anyone who uses Twitter”. What happened to freedom?

The government is obviously not interested in respecting the rights or freedoms of people. The alternative to Bill C-11 is freedom. The only solution is to keep the government out of the equation.

Canada has long been home to many renowned actors, film makers, artists, performers and social media icons. It is belittling of the government to think that the only way Canadian art and culture can survive is through punitive legislation that forces people to watch it. The quality of Canadian content speaks for itself. The last thing it needs is to be propped up by a Liberal censorship regime.

Without government intervention, social media can continue to be a free market of ideas, content and information. Under this system, individual Canadians are left to decide for themselves what they want to see on social media. They will watch what they want to watch and ignore what they do not. Only under this self-regulating system can freedom truly exist.

Therefore, I move, seconded by the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.”

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The amendment is in order.

For questions and comments, we will go to the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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

Mr. Speaker, talk about seeing something that is just not there. I think conspiracy theory 101 is the lesson from the other side here. What Bill C-11 is all about is fairly straightforward. It is the modernization of the Broadcasting Act. It is as simple as that. Maybe the Conservatives get a gold star nowadays if they mention the word “freedom” in their speeches. I do not know where the member is getting the information from.

If the member wants to be consistent with what he said, does that mean the Conservative Party of Canada's new approach to the CRTC is to get rid of it? Are they saying the CRTC regulations should not be applied to other media streams? Is that what the Conservative Party's position is today?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member suggested I am seeing things that are not there. I think he is actually right. There are some things I am seeing that are not there.

What I am seeing that is not there is the idea of freedom from the government, the idea of respecting people's rights, the idea that we can actually let Canadians choose for themselves what they want to see on the Internet, what they want to see on their social media and what they do not, and the idea that we can actually enable Canadian content producers to produce the great content they produce without the need for the government to prop them up with censorship.

Those are the things I am seeing that are not there. Those are the things the government is doing, and those things should not be there.

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

Mr. Speaker, this again feels like a bad movie where the Conservative Party members are opposing just for the sake of opposing.

I will ask my colleague a two-part question. I hope his answer will show me that they are not opposing for the sake of opposing, in this case.

He spoke about local Canadian content and how to determine whether content is local. He seemed to be criticizing the implementation of a point system. He gave the example of a movie that talked about Toronto but was filmed in the United States. From what I understood, he seemed to be saying that it would be acceptable to consider that movie Canadian content. I am sorry, but if the royalties and all the actors were paid in the U.S. and all that money is going to stay in the U.S., then I do not think that qualifies as local content, just like an Australian movie that talks about Quebec would not be considered local content either.

I have two questions. First, if we do not have a point system, a mathematical formula or some fairly logical way of assessing whether content is local, how are we going to determine that? What does my colleague propose?

Second, is he really opposed to showcasing Canadian content and giving jobs to people here, whether in Quebec or Canada?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member was referencing an example I used of a film about the hockey team the Toronto Maple Leafs. I do not know what his objection is to a Canadian hockey team being in a film. Maybe if it was the Montreal Canadiens he would be more open to it. I do not know.

He also mentions the idea of several other examples I used, and I used the example of Deadpool. It was filmed in Canada and co-written by a Canadian. It is about a Canadian character. What does he see as not being Canadian there? That certainly sounds pretty Canadian to me, so there are obviously some flaws in the way the system works, and the government is proposing to take that system and apply it to our social media as well. There are clearly problems, so why would we want to impose a system that is already flawed onto further content? It does not make any sense to me.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague from Banff—Airdrie for his opinion of the direction the government has given to the CRTC to implement Bill C-11. What does he think of the direction? I have not seen it.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think that question gets at the heart of one of the challenges with the bill. I mentioned during my speech the fact that there essentially is a lot of room for interpretation, and a lot of grey area, in terms of how this would all be implemented. I think leaving Canadians in the dark in such a way, when we are talking about essentially censoring what kind of content they can see without even knowing how it would be censored and in what ways, makes for greater concerns than the fact that things are going to be censored to begin with. I think that really gets to the heart of one of the big problems with the bill, and I appreciate the member raising that and giving me a chance to highlight that one more time.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is the hon. member's reference to the TV and movie filming of Deadpool in Vancouver that made me think to rise and ask this question of him.

That is, of course, important programming and an important industry for the Vancouver area, but I want to ask him if he is aware of the fact that most of that kind of production value in Canada pays Canadian actors what is called “at scale”. They are not paid anything like what the U.S. actors who come in and get dropped into the community are paid, and a lot of the working crew comes in from the U.S. It does not employ Canadians. That is a lot of what I hope Bill C-11 may change in the future. I hope for a chance to really create a level playing ground, so that when Canada is used as the backdrop for films, even around a Canadian story, Canadians are not treated as second-class citizens.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises her concern about the different pay she claims for actors from Canada or from the States or whatever it might be.

What we are talking about here is a very broad and very sweeping bill. If she really feels that there is a need to address that specific concern, I would suggest to her that this is certainly the wrong way to go about approaching it. We could say that maybe using a sledgehammer to kill a fly would probably, in that case, be a good way of putting it. What we are talking about here is something that would limit people's freedom of expression and limit people's freedom to view the content they wish to view, or to not view the content they wish to view. That is a pretty broad, sweeping piece of legislation.

If she is looking to address the concerns she has, I would suggest looking at legislation that would far more narrowly address those concerns and not limit people's freedoms: people's freedom of speech and their ability to choose the content they wish to see. That, to me, we can never accept in any circumstances.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when the government put forward the first iteration of the bill in the last Parliament, I received a number of communications from constituents who were concerned about amending the Broadcasting Act. The major issue they had with it were the channels they were forced to pay for when they bought a TV cable package.

Does my colleague believe that the Government of Canada is applying a similar type of approach to the Internet that so many Canadians disagree with, when it comes to all of the channels they are forced to pay for just to get basic television in their homes?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think this a good question and a good point that the member raises. I know that this is something I hear frequently from many people. I have experienced that myself. We just want to be able to have a couple of extra channels that maybe will allow us to see a few more hockey games or something, and we are forced to buy a whole package of things that we do not even really want to be able to do that.

I have heard that many times from many people, and I think it really does come to the heart of the problem here, which is that we are taking what really is a flawed system that has been set up for legacy media and television: those kinds of things. It is already flawed, and we are going to take that and apply that to social media content and to other content on the Internet. It was already flawed for what it was doing.

It was designed back in the 1980s, so 40 years ago, and we are applying that to something new that was not even invented at that point in time. As I think I said, it was already flawed. It seems to me like that is a really big mistake.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start my speech with an aside once again. I am definitely making a habit of starting my speeches with an aside. I want to do this and I think everyone will be fine with it, because last Friday was graduates' day. In Quebec, we celebrated students graduating from high school, CEGEP, vocational school and other schools. We applauded their efforts and their determination at an important step in their studies. I therefore wanted to take a few moments to commend graduates in the riding of Drummond. I am thinking in particular of Elsa Darveau and Ève Turgeon, two young ladies that I adore. Back home, I want to applaud my stepson Christophe and his girlfriend Sophia who are also headed to CEGEP. I want to commend and congratulate everyone graduating in Quebec and Canada, and all those taking this big step in their studies.

I hope that this will be the last time we rise to speak to Bill C‑11. I am optimistic that it will be. We worked on Bill C‑10, we worked on Bill C‑11. It is time to pass this bill that our cultural and broadcasting industries have awaited for such a long time.

I must say that we put a lot of hours into Bill C‑10 after it was introduced in 2020. The spotlight was on us, as members of Parliament, and we were being congratulated and patted on the back by our colleagues and others, but there is a whole team working behind the scenes. I want to acknowledge my support team, which did extraordinary work during our study of Bill C‑10 last year and during our study of Bill C‑11 now before us.

I especially want to thank my assistant Mélissa, who did an amazing job planning more than 60 meetings with stakeholders from all across the industry and who worked non-stop to prepare for the committees. She did an amazing job. I thank my friend Éric, who contributed his thoughts and experience, our research friends, Michael and Vincent, and the whip's team, Paul, Marie-Christine and Charles.

I want to say a special thank you to my colleague from Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, who is here in the House today. Last year, she held meetings on Bill C-10, and she put in a lot of effort. It was a bill that she cared a lot about. I imagine she is pleased today to see that Bill C-11 will be passed. She was a singer in a former life. Actually, that is not true. She will always be a singer. In fact, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has the opportunity to benefit from her talents at just about every meeting. I think this bill was particularly close to her heart because she has made a living from singing and she knows how important the Broadcasting Act is to the entire cultural industry. I therefore thank my colleague for her wonderful help.

I feel like I am giving a thank-you speech at an awards ceremony, but I think it is important. I hope others will follow suit.

I also want to say a big thank you to the interpreters, the committee staff, and the clerks' office staff, who do an absolutely incredible job, always behind the scenes. Without them, I do not think we would be able to get anything done. I want to sincerely thank them as well.

With that, I want to focus on a number of very important things that were added to Bill C‑10, which I spoke about earlier. My pet analogy is that Bill C‑10, as introduced on November 3, 2020, was like a blank paint-by-number. The numbers were there, but they were in need of paint to fill in the structure and content of a bill that was lacking on both fronts.

Earlier, the parliamentary secretary talked about Bill C‑10 and Bill C‑11 as though they were essentially one and the same. He is not completely wrong about that, but he should have said that it was actually the final version of Bill C‑10 as amended and the version of Bill C‑11 as introduced that were virtually the same. That is an important distinction because a lot of work was done on Bill C‑10. Specifically, a lot of work was done to take out significant sections of the Broadcasting Act, for example, paragraph 3(1)(a) on the Canadian ownership and control of broadcasting entities. Last year, the Bloc Québécois proposed an amendment to Bill C‑10 to replace it with the following: “the Canadian broadcasting system shall be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians, and foreign broadcasting undertakings may also provide programming to Canadians”.

The wording has changed a bit in Bill C‑11. Without getting into it too much, we would have preferred the wording from Bill C‑10, but this is still an important amendment.

We often say that the Bloc Québécois put the protection of French back into the broadcasting bill. That is true, and it is in Bill C‑11 because we managed to add it to Bill C‑10. Here is what the new subparagraph 3(1)(i.1) says: “reflect and support Canada's linguistic duality by placing significant importance on the creation, production and broadcasting of original French language programs, including those from French linguistic minority communities”.

There is an important nuance here that I think is worth bearing in mind and repeating. The bill talks about “original French language programs”, not programs in French. If we had stuck with “programs in French”, as the bill seemed to suggest before we amended this clause, then content dubbed in French would have been given equal weight regardless of the original language. What we were calling for, and it was entirely legitimate for us to do so, was original French content, meaning broadcasting companies would be required to produce original content in the language of Molière, Vigneault, Leclerc, Lévesque and myself.

I am talking a lot about Bill C-10 because we added a few things to it, some of which also made their way into Bill C-11, so they have been discussed again.

One of them was the issue of discoverability, which really got people talking. It has become quite hackneyed and used to spread appalling misinformation. I talked about discoverability in the House last week, and I think it is pretty straightforward as a concept. It aims to ensure that local content is promoted, easy to find and available on any broadcasting platform.

I cannot imagine anyone thinking to themselves that, yes, we produce great content but that we need to make sure that no one can find it, so as not to completely confuse the algorithms of the big foreign companies, which will stop liking us.

I was elected by Quebec voters, who want me to protect their interests. I was not elected by multinational corporations that are based abroad and who report virtually no revenue, pay virtually no taxes and contribute virtually nothing to our broadcasting system and our cultural industry in Canada.

I therefore have no problem imposing discoverability requirements on these businesses, because I find that it makes sense. I find it contemptible that this requirement has caused so much outrage and been used as justification by those who claim that this broadcasting bill essentially amounts to censorship.

Another very interesting addition made to last year's bill is the sunset clause. This emerged from the realization that the Broadcasting Act has not been updated, revised or amended for more than 30 years, and that if nothing were done, it would more than likely be quite some time before a new act were adopted or amendments made to the new Broadcasting Act.

Why would we not require a re-evaluation at specified times to make the necessary amendments and adjustments? That is one of the fine additions included in Bill C-10, and then in Bill C‑11, and it will require the House to review the Broadcasting Act every five years. If some things are not being done properly today, we will not have to wait 30 years to correct them.

Bill C‑11 has had quite a strange trajectory. We can agree that the process was a little messed up. In other words, it was short-circuited or neglected. I apologize; perhaps I could have used a better term.

It did not help that the Conservatives decided they were going to oppose the bill in any way they could, by filibustering during some very important meetings, even though the study process had already been planned out when the committee received the bill. In response, the government opted for a closure motion, which made it tough to talk about amendments and advocate for amendments.

This meant that the committee was not able to have the types of discussions it would normally have when amendments to bills are proposed. I think that the discussion can open members' minds. I wanted to hear my colleagues make arguments, even the ones I find far-fetched. In committee, we are meant to discuss, listen to what others say and keep an open mind. This is how we can amend Bill C‑11 as effectively as possible.

A few Bloc Québécois amendments were rejected. I think the main reason they were rejected is that we did not have the opportunity to explain them. There was no room for debate, particularly on the control we want to have over online companies, or rather the control we refuse to have over them.

It is unbelievable. When we tried to force American, Chinese and international companies, foreign companies, to hire Canadian and Quebec human resources, creative resources and talent as much as possible, I was told that it is impossible because the companies are already investing a lot of money. I was told that we cannot force them to hire locals because that would be too upsetting. That is what I was told. These companies and the web giants say that they are already contributing a lot and that it would be inconvenient if they were forced to use Canadian resources as much as possible. To that I say, they are always nibbling away at the advertising pie and taking the revenues for themselves.

I really want members to understand this. People in this flourishing industry are on the verge of switching careers. They no longer have an income, and media outlets are closing up shop, yet web giants tell us they do not want us to impose those kinds of constraints. Our doormat of a Canadian government lies down and has no problem letting them walk all over it.

I sincerely hope the government will take a somewhat firmer stance, especially when it comes to orders the CRTC can give. The CRTC does actually require good faith negotiations between the companies that create programs and those that distribute or broadcast them, and obviously that includes online platforms in our current system. That means the CRTC would need the tools to impose fair negotiation rules should good faith negotiations not happen. That idea was turned down too.

I was told it would not work, that the government could not give the CRTC tools to respond should negotiations not take place in good faith. That means big corporations will be able to walk all over our little-guy production companies and carry on exploiting our Quebec and Canadian content creators for profit.

Who might need these negotiations to be protected? Small programming businesses might need that, although many of them have grown. Consider APTN, for example. APTN's wonderful model is being emulated around the world. New Zealanders were inspired by what APTN has done in Canada and created a similar channel. CPAC is another example. I think everyone here is quite familiar with CPAC. We can also think of The Weather Network. These are all businesses that need this protection, but they are not getting it because we think that if we are too strict with online businesses, they will be angry. Do we really think they will go away because they are angry? They make billions of dollars.

Here is another thing that really frustrated me. We hear about balancing the market, making the market fair to ensure that our traditional broadcasting companies are not penalized in relation to online companies. In that regard, I am quite happy that the part II fees, which imposed significant and onerous financial conditions on licensed broadcasters, have been dropped. I think dropping these fees should really help them, or at least give them a little breathing room. However, the CRTC still cannot issue orders.

Let us talk about one of the amendments that I thought did not make much sense:

The [CRTC] may, in furtherance of its objects, make orders imposing conditions on the carrying on of broadcasting undertakings that the Commission considers appropriate for the implementation of the broadcasting policy set out in subsection 3(1), including conditions respecting...any change in the ownership or control of a broadcasting undertaking that is required to be carried on under a licence.

I said that the idea of a licence should be removed because we want that to apply to online undertakings. However, that was rejected. People did not want that to apply to online undertakings. It is as though they were still scared of the big online company monster. It is as though they were afraid of stepping on the toes of the giant.

We are afraid to step on the toes of the giant, but that giant is crushing us and we are saying nothing about it. We think it is amusing because we can watch our movies and our shows. We do not even realize that our creators are starving.

Bill C‑11 will pass. The result of the vote will be close, but it will pass. I hope that the fears of those who have profusely expressed them will be allayed when they eventually realize that the “censorship” and “control” of what they envisioned are fabrications. These arguments are pure fearmongering and really have no merit. All the rambling that took place over the past few months and the Conservatives' systematic filibustering when Bill C‑11 was being studied in committee has only resulted in the postponement of important studies, such as that of bill C‑18.

More than 450 news businesses have closed their doors. This is a crisis. Because so much time has been wasted for unfounded ideological reasons, a slew of media outlets, including small regional media, are on the brink of closure, and I find that outrageous. I think that these people should show their frustration by pounding a table and making sure their MPs hear them. It is absurd that Bill C‑18 cannot be studied sooner and that we must wait until the fall to discuss this urgent matter.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate many of the comments that my colleague across the way made, but I take a different approach. He made reference to Bill C-10 and the amendment process. I think it clearly demonstrated the interest of the government, when modernizing the legislation, to get it right. We saw a number of amendments that, in fact, ultimately changed the form of Bill C-11, and I think that is good for the industry as a whole and for future Canadian content.

The member made reference to the word “freedom”, and I think there is a fear factor out there, as some are trying to say that this is a limit on an individual's freedoms. Could he provide his thoughts with regard to the issue of the Conservative Party in essence saying that this is an attack on individual freedoms?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have never bought into those kinds of theories of infringement on individual freedoms and freedom of expression. People have raised concerns, and I think those who have raised them have gotten answers. Done and done. On the other hand, people who have absolutely no interest in this, who are not open to any kind of regulation, will reject any argument that is presented, no matter what it is.

There are several other examples of this throughout history. I am fairly certain that in the western United States in the nineteenth century, a time of complete lawlessness, the people running the show and getting their way certainly did not expect any legislation to be forced on them.

Regulation is required in certain situations. In this case, we are trying to do it right, and we have taken a long time to do it. I do not believe that we will end up with something perfect, but it will be much better than the current lack of legislation.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, for many years, companies like Netflix and Disney+ have not paid their fair share to fund our Canadian cultural content. Does the member think the Liberal government should have acted earlier in its mandate to prevent all the job losses in our cultural sector that this delay has caused?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith on the quality of her French. That was perfect.

I could take 20 minutes to answer that question. Of course the government should have imposed tax rules on online businesses much earlier. Even now, I do not think adequate measures have been brought in, far from it.

When it comes to contributing to the broadcasting system, to the cultural industry and to content, some companies are making an effort and trying to do something, but it is still not nearly enough. I do not want to point fingers at every single company, because there are some that are trying to produce things here.

However, several aspects still need to be fixed or brought in. Rules and a legal framework are needed. Once the framework is in place, it will be much easier for these businesses to generate original Quebec and Canadian content that meets both our expectations and the financial needs of the community.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my very distinguished and much appreciated colleague from Drummond for his colourful speech in which he found a way to talk about giants that are crushing us, exploitation, advertising pie, rambling and a messed up process.

He also talked about paint-by-number, which is what we might think of when we look at the magnificent shirt he is wearing today and which proves that, when it comes to freedom of expression, there is always a way around things, even the very restrictive dress code in the House.

Essentially, I would like him to reassure us and our Conservative colleagues about freedom of expression.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I really do not feel like answering the question. I would much rather react to my colleague's comments.

Freedom of expression is a topic that we could debate for many hours. I would say that, when it comes to broadcasting legislation, there also needs to be parameters that in some way guide what we can and cannot say.

In fact, this is something that we already do in everyday life. There is a rather universal concept that is generally understood by all, in Quebec and across Canada that one person's freedom ends where another's begins.

There is nothing in this bill that infringes on freedom of expression. I am not sure if that answers the question from my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, but, since I am saving the two or three insults I have for him for later in private, I will stop there.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member says freedoms are potentially always there. My concern is the fact that there are algorithms now that the CRTC is going to be using for whether or not the freedom of presentation of user content or generated content could potentially be censored. Other countries have tried something like this, and there is 80% to 85% censorship. That should never have been censored, because there is an algorithm that is determining whether or not something is censored.

Is the member concerned at all that by using an algorithm, there will be censorship?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is the source of all the disinformation. There is absolutely no interference in the coding of algorithms. There is even a clause that states that the CRTC cannot require the use of algorithms.

In short, the purpose is to create performance objectives. How will that be accomplished? It will be up to the businesses to explain that to the CRTC. The CRTC will then give them the green light, provided that it is shown the results. No one will tell these businesses to change their algorithms to include Canadian content or other content, or that such content will be prohibited based on algorithms. That is simply not true. That concept simply does not exist.

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

Madam Speaker, I simply want to again applaud the expertise of the member for Drummond, who worked so hard and so thoroughly. I also applaud the brilliant idea of reviewing this law every five years.

Could my colleague tell us what he thinks the future holds for Bill C‑11 and what amendments he predicts will be made in five years?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. We do need to give ourselves the latitude to review the legislation and change things that are not working. Things are moving so quickly with the arrival of these web giants. The digital universe is evolving so quickly that we can barely keep up.

I think we will have to keep an eye on this and monitor the evolving technologies and content consumption patterns. We do not consume content the same way that we did five years ago, and that will probably change again in another five years.

A provision requiring that the House review the Broadcasting Act every five years will allow us to keep up and make it so that we do not end up with a completely outdated law in need of a total overhaul 30 years from now.

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

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House to share my time with my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona, who, I should point out, does exceptional work.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay.

I hear none. The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

Since no one is opposed, the motion is deemed adopted.

The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

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

Madam Speaker, I am going to digress a little, but it is relevant.

Caroline Rivera has been on my team from the very beginning, for the past 11 years. I am sure that Carolina, who is of Colombian heritage, would join me in congratulating the leftist winner in yesterday's presidential election in Colombia. I congratulate Colombia's new president, Gustavo Petro, and vice-president, Francia Marquez, Colombia's first Black woman vice-president.

This momentous and historic event reminded me of a quote from another Latin American politician who inspired not only his own country but also an entire continent. He said:

[Member spoke in Spanish]

[Translation]

"Let us work together as progressives, as left-leaning men and women, to build a fairer and better society." Those were some of Chilean president Salvador Allende's last words in 1973 from his presidential palace.

That is all I have to share about yesterday's current events and history from down south. I now want to talk about the history that we are making right here, in the House. I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, of Montreal and of Quebec in support of this essential and long-overdue bill. The funding ecosystem was outdated and obsolete, and the act had not been thoroughly reviewed in the past 30 years. We ended up with a broken and completely unbalanced system in which creators and our artistic industry, our artists, artisans and technicians, were penalized while others were passing go and saving $200. They were not collecting the money, but they did not have to spend it.

My point is that funding for a whole lot of our television, film and music creations flowed in large part through the Canada Media Fund, which was funded by cable companies back when they had the market to themselves. We said they were the ones with the pipeline and the container, so they would have to pay to put content in the pipeline. That is why the cable companies of this world—Videotron, Shaw, Rogers and Bell nowadays—had to contribute to a fund to support the production of Quebec and Canadian cultural content. It worked pretty well for several years, I must say. It is absolutely crucial to making sure our stories are told and our culture is shared here at home and around the world.

We reached a tipping point when the system stopped working and became unfair and inequitable. That was when new online broadcasters hit the scene. Now they are the ones pocketing mega profits by streaming tonnes of content live and online. I am talking about companies such as Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube that did not exist 30 years ago of course. They were not planned for. We found ourselves in a situation where cable companies, which had fewer and fewer subscribers and therefore less and less revenue, were the only ones paying into the media fund, so the fund was shrinking. Meanwhile, all the new digital broadcasters that were growing so fast did not have to pay a penny.

It was hurting our producers, our creators, because a large part of that money was not being invested or spent. That meant that some productions were shelved.

The other important point to remember is that we are also dealing with web giants that do not pay their taxes. They do not contribute at all to the general coffers, to our collective wealth, to help pay for our public services. Some will say that that is a whole other debate. Yes, it is a debate about the taxation of web giants, but it is also relevant here because web giants are also not paying their share in this situation. That is extremely important.

An estimated $3 billion is invested in an artistic, television, film and musical production. By requiring these digital broadcasters, these web giants, to pay their share, Bill C-11 will add more than $1 billion to this industry. We are restoring the balance, injecting money from the web giants who have, unfortunately, been benefiting for years from not paying. We need this bill to restore the balance and to support our creators in a much more effective and visible way.

There is a lot that could be done with this money. It would mean more productions, more content, more jobs. This is about our identity and about jobs in the cultural sector. It will translate into more sets, technicians, artisans, directors, screenwriters and writers. It is absolutely essential and important.

I believe that this will help us ensure that those in the music industry, who are currently paid peanuts by streaming services such as Spotify, will potentially earn more thanks to the rules that will be established. Members will recall the very frank statement by singer Pierre Lapointe at a ADISQ gala. He spoke about the amount of money he earned, a few hundred dollars, for hundreds of thousands of views or streams of one of his songs. We are obviously well aware that this system could not continue. It did not make sense and it had to be fixed. That is what we are doing, albeit a little too late. This should have been done sooner for many of our creators, but it is not too late to do the right thing. We could not continue with the existing situation.

Bill C-11 is important. The NDP was also successful in getting amendments passed that improved the government's original bill. We are very proud of that. I had a request from people in Montreal who asked us to clarify and better define the mandate of Radio-Canada International, which has unfortunately suffered cuts over the years. At the very least, they want to save what is left, so that our news is broadcast around the world in several languages.

Speaking of languages, one of the first amendments we passed to improve and amend the broadcasting bill had to do with all indigenous or first nations productions. They will receive more support, more money to share their stories, their realities and their experiences in their communities, in French and English, but also in indigenous languages, if they so desire. We strengthened those measures and have done the same for other groups of citizens, such as racialized people and people with disabilities. These were priorities for the NDP. We put forward these amendments and we succeeded in getting them passed.

Another issue is more support for community television and community radio, which are really very important in many regions and many parts of the country. I think it is important to flip the curve that put community television and radio at a disadvantage. This injects a little more money and support.

Yet another issue is enhanced protection for local jobs in Quebec and Canada, greater protection for our creators' intellectual property, more protection for freedom of expression and, to enforce all that, more powers enabling the CRTC to oversee it all for the good of society as a whole.

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

Madam Speaker, we often hear, during the discussions, whether it is today or in second reading, about the industry as a whole. I am thinking in terms of the creators and the artists, but there is also a great deal of background work that is involved. From managing the stage to maintaining the programs, there is a litany of other opportunities and jobs.

I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to the industry, as a whole, which goes far beyond just the creators and the artists.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments and his very pertinent question.

When we talk about cultural content, of course we think of the artists we see on stage, the actors and actresses in a TV series or film. They are the stars, the ones who go to galas and win awards. That is all fine, and we congratulate them.

However, my colleague is quite right to point out that there is a whole industry behind the scenes, including stage technicians, people who look after the sound and lighting, and people who provide the food. There is the whole administrative side, including the accountants who work for the cultural industry, for example. There are dozens of quite different jobs, and these employees do not appear on screen. They are not the ones we see, but they are there and are driving the industry forward. Their jobs enable them to bring home an income to support their families, pay the rent and buy groceries. I think Bill C-11 is good news for all those people.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to further clarify the very important concept of discoverability. How can we establish processes to force platforms to make local content more visible? How does this not threaten freedom of expression, despite the criticisms we have heard, which I think are highly exaggerated?

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

Madam Speaker, when it comes to Bill C‑11, it feels like Halloween. Some members tried to scare people. They disguised themselves and it was just awful.

My colleague is absolutely right. The concept of discoverability is very important. We see that with the new digital broadcasters. There are algorithms that more or less decide what we see on the page when we open the app or the site. YouTube is perhaps the best example of that.

If the song, video or show is not available or easily found by the person who uses Netflix or Disney+, this Quebec or francophone culture will not be consumed. Rules are needed, and it will be important for the CRTC to be clear in its directives to ensure that Quebec and Canadian works are visible and relatively easy to find when the person goes to the digital broadcaster's site. If not, if those works end up 158th on the list, no one will ever see them and that will not advance Quebec or Canadian culture.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie talked about Halloween and the fright nights we went through in committee.

In his opinion, if the committee had had the usual length of time afforded to the study of a bill, if everyone had participated in good faith and if committee members could have pursued debates on amendments proposed by the NDP, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Bloc and even the Green Party, could the committee have improved the bill we will be voting on this week?

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

Madam Speaker, much of the work was also done during the study of the old Bill C‑10, so we need to look not only at the study of Bill C‑11, but at all the debates on the Broadcasting Act.

People in the cultural community, especially those in Quebec, told us there was an urgent need to act and warned against missing this opportunity. That is why it was so important for us to press the government to move forward and pass this bill. Too much time has been wasted already.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand in this place and speak to Bill C-11.

I have to begin by saying that I was one of the members of the heritage committee in the last Parliament when Bill C-10 came forward. I greatly appreciated working with my colleague from the NDP, the heritage critic in the last Parliament, and I thank him for his intervention today. I learn so much every time he speaks. He is such a very clear communicator. I greatly appreciate the contributions that he has made to this debate this evening.

I also want to recognize some of my friends in this place right now who were on that committee, with whom I very much enjoyed working. Unfortunately, I will not say that was the same for all members of our committee, but I will get into some of that detail in a little while.

To start with, I want to talk about just how vital this Bill C-11 legislation is. It is so important that we take the opportunity to level the playing field between the web giants, these big multinational corporations, and the artistic community in Canada. I am talking about the artists and the venues that support those artists, which are then in turn supported because we have a strong artistic community. The theatres, newspapers and radio stations, all of these things that get support when we level the playing field are so important. I am going to go through some of the organizations in my riding and say a little about them later on.

I want to just highlight a couple of things we have heard about over and over again from the Conservative Party. That is that Bill C-11 applies to user-generated content. They know that is not true. They know that except for very specific examples, that is not the way this bill has been set up. We know that this bill provides opportunities for indigenous people. It provides opportunities for programming for Canadians to hear and be exposed to indigenous language programming. It supports minority communities.

Many people do not know this about Edmonton Strathcona, but there is a huge and very vibrant francophone community in my riding. It is a part of why I have spent so many hours, not very successfully, I will say, trying to learn French so that I can speak French in this place and recognize the vital role that francophones play in our community in Edmonton Strathcona.

These are the things that we are pushing for with Bill C-11. When I sit at committee I hear, of course, that the Liberals brought this bill forward and they support the legislation. The NDP strongly supports this legislation as well, and the Bloc Québécois supports the legislation. The Green Party, which I think one of my colleagues mentioned, under—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I have to interrupt the hon. member.

The hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I look at the House, and I look at all of those who are supporting the legislation and know how important it is that we bring forward this long overdue legislation. Then, I see the Conservative Party not supporting it, and I question that. I wonder why that is the case.

Part of me thinks that it is because right now they are without a leader and they are, in fact, blocking everything that happens in the House. They have been filibustering our foreign affairs committee for over a month, and they are blocking us from being able to do the jobs we want to do in this place. Maybe that is part of it, but then I think about when the Conservatives were coming to the committee when we were looking at Bill C-10, and I will make a bit of a joke that I made then.

The member for Lethbridge yelled “freedom” so many times that I swear she seemed a bit like she was imitating Braveheart, except I would say in Braveheart they only yelled it once, so perhaps she could be a little more succinct. Also, when we were in committee, we saw a literal turning door of the “front-benchers” of the Conservative Party coming to our committee wanting to talk about Bill C-10. This would be good and important, if we had ever seen any of those members come to our committee to talk about COVID supports for artists.

If I had ever seen the member for Carleton come to my committee to talk to our group about how we need to support artists in his community, that would be one thing. If I had ever seen the member for Calgary Nose Hill come to the heritage committee to talk about truth and reconciliation and the acknowledgement of September 30 as the Day for Truth and Reconciliation, that would be another thing. We never saw any of that. We just saw them then, so I am asking myself why this is the case.

I actually talked to one of my Conservative colleagues who said that every time they sent out an email on Bill C-10, they raised about $2,000. I have to think that this looks a lot like a fundraising campaign. This does not look a lot like good policy to me. This looks a lot like there is an option there to make some money, and of course that is hard for me to understand and hard for me to accept, because Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the artistic community, as well.

We have a strong francophone community, but we also have an incredible artistic community, so I do not want members of that community to suffer and I do not want members of that community to not have the opportunity to benefit from taxes being raised or from funds going into the cultural community. For example, when Bill C-11 is put in place, over a billion dollars will go back into our cultural community in Canada. That is not taxes. I want to make it really clear that this is something the web giants would pay. It is not something the government would pay. Multinational corporations would be paying into our artistic sector.

What I think about is how much money Netflix has, how much money YouTube has and how much money all of these multinational corporations make, and why I would not want them to pay their fair share to support organizations like the Blues Festival in Edmonton Strathcona, the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, the Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival, the Edmonton Heritage Festival, the SkirtsAfire Festival, theatre groups like the Alberta Musical Theatre Company, Concrete Theatre, where my good friend Mieko Ouchi used to work, Firefly Theatre and Circus, Fringe Theatre and Grindstone Comedy Theatre. I can tell members they had the most incredible Pride event there just a couple of weeks ago, and anyone in Edmonton Strathcona during Pride needs to go the Grindstone.

We have the Northern Light Theatre, we have Theatre Yes, we have Blues on Whyte, the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, the Metro Cinema and the Myer Horowitz Theatre. Outside of my riding is the Starlite Room, but I still visit it quite regularly. The Starlite Room had one of my very favourite concerts: I got to listen to Propaghandi, a Canadian band, play there. Just a couple of weeks ago on my 50th birthday, I got to see Corb Lund sing, and I will tell members he is someone they should not miss. They should certainly be trying to support the Timms Centre, the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre, Varscona Theatre, Walterdale Theatre and the Yardbird Suite.

Francophone organizations in my community include the Chorale Chantamis, the Chorale Saint-Jean and the Flying Canoë Volant, where, as I have probably told everyone in the House, one can race a canoe down a ski hill, dressed up as a beaver. Also, there is L'Association Franco-Albertaine de L'UniThéâtre, the Fête-franco-albertaine and the FrancoMusik Alberta Association. There are alternative media that this would support, including the CJSR radio network of the University of Alberta, The Gateway and Le Franco.

All of these organizations are really important and integral to my community, and every one of these organizations could benefit from this fund. They could benefit from the money that would come in from multinational corporations.

I am never going to stand in this place as the member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona to fight for the rights of big corporations over the rights of artists, over the rights of community groups and over the rights of the small organizations that make Edmonton Strathcona so incredibly special.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, my understanding is that the government has said that there would be extended hours tomorrow and that can only be done when there is consultation with leadership of the other parties. There has been no consultation with the Conservative Party, so for that reason those extended hours should not be granted.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, because the Speaker has made a ruling on this in the past, if the government indicates through a minister that we are looking at extending hours, the assumption is that the consultation has taken place and there is another party that supports the initiative.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé on a point of order.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on the same point of order.

The Bloc Québécois would like to point out that we also do not know who agreed to this and that we were not even consulted. Regardless of what has been said in the past, there are several political parties in the House, and it would have been respectful to consult our House leader on whether our party agrees.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I thank hon. members for their interventions. As the Chair has previously pointed out, the motion adopted on May 2 simply states that a minister must have the agreement of another House leader. It does not require that the parties to the agreement communicate to the House. Therefore, there has already been consultation with at least one party, leading to today's motion.

Resuming questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate many of the comments that my colleague has brought forward. One of the things that is really important for us to recognize is that over the years we have seen significant change. In the early 1990s, when the Internet really started to take off, we started to see more streaming really beginning. It was not really until the late 1990s. The Broadcasting Act has not been amended in any significant way since then. I wonder if the member could provide her thoughts on why it is so critically important, just recognizing technological changes, for this act to be modernized.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right: The world has changed. A Broadcasting Act that was brought forward in the 1990s would clearly not be sufficient for what artists in this community are facing today. In fact, I am just going to quote, if I could, from a constituent in my riding. She is, in fact, Juno prize-winning singer and musician Maria Dunn. She wrote to me with her support for Bill C-11, and said that “online broadcasters must have the obligations to invest in and showcase Canadian creations.” This is from a Juno-winning artist whom I have the great privilege of representing in this place, so we can all say that what was appropriate in the 1990s cannot be considered appropriate now in 2022.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, earlier in our debate today, the government of Canada outlined that its intent was not to regulate the programs and content that Canadians were viewing online, but simply to open the door to more Canadian content. In other words, it was skirting the question. Mr. Scott, the chair of the CRTC, said during the proceedings that this bill, Bill C-11, would allow the CRTC to prescribe regulation to user-uploaded content.

Does the NDP support more oversight over what Canadians want to view, especially as it relates to the arts and culture sector?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that what people see online is already being regulated. It is being regulated by multinational corporations that are not paying their fair share. They decide what people get to see. They already do that, and they do not contribute. To say that there is somehow going to be some strange oversight that is going to go too far is really misleading, and is really disappointing to hear.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona for her speech. As she mentioned earlier, I had the pleasure and privilege of working with her on Bill C‑10 last year.

I almost rose earlier on a point of order. I believe there is a standing order that states that we cannot lie and we cannot spread misinformation. I believe I heard my colleague say that she was 50 years old. Enough is enough. We are being taken for fools. This colleague is not 50. If she is 50, then I am 85.

That said, I recall that we worked very hard to advance Bill C‑10 last year despite the obstacles we faced. I would like to know whether my colleague has had the chance to take a look at what is in Bill C‑11, and if she found that there were things missing that we had added to Bill C‑10.

Are there amendments that she would have wanted to make to Bill C‑11 this year, even with the good work done on Bill C‑10?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would just say that it was very kind of my colleague to comment on my age and me not looking that age. Perhaps I will take this opportunity to wish my father a very happy Father's Day and to thank him for his genes.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

I cannot imagine that he can beat that comment.

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

Madam Speaker, you are quite right. It is quite the comment to follow.

I look at Bill C-11 from a totally different perspective from the official opposition: from how they see the bill and interpret the legislation. Understanding that things change through time is really important here. It seems to be something the Conservative Party has not necessarily realized yet.

I raise this in the form of a question. When we talk about how things change over time and the need to modernize the legislation, I figured it would have been fairly easy to argue why Bill C-11 was so important to Canada. We need this legislation. I want to talk about why it is so important that we have this legislation shortly.

Suffice to say, when I was first elected in the eighties at the Manitoba legislature, we did not have very much when it came to Internet services. In fact, those were the days when we actually had to use the telephone line: We would hear the dial up, the long buzz and then one would know they were on the Internet by a certain sound that came through the computer speakers. It took a while to see that take place.

A few years later, as we started to get into the nineties, things became a whole lot more advanced with the Internet—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There is a point of order by the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the chamber the lack of quorum in this place. I understand a motion was passed on this, but it is really sad that we are discussing such an important piece of legislation and there is no quorum.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member is aware that there are members participating virtually as well, but I will take a minute to double-check quorum and will get back to the hon. member.

And the count having been taken:

Between members in the House and those virtually, there is quorum.

Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to be interrupted with a quorum call. Many people working throughout the day often go to the MP lobby to get something to eat. I suspect we will find that on all sides of the House. It does not mean there is a lack of interest in what is taking place. The lobby is just through the door.

I want to pick up on the point that things have changed. Back in the nineties, the Internet started to speed up in a very significant way. There was nothing called Netflix when I was first elected. When we look at the speed that is required to have the type of streaming we have today, it was not even being imagined by most people back then. That was the time we last saw the modernization of Canada's Broadcasting Act.

Most Canadians understand and appreciate why it is important to have the CRTC, for example. Based on some of the arguments put forward by the Conservatives today, I am beginning to think they would get rid of the CRTC if they were put in government. That is just based on some of the comments they have put on the record. However, if we reflect on the important role that the CRTC has played in Canadian society, it is really—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There is another point of order by the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.

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

Madam Speaker, I call quorum.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I will check on quorum one more time.

And the count having been taken:

There are more than enough members for quorum at the moment.

I will return to the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the games continue to be played. At the end of the day, I can assure everyone that there is a keen interest in this, at least on behalf of three political entities in the chamber. Members of the Liberal Party, the Bloc, the NDP and the Green Party recognize the true value of the passage of Bill C-11. It is only members of the Conservative Party of Canada who seem to want to bury their heads in the sand, not realizing that as time passes, technology changes. The advancement of the Internet has dictated the need for us to bring forward legislation of this nature.

We are bringing forward this legislation to ensure there is a level playing field. Unlike the Conservative Party of Canada, we care about an industry that provides billions of dollars to our economy and provides opportunities to creators, actors and so many other people from coast to coast to coast. It is only the Conservative Party of Canada that does not realize the true value of Bill C-11. Instead, what we get a sense of with the new Conservative Party is a hard right turn.

If we look at the member for Carleton and some of the things he has been talking about—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We have a point of order by the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have risen on this point of order on more than one occasion already in response to the member for Winnipeg North. Categorizing the Conservative Party as a hard-right political party is not parliamentary language and insinuates that my party is hateful. I kindly ask that the member take back that comment and continue his debate in good faith.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

That is more a point of debate. However, I would ask parliamentarians who participate in debate to be mindful of how they categorize individuals. Generally, for parties, it is a bit different, but we still want to make sure we do not walk that fine line.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, to be a bit more sensitive to the member opposite, we have this hard reform element within the Conservative Party. Many of them are Reformers, and that is pretty far to the right. We saw that today. If we listen to and read some of the things the member for Banff—Airdrie put on the record today, it is almost as if the Conservatives get a gold star in the back room if they mention the word “freedom”. If they say the word “freedom”, it is a good thing.

It is interesting that just before question period got—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There have been a lot of individuals thinking out loud or wanting to participate while the hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor. I want to remind those members that there will be a 10-minute question and comment period, so if they could hold off until then, that would be greatly appreciated.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the point is that we are getting a mentality that is overcoming the Conservative element of the party today, something which—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We have a point of order from the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, my point of order is about using phraseology in this place that is parliamentary. Only a Liberal would find the word “freedom” offensive. It is unreal.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Again, that is a point of debate. I would ask members to make sure their points of order are actual points of order, because this takes away time from the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake and other speakers.

The hon. parliamentary secretary has 14 minutes. Then there will be 10 minutes of questions and comments.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I believe I should get a bonus two minutes because of the number of interruptions I have had.

The member made reference to the word “freedom”. At the end of the day, the Liberal Party of Canada does not need any lesson from the Conservatives with regard to individual rights and freedoms. After all, we are the party that brought in the Charter of Rights. We are a party of the charter. We understand what freedoms are all about.

As for the Conservatives, on the other hand, I would again remind them to look at some of the things their colleagues put on the record today with regard to Bill C-11, as if it is some sort of an assault on the freedoms of Canadians. The parliamentary secretary, in introducing it and speaking to it earlier today as the first speaker from the Liberal side, emphasized a couple of points about what the bill is not. It does not regulate the Internet. The bill—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We have another point of order from the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like you to check online again, as I believe we continue to have an issue when it comes to quorum, and also confirm whether someone having their camera on but not being visible in the shot actually constitutes quorum. I believe that has already been ruled on.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I thank the member. It is an issue for all parliamentarians. It is something they do on a regular basis. They may turn their camera off for a bit and then turn it back on. When I am looking at the screen here, I just see that they are on. I would have to double-check to make sure if their cameras are on or off.

And the count having been taken:

Right now we have quorum just in the House.

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is rising on a point of order.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the Conservative members are looking beyond their own benches when they call quorum or if they are looking at the House as a whole.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

When we call quorum, we look at the House as a whole.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I was emphasizing what the parliamentary secretary for heritage indicated at the beginning of his comments, which is that Bill C-11 would not regulate the Internet, nor would it control what Canadians will see. It would not put any limitations on the individual freedoms of Canadians.

On the other hand, shortly after the member made those statements in representing the government, we had one of the freedom fighters within the Conservative Party stand up and talk about the peaceful demonstrations in Ottawa, the heavy arm of the government, other off-topic areas and why people should be concerned about freedom being taken away. I do not know how many times he used the word “freedom”. I could not help but think about the member for Carleton, or the member's statement earlier today when he talked about freedom oil.

The Conservatives are really starting to focus in on that word. I do not know why, because when we talk about Bill C-11, nothing could be further from the truth. They know that, yet they continue to do what they can to prevent this legislation from passing. We saw that at second reading. We saw that at the committee stage. There is no will from the Conservative Party to see this legislation pass, and if not for time allocation and if not for the support of most of the parties in the House, we would not be able to get it passed.

I want members of the Conservative Party to realize what would happen if this bill does not pass. We all have artists, creators and other people in our communities who directly or indirectly work in this industry, which is so critically important. We heard some of the job numbers. We are talking about thousands of people across this country in every region who, in one way or another, either directly or indirectly understand the importance of Canadian content. They understand the importance of levelling the playing field.

How can we say to the mainstream media, for example, whether it is CTV or CBC, that they have to comply with CRTC rules but we should not apply similar rules to streaming services? Only the Conservative Party would argue that the status quo is good enough and we do not need a change, even when it has been clearly demonstrated that our industry in Canada is hurting. The industry itself is asking for the types of changes the Government of Canada is proposing, yet the Conservatives are not listening, I would argue, to what their constituents are saying.

There is a leadership vacuum taking place within the Conservative Party, and there is no doubt about that. Maybe that is one of the reasons they find themselves on the wrong side of Bill C-11. However, I would remind my Conservatives friends that they should reflect on the importance of those jobs and Canadian content.

We have a lot to be very proud of. I remember that many years ago, we had The Beachcombers. It was set in an area of B.C. that I learned about when I was relatively young because of that particular program. However, I do not believe that program would have existed if not for the Government of Canada having programs in place to ensure Canadian content.

We have seen some incredible productions with Canadian content. We have heard reference to Schitt's Creek. It is an interesting program. I did not even hear about it until I heard about the Emmy Awards it won. Then I started talking about it and all of my colleagues seemed to have heard about the program. It can be streamed online from Netflix. It is an excellent program. Another is Corner Gas, a show set on the Prairies. My colleagues from across the way should have an appreciation for the importance of that particular program.

We have seen some amazing talent over the years. Some of my favourites would be individuals like Anne Murray and Celine Dion. There are some incredible talents. If we take a look at the important role that CRTC has played in ensuring and fostering Canadian content, we should all have a better appreciation of the important role that government, whether it is through the CRTC or in other ways, could play to support that critical industry.

I have talked a great deal about a program called Folklorama in the province of Manitoba. For me, Folklorama embodies a great deal of what one would classify as amateur talent that will ultimately travel the world and get onto screens and radio programs. It is a great feeder. When I think of Folklorama, and it is coming up in the month of August, it is a significant production. It is roughly 50 pavilions of all different ethnic groups. It is often said people can travel the world by coming to Winnipeg in the first couple of weeks of August and visiting the different pavilions.

What people would find is some incredible talent, whether it is singing, acting or dancing. As I have pointed out, it is not only about those who are on the stage. There are also the production teams. We have made mention of the creators. We have talked about those who provide the lighting, the sound and the transportation, the bringing to and from. We have talked about the rentals as a direct result and even the sense of just feeling good knowing that a particular production is taking place in the community. These are all direct benefits. This is one of the reasons why the government needs to be involved.

When we think of Bill C-11, it is not just what we might see on Netflix or CBC, or hear on a radio program. It filters its way down. Many of the people I talk about when I think of things such as Folklorama will graduate to become professional actors or actresses and be engaged in our artistic world.

The member for Edmonton Strathcona made reference to the numerous musical and theatrical activities in the city of Edmonton in the province of Alberta. I could talk about the very same things in the province of Manitoba. I suspect we could go from coast to coast to coast, and we would find some amazing organizations, the vast majority of which are non-profit, that are a part of their communities in very real and tangible ways.

Many of those organizations will ultimately be provided opportunities because of regulations and because of organizations like the CRTC, because we recognize just how important it is to have Canadian content. It is about levelling the field. When I talk about the Internet, from yesterday to today, we need to recognize, very clearly, that through the Internet there are large worldwide organizations. The most obvious one that people make reference to is Netflix, but there are others that are out there, whether it is Crave, Pure Flix or other organizations, that are looking and sourcing revenue and opportunities in Canada but are not contributing their fair share.

That is what Bill C-11 is really about. Not only does it continue to recognize the importance of the industry to Canada and how critically important it is that we continue as we have over the last number of years in certain areas, but also how important it is that we level that playing field so that those who are streaming online will also contribute in an equal and more fair fashion.

By doing this, we will be able to reverse the trend. We have heard that the trend has not necessarily been positive. That is in good part because of online streaming. There are things we can do to reverse it, and by doing that we are creating opportunities, in particular, I would emphasize, for young people, for people who want to get into our arts community in a very real and tangible way.

I would hope that members of the Conservative Party would recognize the true value in supporting our young people and supporting the industry as a whole, reverse their position and agree to support and vote in favour of Bill C-11.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

My colleague mentioned that shows like The Beachcombers and, if I understood his argument correctly, shows like Corner Gas may not be possible in the future if not for a bill like Bill C-11. Can he point the House to precisely where in the bill it empowers shows like Corner Gas and The Beachcombers to live on, given his argument?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the legislation enables the CRTC and the government to ensure that those who are streaming are contributing to the development of the industry here in Canada. It is not necessarily to say that those programs would never have stood a chance, but let us recognize that having things such as the CRTC greatly enhances the opportunity for artists all over our country to have future prospects and encourages more Canadian content to support minorities. Whether it is in our multicultural communities or indigenous communities, it provides for Canadians to tell our stories more than we could without the legislation. That is something that I suspect the member who posed the question could not deny.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am just rising on the earlier point of order related to the agreement to extend the hours. Both the Conservative Party and the Bloc have confirmed that they did not agree—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry. I am not going to allow that because I have already ruled on it.

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

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

Madam Speaker, if I wanted to tease my colleague from Winnipeg North, I would ask him what he thinks it means when colleagues leave the chamber while he is talking or when a bunch of points of order are raised, but I would not want him to take that the wrong way. I really like him, especially when he asks me questions that allow me to elaborate on our plan for independence.

I believe my colleague is a father too and someone was extending father's day wishes earlier. I want to take this opportunity to wish a happy father's day to my father, Gérard, who is 87 and worked hard his whole life.

I would like my hon. colleague to tell us about the importance of discoverability. Why is it important to showcase content that was produced by people in Canada?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is correct. I am a father and a grandfather, and I am very proud of my children and grandchildren. I know my father would be with me at least in spirit. It is important for us to recognize the important role that fathers play in society, along with mothers too obviously.

I really believe that the modernization of the Canadian Broadcasting Act provides hope for future generations of artists and creators and, as I always try to emphasize, the industry as a whole, because it is healthy. I know the province of Quebec has been absolutely incredible. Many would argue that it is one of the leaders of the country in terms of the artists who have come from the province of Quebec. There is truly amazing talent there, but it is also scattered throughout the country.

That is why we find so many members supportive of the legislation. It is long overdue. We need this modernization because the sooner we can modernize the act, the healthier and better it will be for the industry as a whole.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his speech despite my point of order. It had nothing to do with the content of his speech. It was more about the process in the chamber.

My question is specifically around how the bill was sped through committee with the amendments. I sat late into the night last week as we were voting on amendment after amendment with no discussion and not even reading which amendment we were voting on. Does the member believe that is an appropriate way to govern business and discuss the legislation before us?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, if the member wanted to get a really good answer, she should probably talk to her House leader. At the end of the day, I suspect that if there was a higher sense of co-operation and less filibustering, all members would have loved to see more opportunity to feel comfortable in knowing that the legislation would pass out of the committee stage in a timely fashion so that we could ultimately see the legislation pass before the summer break.

I suspect that had there been some sort of an accommodation for that and maybe a little less filibustering we quite possibly would have been able to have more dialogue on some of the amendments. It was a time issue as not only the government but members of the Bloc and NDP recognized that we needed to get the bill out of committee so that it could come back with the idea of hopefully passing it before the House rises later this week.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, web giants are going to be using every possible loophole to circumvent our tax rolls and circumvent the requirement to fund Canadian cultural content. Therefore, the government has a responsibility to ensure the bill does not contain any loopholes. In the interest of transparency, is the government going to make public the instructions to the CRTC to ensure the web giants fulfill their obligations of making Canadian content discoverable and disclosing their financial information to contribute to the development of our cultural content?

When does the government plan to send and disclose these instructions?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would encourage the member to talk to the minister of heritage, who is looking at how we can ensure we protect our culture and our arts industry. That is one of the reasons why he was very quick to bring forward this legislation. That is one of the reasons why the government is so insistent, with the support of the NDP, in getting this legislation through. I am confident that we are taking a step in the right direction. No doubt, as time goes on, we will have to ensure that the field is, in fact, being levelled.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, in response to a question from my hon. colleague, the hon. parliamentary secretary essentially laid the blame with the Conservative House leader for the amendments at committee being rammed through. The last time I checked, it was the Liberals and their coalition partners who have a majority there, so who is he to place the blame on the Conservatives for those amendments being rammed through in an otherwise clearly undemocratic fashion?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have sat on both sides of the House, in opposition and in government. I know how often the Conservative Party has been a destructive force on the floor of the House of Commons. We have seen that amplified over the last number of months.

Even though I was not at committee, I can imagine just how disruptive they would have been, just based on some of the dialogue and some of the discussion that we have already heard in debate. We need to realize the Conservative Party of Canada does not like this legislation, so they are doing whatever they can to prevent its passage, unfortunately.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Both the Conservative Party and the Bloc have confirmed that they did not agree to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry. I am not going there on that point of order. I have already ruled on that, not just with you now, but also with the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

I ruled on this earlier. You are trying to challenge the Chair, and that is not acceptable.

We only have time for a brief question. The hon. member for Beauport—Côte‑de‑Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.

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

Madam Speaker, I will try to be brief. I congratulate my colleague on his speech and for talking to us about people like Céline Dion and Anne Murray, who we are all very familiar with.

Some artists are represented by organizations or agencies in the business. Other creative artists, authors and composers represent themselves, as I do. I have 80 to 85 songs written and released and I have never allowed them to be distributed on social media for the simple reason that I was concerned that someone would take them and that I would not earn anything from them, because they are my property.

What does my colleague think of these creators who are not really represented but who have just as much right to the revenues from their royalties?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I learned that the member has a beautiful voice. Maybe at some opportunity I will get to hear it. I often find that songs sung in French sound a lot sweeter than it is when sung in English. I cite Happy Birthday as a good example. I look forward to maybe hearing her songs, and I applaud her having a strong character to ensure that her work is not stolen.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Both the Conservative Party and the Bloc have confirmed that they did not agree to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Again, we are broaching the same subject matter that has already been dealt with before the House. I would caution the Conservative members from raising a point of order on a matter that has already been raised, which means that the hon. members are actually challenging the Chair. Is that what your intent is, to challenge the Chair?

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, no.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just walked into the proceedings, and I wanted to ask to see whether the Bloc—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am not going to entertain those anymore.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake has the floor.

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

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Perth—Wellington.

As members have heard through our debates over the last few weeks, Bill C-11 will set the stage for the federal government to have unfettered control in regulating what Canadians see on the Internet.

This expansion of the regulatory authority of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, better known as the CRTC, to all audiovisual content on the Internet is a radical and sweeping move that really raises concerns around accountability, government overreach and the protection of individual rights and freedoms in this country.

I want to be clear: Bill C-11 is a bill that would give the CRTC the power to control what Canadians find and post on the Internet. It is a fundamental change in the way we do broadcasting in Canada or what is considered broadcasting. The very idea that the government intends to introduce licencing of the Internet in the same way that radio and television are licenced in Canada ultimately means that creators must obtain speech by permission from the government.

From the very beginning, Conservatives have been opposing the ideological agenda of this inflexible and regressive legislation. We have now and always will stand up for our arts and culture sectors, and now especially it is important for us to make sure that we are standing up for our digital-first creators, who are facing a lot of uncertainty about their livelihoods.

Many of these witnesses were not able to heard from in committee because of an arbitrary timeline that was set by the government. This is not just targeting so-called digital giants such as legacy news media, Google or Facebook. In 2022, anyone with a cell phone can be a creator and have an audience on the World Wide Web.

While the heritage minister has misleadingly claimed that Bill C-11 is about creators and about making more Canadian content available, and that it would actually even the playing field, what we have discovered in committee is that this is not true. If Canadians want to watch our world-class Canadian content, there is absolutely nothing stopping them, so there is no need for specific content to be spoon fed to us. If passed, Bill C-11 would not create an even playing field for our Canadian content creators. Instead, it would allow a government body to close off certain creators for the benefit of a select few, essentially hand-picking winners and losers. That is something that, on this side of the House, we disagree with.

In its current form, Bill C-11 does not protect individual online content creators. Instead, it burdens them with an abundance of draconian rules and regulations that they are ill-equipped and underfinanced to engage with. The regulations are through the roof.

While the NDP-Liberal government claims that there is now an exemption for user-generated content, this bill gives the CRTC the power to regulate any content that generates revenue, directly or indirectly. That means that non-commercial, user-generated content, like picking up a cell phone and creating a video, could create indirect revenue, which would then fall under the purview of the CRTC.

Artists, independent content creators and experts alike have all been raising alarm bells about the impact of these changes. I think it is really important to read some of the testimony that we heard at the heritage committee, such as what we heard from Oorbee Roy. She said:

Not only does this bill not help me. It also hurts me and actively undermines my needs as an artist. There's no language in the bill to tell me otherwise.

Frankly, I don't qualify. I'm just not the right fit....

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.

I read this into the record because I think it is very important to make sure we understand that this digital space is still fairly new, so trying to over-regulate it, which is exactly what Bill C-11 does, could have long-lasting impacts.

It is important to highlight the fact that it expands the role of the CRTC to allow it to impose new regulations on platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, and whatever new platform has not even been created yet. These changes do not have to be passed through Parliament. These regulations will impact all Canadians who use online content, but there is no power for us, as parliamentarians, to make decisions on this. It leaves questions as to what is going on.

I think the best way to continue to showcase the amazing contributions of Canadian creators is to safeguard the protection of their freedom of expression. We have to enshrine the right of a Canadian to express their opinions, create content and speak freely so our rich Canadian culture is accessible to all. Frankly, without this in place, I have no trouble finding Canadian content on the World Wide Web, and I think that is something that is really important. We have an amazing set of artists who get out there.

One of the big pieces, after spending many hours in the heritage committee listening to amendments being debated, is that we failed to see any movement from the government on having a real conversation. We were voting on amendment after amendment, not even reading those amendments into the record. There was no idea of what we were debating most of the time, other than for those of us who had our package in front of us. Anyone who was following at home were completely out of luck. They did not even know what we were discussing. That is not the transparency that Canadians request from their parliamentarians. This is not the level of debate we should be having in the House.

I understand that members opposite will say that, “Oh, this is because the Conservatives were filibustering.” We were raising valid concerns that had been brought to our attention. There are tons of witnesses who want to present on this very important topic who have been silenced by the government, the NDP-Liberal coalition. There are people who want to make this the best possible legislation that it can be.

Quite frankly, I do not believe that we are at the best. I think that it is incumbent on each and every one of us parliamentarians to send the bill back to committee because, ultimately, we can do better, and we must do better. Just because something is difficult, just because we have an arbitrary timeline because the government really wants to get it passed by the summer, does not necessarily mean that is what we should do.

The Liberals dragged their feet on the previous iteration of the bill and let it die on the Order Paper when they called an unnecessary election last fall. The fact is that somehow this is now a priority for them, and they are trying to ram it through Parliament, rather than have a serious conversation and inviting digital-first creators to have some dialogue to make sure these changes we are making are actually going to benefit the sector and benefit Canadians. Ultimately, is it going to be something we will be proud of?

I am quite concerned that what we are doing is actually changing what Canadians will see online without any debate, completely behind closed doors, and it has been very clear from the expert testimony that the bill would allow the CRTC to regulate user-generated content. That is why, through a series of vital amendments, the Conservatives tried, we really did try to work with members opposite, to fix the bill.

I get it that the members opposite like to say, “The big bad Conservatives don't support artists, and they don't support creators.” That is not true. As someone who grew up dancing, singing and in a band, I understand that there are a lot of needs of artists. I understand very clearly that this is something that is so important, but we have to do it right. We have to do the right thing for the right reasons, otherwise it is not right, and this is not being done for the right reasons at the right time in the right space.

I would urge all members to simply take the bill back to committee to allow us to have some meaningful conversation and debate on these amendments. At a very minimum, could we read the amendments into the record, so all members and everyone who was listening at home could at least know what we are discussing prior to us doing it? Also, there were errors when it came to translation. They were fixing the fact that the translation in the original bill was incorrect. That is how rushed the bill was. Not even the translation was accurate. That is just another example as to why we need to slow this down and send the bill back to committee to ensure that we have an opportunity to provide Canadians, especially those who create user-generated content, with the best possible bill.

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

Madam Speaker, does the member not realize that the Conservative Party, for hours and hours, whether in second reading or in committee, went out of its way to try to kill the bill? The Conservatives do not like the legislation, so they brought in a huge number of amendments to the legislation as a way to, again, prevent the legislation from passing. Then this particular member stands up and effectively said, “We just want to make a few amendments to it, and then we'll pass it. We can make it a better piece of legislation.”

It seems to me that the member is maybe not even consistent with some of the remarks from some of her colleagues today. The amendment is to kill the bill. The Conservative Party does not support this bill.

I would ask the member this: Does she support the CRTC?

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

Madam Speaker, it is awfully condescending of the member opposite. Despite the fact that there are many members in this chamber on his side, he constantly asks questions. He monopolizes the floor in here on so many occasions. For whatever reason, there are a number of members in here who are not allowed to speak. They are not allowed to ask questions, and so here we are. We are debating. We are trying to have a conversation here, and the member is concerned about trivial antics and trying to point fingers. I am here to try to make sure that Canadians have the best possible legislation, and that is exactly what Conservatives are going to fight for: the best possible legislation.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to questions and comments, I want to remind members having conversations, especially on this side, because it is so close to the mike of the hon. member who was speaking, that it is not kind to go back and forth while someone has the floor.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Drummond.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I agree with her on one point, and that is that we did not have enough time. We should have had more time to debate the amendments. However, when there is a gag order, there obviously comes a time when the amendments are no longer being read. That is true.

This was raised many times by my colleague during the clause-by-clause study in committee. There are many things that should have been discussed. I assume that my colleague was present during clause-by-clause consideration because she is familiar with the bill and our concerns about it.

I would like to hear her talk about the very important amendment that we proposed regarding paragraph 3(1)(f). It is one of the amendments, one of the clauses in the bill, that I think is among the most significant. I would like to ask her about the amendment that we passed with respect to paragraph 3(1)(f) specifically, and hear what impact she thinks it will have on digital companies compared to traditional broadcasting companies.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I think that 142 amendments were proposed for this bill. There may have been even more than that.

I do not remember the details of every single amendment, but I think it would have been worthwhile to debate them. However, we were simply told which amendment number would be voted on, starting at 9 p.m. That was not okay.

That is not how things should be done, and I want everyone to support the idea of sending this bill back to committee.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have in front of me quotes from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists; from the Canadian Independent Music Association; from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada; and from many more. They are calling for this bill to pass. I am curious about why the Conservatives are using misleading statements about freedom of expression to protect the profits of the web giants at the expense of Canadian cultural workers.

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

Madam Speaker, yes, there are many stakeholders who are in favour of seeing this bill pass, but there are at least as many, if not more, who are very concerned about the speed at which this piece of legislation is going through, the secrecy and the lack of accountability.

Honestly, we were debating amendments with no content until after midnight. Not even a phrase could be said about why we were voting on things. As I said earlier, there were amendments because the translations were wrong and there were amendments because the legislation was not drafted correctly to begin with, yet there was no context given as to what these amendments were. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to make sure we have the best legislation and to send this bill back to committee.

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

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and debate legislation. It is unfortunate that we have to do it under the guillotine of a guillotine motion whereby all stages were time limited and Canadians did not have the opportunity to fully engage on this piece of legislation.

I would remind the House that this is the first major update to the Broadcasting Act in over 30 years, and the government saw fit to ram this through committee, report stage and now third reading with limited debate. However, the Senate—the unelected, unaccountable branch of government—can take all the time it wants. It is allowed to have witnesses and it is allowed to hear from Canadians, but here in this House, the people's House, the elected branch of Parliament, we are being forced to deal with this.

The practical effect of this piece of closure upon closure upon closure is that key stakeholders never had the chance to appear before committee. I would remind the House as well that many of the limited number of witnesses we did have expressed significant concerns. I am sure the government would be interested to know that over a third—39.3%, to be exact—of the witnesses who appeared had significant concerns with this piece of legislation. In fact, 31% thought it should be defeated altogether because of its poor drafting.

There was not unanimity. There was barely a plurality who saw this bill as a perfect piece of legislation in its actual form. Canadians did not have a chance. Let us hear from some of the groups that did not have a chance to appear before the committee.

The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network contacted the committee and wished to appear, but could not appear. Ethnic Channels Group did not have an opportunity to appear. The Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Ontario Association of Broadcasters, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the Radio-Canada International Action Committee all contacted our committee to appear and share their views on this piece of legislation. They could not do that because of the actions of the government in ramming it through committee and through this House.

The practical result is that when it came to clause-by-clause study, every single clause, every single amendment was forced to be put at 9:00 p.m., without debate, without amendment, without even reading the amendment into the record. Canadians watching at home—and there were Canadians watching at home who were concerned about this piece of legislation—had no clue what parliamentarians were voting on. What is more, we only received these amendments that same day, with no time to consult key stakeholders in the industry or key creators who may have had concerns or viewpoints on potential amendments. We could not contact them. We could not talk to them. We did not have the opportunity to have that conversation, and instead every single clause, every single amendment was put without debate, without amendment, without even being read into the record.

That is not how committee ought to function. That is not how deliberative democracy ought to function.

I want to be clear. We had several key amendments that we felt would improve this piece of legislation. I want to talk about one that actually succeeded, despite the best efforts of the Liberal government. Every Liberal voted against this amendment, but thankfully the opposition stood firm and eliminated part II licence fees. For far too long, the government has been charging part II licence fees for domestic Canadian broadcasters. It is a tax. It is solely a tax levied on Canadian broadcasters. It is not levied on foreign streaming giants, only on Canadian broadcasters.

The government keeps talking about levelling the playing field, but their idea of levelling is just adding more regulatory burden on everyone rather than truly having a positive impact on domestic broadcasters. Thanks to the Conservative leadership on this issue, we eliminated part II licence fees, saving Canadian broadcasters over $100 million in tax, money that simply goes into the government coffers. It does not go to CRTC. It does not go to programming. It does not go to promoting Canadian culture. It does not go towards promoting Canadian content. It is just more money that goes into the government coffers.

There were other amendments that we proposed that would have improved this piece of legislation. I would say the most important were related to section 4.2, user-generated content. I note that the Green Party had similar amendments that would have either taken out or significantly modified section 4.2 to ensure once and for all that user-generated content was not captured.

Unfortunately, in each case the government voted down each of those meaningful amendments. Liberals even voted down eliminating two words that would have at least taken out indirect revenue. Anyone who spends time talking to digital first creators, talking to those who use digital platforms to promote their content knows that when we are saying “indirect revenue”, it captures a whole swath of the Internet. That is the concern Canadians have had from day one.

I know this has been mentioned before, but this is an important observation from Canada's most successful YouTube channel. Morghan Fortier said:

Bill C-11 is not an ill-intentioned piece of legislation, but it is a bad piece of legislation. It has 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.

She went on:

Worst of all, proposed section 4.2 hands sweeping power to the CRTC to regulate the Internet use of everyday Canadians and small businesses like mine that are not even associated with broadcasters.

That is the reality. Conservatives stood up for those creators to try to narrow the exception to the exception that is found in section 4.2, but of course the government members voted against the idea.

Conservatives also stood up for Canadians to try to bring in a definition of “discoverability”. We want to ensure that Canadians can find their favourite Canadian content online. We want to ensure that when Canadians log on to one of the platforms, they can find Canadian content. What we do not want to see is one piece of Canadian content being promoted over another piece of content, with the CRTC deciding which Canadian content is most Canadian or which piece of content should be promoted over another piece of content.

We introduced measures that would have ensured that algorithms were kept out, that Canadians were not going to be subjected one way or the other to promotion of content, but of course our efforts, which included the definition of discoverabilities and included protections for Canadians, were also voted down.

We also suggested that there should be an updated or a clear definition of “Canadian content” to ensure that Canadian stories are told, that Canadian actors, Canadian technicians, Canadian directors and producers are encapsulated into a broad definition of Canadian content so that those films and television shows filmed right here in Canada and those actors who have striven all their lives could find success here in Canada.

Here is what John Lewis, international vice-president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said about Canadian content:

Under the current system, The Handmaid's Tale doesn't qualify as Canadian. It's based on a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, who served as a consulting producer. It features Canada-centred plot lines, was filmed in Canada—employing hundreds of Canadians—and garnered 75 Emmy nominations. Canadians were recognized internationally for their skill in art direction, production design, hairstyling, makeup artistry, costume design, visual effects and editing.

But The Handmaid's Tale is not Canadian content.

We tried to have the government commit to updating the Canadian content rules prior to going ahead with Bill C-11, but of course it did not happen, and we are still waiting for the minister's policy directive to the CRTC. Bill C-11 provides very broad powers to the CRTC, but much of that will be filled in by the policy directive that the Minister of Canadian Heritage will send to the CRTC.

Canadians deserve to know how the minister wishes to see the CRTC implement those measures, but we have not seen that policy directive. The minister will in fact not disclose it until after royal assent, so Canadians and parliamentarians here in this place and in the other place are forced to vote on Bill C-11 before seeing how it will be implemented.

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

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat disingenuous when a member of an opposition party tries to give a false impression to that degree. They do not support Bill C-11, and that is the bottom line.

The members can talk about amendments and so forth. I understand what has taken place at committee. The member knows full well, as I do, the games that we witnessed from the Conservative Party with respect to Bill C-11. It was filibuster after filibuster. They did not want it to get out of the chamber. Their intent was to kill Bill C-11.

Will the member be straightforward and tell Canadians why the Conservative Party of Canada does not support the modernization of the Broadcasting Act? They had the opportunity to demonstrate their support; all they want to do is filibuster. That is the bottom line.

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

Madam Speaker, if we want to talk about the king of filibusters, it is the member for Winnipeg North.

Let us be very clear. In the last election platform, the Conservative Party committed to updating the Broadcasting Act and ensuring that foreign web giants paid their fair share in Canada, but we also made the commitment that we would do so by respecting digital-first creators and by ensuring that Canadian content was able to find success not only here in Canada but around the world. What Bill C-11 does is put up walls around Canada that will prevent our great creators from finding success worldwide.

Let me be very clear. It was only on May 24 that the bill first came before the Canadian heritage committee. Then the government went forward and used closure upon closure upon closure to force this through committee rather than allowing parliamentarians to do our jobs, analyze the bill, hear from witnesses and make amendments to the piece of legislation.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague from Perth—Wellington. It is usually a great pleasure for me to work with him on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We do not always agree and sometimes have our differences, but that happens even in the best of families.

I want to remind the House that when we started studying Bill C‑11 in committee, we agreed to do so as quickly as possible, at the request of the cultural industry and broadcasters. However, it was the Conservative Party, through my colleague from Perth—Wellington, who asked the other committee members to set aside 20 hours to hear from witnesses. We agreed on that. This was a suggestion from the Conservative Party and my colleague from Perth—Wellington.

My question is the following. Why did my colleague later decide that 20 hours was not enough? We already had all of the requests to appear for the witnesses and organizations. What happened at that point to make my colleague change his mind and decide that the 20 hours he had requested were no longer enough?

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

Madam Speaker, the 20 hours we proposed represent the minimum amount of time for hearing from witnesses in committee. While witnesses were appearing, we heard from cultural groups, organizations and broadcasters who had concerns about this bill and who wanted to go before the committee to be heard and provide information in that regard. The Conservatives had 20 witnesses who wanted to appear, but were unable to do so. Some Canadians wanted to testify and did not have that opportunity.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, for once I have to agree with the member for Winnipeg North. The Conservatives just do not seem to want the bill to pass in any shape or form. They voted against Bill C-10, an old version of the bill. They asked the government not to reintroduce it. They have not gotten any wins for workers during the whole pandemic.

Why are they siding with web giants like Netflix who do not pay their fair share, instead of supporting arts and culture workers, who have suffered so much in the last couple of years, and passing this bill?

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

Madam Speaker, I am standing up for cultural workers. I am standing up for those digital-first creators who have found success through online means, who have found success here in Canada and around the world because they have used new technologies. We strongly believe in updating the Broadcasting Act to bring it into the 21st century, but we should not and ought not do that at the expense of those who have found success globally thanks to new technologies.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight to speak to Bill C-11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act. Bill C-11 seeks to modernize the existing Broadcasting Act for the first time since 1991, primarily to bring online streaming services like Netflix and YouTube within its domain.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

In my view, it has been a long time. Bill C-11 is certainly needed. We need to modernize the Broadcasting Act. I also feel it is well-intentioned legislation on behalf of the government party, and it has good items in it, a few of which I will mention. One, of course, is the requirement for streaming services like Netflix to invest more in Canadian productions. Second is that it legitimizes the role of community broadcasting, including non-profit and campus radio stations, acknowledging that community broadcasters, through collaboration with local organizations and community members, are in a unique position to provide varied programming to meet the needs of their communities.

That being said, Bill C-11 also has significant issues. The first is that, throughout the bill, we see vague language and some contradictions, and at times it is fairly poorly written. I will give one example. In the section I will be talking about next, there is a definition of “social media service” without that term being defined earlier in the bill. As we heard from others, it skips over a really critical opportunity to update and clarify the definition of what Canadian content is.

Most important of all, despite claims that only platforms would be regulated, there are very clear provisions in the bill that would allow for user-generated content to be regulated, and the chair of the CRTC confirmed as much when he was in front of the heritage committee. One of those provisions is any time user-generated content generates either direct or indirect revenue. What does that mean? I think of a local musician who might be soliciting financial contributions on a YouTube livestream, for example, and whether that musician might fall under the regulations that are permitted under this act.

I want to be really clear. There are some who have said that this bill censors what Canadians would be allowed to watch. That is simply not true. That is not in this legislation. That said, both at committee and in the wider conversation across the country on this bill, non-partisan experts and those affected by the legislation have shared their concerns, and I would like to share a few of those this evening.

One group is the YouTube content creators themselves, Canadians like Morghan Fortier. Morghan said this: “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”. Many others are on the record with concerns similar to Morghan's, other YouTube content creators across the country.

Then, of course, there are also subject matter experts like Michael Geist, who sounded the alarm. He has written often on the topic and spoke at committee. I hesitate to even bring up Mr. Geist given how often he has already been referenced in this debate over the last number of weeks, but I will quote one snippet that is important for this House to hear again, which is that Bill C-11 needs “extensive review and further reform to get it right.”

Finally, political analyst Erica Ifill shared her many concerns in a recent Hill Times article. She put it succinctly, “the new broadcasting bill still does not address core problems of the digital experience.”

For my part, I brought two amendments to the committee. One would have removed every part of proposed section 4.2 of the bill that allowed for user-generated content to be regulated at all. There are various provisions here that would open up that opportunity. Why not close those to be really clear that platforms are in and users are out?

The second was more precise but less ambitious, which was to remove just those users who generate indirect revenue. Can we not at least agree on that? This is a group of users the bill was likely not intended for, so let us take that out. Again, parliamentarians from all parties have previously said that they believe in this premise of platforms in and users out. Therefore, I was disappointed that both of these amendments were defeated at committee.

I would also like to briefly note my disappointment in the process. It was not the best moment. We saw the animosity between committee members, between opposing parties in this chamber, and that resulted in the majority of votes on amendments last Tuesday night having to take place without any debate at all. In my time here I have seen better moments. I think back to December when members came together to unanimously move forward on banning conversion therapy, for example. There have been incredible moments in this place of parliamentarians working together, but in my view, this was one of our less strong moments.

To summarize, in my view, when assessing legislation, I find myself thinking about my neighbours in Kitchener and our community, and I ask myself, “Does the bill do more harm than good?” I get it that rarely I will get to vote on legislation that fully addresses the interests of my community, so I will always support legislation that has a net-positive impact. However, my concern with Bill C-11 is that it could do more harm than good. This is the reason I did not support it earlier this afternoon, and I am not likely to support it at third reading tomorrow. I appreciate the good intentions. I appreciate that there are good elements in the bill. I certainly wish we had more time to debate it, and even to see more negotiation among parliamentarians to see amendments tabled and moved forward with.

Assuming the bill will soon be moving to the Senate, I hope senators will take the opportunity to improve the bill.

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

Madam Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, the member made reference to the fact that we have not modernized the legislation for many years. However, when we take a look overall, I believe we would get a consensus from the stakeholders that the bill is in fact a step forward for an important industry, let alone artists, creators and all those involved—

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

The hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not believe we have quorum.

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

There are no quorum calls after 6:30 p.m. There is a judgment.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

We do not have quorum, but we also are without the Constitutional requirement of quorum. In other words, for those in the NDP House leadership, we want them to confirm that they did not agree to the government's unconstitutional extension of hours—

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

The hon. member is out of order, and I would ask the hon. member to stop.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a point of order.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, you cannot give a point of order when I am still doing my point of order—

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

The hon. member does not have the floor.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, and I was paying close attention, was not given the floor at any time by the Speaker. No one who has not been given the floor by the Speaker is allowed to speak. Once the Speaker stands, everyone is to sit down.

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

I did mention the hon. member and I gave her the floor, but as soon as I saw where it was going, I got up again. There is no reason for a point of order. Those items have been debated more than once and the Speaker has ruled.

The Speaker has made a ruling, and it can be found in the Debates of May 2, 2022, at pages 4577 and 4578. I would invite the member to read the ruling of the Speaker to find that this matter has already been settled.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the point I was getting to is that the member, I am sure, is aware of the importance of modernizing the act, and that the vast majority of the stakeholders see the proposed legislation as a step forward. The broader community, being Canadian artists, creators and workers in the industry, see it as positive legislation. I wonder if the member can reflect on that aspect.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to make clear to the parliamentary secretary that I do agree with him.

As I said in my speech, it has been quite some time since the Broadcasting Act was first passed. There is an important need to modernize the Act, and I am glad the governing party prioritized that. I also believe it is important to get it right. While there are many stakeholders, as he has mentioned, who are supportive, there are also many others, some of whom I mentioned, such as Canadian YouTube content creators, who are quite concerned.

I go back again. Yes, it is a difficult decision not to support this legislation, but the analysis I am doing is weighing harm versus good. My concern here is that, with this legislation as currently written, given some of the vague language and allowing for user-generated content to be regulated as it does, it is open to the possibility of more harm than good.

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

Madam Speaker, it is one of those rare occasions, and perhaps not so rare, when the blues and the Greens are on the same page on something, and it is on section 4.2.

The member mentioned in his comments the ambitious versus less ambitious amendment. I want to talk about the less ambitious amendment that would take out indirect revenue and the impact that would have on at least ensuring that those who are paid by the platforms would be captured, but those who have indirect revenue through licensing deals or through sponsorships would not be captured. I wonder if he could expand on that and how that would have been a small change that would have had a big impact on digital-first creators and how they do their work.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think it is important to offer multiple options, and it was my intention to say, “Here is a concern I identified.” I had the chance to speak to it, and I offered a few ways the committee could consider addressing it. I know other parliamentarians did as well.

In my view, at least taking out user-generated content with indirect revenue would have been a reasonable amendment. It is also my view that, had we had less of the rhetoric in this place and more of a collaborative engagement among parliamentarians across party lines, there would have been an opportunity to say, “This is a reasonable one. We can agree on this piece. We will put aside our differences over here.” My sense, with this particular legislation at this time of year, is that it did not allow for some of those improvements. I believe all of us should be reflecting on the reasons why those reasonable improvements did not see the light of day.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by acknowledging that we are here on traditional unceded Algonquin territory and say meegwetch.

It is a great honour to speak to Bill C‑11 this evening. As everyone knows, this bill would amend and modernize the Broadcasting Act, something that has not been done in 30 years, even though we have seen enormous changes in the various delivery platforms. The biggest changes have to do with online streaming rather than television and radio broadcasting. There have been changes for our actors, creators and musicians and with respect to the issue of Canadian, Quebec and indigenous culture.

First of all, this bill is not perfect. I have problems with certain aspects of it, but I have decided to support it anyway, and I will explain why. I thank my colleague from Kitchener Centre, another Green MP. We made different decisions, but we agree on the problems and the reasons why he will be voting no and I will be voting yes.

It is a complicated bill. I want to start with a few things, just to clarify what it is not. Moments ago, a very talented new member of Parliament, the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, spoke about wishing that we could put in a more concrete, entrenched form that freedom of expression and freedom of speech are respected in this land and that every Canadian knows they have a right to those things.

I would say, with all respect to that member, we have that. We have the right of free speech in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Beyond that, the act that this bill amends but does not cancel, repeal or wipe out the words of, the Broadcasting Act, has for the past 30 years entrenched the right of Canadians to freedom of expression. Nothing in this modernization in Bill C-11 would change, in any way, our right to freedom of expression. This bill does not censor anything. It does not change what we can see and what we cannot see, or what we can hear and what we cannot hear. It attempts to achieve greater protections for many different varieties of Canadians against the powers of the new digital world.

I am going to focus a little time on some specific examples. Before I talk about the good the bill does, let me say where I hope we will observe closely how the bill works, and be more than prepared to take it up again within the next year or two. I would suspect we would, if we have the problems that we fear we may have with the failure to make sure that Canadians who in the government's intentions are not supposed to be caught by this bill, are not, and if we have problems differentiating the impact of the bill on those people from the impact on the large digital platforms, whether it is Netflix, Crave or HBO. We are not intending to capture users who place their content on YouTube.

One of the differentiations that I found quite useful, and that I actually heard from Professor Michael Geist, was that there is a difference between a platform, a place where we can put things, that is “curated” versus one that is not curated. That is the word he used. I wish the government had used that kind of language in Bill C-11, because I think it would clarify things a great deal.

In other words, instead of concentrating on who does what on a platform, we should differentiate between the systems and differentiate between the platforms. If we were to say there was this area where there was a conscious effort to promote certain content, it would be a curated place. This is versus one where everybody could put stuff up: It is not being curated to meet a certain purpose. If it is being curated to meet a certain purpose or to create different profit, that would have been a better differentiation than we have in Bill C-11. What we have in Bill C-11 has left us divided.

I do not disagree one bit with my colleague for Kitchener Centre that this bill should be much better and clearer on the question of platform versus user. Platforms will be in and users will be out: I believe that is the government's intent, but the drafting does not make that sufficiently clear. I think we will have to go back to it and improve on and clarify this.

I remain concerned that the CRTC has a lot of clout and power in this. I hope we see that the CRTC is guided by the best information from people who are skeptical about this bill to make sure its use does not do anything but improve the situation for Canadians, both those who enjoy the products of creators and those who create. I hate to use the word “consumption” as if people consume culture, and I will not use it. People who enjoy culture, who are edified by culture and who feel ennobled by culture, those of us who are essentially the audience, need to benefit from this act just as the creators do.

Regarding the discussion around platforms versus users, I do not think the government has it right yet, so why am I going to vote for this bill?

When I look at the creative community, there is no question about this as it is empirically documented. The rise of the digital broadcaster has reduced the economic status of Canadian musicians and Canadian creators versus those in the U.S. Just to give members one example from the world of music, a traditional broadcaster generally sent 49¢ out of every dollar from Canadian music to the U.S. That sounds like a lot. Then, we see that the digital broadcaster sends 64¢ out of every dollar to the U.S. From 49¢ to 64¢ is a big difference to someone who is living on those earnings. In fact, I do not know how Canadian musicians can live on their earnings. In the past year, in 2021, on average Canadian musicians writing their own material earned $67 total in royalties from digital streaming platforms. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that people who are writing their own music in Canada have their income reduced just by virtue of what medium they use to share that material.

We need to have a Broadcasting Act that promotes Canadian creators within Canada and overseas, and we hope this bill will improve things. Certainly, the Canadian Media Producers Association, the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, SOCAN, and the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, ACTRA, are saying that for their own survival as artists we need desperately to redress that imbalance. When it goes onto a digital platform, Canadian artists are paid less. They are valued less, and will turn from that career because they cannot make ends meet. As the rise of digital access to creativity overtakes the traditional, the situation will only get worse, and that is the trend line we see with the digital media and the online sharing of everything from music to film, video and TV.

There is a huge creative class in Canada. As a matter of fact, just to give some context for it, the membership of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers is 175,000 people. By the way, SOCAN does not just promote these brilliant creative people, but it actually runs the system that collects the royalties and distributes them fairly, so when we go outside of that system we are seeing the funds to pay musicians the royalties they deserve slip through their fingers without capturing it. That is why SOCAN is so strongly in favour of Bill C-11.

The same is true of how people feel across the spectrum of other artistic endeavours. We have heard a lot in this place about films like The Handmaid's Tale. It is hard to say one loves The Handmaid's Tale when, as a feminist, one would wonder how Margaret Atwood could see the future coming before we did. I dread the day I go to shop with my debit card and it is taken from me. It is not sufficiently Canadian content when the leads, the producers, the people holding the cameras and the people yelling “cut” are not Canadian. That is what Bill C-11 hopes to repair.

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

Madam Speaker, when I listen to the member speak, I think about the Canadian industry. It seems to me that the Canadian industry will be further ahead with the passage of Bill C-11 than if it is not passed. I wonder if the member could give a clear indication whether she appreciates that or she disagrees with that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I hope I was clear in my speech that this is the reason I am voting for Bill C-11. It is important and urgent that we pass Bill C-11 now.

We saw the last Parliament's attempt to pass Bill C-10. It is not the fault of any of us in the opposition that we had an unnecessary election, which caused Bill C-10 to die on the Order Paper, but Canadian performers and creators have been waiting a very long time to see a modernization that takes into account the way their income is undermined by online streaming. We need to do this urgently, and if it turns out that, as many have warned us, there are mistakes made in other parts of the bill, I hope we will go back and fix that later.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to learn that my colleague plans to support the bill. I admit that I was concerned about the Green Party members, especially when I heard the member for Kitchener Centre take the Conservative position on the issue of digital content creators, on the exemption and on clause 4.2 in particular.

I wondered whether my colleague shared that position and whether she also believed that this clause gave her cause for concern respecting freedom of expression and freedom of creation by these new artists, who are carving out more and more space in our landscape and from whom we will benefit a lot in the years to come, I am sure.

My other question has to do with the Canadian content she was talking about. She brought up The Handmaid's Tale, saying that Bill C‑11 would correct the fact that a production like that was not considered Canadian content.

I want to understand something. Does my colleague think that this content will become Canadian content or, on the contrary, does she think that the rules have to be tightened so that anything produced with stories from here are also produced by artists and talent from here?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will do my best to provide a good answer to both questions from my colleague from Drummond.

First, I am absolutely comfortable with the position taken by my colleague from Kitchener Centre. In the Green Party, we are Green MPs, yes, but we have our own ideas and we do not have to vote with one voice. As members of Parliament, we have our own positions, depending on our ridings.

Second, I think my colleague from Drummond is right. It is vital that we have cultural products from here, made by Canadians and Quebeckers from here. If I remember my colleague's speech correctly, he, like his Bloc Québécois colleagues, clearly supports our creators, directors and film and television creators, and he believes that Quebec culture is more threatened by the development of online broadcasting and must be protected.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member about the CRTC. We know that Bill C-11 would give sweeping new powers to the CRTC. We have heard that the government is not willing to disclose the policy directive for the CRTC. Is it not concerning to the member that we would give the CRTC these new powers without actually knowing what its mandate is going to be and what the policy directive will be?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of concerns about the CRTC. I used to appear as an administrative lawyer in front of the CRTC, a gazillion years ago, on things like the Bell Canada review of revenue requirements when we were breaking up Ma Bell. I was a lawyer with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and was before the CRTC quite a lot.

That policy directive should be public. One of the things the CRTC did in recent years, which I find very concerning, was deciding that Russia Today was appropriate content and available to be packaged on cable channels. That never should have happened.

We need to keep the pressure up to say that we need to see, from the government, the directive to the CRTC, and we need more transparency from the CRTC.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

Bill C-11 is yet another attempt by the Liberals to regulate what Canadians can say and see on the Internet by granting unprecedented powers to the CRTC with, importantly, no clear guidelines or limits on how that power would be used.

The minister has made many claims about Bill C-11. He says that it would protect Canadian identity and culture, that it would help promote diversity and marginalized groups in Canada, and that it would tell Canada's story to the world. These objectives are commendable, but the big problem is that Bill C-11 would actually accomplish none of them. Instead, it would threaten the viability of Canadian digital content creators, stifle innovation and grant unprecedented new powers to the CRTC to dictate what Canadians can read, what they can listen to, and what they can say and see on the Internet.

Like its predecessor, Bill C-10, Bill C-11 is not about promoting Canadian content. It is really about censoring views and ideas that the Liberal government does not like, all under the auspices of strengthening Canadian culture. The bill's so-called discoverability provisions would essentially push content in front of Canadians, if that content is considered Canadian enough, whether people want to see it or not. If it fails to pass the government's definition of “Canadian”, it would be pushed down in the queue where it cannot be found. The CRTC would essentially decide which content creators succeed, what content Canadians see and what content Canadians do not see. The minister has recently declared that he alone would develop rules on what content is defined as Canadian. That is a pretty shocking revelation, that he considers himself the single arbiter of national identity.

This is especially disconcerting since the NDP-Liberal government is also currently developing an online harms bill, which has been so shrouded in secrecy that only recently an access to information request uncovered thousands of pages of negative comments by stakeholders. Critics warned that the original Liberal government plan would amount to censorship. I understand that a new proposal is now being put forward, given all the criticism. It would apparently place the onus on digital platforms to deal with harmful content. Based on the Liberals' track record, no one should believe that this proposal would pose less of a threat to individual liberties than their other ideas. I am not sure how they would tackle real online harms, such as non-consensual or child sexual abuse material, which is often not enforced through platforms right now.

On Bill C-11, thousands of Canadian artists, content creators and policy experts have voiced extreme opposition. They point out that pushing content to viewers who are not interested in it would actually harm Canadian creators, because the algorithms will penalize content that viewers do not interact with.

Justin Tomchuk, a Canadian producer who operates two very successful YouTube channels, noted, “Our channels have highlighted Canadian products for the world to see and purchase. Unfortunately, Bill C-11 would make that more difficult and potentially destroy our visibility internationally.”

Dr. Irene Berkowitz, a senior policy fellow at the Toronto Metropolitan University’s Audience Lab, also testified at committee, and Matt Hatfield said that it's “very risky for a small country like Canada to encourage this kind of model of prioritizing our own content. The benefits are pretty meagre if we make it work for our local content. The risk, if a larger country like France were to do the same thing, is enormous to us.”

Morghan Fortier, co-owner and CEO of Skyship Entertainment, creator of Canada's most-watched YouTube channel, said:

Bill C-11 is...a bad piece of legislation. 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.

Those same points echo around the Canadian arts scene. Scott Benzie, the managing director of Digital First Canada, which advocates for digital content creators, said, “Most concerning about C-11 is that there is still room in the bill for the government to force platforms to put 'approved' Canadian content ahead of independent Canadian content and artificially manipulate the algorithms. Even in the best-case scenario this bill only has downsides for digital-first creators, while the traditional media industry gets their funding doubled.”

The reality is that traditional broadcasters like the CBC would receive more funding under Bill C-11, while independent innovators driving Canadian digital leadership will be left behind. Not only will Bill C-11 not promote Canadian digital content or strengthen Canadian culture, but its discoverability provisions will stifle innovation and impose severe restrictions on what content Canadians can access.

During committee hearings, the campaigns director of advocacy group OpenMedia, Matt Hatfield, said, “Manipulating our search results and feeds to feature content that the government prefers instead of other content is gross paternalism that doesn't belong in a democratic society.”

There really is no better definition of “censorship” than what the Liberal government is trying to do in Bill C-11. Censorship is at its very core. The Liberals even used censorship to cut off debate and ram through an unprecedented 150 amendments to the bill with no discussion or explanation. Over the last two weeks, the Liberals have effectively censored their own censorship bill.

Canadians will remember the fiasco of Bill C-10, which the Liberals introduced last year. Under Bill C-10, people's everyday expressions, which could include pictures, audio and video, would have been magically turned into broadcasting programs when transmitted by third parties like social media firms over the Internet, unless the CRTC or a cabinet policy directive said otherwise. Almost any individual-generated content would become subject to regulation. That is why Internet law expert Michael Geist called Bill C-10 an unconscionable attack on the online free expression of Canadians. As the Liberals stifled debate and used tactics like closure on Bill C-10, Conservatives did propose amendments to protect individual users and smaller players in the market by exempting streaming services and social media users with lower revenues, but the Liberals rejected that common-sense compromise.

Now the minister claims that this new bill, Bill C-11, addresses the concerns about Bill C-10 and that Canadians can be assured that regulating user-generated content on the Internet is now off the table, but that is just not true. In fact, when asked at committee hearings about whether Bill C-11 includes the potential for regulating user content, the CRTC chair, Ian Scott, acknowledged, “As constructed, there is a provision that would allow us to do it as required”.

The Liberals have tried to pull the wool over everyone's eyes with Bill C-11 by apparently reintroducing some original safeguards, while at the same time introducing a new provision that effectively negates the safeguards. I think we all agree with the goal of updating Canada's Broadcasting Act and bringing it in line with the realities of the 21st century. Conservatives have said repeatedly that we support creating a level playing field between large foreign streaming services and Canadian broadcasters, but Conservatives believe we can achieve that reform while also protecting individual rights and without turning the CRTC into an all-powerful censure board with almost no limits to its regulatory authority.

Should Canadians entrust the Prime Minister and the government with the power to regulate what Canadians say and see? Let us look at their track record. There have been many examples of this particular Prime Minister cracking down on those with whom he disagrees, from former senior ministers who defended the principle of judicial independence, like the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, to denigrating and demeaning fellow Canadians who want their freedom back and to end federal mandates, and helping perpetuate misinformation and fake news about them, their motives and their actions. The Prime Minister has actually called Canadians who disagree with him un-Canadian. Therefore, is it any wonder that Canadians would be skeptical about his plans for the cabinet appointments who will define Canadian content for regulation?

This penchant for using the unbridled power of the state against the individual Canadians is embodied in Bill C-11 and in coming legislation the Liberals will claim is necessary. However, stakeholder groups that have been involved in consultations so far have called the Liberals' proposals dangerous, with the possibility of expanding the powers of regulators over time and significantly impacting the free expression and privacy rights of Canadians.

My constituents are clear about their views on the Liberal government's heavy-handed attempts to regulate and control what Canadians are allowed to say and see on the Internet. They have told me they do not agree with the Liberal government's censorship measures. No government agency responsible for broadcasting in a free and democratic society should have the kinds of powers and unchecked discretion as are proposed in Bill C-11. Canadians have fought and died to defend rights to freedom of thought and expression. In a society that cherishes these values, Bill C-11 would leave the door open for real abuses of power against the free expression rights of Canadians.

My Conservative colleagues and I will remain steadfast in working to stop the NDP-Liberal government from taking away the free expression and individual rights of Canadians. In its present form, we oppose Bill C-11, given the potential for it to establish a regime of censorship, control and regulation while not achieving the outcomes its proponents purport.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the speech from the member opposite, although I cannot help but disagree. Someone else who would disagree is the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. This is what they said about Bill C-11:

Canadian creators need support to continue to develop Canadian music in the world of streaming, and Canada must be a place for emerging music creators, where songwriters and composers can create, grow and thrive.... The tabling of the Online Streaming Act on February 2, 2022, is an important first step to make it easier for Canadian audiences to find and engage with Canadian creators, giving our music a place in the world of streaming.

This is a respected organization that is completely behind the aims of Bill C-11. What does the member think about this stakeholder's comments?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, here is what Nettwerk Music Group from Vancouver, B.C. says. It is a full-service artist development and music intellectual property brand builder from over 37 years:

We believe that Bill C-11 represents a fundamental misunderstanding of our industry and how musical artists are discovered and fanbases are built in today’s streaming landscape. The emergence, variety, and growth of online platforms and services and the expanding means and methods to share, stream, view, download, or buy our artists’ music has been revolutionary in allowing us to grow the profiles of our Canadian artists on the world stage. Bill C-11 [has] the potential for significant negative impacts on the businesses of Canadian music companies and Canadian artists focused on building a global audience. Any regulation of our artists’ work, whether distributed by us directly to online services or licensed for use by fans and consumers for inclusion in user-generated content on social media services, is unacceptable. Bill C-11 proposes outdated solutions in search of a problem.

That is why Conservatives think it should go back to committee.

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

Madam Speaker, the Conservative members have talked a lot about freedom of expression and censorship. At this point in the debate, I would like my colleague to tell me exactly what she thinks freedom of expression is and what she thinks censorship is.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, the issue with Bill C-11 is that MPs here are prepared to vote on legislation that grants unprecedented and sweeping powers to a powerful regulatory body without knowing the details, the impacts and the scope. The minister himself has even said that there is going to be some sort of policy directive provided to the regulatory body that we do not know about right now, that MPs have no details about whatsoever.

In the context of this debate, in Bill C-11, I think that it is dangerous and irresponsible of members of Parliament to support pushing through legislation in that context, in that reality. I think that given the learned, expert and diverse cautions about the negative impacts of this bill on the free expression of all Canadians, that is the core principle that members of Parliament must defend. That is why we must oppose Bill C-11.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, since the beginning of the pandemic, one of the hardest-hit sectors was the arts and cultural sector: 25% of arts and culture workers in Canada lost their jobs in the pandemic. At the same time, Netflix's profits increased by 22% in 2020, and it is not paying its fair share. The big web giants pay hardly any taxes in Canada, whereas other broadcasters do.

I am just wondering why the Conservatives are so against supporting the arts and cultural sector. This program would raise a billion dollars for that sector to do work in Canada, yet Conservatives do not seem to want the big web giants to pay their fair share.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, in fact, we have said repeatedly that we think that big foreign streamers should be on an even playing field with smaller Canadian broadcasters. What is very bizarre, I find, about this debate is that the member has raised a legitimate challenge, one I think that we are all aware of and that probably merits debate. However, its remedy is not in Bill C-11. He is talking about a taxation issue.

Other members have talked about pay rates or about competitiveness issues against other jurisdictions on all kinds of different arts and cultural productions. Those are all issues that we should be talking about. Perhaps there are public policy or legislative solutions to those issues, but what is very confusing about this is that Bill C-11 does not deal with any of that.

Bill C-11 gives unprecedented powers to a regulatory body to negatively impact the free expression rights of all Canadians in all online streaming media, and that is why Conservatives oppose this bill.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf on the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

Before I begin, I want to take care of a couple of things. First, there were three people in my riding who were tragically killed over the weekend, including a four-week-old infant. Last I heard, there was a young person as well who remained in critical condition after this tragic motor vehicle accident. I want to assure the family and loved ones who suffered through this that they are in my thoughts and prayers. I just want to take a moment of silence, given the passing of these three people.

On a bit of a happier note, I want to wish my dad a happy Father's Day. I did get to see him yesterday.

The last thing, I promise, before getting into Bill C-11, is that I have two friends getting married this weekend, and I want to give a shout-out on the House of Commons floor to Lucky Sharma and Aimée Marshall on their upcoming wedding. I wish them a life of happiness.

Now let us get on to why we are all here, Bill C-11, and why we are all here sitting late, with Motion No. 11.

I remember when the Liberals, as a third-place party, in 2015, touted themselves as the party of transparency. We were told, “Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways,” and that they would not use omnibus bills. Those are for undemocratic groups like the Conservatives to use. They would not shut down debate. No, that would not ever happen.

Then we had the NDP, the party of the underdog, fighting for each and every person, being the voice for people who did not have a voice themselves, the voice for the voiceless, the party fighting vigorously for democracy above all else, supporting things like Motion No. 11, not only to curtail debate, and I cannot count how many times that has happened recently and in respect to this bill directly, but also to shut down debate.

That, to me, does not sound like either is a party of transparency. I may have expected this from the Liberals. I frankly did not expect it from the NDP. Let us face it, if the Conservatives had done this when we had a majority, it would have been called high-handed. Instead, the rhetoric is, “We just want to get this done.” This is coming from a party that took months to recall Parliament after an unnecessary pandemic election.

Wait, Madam Speaker, there is more. We have over 100 amendments that were moved in committee without any sort of scrutiny. To me, that is undemocratic.

If I could sum up one of the issues I have with this bill, it comes down to a question that I asked the hon. parliamentary secretary. I asked him about TV shows that he had referenced and his saying, if I understood his argument correctly, that we may not have these TV shows if it were not for Canadian content. I challenged him in a question, asking, “Where in Bill C-11 do we preserve the existence of these television shows?”

Somewhat predictably, he did not point to anything in particular. He said that it depends on the content of the shows. That is the interesting part. Here is the problem: this is the classic “the Liberal government knows best”. It is for the government to decide what the appropriate content is.

People ask, “Well, what is the problem with this?” This is the government essentially preferring some media over others, but not only is it preferring some media over others; it goes beyond that, because we do not know exactly how the government is going to go about preferring some media over others. We really do have a compound problem there.

One, why are we preferring? It is ostensibly for the reasons that have been outlined by the government, but then we have this vacuum in which we ask ourselves, well, how are we going to go about that? Rather than flesh that out and rather than spend the time at committee to do this, the government rammed through over 100 amendments. To me, that does not sound like a government that is bent on getting this right, as we have heard so often, because this needs to happen on an act that has not been updated since 1991.

Make no mistake: I am not advocating for the status quo, but I am opposing what we have seen here.

Frequently from the government we have heard, “Why do Conservatives not just get on board with the changing times?” That completely misses the point. The Conservatives are prepared to get on board with the changing times. Just because we are not prepared to get on board with it being done in this way does not mean we do not recognize the necessity for change.

Rather, we have a bill that has been rammed through. If this bill was truly good for the country, why is the government trying to get it done so quickly? It is obviously a near copy of the deeply flawed Bill C-10, which had a number of concerns raised by experts.

I do not deny that we live in an increasingly digital world. We need laws and policies that reflect the world we live in today. I am in my 40s, yet I find myself increasingly telling my family members and my mother that I need a text message rather than a phone call, because we are going back and forth constantly, living in a busy world that is increasingly dependent on electronics.

I am sure I am not the only one who feels as though, while we used to fall asleep reading a book 20 or 30 years ago, we probably now fall asleep doing different things and watching different things.

All that is to say that yes, the law needs to be updated. The question then becomes how Parliament appropriately intervenes, and just because Conservatives are opposed to the intervention itself, the unique intervention that has been put forward, does not mean that an intervention is unnecessary.

Canada's Conservatives support creating a level playing field between large foreign streaming services and content creators, but what we have here would be giving the power to the CRTC to regulate the Internet. In my view, that is not the appropriate way to go about this. This, to me, is an exhortation for more government involvement and more power in what we do. It feels like it never ends when we see the government slowly but surely encroaching into what people will watch, but it is not even clear as to how the government would do that, and that is a really substantial concern.

This bill, in my view, targets user-generated content. That has been discussed at length, and I will not go into it much more. Despite the government's assurances, companies like YouTube still identify areas of the bill that would identify user-generated content. Despite the exemption for user-generated content, this legislation would allow the CRTC to regulate any content that generates revenue, directly or indirectly. That is rather broad.

When we are talking about indirect generation of revenue, where does that line end? Does it end at one person removed, one job removed or one dollar removed? How do we actually judge that? These are unanswered questions that would have been wonderful to answer at committee, and there were many witnesses who would have been prepared to answer these questions.

According to the CRTC chairperson, Mr. Scott, the CRTC issues approximately 250 decisions annually. For an administrative board, that is relatively small. That is fewer than five per week, so I ask myself how we can expect the CRTC to have this capacity. Again, this is consistent with what I am saying. We are just going to grow the CRTC even bigger. That is the answer. That is the response to this. It is to make more government with more policies with more workers, which is going to cost more taxes for ultimately questionable ends.

I am only four pages into a 10-page outline. I have a lot more to say, but I know my time is coming to an end. As much as others here might like to hear it, I know we are under time constraints, so I will answer any questions from my colleagues with that.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I was intently listening to the member opposite on his speech, and he mentioned the approach we are taking. We are listening to stakeholders and content creators, and I would like to share a quote with him from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. I would say they know better than most of us here about content creation. Their CEO said this:

Canadian creators need support to continue to develop Canadian music in the world of streaming, and Canada must be a place for emerging music creators, where songwriters and composers can create, grow and thrive.

Their news release went on:

The tabling of the Online Streaming Act on February 2, 2022, is an important first step to make it easier for Canadian audiences to find and engage with Canadian creators, giving our music a place in the world of streaming.

I would like to ask the member opposite what he thinks about this quote from content creators themselves.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member's question was actually just posed to my hon. colleague. I am not sure if my colleague heard, but my hon. colleague from Lakeland just answered this very question.

If we are going to get into a battle of duelling experts, then we can certainly do that because Professor Michael Geist, a professor of law, somebody whose life revolves around this, has been highly critical of the bill. I am mindful of the fact that reasonable people can disagree on these points. We are never going to have uniformity in what people think, but for instance Professor Geist said:

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage heard from a total of 48 witnesses as individuals or representing organizations during its study of Bill C-11 (excluding the CRTC and government officials). Of those 48, at least 16 either raised concerns about the regulation of user content in the bill or disputed government claims about its effect.

I could go on, but I will wrap up on this. There is certainly not academic unanimity as to the consequence of Bill C-11.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from British Columbia. His riding is magnificent.

I would really like to hear his thoughts on something. I picked up on some major distrust of the CRTC. In my opinion, the CRTC is a relic of the 20th century, but I would like my colleague to expand on why he does not trust it.

Why is he so suspicious of the CRTC?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not distrust the institution so much as I distrust the government. Let us go through it here. The budget will balance itself. We will have modest deficits, I believe $10 billion. The budget will be balanced, set in stone, by 2020. Law enforcement asked for the Emergencies Act. There is also going to eat caviar with Russians when they have recently invaded Ukraine, and blaming people for travelling as to the reason why we have lineups at the borders and long lines and long waits for passports. There is hybrid Parliament, for instance, another one meant to address COVID. The list goes on and on.

I actually had a paragraph about trust built right in, so I thank my colleague for asking that question because really that is what it comes down to. The government is saying, “Just trust us to get this right”, but we do not have all the details. It is not a matter of trust in the CRTC. It is a matter of lack of trust in the government.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, the issue of trust is something we could apply back to the Conservative official opposition, because we had Conservatives pretending that somehow the bill made Canada into North Korea. We had Conservatives pretending that somehow this meant that the government would be following people on cellphones. It is all in Hansard and it is all in testimony that we have seen.

Conservatives repeatedly blocked witnesses from testifying and refused to have us consider clause-by-clause on the bill to actually improve the bill, which is where most of the witnesses were. Conservatives refused to acknowledge that the vast majority of witnesses who came forward were in favour of the bill with improvements.

The NDP went to work and we got more amendments in than any other party. We worked to improve the bill, which I will be talking about in just a moment. I would ask my colleague, whom I respect a lot, how Canadians can trust Conservatives when they have been so misleading and disinforming about the bill.

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

The hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, please answer in 10 seconds or less.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, Conservatives have not been misinforming about the bill. Conservatives want the best bill possible, and we will not apologize for fighting for that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, as a rebuttal to my friend from the Conservative caucus, if Conservatives had wanted the best bill possible, they would not have filibustered in committee for weeks. They would not have blocked witnesses from testifying. They would not have blocked amendments to improve the bill, and they would not have been trying to obstruct at every stage of the bill. When Conservatives say they want the best bill possible and basically engage in systematic vandalism of the bill for weeks and weeks, it undermines their own credibility. There is no doubt of that.

However, that is enough on the Conservatives, at least for a moment, though I will come back a little later on in the 20 minutes accorded to me on Bill C-11 to talk about how the Conservatives basically tried to destroy a bill that would help many Canadians. That is really the essence of Bill C-11 and why this bill was important to bring forward.

Over the course of the last three years, we have seen the collapse of Canadian productions, an average decrease of 12.4% per year. That is a lot of lost jobs. What we saw in digital media was that royalties paid to Canadian creators were three times lower than those for traditional media usage. What that means is that not only are Canadians losing their jobs, but they are being paid far lower than what they should be paid. In 2020, we know that one in four people working in the cultural sector lost their jobs. At the same time, the web giants' revenues, in this case Netflix, increased by over 22% in the same year. What we have seen over the course of that time is musician's revenues falling by 79%, a reduction in production and the loss of jobs as well.

A special guest has just arrived in the House. I am not supposed to comment on who arrives in the House, but I am very happy to see our special guest with the member for Burnaby South. If the Speaker wants to rule me out of order, it is perfectly appropriate to do so. I am just thrilled to see her here in the House, I think for the first time.

We have a series of calamities that have struck our cultural producers and employees, the creative minds that bring culture to Canadians, over the last few years. We needed to ensure in Bill C-11 that we put in a place a level playing field. We know that the web giants' revenues and profits have skyrocketed over the course of the last few years. At the same time, as I mentioned, we have seen a reduction in income from virtually every sector within the cultural sphere. Our artists, creators, musicians and writers are a real benefit to Canada, and we need to make sure we have a level playing field so that they get the jobs and have the future that we all want to see. This is really important.

The context of Bill C-11 is the massive profits of the web giants, which really do not contribute anywhere near their fair share to the production of Canadian content to make sure we have in place that vital and dynamic Canadian cultural sphere. On the one hand, there are massive profits; on the other hand, there are shrinking incomes and a shrinking number of jobs in the sector. The intent of Bill C-11 was to put in place a level playing field and ensure that the web giants actually paid their fair share and made their contribution so that we can have more jobs and more vibrant cultural industries and Canadian creative talent can be set loose.

As we know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who also believes in having a level playing field, went before committee to testify on what it would mean just financially. The numbers talk and make a big difference. I will talk about what he said in his testimony, when he was finally able to testify. It is important to note that the Conservatives, who said they wanted to question him on the bill, also refused to let him in the room so they could question him on the bill. How do we square that circle? This is where the issue of Conservatives undermining Canadians' trust in them is so apparent. They were saying they have to question the minister and then refused to let him into the room so they could question the minister. It was the same way they treated the chair of the CRTC. They wanted to question him on the bill, but refused to let him into the room to answer questions about the bill.

How do we square that circle with Conservatives who have been running amok ever since they basically torpedoed their former leader? They have broken into factions that are fighting each other. That they would not allow the CRTC chair to come in and be questioned, that they would not allow the Minister of Canadian Heritage to come in and be questioned on Bill C-11, does not make any sense at all to any reasonable Canadian.

Our job is to question, to get answers, to push and to prod. The Conservatives just wanted to talk to themselves, make big grandiose speeches and pontificate, but they did not want us to ask the questions that demanded the answers that Canadians needed to see around Bill C-11. However, we finally managed to get the minister into the room, no thanks to Conservatives who were disruptive, vandalizing and trying every possible way to disrupt the proceedings.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage came in and gave us the figure to the question we were asking: What is the estimated net benefit to the Canadian cultural sector, the net transfer from the web giants who have made these massive profits over the last few years to Canadian cultural industries, in terms of employment, higher incomes and making sure that there is prosperity in Canada? The figure is $1 billion, which is how much Bill C-11 would transfer from the web giants, which largely take it out of the country. There is some production that is done in Canada, but not nearly as much as there would be with a level playing field.

Instead of that money leaving the country, it would stay here in Canada and create Canadian jobs. It would create jobs in my riding of New Westminster—Burnaby and our leader's riding of Burnaby South, which is Hollywood north, as members know. It is really the heart and soul of the Canadian production sector. This will mean more jobs for Canadians in our ridings and in ridings right across the country.

It means a future for our young people, even the young people who are here on their first visit to the House of Commons, to actually get engaged as future film editors, as film producers or in a whole myriad of other cultural sectors. It really would guarantee the future. If we think of $1 billion a year over the next 20 years, then we are talking about $20 billion for those children who were born this year. In 20 years when they are out in the job market, there will be jobs for them. This is the kind of investment that pays off over the next couple of decades and that, of course, is also vitally important.

What happened to the bill in committee? What did the NDP do? What was our approach? As members know, our leader, the member for Burnaby South, said that we are here to do work and to improve the lives of Canadians, and that is what the confidence and supply agreement is all about. It is pushing for dental care, which we have never had in this country and which so many Canadian families desperately need. It is pushing for affordable housing at a time of massive crises in affordable housing, after decades of Liberal and Conservative governments doing absolutely nothing about affordable housing. Finally, we have the kinds of investments that will actually make a difference in Canadians' lives.

As well, we have talked about and pushed for Canadian pharmacare to be adopted next year. Under the confidence and supply agreement, this is a vital component. Members will recall that just 15 months ago the Liberals and Conservatives combined in that cruel coalition to vote down the Canada pharmacare act that would have 10 million Canadian families actually get the medication that their doctors prescribed. The Liberals and Conservatives got together and said, “We're going to say no to pharmacare.” However, under the confidence and supply agreement, with the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus, we now have an obligation by the Liberal government to adopt the Canada pharmacare act next year.

On a just transition, we have seen the impacts of climate change. We know what that will mean for young people who, in 20 years, will become adults. If we do not put in place a just transition, if we do not fight back against climate change, it will have a profound impact on their lives.

These are all the things that are in the confidence and supply agreement. These are the things that we pushed for, because we believe in working hard to make Canadians' lives better.

How does that philosophy translate to Bill C-11?

We went to committee with the idea of improving Bill C-11. The vast majority of witnesses who came forward said this is a good bill and is a needed bill, but there are areas of improvement.

The NDP is the effective opposition and no one doubts that. We are the ones who get things done. We are the worker bees of Parliament. We are not like the Conservatives. If we were like the Conservatives, we would be going around in circles and pontificating. What we do is get things done. I understand some of the Conservatives are sensitive to that, but that is okay. They can watch and learn from us so they can be more effective in their roles.

As an effective opposition, we came forward with five areas where we wanted to improve the bill. Madam Speaker, as your eyes indicate, you are interested in hearing more, so let me tell you about those five areas.

First, we know that in broadcasting there are barriers for marginalized Canadians. What we sought, fought for, pushed for and succeeded in doing was changing Bill C-11 so that it now reflects that broadcasters have an obligation to open doors and make sure there is a place for Black and racialized Canadians and their stories. For indigenous people, indigenous cultures and indigenous languages, that is now also an obligation. We are opening those doors to Canadians who have not been heard from. When we look at those accomplishments, they are major improvements to the bill.

As to Canadians with disabilities, members know full well that Canadians with disabilities are the most marginalized Canadians. Half of the people who have to go to food banks to put food on the table are Canadians with disabilities. They are half of those who are homeless in this country, and there is a growing number of homeless. That is why we pushed so hard for affordable housing investments on the scale that is needed to ensure that Canadians have a roof over their heads at night. Half of those people have disabilities.

For Canadians with disabilities to tell their stories, broadcasters and online companies will now need to open that place up. These Canadians have been marginalized for so long, and it is a major achievement in improving Bill C-11. It is a major improvement that we will see in the coming years. That $1 billion in investments can now go to Black and racialized Canadians, indigenous people, indigenous voices, indigenous culture and indigenous languages. Canadians with disabilities will be able to tell their stories and make their own productions. That was a major component of the amendments the NDP brought forward.

The second is community broadcasting. We are seeing a disturbing growth of hate. We have seen this with more racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia. All of these toxic forms of hate are being amplified often by social media sources and algorithms that remain in a black box unbeknownst to us and not transparent at all. These companies are not accountable.

We are seeing more and more of that hate and division. We have seen that in the United States with the Republicans. We saw this in Canada with the so-called “freedom convoy”. I appreciate many Conservative MPs and feel their work is important, but some Conservative MPs, to my immense chagrin and sadness, embraced the so-called “freedom convoy”, even though we saw symbols of hate manifest throughout, such as Nazi flags, flags of vile and violent slavery and slogans that were Islamophobic and anti-Semitic. The convoy wanted to overthrow the government. That was their announced aim. These are things that should not be embraced by any elected official. We should all push back against hate.

However, as we are seeing, part of the antidote to that hate is more enhanced community broadcasting. The second group of amendments that the NDP brought forward and succeeded in passing were amendments that enhance our community broadcasting capabilities, including our radio, TV and online broadcasting, so that people in communities can talk to each other and communities can talk among themselves to build solidarity and build an antidote to the hate and division we are seeing manifest in so many quarters.

This is a fundamentally important series of amendments as well. What they do is turn things back on the community, where we love our neighbours and work with our neighbours, unlike the fear and intolerance we are seeing now with the American Republicans and their wacky campaigns of hate, which unfortunately and disturbingly we see sometimes here in Canada as well. We should never forget that we have seen the most despicable, racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic violence in this country, and we need to constantly stand against that. The second series of amendments is the antidote to that hate by putting the emphasis on community broadcasting, which has been eroded so much over the past couple of decades.

The third and fourth series of amendments touched on the issue of ensuring freedom of expression at all times and making sure that was in the bill, and ensuring at the same time that there is enhanced accountability for the CRTC, because we believe that is important. Those amendments go together in a very real sense. Freedom of expression, as reinforced, will be the direction to the CRTC, as freedom of expression is paramount. At the same time, the CRTC has an obligation, with more accountability mechanisms as well. Those are the third and fourth components of what the NDP brought forward.

The fifth is ensuring Canadian jobs and ensuring the protection and promotion of Canadian intellectual property. We need to make sure that Canadian cultural creators, the creators we are all very impressed with, whether they are musicians, actors, actresses or filmmakers, remain in every sphere of the cultural industries we have. We must have in place provisions to ensure Canadian employment and the protection of Canadian intellectual property. That was the fifth and last series of amendments we brought forward to make sure this bill was stronger.

We supported the principle of the bill; there is no doubt about that, but we believed in enhancing it. That is why we worked hard to build those amendments in the five categories I mentioned to ensure that we had the best possible Bill C-11.

I will come back for a moment to talk a bit about how the Conservatives handled this whole process, because it saddens me.

Our responsibility in the House of Commons is to come forward and, yes, at times oppose legislation. There is no doubt. I remember speaking in the House for 14 hours in a filibuster to block the mean-spirited, ugly, destructive Harper budget of 2012. I stood in the House for 14 hours to stop that budget because of what it would do to destroy the environment and really the livelihoods of people. There was this transfer of wealth to the banks and the very wealthy. All of the provisions of these Harper budgets provided for overseas tax havens that today, as members well know, amount to $25 billion a year of tax money that could be supporting families, seniors, students and people with disabilities and ensuring affordable housing, all of those elements. Yes, we could say the Liberal government had not done much until the confidence and supply agreement and that now things are going to start moving, which is great, but the Harper government was deplorable in all of these areas. There was no accountability at all.

For Bill C-11, if the Conservatives had chosen to say they were going to block the transfer to a level playing field, they could have. Instead, they were very destructive and very unhelpful, filibustering, blocking witnesses and doing everything that I think most Canadians would say parliamentarians should not be doing when their work is to scrutinize and make sure that legislation is better when it comes out of the House than when it came in.

I am pleased to say that the NDP did do that. I am pleased to say that we stuck to our principle of improving the bill. At third reading, it is undoubtedly much improved from second reading for all the reasons I just mentioned. We are proud of that work. As an effective opposition, our job is to block legislation when it is bad, but when it is good and when Canadians agree, we must make sure legislation is better coming out than when it was coming in.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, can the NDP House leader confirm that he agreed with the government to extend hours without the constitutional requirement of—

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

I remind the member that this has been dealt with. As the Chair has previously pointed out, the motion adopted on May 2 simply states that a minister must have the agreement of another House leader. It does not require that the parties to the agreement communicate it to the House. In making the request, the minister implicitly acknowledged that there is an agreement. There is a long-standing principle that we take a member at their word. There is therefore no reason to doubt the existence of an agreement at this time.

Is there a question for the hon. member?

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has a point of order.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to answer the question. Of course, we want to sit here until midnight and work. We are here—

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

I ruled that there is no answering the question.

The hon. member for Mississauga—Malton.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I welcome my colleague's support for this bill. It explicitly excludes all user-created content on social media platforms and streaming services. These exclusions mean that experiences for users creating, posting and interacting with other user-generated content will not be impacted whatsoever.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks of the Conservatives, who have been misleading Canadians regarding this bill.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I am going to fully answer the previous question, though, for the minute that I am given, because I think it is important. Why—

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

I am going to interrupt the hon. member. I did rule on this. There is no need to answer any question, because it has been ruled on by the Speaker.

I would like the hon. member to please answer the question from the hon. member for Mississauga—Malton.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, yes, we wanted to sit until midnight. Yes, I approved it.

On the other question on the importance of how—

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

The hon. member for Calgary Centre has a point of order.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, when my colleague asked a question, you ruled her out of order and then there was no follow-up question. Now you have ruled the member opposite out of order for responding in the manner he did, yet he is still answering the question.

I suggest, if you are treating the two sides equally, that he should stand down and we should get to the next question, please.

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

The hon. member for Calgary Centre has a point. I ruled that there would be no answer to the question. The object of this is to debate the bill. The hon. member for Mississauga—Malton has asked a specific question on the bill and I would like the hon. member to perhaps withdraw the answer.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will withdraw it and answer the second question, which of course is a good one.

The Conservatives have been wild in their disinformation on this issue, and unbelievably so. I thought at first it was because members had not read the bill. Then I realized something. We were giving answers in the House about these things and the minister, of course, was responding, and members of the committee who had read the bill were responding. I realized then that this was not about reading the bill or understanding the bill. It was really about talking to a very narrow base that they want to misinform.

I imagine they were fundraising off of it. I imagine that is why they were being so wildly and deliberately inaccurate. However, I find it sad in a parliamentary context. As members of Parliament, we have a responsibility to get the information and deliver to Canadians information that is accurate. The Conservatives have failed now for months to do that in some areas, particularly most egregiously around Bill C-11, where the disinformation is so unbelievably bad that—

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

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I sometimes like listening to the member when he gives a speech. I thank him for his speech here, but it was really about criticizing Her Majesty's loyal opposition for its role in trying to point out what might be deficiencies in this bill. Some of those deficiencies are fairly obvious.

I can tell the member that I have received more requests from constituents of mine, who have read the bill, regarding what is wrong with it, including on things like exceptions, exemptions, exemptions to exceptions and all kinds of language. There is nothing here that lets people really understand how things will be ruled on going forward.

As opposed to trying to blame Her Majesty's official opposition and saying to look at the bill itself, can we hear what the member has to say about what is good about this bill? So far, he has given us nothing that is good about this bill.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is wild disinformation again. I spoke for 20 minutes, and 17 and a half of those minutes were on the bill itself and the NDP amendments. That is wild disinformation. The Conservatives cannot even calculate with a stopwatch, when 17 and a half minutes are given to what is good in the bill and the amendments that the NDP brought forward. I even talked about confidence and supply.

Yes, I took a couple minutes to talk about what was deplorable conduct from the Conservatives, and there is simply no way to excuse it. What the Conservatives did in blocking witnesses from answering questions and blocking people from getting information was simply deplorable. That does not even make sense. I cannot understand why the Conservatives acted the way they did.

There are many good things in the bill, which is why almost all of my speech, which did last 20 minutes, was on both the importance of the bill and the importance of the significant NDP amendments that have improved this bill.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do think we made improvements to the bill. Even one Green Party amendment managed to get in. It was quite a nice change from Bill C-12, the climate accountability act, on which all of my amendments were killed by the NDP-Liberal deal.

I really regret asking this, but I have not had a chance in this session and we are about to rise for the summer, so I will ask my hon. friend, since he has pointed to the confidence and supply agreement, why the NDP decided that dental care was enough and that proportional representation or significant climate improvements would not be included.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would disagree with the premise of the question. I talked about dental care, but I also talked about affordable housing. The affordable housing crisis is something that is right across this country, including in the riding of my colleague, for whom I have a lot of respect.

This took unprecedented investments, and for the first time we have those unprecedented investments. After 50 years, since the former Liberal government actually ditched the national housing program, we will actually see tens of thousands of units of affordable housing—not market housing, but affordable housing based on income—being built across the country.

The just transition act is an absolutely mandatory part of the confidence and supply agreement as well. This is absolutely necessary, as I know the member knows, through the climate crisis that we are seeing. Last year, of course, both with the heat dome and the atmospheric rivers, we saw first-hand the impact of the climate crisis that is striking so close. We need that immediately.

The Canada pharmacare act is again another piece of significant legislation that has to be adopted next year. There are 27 other components. It is all published online, and we can of course direct people there who want to learn more. It is all online, all of the elements of the accord and all of the important things that will come to Canadians and to our planet as a result.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for all of his work on this file.

In front of me here, I have quotes from the Canadian Media Producers Association, from the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada and many others who support this bill and want it to move forward and understand how much it will help cultural workers.

We have misleading statements from the Conservative Party, which is using misleading statements about freedom of expression to protect the profits of web giants. I am curious if the member can speak to just how unfortunate it is that they are prioritizing the profits of web giants over support for cultural workers.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Victoria for her incredible advocacy and strong push for the environment and for the future of our planet. Coming from British Columbia, I really appreciate and have great respect for her environmental work. It is at such a critical time, when we have seen climate change striking first-hand, particularly in British Columbia as the epicentre.

The member for Victoria has really made an enormous contribution to move this country in a direction we need to go in order to actually and actively combat the climate crisis. I know there is a ton of work still to do, but I wanted to express appreciation for everything that she has done so far, and I know she will continue to keep pushing.

We have had incredible, systematic disinformation from the Conservatives. The vast majority of witnesses who appeared before the committee were in favour of Bill C-11, but they often talked about improvements to the bill. The Conservatives and the NDP took a different tack. The Conservatives' reaction was, “We are just going to shut everything down. We are trying to block everything.” The NDP, as the effective opposition, said, “No, we have to improve this bill.”

The vast majority of witnesses support it. The quotes that the member from Victoria just made are absolutely accurate. We sought to make the bill better, and we succeeded in those five areas I mentioned during my speech, particularly in terms of breaking down the barriers for marginalized Canadians, Black and racialized Canadians, indigenous—

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

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Drummond.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his speech. I had the pleasure of working with him when the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage studied Bill C-11.

He said earlier that he spent only about three minutes criticizing the Conservatives' obstructionist tactics and 17 minutes saying nice things about Bill C-11. I congratulate him on having the self-restraint to spend only three minutes talking about the obstructionist tactics.

I would like his opinion on what I see as a crucial part of Bill C-11, the government's kid-glove treatment of web giants. We would like to see the government really stand up to these digital giants that exploit us and rake in huge profits at Canadians' expense, and especially at the expense of Canada's and Quebec's cultural industry.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that. Does the government's position inspire confidence? Does he believe in the future of our industries, knowing that the government is too spineless to stand up to the web giants?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I also want to thank my colleague from Drummond for his work on the committee. We were able to improve the bill, which is an important part of our work. Another important part of our work as members of Parliament is to pressure the government.

Has the government stood up to the web giants? No, not really. Some of what my colleague said is very true and relevant.

However, we have work to do. The improved version of Bill C-11 is a first step in that direction, but we need to continue our work—

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

Order. We also need to resume debate.

The hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is my first opportunity to speak to Bill C-11 and outline my significant concerns with what the Liberal government is proposing.

I will be sharing my time tonight with my fantastic colleague, the member representing South Shore—St. Margarets.

Let us make no mistake that what is contained within the legislation is extraordinary new powers for the government, through the auspices of the CRTC, to regulate wide swaths of what Canadians can create and watch on the Internet. Moreover, I have never received a letter, email or phone call from a constituent or a content creator in Canada asking the CRTC to regulate the Internet.

A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation on this bill, and one commentator said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I was taken aback for a moment. I had to fully understand why he made that reference, but it got to the crux of the matter, which is that no matter how noble the government’s intended goals may be, this legislation will be an absolute quagmire. It gives the CRTC immense powers. It will give it the power to regulate what Canadians listen to and watch on the Internet, which has never been done before. This bill would also leave the door wide open for the CRTC to even regulate content creators sometime down the road.

Millions of Canadians are rightly alarmed about the Liberal government’s intentions. Bill C-11 would give the CRTC the power to regulate the Internet, and we know the government will introduce a bill in the future to determine what people can say on the Internet. A representative from YouTube who appeared at committee said, “Our concern is that Bill C-11 gives the government control over every aspect of Canadians' experience on YouTube. It does not include effective guardrails on either the powers given to the CRTC or the content to which those powers apply.”

Before I go any further, let us just step back and contemplate the size of the CRTC bureaucracy that will need to be established to undertake what Bill C-11 is trying to achieve. The sheer magnitude of the daily content being created for audiovisual services is hard to wrap one's head around. Across online platforms such as YouTube, podcast apps, websites and everything in between, thousands of hours of content are created in Canada every day. Unlike traditional broadcasters the CRTC regulates, new apps and websites are constantly being created and released to the public. Online platforms have cut out the middleman and dramatically reduced overhead costs, which in previous generations made it difficult for content creators to find an audience. As content creators have discovered, they now have the entire world with which to share their product.

Not only have we seen an extraordinary rise in content creators, but we have also seen several new online companies and platforms emerge. I, for one, welcome this innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, all done without needing tax dollars or regulations. With this in mind, for the CRTC to keep up with all the new platforms in order to regulate them would be impossible. I can imagine it now: hundreds of new CRTC employees scouring the Internet for hours and hours as they look for new platforms they intend to regulate.

Not only is it foolhardy to think the CRTC could ever figure out a way to manage this workload, but it would also be an incredible waste of taxpayers’ dollars, and for what? What are the Liberals trying to accomplish other than to create a mountain of red tape? That question gets to the core of why this legislation is short-sighted and could have disastrous consequences. What happens if the CRTC says it cannot do the job? Does it then come back to the government and ask for legislative powers to demand online platforms apply for authorization before Canadians can access their content? Not only would that be a colossal headache for companies, but many would just walk away from the Canadian market.

Here is another big question: How can the CRTC even impose its jurisdiction on companies that operate outside Canada? Unlike TV channels or radio waves, there is no limit to the number of websites or online platforms. A company might have its headquarters in Europe, its servers in Asia and its IT developers in the United States. While the CRTC might carry a big stick at home, there is no reasonable way for it to enforce its regulations on companies that do not have a single employee in Canada. These are the questions we must be asking.

It is simply impossible to regulate the Internet, as Bill C-11 would inevitably do. As I see this legislation, there will be very limited benefit for the vast majority of Canadians who create content, the Canadians who watch that content and the companies that publish that content. The real issue is, what problem is the government trying to solve? No one, particularly the Minister of Canadian Heritage, has ever provided a solid reason for this Goliath of a bill. The ingenuity and creativity of content creators such as musicians, artists, pundits, bloggers, gamers and everyone in between have been thriving, all without needing the CRTC to regulate the platforms on which they publish.

Never before in the history of our country has there been more Canadian content being created and watched than there is today. For those who want to learn about cooking, follow their favourite folk band, watch a tutorial on how to plant a vegetable garden or listen to people debate politics, all one must do is search for it. Many of those Canadians are generating content or deriving income from their own hard work. Many of them now generate revenue and have even made a full-time job out of it.

According to a 2019 university report, there are an estimated 160,000 Canadian content creators on YouTube alone, including 40,000 who have enough of an audience to monetize their channels. I can only surmise that number has grown since then, and more Canadians have unplugged their cable boxes and now turn to the Internet and online content for their entertainment and news. The reason I am bringing this up is the fact that, through Bill C-11, the Liberals are giving the CRTC the power to regulate the platforms their content is uploaded on.

Internet expert Michael Geist, who has been following this legislation, said, “for all the talk that user generated content is out, the truth is that everything from podcasts to TikTok videos fit neatly into the new exception that gives the CRTC the power to regulate such content as a 'program'.”

This is important because Bill C-11 would give the CRTC the power to write its own regulations. It would be able to determine what is considered the program, which will then fall under its purview. Due to the vague nature of the bill, no one knows what could possibly be deemed a program.

Mr. Geist also wrote about how this bill is created, stating:

[It] is a legislative pretzel, where the government twists itself around trying to regulate certain content. In particular, it says the CRTC can create regulations that treat content uploaded to social media services as programs by considering three factors:

[First,] whether the program that is uploaded to a social media service directly or indirectly generates revenue;

[Second,] if the program has been broadcast by a broadcast undertaking that is either licensed or registered with the CRTC;

[Third,] if the program has been assigned a unique identifier under an international standards system.

The Liberals can get up to say that user-generated content is exempt, but they cannot say that with any great confidence. As a parliamentarian, I am not comfortable with giving so much power to a body that is not directly accountable to Canadians. If Bill C-11 simply wanted to regulate Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and the other large streaming services, we would be having a completely different conversation. I implore my Liberal colleagues to shelve this bill and go back to the drawing board. There are too many questions and too many concerns for it to proceed.

In closing, I want to stress how unrealistic and impractical it is to regulate the Internet. The consequences of this poorly drafted legislation would likely be to weaken consumer choice and hurt the potential of Canadian creators. I, for one, cannot and will not vote in favour of a bill that would grant the CRTC so much power. Canadians are rightly very concerned that this is overreach by the current Liberal government.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives used every tactic in the tool box to delay and block Bill C-11. At committee, all the members agreed to study the bill for 20 hours of witness testimony. However, the Conservatives did not allow that because they filibustered for seven hours. They went as far as to filibuster their own study at one point.

Why will the colleague and his colleagues not support Canada artists and creators?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, obviously it was in my speech. With the greatest number of creators we have ever had in Canadian history today, there is no way the CRTC is going to be able to manage trying to keep track of everyone through the mechanisms that it will have to put in place to monitor every one of those thousands that are coming into blogs and Internet services every day in Canada.

Our job as the opposition is to try to bring forward good ideas. The government was exempt of that, so we have tried to hold their feet to the fire as a good opposition would. We have heard from thousands, more like millions, of Canadians who have said that the bill is inadequate.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I quite like my friend from Brandon—Souris, who serves with me on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

He said at the end of his speech earlier that we should not try to regulate the Internet. However, regulating the Internet is not the purpose of the bill. I am sure my colleague is well aware that if Quebec wants its culture to flourish in a sea of anglophones, it needs support. That is what the bill seeks to do: offer support to Quebec culture to enable it to compete with American commercial culture.

That is how the bill should be regarded. The objective is not to regulate the Internet or to limit freedom of expression, but rather to ensure that all forms of expression find their place on the Internet, especially French-language expression.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, this is not about culture. We all have the opportunity to express that anywhere in Canada. The bill is about regulating programming, and the government has given the CRTC the power to determine what a program is and then regulate it. I would be very worried about it if I were from Quebec. I am from Manitoba, another bilingual province. We have to be very concerned about the government interfering in the lives of creators who are putting this content out there every day. Some of them are making a very good living at it.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, it was clear after listening to the member's speech that the Conservatives simply do not want the bill in any shape or form. The member basically said it was impossible, yet Canadian arts and culture workers have been clambering for us to pass the bill because they know how beneficial it will be for them. They have struggled over the past two years, and they need this support.

We have the web giants such as Netflix and YouTube, which are making record profits yet pay no taxes in Canada. This is what the bill is about. I am wondering about the Conservatives saying that we should spend more time at it, yet they filibustered at committee and stopped witnesses from appearing. They delayed getting their amendments in. What is their game plan?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

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

Order. There is a member who is trying to answer a question.

The hon. member for Perth—Wellington has a point of order.

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

Madam Speaker, I did call out just to correct the member about the Conservatives' strong position on this matter, and its strong principles—

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

The question is that we do not like disorder in the chamber, especially when another member is trying to answer a question.

The hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would have gladly given my time up to my colleague from Perth—Wellington to answer that question because he is absolutely right. What we are talking about here is the creation and the creators on the Internet, not the traditional types of media that we have had in Canada. This is the Internet sites that we are dealing with and the types of creation that are on there are growing and expanding. I do not know where the member gets his information, but there are more creators on the Internet today than we have every had before.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of my riding, South Shore—St. Margarets, to speak on Bill C-11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act, the first amendments in 31 years, I believe.

I was disheartened to see how swiftly the government moved to shut down debate on this important bill. The irony is not lost on me, or probably on the House, that the government moved to stifle debate on a bill designed to control what people can see or say on the Internet. The irony continues because the heritage minister recently stated that he does not expect the Senate to rush the bill through in the other place. This raises the question as to why the government was so eager to have the bill moved through the House of Commons committee.

My colleague for Perth—Wellington noted that the minister does not expect the Senate to rubber-stamp it, but for some reason he expects the House and our 338 duly elected members of Parliament to rubber-stamp the bill. The Liberals voted closure on the second reading of the bill, a bill that would let the government prioritize what is most important for us to see on the Internet, and a bill that would put new entrepreneurs under the thumb of government regulation. This is what the witnesses who generate content on the Internet say. This is what, in committee, the head of the CRTC said. Now, I know other members may have their own opinion, but I think it was the expert, the head of the CRTC, who said that the bill would give it the power to regulate the Internet.

The Liberals did not take what they were hearing and did not like what they were hearing in committee. What did they do? They had the House of Commons put closure on the public hearings and the clause-by-clause phase under the anti-democratic Motion No. 16, which stopped what the committee was doing on the bill and forced clause-by-clause without debate. It even stopped the committee members who moved those motions from reading their motions.

Numerous times during clause-by-clause, I asked the chair, when Motion No. 16 was stated, where in that motion it said, when it talked about debate, whether or not a member could actually read their motion so people watching could find out. The Chair went further to say that he was interpreting Motion No. 16 to mean that members could not even read the motion in the debate, which was quite shocking, because the member for Vancouver Centre who chairs the heritage committee, in 2015 on another piece of legislation, said:

We need to discuss why the government does not listen at committee stage to anything anyone says. It does not accept any amendments from anyone at all, and then it complains that the opposition refuses to allow public consultation. Everyone has accepted that public consultation should occur. Public consultations went on before [it] was set up.... We are absolutely not opposed, but we think we should listen to experts and to people who tell the minister what the government should be doing with the bill, but nobody listens in this government.

That was from the member for Vancouver Centre, who chaired this committee, so it is incredible that the Liberals continued to follow a different path during these discussions. Conservatives have raised the concerns of Canadians time and time again, but sadly the Liberals are too focused on ramming through this legislation. The NDP, of course, were reading from talking points that someone in their coalition had provided them.

The member for New Westminster—Burnaby and the NDP House leader is fond of quoting Tommy Douglas, and I will read for him something that Tommy Douglas said: “The greatest way to defend democracy is to make it work.” Before the member joined the government, he used to understand that the House rules are made to ensure that opposition could do its duty in making democracy work by scrutinizing legislation. In hearing from a variety of witnesses on that legislation, and on proposing and discussing amendments to that legislation, since the member for New Westminster—Burnaby joined the Liberal government, he now thinks the opposition's role is to rubber-stamp legislation, as he clearly did during clause-by-clause.

The member for New Westminster—Burnaby said, in 2015:

There was concern over a wide variety of community impacts as well. We have a government that brought forward a badly flawed bill last year and forced it through. Initial debates reflected very poorly on the government, so it hid the bill for a year and is now bringing it forward with closure, trying to ram it through the House with no due parliamentary consideration.

He was often a critic of tactics of closure before, but he seems to enjoy using closure now that he is part of the government.

Conservatives would have updated the Broadcasting Act while also respecting digital-first creators and those Canadians who want to excel here at home and around the world with the freedom to create and earn a living without government regulation.

Bill C-11 contains disturbing open-ended online censorship regulatory power for the government. The legislation would allow the CRTC to regulate any content that generates revenue directly or indirectly in proposed paragraph 4.2(2)(a). That means virtually all content would still be regulated, including that of independent content creators earning a living on social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Spotify.

What does “indirectly” mean? Everything posted on the Internet has some sort of identifier and code to it, and it is on a page. Everything and everyone in the House is on a page. Opposite that, everything posted on social media has advertising beside it, so everything posted on the Internet indirectly generates revenue. That is why the CRTC chair says it can regulate all user-generated content.

When Canadians do an Internet search or look at videos on YouTube or TikTok, the Liberal government, in this bill, would require that those platforms prioritize Canadian content to the top of the list of what people see. The CRTC would pick the winners and losers of what Canadians can see. It would determine whether the cat video one wants to see has sufficient Canadian content. Is the cat Canadian? Is the videographer Canadian? Was it filmed in Canada? That is how the CRTC would impact what one can see on the Internet.

It is horse feathers that this bill would not give the government the power to regulate all user-generated content, as the minister claims. The Liberal government rules will drive what one sees on the first page, and not what is most popular. Most people do not go past the first page. This bill forces platforms to develop algorithms to choose what cat video comes first on search pages. This is why this bill is so dangerous, but the NDP-Liberal government thinks if it moves we should regulate it: “Hi, we are here from Ottawa and we are here to intrude on people's lives.”

Liberals say to trust them, yet they refuse to release the directive that is required to give to the CRTC. That is the trust they ask of us. They say that it is not their intention and not to worry. If they want that trust, then they should make the CRTC directive public now, before the bill passes. What is the government hiding?

The minister has tried to claim that user-generated digital content and YouTube creators, TikTok creators and Canadians who have been able to burst onto the scene not just in this country but internationally, are free from having that content regulated. The government says it has no interest in looking at that. If that were true, the government should have made it clear by voting for our amendments in committee. It refused to pass amendments that would remove the government's and the CRTC's ability to regulate user-generated content indirectly. To me, that says it all. By refusing to do that, by defeating the amendments that would prevent the government from regulating indirect revenue and user-generated content when supposedly the government was open to amendments in committee, it admits the bill has that power.

The NDP-Liberal government only wants to see its ideas on the Internet, and no one else's. The bill is another dagger, in my view, to our democracy. I would urge all members to please vote against this at third reading.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, in thinking back to Progressive Conservative governments of the past, they very much championed the idea that television corporations or radio corporations, for example, would have an obligation to support Canadian content. The world has changed very much since the last time the Broadcasting Act was updated in 1991. Streaming services play a fundamental role and are even more important than radio and television in terms of story creation.

Why not ask those streaming services to support the creation of Canadian content? That is my question to the member. That is the fundamental aim of this bill.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, the ability of Canadian artists to develop their programs, music or content has not been hindered by not being regulated. The other day, the member for Kingston and the Islands spoke at length about one quote from The Tragically Hip saying how it could not have burst onto the scene without the use of this bill. It managed to burst onto the scene without this, and so did Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Alessia Cara, the Weeknd and Carly Rae Jepsen. They were all discovered on the Internet without the help of the CRTC or the Liberal government.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets for his speech. I had the pleasure of sitting with him during the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-11, and we had a lot of fun. It was probably the most entertaining part of the study, I must say.

Having said that, in his speech, he talked about how the legislation would allow the CRTC to regulate content such as user-generated content, which I think is an unfounded statement. I am wondering how many opinions he would have needed to hear to convince him that there is no infringement on freedom of expression or on user-generated content. Clearly, I am talking about opinions that were contrary to the few that were presented by the witnesses invited by the Conservatives. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this. I know he did not attend all the committee meetings, but I think he has a pretty good idea of our work.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I also enjoyed our time sitting next to each other during the long hours into the evening on clause-by-clause. We had a lot of fun joking back and forth. That is part of the fun we can have sometimes in this place, regardless of the party.

In answer to the member's question, I do not think there is an actual number, but there were dozens more witnesses we were trying to hear from. I do not think the committee ever settled that 20 hours would be the limit. In fact, committees often change the number of witnesses once they are into the committee and say they should hear from more people. We thought we should perhaps hear from a few more witnesses to get a more balanced approach so we could have more discussion about the amendments that were being proposed in clause-by-clause.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is pretty rich to hear the Conservatives quoting Tommy Douglas, especially when it comes to time allocation: Under the Harper government, the Conservatives used time allocation over 100 times. I encourage my Conservative colleague to reflect on the words of Tommy Douglas when he said, “The greatest way to defend democracy is to make it work.” What we have seen from the Conservative caucus is obstructionist tactics, delays, repeated points of order and attempts to slow down legislation, not to try and make democracy work.

I encourage my colleagues to think about that.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the quote. The NDP used to remember what it was like to be in opposition, but now it seems to speak for government. The tools that the opposition has for democratic discourse are limited relative to members of the NDP-Liberal government trying to ram things through. We had to use every tool in our arsenal, which is limited in—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Skyview.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Brampton Centre.

I am pleased to rise today to share my support for Bill C-11, the online streaming act. The overarching goal of the act is to ensure that online streamers contribute in an equitable but flexible way to the creation of Canadian content, just as our broadcasting system has done for decades. I want to talk about why this bill is fundamentally important when it comes to our music sector.

Online streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have dramatically changed how we listen to music. Today, most Canadians use YouTube as their primary music streaming service; however, these online streamers are not subject to the same rules as traditional broadcasting services such as over-the-air television, cable and radio. Right now, our system is not supporting Canadian musicians and creators the way it should.

The music sector is important to Canadian society. It includes a wide array of artists, including songwriters, composers, performers and arrangers. Agents, producers, record labels and many others also support their work. The music production and sound recording industry accounts for over $625 million to Canada's GDP and almost 10,000 jobs. Through their music and lyrics, Canada's musicians help create relationships and memories, initiate important social discussions and forge a collective national identity and values. Music allows us to share our country, our culture and our ideas throughout the world.

For decades, Canadian broadcasters have given us incredible Canadian content on our televisions and radios. This is by no accident. We choose to be different from the cultural juggernaut of the United States. We care about our cultural sovereignty. We believe our diversity should be celebrated. Our culture is who we are as Canadians. It is our past, our present and our future. It is how we tell our stories to each other.

As a condition of their licences, radio broadcasters have had to invest in our culture and our artists. It is why we have all the great Canadian content we love. Whenever we hear Charlotte Cardin, Coeur de Pirate, Joni Mitchell, Drake, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Great Big Sea, the Arkells and The PropheC from Calgary Skyview, it makes us proud to be Canadian.

Since the early 2000s, the music industry has navigated a landscape that has been proudly changed by new distribution models offered by online platforms. We have also seen the music industry evolve from selling music on physical media to digital sales and downloads and, most recently, the increasing popularity of online streaming. Online streaming has had positive impacts for Canadian consumers and certain artists.

Online broadcasters make music readily accessible to Canadians wherever they have an Internet connection available. They can access a variety of music and playlists tailored to their pace and interests. Streaming has also allowed a number of artists to be discovered and has bolstered their careers in other countries. Ruth B. is just one notable example of a Canadian artist who has achieved great international success after being discovered online.

However, the upheaval caused by digital platforms has also had significant consequences for our broadcasters and musical artists. Currently, online platforms have no regulatory requirements to support Canadian music. As more and more Canadians listen to online platforms and the revenues of traditional broadcasters drop, so too does the funding and support for Canadian musical artists. We need to fix this now.

We have heard, loud and clear, from Canadian music producers that passing Bill C-11 is critical to the industry. I want to share a quote from SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada:

Canadian creators need support to continue to develop Canadian music in the world of streaming, and Canada must be a place for emerging music creators, where songwriters and composers can create, grow and thrive.

It continues:

The tabling of the Online Streaming Act on February 2, 2022, is an important first step to make it easier for Canadian audiences to find and engage with Canadian creators, giving our music a place in the world of streaming.

The chair of the board of the Canadian Independent Music Association told us that:

The most tangible way to get our artists heard in Canada and around the world is to ensure that we have awesome Canadian artists, supported by strong Canadian owned independent music companies that can compete in the global music market.... I welcome all initiatives that help make our companies stronger and our artists thrive.

That is why we are here. On this side of the House, we want to see our artists thrive. Bill C-11 seeks to update our broadcasting framework so that online platforms would be required to support Canadian music and artists, just as traditional broadcasters currently do. Bill C-11 would ensure that our musical artists would continue to contribute to Canadian culture and be able to make a living from their music. This bill is a part of our wider commitment to supporting artists in Canada and strengthening our arts and culture sector.

In conclusion, this bill realizes the importance of investing in Canadian music. Bill C-11 creates a competitive and sustainable broadcasting system while supporting music. The modernized and fair regulatory framework that it proposes would support Canadian artists and broadcasters.

I ask the hon. members of the House to support this bill. We owe it to the next generation of Canadian music talent.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague talked about the cultural juggernaut of the United States and how this bill is meant to forestall that cultural juggernaut.

However, over the last several months, we have been in the House debating bills that pertain to issues that primarily arise in the United States. In as much as we are culturally juggernauted by the United States, we seem to be responding to it in the House. I am hoping that the member does not have a bill in front of the House that he is supporting that would actually lead to more of that or bring in more U.S. culture and politics. Could he address that?

It is not his party's practice to keep these issues out of Canadian politics.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what this bill does is it makes sure that we become a juggernaut when it comes to supporting Canadian music, artists and talent. I can tell members that my constituents and many great artists need and want the opportunities to flourish and to be able to become those great artists, many of the great artists that I mentioned a few minutes ago in my speech.

This bill also makes sure that we can support those Canadian artists and content, as well as support Black, indigenous and racialized communities across Canada.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. We are among friends, it is late and we are chatting. The government just gave notice of a time allocation motion. I must say that this in no way comes as a surprise.

I would like to know what is going on with the official opposition. We are trying to regulate and protect content, not control it. I do not understand.

Why does my colleague think the official opposition is so opposed to Bill C‑11?

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we see constant delays by the official opposition in bringing forward important legislation that supports Canadians from coast to coast to coast. This bill does that. It supports Canadian content and artists, to the contrary of what the opposition is saying. It is unfortunate the Conservatives do not want to support an important bill to help modernize, from the 1990s, the Canadian Broadcasting Act. This bill brings opportunities for Canadian content and for better funding and support for Canadian artists to thrive from coast to coast to coast in both official languages, and it supports Black, indigenous and racialized communities as well.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a step in the right direction, but web giants like Netflix, Facebook and YouTube still do not pay their fair share. What is needed is a digital services tax, a tax that would require these web giants to pay their fair share on the profits they are earning here in Canada. I wonder if the member would commit to pushing his party to ensure that web giants pay their fair share.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is extremely important because it mandates that many of those companies the member mentioned contribute to the system to support Canadian content. I am in support of that. I am supportive of the Canada Media Fund being well funded to support Canadian content, and all broadcasters should contribute to that. I look forward to working across the aisle with my colleagues to see how we can improve that and how we can make sure that all broadcasters contribute to that so that local artists and contributors to Canadian content can thrive and survive in this highly competitive industry.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, over the years, I have had many conversations with content originators, mainly musicians, who have complained that in the current online environment it is almost impossible to make a living, and it is suffocating the Canadian music industry. I wonder if the member could tell us more about how this bill will help them to survive and thrive.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is so important to make sure that Canadians who are working hard to bring forward music, and artists, have the opportunity to do so. I can tell the member about, in my riding of Calgary Skyview, a number of artists, such as The PropheC, who from a young age has been creating music and is now an international success. He is from a racialized community. Jarnail Aielonn is somebody who supports working hard by day, but in the evening he is producing great music and content around the world. It will help people like that across the country who currently do not have the opportunity to flourish and provide great content and great music for all of us to enjoy.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Calgary Skyview for sharing his time with me.

I respectfully acknowledge the Anishinabe people as I join the debate from the national capital region located on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin nation.

It is an honour to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill C-11, the online streaming act. This bill represents an important milestone in supporting Canadian culture, both today and into the future. Some critics of the bill have questioned the need to safeguard Canadian culture, and I would like to take the opportunity today to talk about some of the unique benefits provided by the Canadian broadcasting system.

While online broadcasters are an important element of the Canadian system in this day and age, some genres like sports remain the mainstay of traditional broadcasters. With this legislation, the sports programs that Canadians currently enjoy would remain available in the future as technologies evolve and business models change.

Canada has a rich history of athletic excellence, and Canadian broadcasters have been there to capture these moments and share them with our fellow Canadians. In the earliest days of radio, Foster Hewitt would welcome fans to hockey broadcasts on Saturday nights with his iconic sign-on: “Hello, Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland.”

Broadcasting helped inspire a love of one of our national sports for generations of Canadians. Broadcasters have covered innumerable Stanley Cups, the historic summit series between Canada and the U.S.S.R. at the height of the Cold War, and both our men's and women's national teams winning gold medals on home soil in the 2010 Winter Olympics, hosted by Vancouver. Moments like these bring Canadians of all backgrounds together. They are fun, entertaining and dramatic. Such experiences strengthen the cultural fabric and sense of sovereignty of our country.

It is not just hockey that broadcasters showcase for Canadians. Through the small screen, Canadians have seen numerous remarkable athletic achievements. Television and radio have chronicled the Toronto Blue Jays, first in 1992 then again in 1993, and the Toronto Raptors in 2019, becoming the first champions from outside the United States in professional baseball and basketball respectively.

We watched as Mike Weir became both the first Canadian and the first left-handed golfer to win the Masters in 2003. Similarly, Georges St-Pierre won two UFC welterweight championships, cementing his reputation as a renowned athlete and possibly the best MMA fighter ever. Traditional broadcasters, through a range of offerings like basic cable and pay-per-view television, have allowed us to follow these careers and share in these exciting moments.

We saw Donovan Bailey go down in history as the fastest man in the world when he won Olympic gold in 1996. We marvelled when Bianca Andreescu captured the first tennis singles major in Canadian history by winning the 2019 U.S. Open.

The country was captivated by one of the most inspiring athletic achievements in history when Terry Fox ran 5,300 kilometres across Canada in 143 days to raise money for cancer research during the Marathon of Hope.

Sports and athletic achievements are without a doubt an important part of Canadian culture. Canadian athletes set records and break ground. They reflect the diversity of our country, and we can celebrate their athletic accomplishments in real time, in part because these sports programs are made available through our broadcasting system.

Cross-country skier and biathlete Brian McKeever has a career total of 17 medals and is now Canada's most decorated winter Paralympic athlete, an honour previously held by the late Lana Spreeman. The Paralympic Games raise the profile of accessible sports with coverage by CBC and by other broadcasters. In the recent winter 2022 Paralympic Games, Canada ranked third as a country, bringing home 25 medals.

As a particular point of pride, Canada is a leader in women's sports and making strides toward gender equity in the field. For instance, when Christine Sinclair scored her 185th international goal, she broke the scoring record for both men's and women's international soccer. Quinn became the first transgender, non-binary athlete to earn a medal when the Canadian women's soccer team won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Moments like these inspire Canadians and create a shared sense of national pride and unity. Canadian broadcasters have played a key role in sharing these events with Canadians. That is why Bill C-11—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Order. We have a point of order from the hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to give the member for Brampton Centre a couple of seconds to sit down and maybe collect his thoughts, because he might be reading the wrong speech from the department. It does not seem to be relevant to Bill C-11. I enjoy the walk down sports history lane, but I do not see the relevance to Bill C-11. Perhaps the department gave him the wrong speech.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I thank the member for the interruption. It is not a point of order.

I will recognize the hon. member for Brampton Centre.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, sports and broadcasting have a strong relation. They go together, and that is the history I am talking about. Bill C-11 is important because broadcasters are directly related with this and sports history is really important to tell to Canadians.

Just as a level playing field is vital for sports, it is equally important in broadcasting. Requiring online broadcasters to contribute to the broadcasting system in an equitable manner will help ensure that significant sports moments continue to be broadcast to all Canadians.

In conclusion, without a doubt our culture includes sports teams and leagues, big and small, that we follow as aspiring players ourselves. Whether fair-weather fans or steadfast fans, we are fans across the country.

Bill C‑11 is important for many reasons. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today on how modernizing the legislation would level the playing field between traditional and online broadcasters so that both can compete in a fair manner that is sporting after all.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his sports analogies. I am not sure how they are relevant to Bill C-11, since sports are actually not entirely captured in Bill C-11, since Canadian broadcasters use sporting commentary to fulfill their CanCon requirements, but since he is on sports, I wonder if he would join me in condemning Hockey Canada for failing to disclose, four years ago, a sexual assault that occurred in London, Ontario.

Will he join me in condemning Hockey Canada for covering that up for the last four years?

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, yes, I would.

This bill explicitly excludes all user-created content on social media platforms and streaming services. These exclusions mean that the experience for users creating, hosting and interacting with other user-generated content will not be impacted whatsoever, while the treatment of commercial content such as TV shows and all songs across all platforms will still be standardized.

This bill tells the CRTC to work with platforms to ensure a certain amount of Canadian content is showcased on platforms in both official languages as well as indigenous languages. Clause 12 of the online streaming act explicitly states that any regulation that CRTC imposes on platforms through the Broadcasting Act cannot infringe on Canadians' freedom of expression on social media.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑11 contains many extremely important points that we have not discussed much because all kinds of events happened that prevented us from really debating issues that I feel are very important.

For example, we have talked about the concept of discoverability at length, but the idea of the concept of discoverability has boosted francophone culture and enabled francophone artists to have great careers and develop an enviable audience, especially on the radio, in Quebec and probably eastern Canada as well.

I would like my colleague to say a few words about discoverability because this is an extremely important concept in the context of Bill C‑11. It is important to the development of Quebec content and francophone content across Canada.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this bill updates CRTC guidelines that will increase the proportion of French language content to be supported through the Canada Media Fund and other streams. For example, clause 6 of the online streaming act specifies that all new requirements for platforms must work to support and enhance French and English minority language communities across the country.

With regard to minority languages in the North American media landscape, we are taking action to protect and promote francophone creators and storytellers. This is a part of the Government of Canada's larger commitment to ensure the vitality of French language and minority language communities.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for years, one of the things that the NDP has been calling for is a level playing field, a new Broadcasting Act that would stop the unfair competition that our broadcasters and our arts sector have been facing for years and years. The Liberals have been in power for six years or seven years now, and I am wondering if the hon. member can estimate how many jobs have been lost because we have not been forcing Netflix and the other web giants to pay their fair share to support Canadian work in the arts and cultural sector.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for decades Canadian broadcasters have given us incredible Canadian content through television and radio. That was not an accident. We have chosen to be different from the cultural juggernaut of the United States. We care about our cultural sovereignty. We believe our diversity should be celebrated. Our culture is who we are as Canadians.

I am sorry, but English is not my mother language, just to let the hon. member know.

It is our past, our present and our future. It is how we tell our stories to each other. As a condition of their licences, television and radio broadcasters have had to invest in our culture and our artists.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Trois-Rivières.

Since we are talking about culture, all of the Quebec TV series recently ended for the season, so I want to say hello to my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my spouse and my two grown daughters, who are almost finished their school year. In a few days, we will be returning home to our riding.

All joking aside, we have raised a lot of issues since the start of this debate. This is the first time I will be speaking about this subject, and so I will put my colleagues back on the right track.

Quebec culture is at the heart of the Bloc Québécois's mission and mine as an MP, and broadcasting is certainly one of the most effective tools for getting the message out and helping to define our national identity. It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois supports this reform. We even supported time allocation before the last election. Indeed, we agree with this legislation. Why? It is because the Broadcasting Act has not been updated since 1991. Generations are getting shorter as technology evolves in leaps and bounds. It is about time.

In May 2021, in La Presse, Paul Journet wrote: “Our broadcasting and telecommunications laws were written in the VHS era”. My daughters associate VHS with that big box of memories I pull out so we can watch snippets of their mother's teenage years. Now that is old.

The system has become outdated and unfair. Unlike our radio and television stations, today's platforms, which are often run by foreign giants, have zero obligation to fund or broadcast Canadian cultural content. Our companies are at a disadvantage, and our artists are losing revenue. For example, in 2019, 52% of audiovisual content produced in Canada was not Quebec content. Let me say that again. In 2019, 52% of audiovisual content produced in Canada was not Quebec content. It was content made in Canada by foreign companies.

Furthermore, according to data from the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office, the number of Canadian productions decreased by 12% each year between January 2017 and 2020. I know several producers, and they can confirm this. It is alarming and it is high time we address it.

The 30 or so titles from Quebec on Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix make up 0.1% of their Canadian catalogue. Quebec film and television series producers and distributors, whose work I admire, are still finding it very difficult to sell their shows to these American streaming giants. Of course, there are very few shows made in Quebec. In September, there were none on Disney+. I invite my colleagues to go check; it is appalling. This has to change, because rich cultural expression is out there and people should be able to access it.

No more than five of Amazon Prime Video's 1,400 titles are from Quebec. When I tell my daughters that, they say they understand why we watch more shows in English than in their mother tongue.

Netflix is the only platform to have increased its Quebec catalogue significantly. I have to say I appreciate that. The California-based company has more than quintupled its production in Quebec over the past two years, from five titles to almost 30.

Even though minority communities account for 14% of Canada's francophone population, francophone television production in minority communities accounts for just 4% of the total.

When it comes to music, francophone music on digital platforms represents only 2.7% of the 10,000 most popular songs. Those numbers are hard to see.

The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, or SOCAN, recently reported to the Canadian Press that francophone artists in Canada receive only 2% of the digital royalties paid in the country. After recording an album, an artist would receive only a few cents, especially if it is on a platform like Spotify, so it really is a poor reflection of the consumption of Canadian content on digital platforms, never mind the impact it has on the economy.

This is where our minds are right now. We have been waiting for this bill for months, and we are making a major and constructive contribution, especially thanks to my hon. colleague from Drummond who did so much to help improve it. We hoped to pass this bill before the election, when it was called Bill C-10. Now we have Bill C-11 before us, and it must pass.

I will repeat the main points. What is this bill all about? It concerns the protection and promotion of original French content. So far, so good.

Earlier, my esteemed colleague from Drummond spoke about discoverability, or discovering Canadian programming and original Canadian content, and especially having a fair share of original French-language content. The term “fair” is very important. There is also the showcasing aspect. When the content is good, it is showcased in programming in both official languages and also in indigenous languages.

There is also the mandatory contribution to the Canadian broadcasting system in the event that a business is unable to access Canadian resources for its programming. We spoke about control earlier, and I look forward to hearing the questions I will be asked. We need to have first-run French content to ensure the presence, or discoverability, of new broadcasts on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney+. There are older programs or old films that we like to watch these days, especially when we return to our ridings.

There is a sunset clause to ensure that there is a thorough review of the legislation every year. Why? Because technology changes so quickly. We have to leave some elbow room to review, compile and correct course in order to be sure, for once, that we are in tune with the times.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage promised us that the Bloc Québécois's amendments would end up in the new version. They are indeed there. The wording of some of them is slightly different, but the important thing is the substance. Nothing can be left to chance in a bill where we want to be able to course correct in the event that changing one simple word has a major impact on the effect of the clause.

From day one, the Bloc, backed by Quebec's entire cultural sector, was the party that worked the hardest on improving Bill C‑10 and getting it passed. Unfortunately, it was dropped from the Order Paper. I have been a member since 2019, and I learned that we have to start over when that happens.

For my last minute, I would like to say that with each month lost, though whether because of our fatigue, the filibustering or some other reason, I think about the industry. That is $70 million that is not going to our artists in Quebec and Canada.

It is time to do something about this, so I urge all my colleagues to vote in favour of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the enthusiastic support for Bill C-11 and the member's comments in regard to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and being genuine in wanting to improve the legislation and look for amendments. The Bloc members have contributed a number of thoughts that ultimately influenced the legislation that we have today.

The member has recognized with enthusiasm the potential within the legislation, in particular for things like the French language, and that it has a very positive impact for young people who are looking at the arts performance area and at being in that whole industry. I am wondering if she could provide her thoughts in regard to the important message this sends to young people who see themselves getting into the arts programs.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the arts, such as music, theatre and languages, encourage us to explore. That is culture.

As I was saying earlier, more diversity and discoverability lead to more wealth, which will have a positive effect on the next generation of creators, those young creators who have struggled to get through the pandemic because they were isolated.

Hold on to your hats, everyone, because what we are doing now will help these young people become the artists of tomorrow.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle for her excellent speech and her kind words. I am flattered, touched, honoured and a touch embarrassed.

I thought that my colleague gave a fascinating answer to the member for Winnipeg North's question about culture just a few minutes ago. I know that her riding is home to many cultural organizations and artists and that it has a vibrant cultural life.

I would like to hear my colleague talk a bit about how greatly the cultural industry has suffered in recent years and about why a bill like Bill C‑11 is so important to reviving our cultural industry.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my esteemed colleague from Drummond is right. Indeed, my riding of Laurentides—Labelle is culturally diverse, whether it be in terms of film or singer-songwriters.

Clearly, we need to talk about the idea of redistribution. Consuming culture is not only good for the soul, but it can also break isolation. It re-invigorates, and that has an effect on our future actions.

This bill is about giving artists their fair share, in a fair way. It is late, but I think everyone understands what I am saying. This is about giving back and inspiring the culture that is so abundant in our hearts.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I heard her mention some figures. She mentioned something about $70 billion a year for the arts sector in Quebec.

Where is that number coming from? Does that amount make sense for the Quebec economy?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the amount was $70 million. That is what the heritage minister told us last year.

It is important to understand that this is an estimate, and the industry agrees. Obviously, it would be difficult to get an exact figure. However, when the amount is in the millions of dollars, that is just too much.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech. For many years now, our broadcasters and cultural workers have been suffering from unfair competition from the web giants.

That is why the NDP believes this bill is a good first step in creating a level playing field and making the web giants pay their fair share. The Liberal government has been delaying this reform for many years.

Can the member explain the repercussions of this delay on the loss of revenue and jobs in the cultural sector in Quebec and Canada?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her French. That is a form of discoverability and I am very proud of that. I am taking English classes to enrich my mind and broaden my cultural horizons, and my accent is improving.

The consequences are clear. We are trying to make up for the time lost since 1991. We want the act to be reviewed every five years to ensure that we do not fall as behind as we are now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for the opportunity to speak to Bill C‑11. I am very proud of this bill and will explain why.

I want to take this opportunity to mention that my son started working on air in radio this morning. I wish him well with discoverability. I will also add that my daughter is a documentarian and recently produced a documentary on Montreal in the disco era. I have two children working in the arts, in French, which is why this topic is particularly important to me.

In addition, my riding of Trois-Rivières is a place where many artists converge. People are familiar with Fred Pellerin and, perhaps, the Lemay brothers. There are also people in studios producing soundtracks that are distributed all over the world, even in China. The Cogeco auditorium just recently hosted Harmonium symphonique, so it is safe to say that Trois-Rivières is awash in culture.

Speaking of culture, I want to address one criticism. In the past, a number of people—although there are fewer of them now—have asked me what the Bloc Québécois's role is in all of this. We defend the French language and francophone culture, which means that we protect and support artists.

As soon as we saw Bill C-10, we could tell that protecting French was not a strong priority. English is appealing; it is everywhere on the web and in music. I have nothing against English. However, what bothers me is that English is becoming the singular way of thinking, which means that culture is disappearing.

Let me give you an example. Recently, I was with people from the OECD who were presenting a framework for analyzing artificial intelligence. Being a language specialist, I asked the woman which language the framework was designed in. She told me that everyone had met in Paris—people from Egypt, Brazil, Canada and everywhere. I asked her what language these people spoke while in Paris, and she said that they had been working in English. There is nothing wrong with that, but the very nature of the thought process is different.

That is what people mean when they talk about losing a culture and losing a way of thinking. That is why the discoverability we have all been talking about here is important. We have to be able to develop francophone content, and it has to be a priority for online companies. With Bill C‑10, we had concerns about whether the CRTC, as a relic of the 20th century, would have the wherewithal to take action on this. We proposed amendments that addressed the situation and resolved those concerns. Our francophone artists will reap the rewards.

We also considered the impact of Bill C‑10 on freedom of expression. My colleague from Drummond proposed amendments that were agreed to, amendments that can provide reassurance to artists and content creators.

Next came an unjustified hiatus because of the election. Perhaps it was not completely unjustified; after all, I was elected. People lost money because of the hiatus because it delayed the introduction of Bill C‑11. My colleague from Drummond was undeterred. He kept working just as hard, single-handedly advancing the cause of content creators, because that is what the Bloc Québécois does: We do it all for Quebec.

We clarified the concept of decision. This may seem simple, but it is not. Decision is a word, and, as I often point out, a word is a construct of sound and meaning. We added meaning to the word decision.

We also insisted on maintaining Canadian ownership and Canadian control of the broadcasting system. We insisted and will continue to insist on the chair of the CRTC becoming proficient in French. This is not a preference, but a necessity. A culture cannot be understood if its language is not understood. Throughout the current process, the Bloc Québécois kept pressuring the government to do more for Quebec.

Sadly, the debate gave way to disgraceful comments. I am thinking in particular about the member for Lethbridge, who told Alberta media that some provisions of Bill C‑10 targeted a very niche group of artists from Quebec, outdated artists stuck in the early 1990s because they failed to be competitive on the new platforms. She went on to say that these Quebec artists produce content that Canadians simply do not want.

One would be hard pressed to find greater contempt. Throughout the debate, I heard several colleagues, especially on the Conservative side admittedly, express their concerns about freedom of expression.

That is an important topic, so I took the time to ask three colleagues in the House how they would define freedom of expression. Interestingly, other than saying that freedom of expression is important and essential, no one was able to define the concept and what they understood by it. I was not convinced by the argument.

Invoking something does not make it real. Instead of wasting time with baseless arguments, the Bloc Québécois prefers to take action and protect content creators. Quebec culture is at the heart of the Bloc Québécois's mission. Broadcasting is one of the most effective tools for sharing this culture, which is our identity.

The Bloc Québécois is clearly in favour of modernizing the Broadcasting Act, which has not been updated in ages, not since 1991. Obviously, the evolution of technology has not been taken into account.

The Bloc Québécois also contributed significantly to the previous version of the bill, Bill C-10, by securing the following gains: the protection and promotion of original French-language programs; the discoverability of services, and I will not dwell on this, since it has already been discussed at length; the promotion of Canadian programming in both official languages and in indigenous languages; a mandatory contribution to Canada's broadcasting system; the requirement for first-run French-language content, in order to ensure there are new French-language shows on Netflix, for example; and a sunset clause that would provide for a comprehensive review of the act every five years.

When my colleagues ask about the purpose of the Bloc Québécois, I can say our purpose is to protect, promote and take care of francophone culture. The Minister of Canadian Heritage promised us that the Bloc Québécois amendments would be included in the new version of the reform, and indeed, we see significant evidence of them. We have to admit it. That said, the wording obviously differs. Some words are changed here and there, which can change the meaning a bit, but we have to admit that it is quite clear.

Quebec's and Canada's cultural sector has been impatiently waiting for this act to be updated. It has been waiting for decades. The first request from the cultural sector is simple: ensure that this bill is passed. That is what we are being asked to do. Earlier, there was mention of the $70 million estimated by the then Minister of Canadian Heritage. It was an estimate, but a reliable one.

Since the beginning of time, it was said that everything that happened happened within the bounds of space and time. Nothing could exist outside space and time. Globalization and the Internet turned this idea upside down. In 2022, the virus has no borders, inflation has no borders and culture has no borders. It is time to pass Bill C‑11 before time ravages our Quebec and Canadian cultures, turning them into a monolith.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the issue of freedom. The Conservative Party seems to want to paint a picture of Bill C-11 as an offence or an attack on people's freedoms. When we take a look at the legislation, we will find that it does not in any way regulate the Internet, control what Canadians can see or try to tell Canadians what they have to watch.

Can my colleague provide his thoughts on the Conservatives arguing that Bill C-11 is an attack on freedom?

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

Mr. Speaker, freedom of expression is a truly fundamental subject. Freedom of expression is often discussed but seldom defined. I would like to add a philosophical dimension.

Freedom of expression is the possibility of saying something. It is not permission to say anything at all; it is the possibility of saying something. Bill C‑11 fundamentally leaves a lot of space for everyone. I believe that Bill C‑11 does not place significant restrictions on freedom of expression. I honestly believe that one would have to be a little malicious to think that it contains restrictions.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could speak to the term “discoverability” and if he has any concerns with the vagueness of that in this particular piece of legislation, which does not have a clear definition. It is probably one of the most important ways that this legislation will be implemented and carried out, yet we do not even have a definition. I wonder if he could speak to that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her very important question.

Discoverability is a potential. It is a possibility. It is a bit like planting seeds and watching the flowers grow afterwards. At the moment, I would not be able to say what colour the flower will be, and that is what will probably be governed by the regulations in due course. Nevertheless, what matters is that the possibility of being discovered is written into the law. It is the use that will determine this discoverability, but, for the moment, the important thing for us is that it is in the bill at this stage.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Trois‑Rivières for his speech.

I know he supports Bill C‑11 and that discoverability of French-language content is important to him. That reminds me of my own experience watching M'entends-tu? on Netflix while I was working on my French. I hope more people across the country will watch this amazing show.

My question for the member is about clause 4.2, which would make it possible to regulate user-generated content. This worries me, so I proposed an amendment to strike it, but my amendment was rejected.

Is he concerned about this clause too? Are Quebec's content creators concerned?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. It is an important one that will give us the opportunity to clarify the situation.

The thing that surprises me a bit is that the question sounds a lot like the Conservative point of view, which is unusual, honestly. However, in this case, the proposed interpretation of clause 4.2 is simply false. That is not how it should be understood, on the contrary.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about $1 billion that will be paid to cultural organizations. That will certainly make a big difference for our artists.

What difference does the member think that this billion dollars will make for artists from Quebec?

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

Mr. Speaker, we have been talking about discoverability for several minutes now. Discoverability refers to the potential to be discovered, found, used, watched, listened to and read, and it is very important to us. Discoverability leads to more revenue over time. Like all models, these models can, of course, be improved. However, I think that we have worked on it and polished it enough.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

This is a great opportunity to speak on behalf of Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook and on behalf of Bill C-11, which is, of course, modernizing the Broadcasting Act for a digital age and continuing the tradition of supporting a diverse audience.

The current Broadcasting Act was passed in a much different era, way back in 1991. We have seen, of course, HDTV, now 4K television, high-speed Internet and the growth of online audiovisual broadcasting services increase over time. These technological changes have left the Broadcasting Act well behind. Video and audio computer coding standards like MPEG4 and MP3 did not even exist when the current act was envisioned. The only way to receive content in those days, of course, was through TV and radio. The purpose behind Bill C-11 is to bring the Broadcasting Act to the 21st century.

We are living in an interactive, on-demand, multi-device digital age. Our system needs to adapt to a modern era and Bill C-11 does just that. The goal is to generate more funding for Canadian music and stories, and more employment opportunities in the creator sector. We want Canadian programs and songs to be discoverable, including an Internet-based platform that captures so many viewers and listeners today, especially a young audience.

Bill C-11 would do this not just for mainstream programming, but also for diverse and marginalized voices that have historically been under-represented in the broadcasting system and have had very limited content choices by, for and about them.

The underlining Canadian values of fairness, acceptance and respect have long been part of our broadcasting system. We know that Canadian audiences are diverse and that the broadcasting system needs to serve them all. It is the principle that has ensured, from the very beginning, that there must be broadcasting in both French and English. It is the same principle behind the extension of television broadcasting services first to underserved rural communities, then to remote communities and the north.

A place was made in the sixties for educational broadcasting. Indigenous television broadcasting began to develop by the end of that decade. Community broadcasting arrived in the seventies. Radio and television services in languages other than English and French have also been made available in the system, yet there remains a gap. Programs that reflect indigenous peoples and racialized and ethno-cultural communities remain few and far between, and creative employment opportunities are slim. Our broadcasting system must strive to continue serving audience needs and being inclusive of all Canadians.

With the growth of the web giants and their Internet streaming services offering hours of programming, we need to ensure that Canadian values of fairness, respect and inclusion remain important in the regulation of Canada's broadcasting system. This is why Bill C-11 underscores the need for diversity and inclusion. Bill C-11 makes changes to the Broadcasting Act to ensure that the broadcasting sector is more inclusive of all Canadians.

Bill C-11 strengthens an objective in the act to declare that the broadcasting system should:

serve the needs and interests of all Canadians — including Canadians from racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions...and reflect their circumstances and aspirations, including equal rights, the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of indigenous peoples within that society...

This objective will help to enable access to the system by these communities and provide programming for them that speaks to their needs and interests.

Let us look at the big picture. We were all hopeful in the early days of the Internet that it would develop on its own: It would generate new opportunities, strengthen democracy and connect us to many others around the world. Much of that has happened, yet the Internet has also changed the way we enjoy content and learn about the news, creating a fundamental shift in the business model of artists, creators, journalists and news outlets. It has also facilitated polarization, hate and fake news narratives that divide us. It has exposed people to harmful content and online experiences that would be unacceptable in the real world.

For many Canadians, COVID-19 has meant that we have dramatically shifted our personal and professional lives online. We must take action to address the problems now. It is time to make the Internet a fairer, more inclusive, safer and more competitive place in Canada.

In conclusion, until now online broadcasting services have not been obligated to contribute to the achievement of broadcasting objectives. Bill C-11 provides the CRTC with the ability and the means to better serve the needs of those who belong to official language minority communities, women, indigenous peoples, ethnocultural minorities, racialized communities, the LGBTQ2 community and people with disabilities.

In this way, Bill C-11 continues the tradition of our broadcasting system of answering diverse audience needs and it helps to ensure that values, fairness, acceptance and inclusion will continue in the digital environment. This is a very important and long overdue change to the Broadcasting Act, and I urge all members of the House to support this important bill.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have some questions on some of the last points the member raised in his speech, which piqued my attention. He talked about the inclusiveness of the bill for allowing members of certain communities more access. Maybe this is where the disconnect is happening on the bill, because the whole thing about net neutrality is that all of those groups, especially my friends in the LGBTQ community, have been able to access what they want and find those groups of common interests because of net neutrality.

The bill changes net neutrality, so how is he suggesting that the bill would make things more inclusive as opposed to less inclusive?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is no regulation of control over what is being streamed. This will continue to happen, and the under-represented groups will continue to have access, but have more access because there will be more support for them in various ways throughout the bill.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the web giants like Netflix, YouTube and Facebook still do not pay their fair share of taxes in Canada. They still do not pay their fair share of funding for Canadian cultural content. The Liberal government has been dragging its feet. Liberals talk the talk about tax fairness, but they have not been walking the walk for the past six or seven years.

I am wondering if the hon. member can estimate how many jobs have been lost over those years because of that tax unfairness. How many dollars have been left behind because we have not been forcing the web giants to pay their fair share?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, our government has moved on many fronts to ensure that those who have more can help others, and I look at the increase of taxes to the 1% of Canadians as an example. This bill would be moving us toward there. We have not made all the steps we need to make, but I am 100% in agreement with him. I think we have to make sure those groups that are benefiting from our programming pay their fair share. This is the first step, and we will make the steps that are necessary to achieve the goal I believe he is asking for.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to ask my colleague a simple question, because we had another point raised by the Conservatives that was not accurate, when it comes to the LGBTQ2S community.

We heard testimony at the Canadian heritage committee that OutTV was basically removed from, or not allowed to be on, a number of online streaming distributors. OutTV came to committee and said that with the way it works currently, it does not have access and is excluded. In Bill C-11, as the member has pointed out, there are no exclusions.

Does the member not feel this is appropriate? Given how these big web giants act and how they can exclude with impunity, does it not make sense to have a level playing field, so that there is access for all Canadians of all communities to these online streaming platforms and streaming distributors?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that these different groups have been excluded in the past, and in Bill C-11 we are going to see the CRTC would be mandated to include them and to focus on those minorities. That is exactly what we shall do with this bill.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening in support of Bill C-11.

For decades, Canadian broadcasters have given us incredible Canadian content on our televisions and radios. This is no accident. We choose to be different from the cultural juggernaut of the United States. We care about our cultural sovereignty. We believe our diversity should be celebrated. Our culture is who we are as Canadians. It is our past, our present and our future. It is how we tell our stories to each other.

As a condition of their licences, TV and radio broadcasters have had to invest in our culture and our artists, and that is why we have all the Canadian content we love. We can see Schitt's Creek, Kim's Convenience and Corner Gas, or hear Charlotte Cardin, Joni Mitchell, Drake, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Great Big Sea, and the list goes on, including the Arkells from my home town of Hamilton. If members are in Hamilton this Friday, they could catch the Arkells at Woodlands Park. I invite everyone in the House and anyone who is watching this evening to join us for that concert.

Here is the problem: Canadians are not using cable anymore. Now online streaming is everywhere. People can stream content through their phone, their car or their TV. We all enjoy this, but streaming platforms like Amazon Prime and YouTube broadcast to Canadians without the same requirements that helped build Canada's culture. They invest in our economy in other ways, but they do not have to produce content that reflects our Canadian stories and shared identity, until now.

That is why the government introduced Bill C-11, the online streaming act. This bill ensures that online streamers contribute in an equitable but flexible way to the creation of Canadian content. It ensures that Canadians could easily find that content on their platforms.

Based on the quality of debate we have heard from the official opposition today and over the past week, I think all members of this House could benefit from a refresher of what this bill does not do. This bill does not impose regulations on content everyday Canadians post on social media. This bill does not impose regulations on Canadian digital content creators, influencers or users. This bill does not censor content or mandate specific algorithms on streaming services or social media platforms. This bill does not limit Canadians' freedom of expression in any way, shape or form.

Bill C-11 also takes into account the reality that music is largely broadcast online, most notably on platforms like YouTube. In fact, a study conducted by Media Technology Monitor in 2020 found that about two-thirds of Canadian adults use YouTube to listen to music, which outpaces dedicated music services, such as Apple Music and Spotify. That is why this bill includes very important updates that would focus only on commercial content, such as music videos uploaded by labels on YouTube or livestreams of professional sports matches.

This bill explicitly excludes all user-generated content on social media platforms and streaming services. Proposed subsection 2(2.1) of Bill C-11 states:

A person who uses a social media service to upload programs for transmission over the Internet and reception by other users of the service—and who is not the provider of the service or the provider’s affiliate, or the agent or mandatary of either of them—does not, by the fact of that use, carry on a broadcasting undertaking for the purposes of this Act.

In plain language, this means that users, even digital-first creators with millions of subscribers, are not broadcasters. They will never face any obligations under the bill. Any suggestions otherwise are simply untrue.

With this approach, the experience for users creating, posting and interacting with other user-generated content will not be impacted whatsoever, while still standardizing the treatment of commercial content such as TV shows and songs across all platforms.

Just to be clear, clause 12 of the online streaming act explicitly states that any regulations the CRTC imposes on platforms through the Broadcasting Act cannot infringe on Canadians' freedom of expression on social media. It states specifically:

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.

In conclusion, now that we have been able to resolve these unfounded claims, and we have heard many of them today and many of them at committee, and I tuned in a couple of times to listen to them, let us go back to why we are here in the first place.

Just as they did with Bill C-10, the Conservatives have used every tactic in the tool box to delay and block Bill C-11. At committee, all members agreed to study the bill for 20 hours of witness testimony. However, the Conservatives did not allow the committee to get to clause-by-clause by filibustering for seven hours. They went as far as to filibuster their own study motion at one point. It is deeply disappointing we cannot move forward on our study of this important bill, especially since our arts and cultural community has been telling us how vital and urgent this legislation would be for them.

Marla Boltman, from Friends, said:

Requiring contributions from foreign tech giants that extract billions of dollars from our country will help sustain our industry while driving investment and innovation in the creation of Canadian content that continues to reflect our diversity of voices and who we are as Canadians. Foreign contributions will level the playing field between Canadian broadcasters and foreign platforms. Frankly, it sends a message to the world that Canada is open for business, but there are no more free rides. If you benefit from the system, you must contribute to it.

I could not agree more. On this side of the House, we have made our position clear. Bill C-11 is about fairness and good middle-class jobs in the cultural sector. It is about having the power to shape our culture and making sure everyone can see themselves in our culture. It is about being proud of who we are. It is about being proud of being Canadian, so let us keep moving on this important legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member talk about levelling the playing field. Would he agree that one way to level the playing field would be to eliminate class 2 licence fees?

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we heard consistently in the House and at committee about levelling the playing field. This is about trying to assist cultural organizations and disadvantaged groups, as the member prior to me referenced throughout his entire speech. It is about making investments in cultural organizations, arts organizations, musicians and individual artists who have struggled through the pandemic.

Almost every speech tonight referenced 1991 as where the legislation sits. The member and his former government had an opportunity for almost a decade to make changes to the legislation. It decided not to do that. We are doing that with Bill C-11 here tonight, and I would encourage all members of the House to support it.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I asked this of a number of the member's colleagues, but I have not received a straight answer. This bill is clearly a step in the right direction, but web giants are still not paying their fair share. The Liberal government is delaying legislation on a digital services tax, which is something that would actually make companies such as YouTube, Facebook and Netflix pay their fair share on the profits they make here in Canada.

Will the member commit to pushing his party to implement a digital services tax?

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am always supportive of levelling the playing field. I was very specific in my speech to make the point of ensuring the tech giants, as the member referenced, pay their fair share. Bill C-11 goes a long way in establishing that. I think it was just last year some of those tech giants started to pay GST and HST for the subscribers who utilize their services, so we have come a long way over the last couple of years. We are going to continue to make progress on this issue, including introducing taxation, fees and levies over the next couple of years.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question for my colleague.

What would he say to explain why this bill allows for regulations, when the word that is commonly used is “control”? How would he convince people who have reasonable doubts to vote in favour?

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know with all legislation that comes forward at any level of government nothing is perfect. We learn over time how legislation can be improved. The fact this dates back to 1991 illustrates there is lots of room for improvement. While this bill may not be perfect, to the member's point, our government will continue to find and seek out ways to improve the legislation that ensures we continue to level the playing field.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for the tone of his speech. It elevates the quality of the discourse in this place.

He did mention some concerns with respect to user-generated content that I shared previously this evening. My question is specifically on proposed section 4.2. Given the points he made, does he not see it would be simpler to just remove the sections that create various exemptions with respect to indirect or direct revenue? Would that be one way to simplify the bill, or does he feel differently about that?

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the member's amendment. It is not something I support. I support the legislation as it has been put. I think we have a very comprehensive bill here that covers almost all the issues that witnesses brought to our attention at committee. We have incorporated those comments and stakeholder input into the bill, and I am satisfied with everything we have in time for a vote.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Peterborough—Kawartha.

Over the last two years of the NDP-Liberal government, we have seen a very uniquely ballooning government interfering in virtually all aspects of Canadians' lives. It has truly been a pattern of an expanding, intrusive and increasingly controlling and restrictive federal government, with its ill-advised discriminatory and vindictive vaccine mandates, damaging and traumatizing restrictions, demeaning and exclusionary QR codes, and of course the now infamous vaccine passports, which is probably one of the worst and most divisive public policy measures to ever be introduced in this country. It is why provinces only kept them in place for a few months before realizing the colossal mistake it was to divide, segregate and pit Canadians against one another based on health status. I am not sure how anyone ever thought segregating and discriminating against a group of Canadians would be good public policy.

However, in reality, this is simple. The Liberal government, with its NDP collaborators, has exploited the pandemic to drive its big, intrusive and overreaching government agenda. This also includes other areas of the lives of Canadians, with perhaps the upcoming digital ID, which has already been emphatically rejected by civil liberty groups, the Province of Saskatchewan and the former Ontario privacy commissioner.

The NDP-Liberal government is not just happy with the COVID intrusion. It is now expanding its surveillance of Canadians to the digital realm with respect to Canadians' Internet activities, including YouTube and social media accounts. No matter how the Liberals attempt to spin it, that is exactly what they are doing and they know it. It is similar to their political games and mistruths on the carbon tax, a tax that was supposed to be revenue-neutral but clearly is not, as confirmed by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. They are now trying to convince Canadians that Bill C-11 is not a censorship and surveillance bill, but nobody is buying it.

Just like Canadians and stakeholders rejected the precursor to Bill C-11, which was Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament, the same thing is happening again. Let us remind Canadians that true to form, the Liberals passed Bill C-10 in the last Parliament without allowing a full debate at the heritage committee. Many outstanding concerns from experts and parliamentarians over how this legislation would affect the rights and freedoms of Canadians when they are on the Internet went unaddressed because of the government's unwillingness to allow a full debate. In the new Parliament it is much the same. It does not seem like anyone supports Bill C-11, except the NDP-Liberal government, a government that seems relentlessly bent on restricting and controlling many aspects of Canadians' lives.

To be frank, I do not understand the government's obsession with wanting so much control over Canadians. Leave Canadians alone. They know what they are doing and they just want their lives back. They want their lives free of constant government discipline, surveillance and control.

Let me remind Canadians of what the Liberals did during COVID. They tracked Canadian movements, including trips to the liquor store and the pharmacy. Canadians were closely tracked by this NDP-Liberal government via cellphones without people's knowledge during the COVID‑19 pandemic. This information was made public by a report sent to the parliamentary ethics committee. The report revealed that the Public Health Agency of Canada was able to view detailed snapshots of people's behaviour, including visits to the grocery store, gatherings with family and friends, time spent at home and trips to other towns and provinces.

It is encouraging that my colleagues on the ethics committee expressed surprise at how much detail the report contained, even as all identifying information was stripped out. The phone locations allowed the Public Health Agency to get a picture of gatherings occurring in people's houses, such as over Labour Day weekend. The report included a graph recording hours spent away from home in each province between Christmas Day 2020 and the week of September 19, 2021. Government officials had access to detailed information about people's movements after scooping up data from 33 million mobile devices across Canada.

This is government surveillance of Canadians, plain and simple. There is no other way to put it, regardless of the what the NDP-Liberals attempt to spin it as. It is definitely unacceptable, but it is unsurprising that the NDP-Liberal government would engage in something like this. I am certain that Canadians do not want Ottawa tracking their movements. Experts like Ontario's former privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian have questioned the government's claim. She said, per True North, “there has yet to be enough assurances that the data could not be reidentified to track individual Canadians.”

In addition to not wanting to be surveilled and tracked, Canadians do not want Ottawa telling them what they should or should not be thinking or posting to their social media accounts or their YouTube channels. At this point, it is important to note that on this side of the House, we support a level playing field between foreign streaming services and Canadian broadcasters while protecting the individual rights and freedoms of Canadians.

Let us not forget that Canada is home to many world-class writers, actors, composers, musicians, artists and creators. Creators need rules that do not hold back their ability to be Canadian and a global success.

While the government claims that there is now an exemption for user-generated content, Bill C-11 allows the CRTC to regulate any content that generates revenue, directly or indirectly. That means that virtually all content would be regulated, including independent content creators earning a living on social media platforms like YouTube and Spotify. As such, critics are publicly accusing the government of state-sponsored censorship. It is simple. This bill is an affront to freedom of expression. It allows the government to regulate what Canadian users can post online or how the said content will be promoted.

Michael Geist, the University of Ottawa's Internet and e-commerce law research chair, has been especially vocal on Bill C-11. He has said that the government has misled Canadians on the scope of the bill. The professor's concerns with Bill C-11 include its “virtually limitless jurisdictional, overbroad scope, and harmful discoverability provisions.” He added, “Bill C-11 treats all audio-visual content as programs subject to potential regulation. With exceptions that could easily capture TikTok or YouTube videos, the bill is about far more than just large companies.”

What is most concerning is that the CRTC's chairman, Ian Scott, who was appointed by the Prime Minister to the position in 2021, said that Bill C-11 needs to be open-ended so that the CRTC could have room to manoeuvre. That is a very worrying statement by the chairman of the CRTC. Let us remind the government that two former CRTC officials spoke out against the precursor of Bill C-11. They signed a petition labelling the bill an “authoritarian” move.

In addition, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, warned that the incoming Bill C-11, meant to censor the Internet, could drastically change how Canadians interact online. Walker said that while Google is open to new regulations, current proposals border on the extreme. He added, “The closer you get to that extreme, the more concern. Whether that's on bespoke content regulation, or local content requirements, or government mandates for link taxes and other sorts of things—any flavour of one of those could actually really be bad.”

YouTube officials have also warned that if the Prime Minister's Internet censorship bill goes through, it could give the government unprecedented power over everyday content posted online. According to YouTube Canada's head of government affairs, Jeanette Patell, Bill C-11's wording is so broad that it places home videos within the purview of the CRTC. Patell also said that Bill C-11 “provides the CRTC the discretion to regulate user-generated content like a fan doing a cover song or someone making cooking videos in their kitchen or doing how-to-fix-a-bike videos.” That simply means that any video could be subject to CRTC's surveillance, control and regulation.

Twitter has also joined the opposition to the NDP-Liberal government's online censorship efforts. A submission from Twitter compared the Liberals' online hate legislation to censorship regimes in authoritarian countries such as North Korea. This bears repeating. Twitter's opinion of the government's effort to censor the Internet is that it can be compared to the censorship regime in North Korea. That is an incredible statement and the government should take heed. I doubt that Twitter officials were being facetious when they made this statement.

Twitter's manager for public policy had this to say:

The proposal by the government of Canada to allow the Digital Safety Commissioner to block websites is drastic. People around the world have been blocked from accessing Twitter and other services in a similar manner as the one proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments (China, North Korea, and Iran for example) under the false guise of “online safety,” impeding peoples’ rights to access information online.

That is a powerful statement. Once again, the government needs to really understand the damage it would be doing with this bill, perhaps unprecedented and permanent damage.

To add to the long list of critics of Bill C-11, we also have Timothy Denton. Mr. Denton is a former CRTC commissioner. Mr. Denton also likened the proposed Internet regulations by this government to authoritarian regimes. He said:

It is creepily totalitarian, something you might expect out of China or Russia.... They are going to be unworkable and they are going to be, I think, unconstitutional in the old-fashioned sense of outside the powers of the federal government. I think they are almost certain to be taken down on Charter issues of freedom of speech. But they are really very unpleasant pieces of legislation.

To conclude my speech today, I would like to reiterate that Bill C-11 is another unacceptable attempt by the NDP-Liberal government to censor the Internet and, once again, restrict free speech. The restrictive, divisive and controlling NDP-Liberal government needs to finally realize that Canadians just want to be left alone.

It is time that the NDP-Liberals began paying attention to what Canadians want rather than pushing their partisan agenda of dividing, wedging and stigmatizing Canadians based on anything and everything they can conjure up.

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

Mr. Speaker, a number of the Conservative speakers on this piece of legislation make me wonder whether or not they have actually purchased tinfoil hats. At the end of the day, I am not sure what part of the legislation the member opposite feels so offended by. Members of the Bloc and the New Democratic Party, and at least one member of the Green Party, support the legislation. It is not just the government or two political parties, and only the Conservative Party has these wild, crazy thoughts that it is an infringement on freedoms.

I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts as to why the Conservative Party of Canada feels it is a fight against Canadian freedoms. In fact, we are the party that brought in the Charter of Rights. We understand the importance of freedom.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the great example is everything the Liberals have done in the past couple of years. They said they based things on science, but really it was based on political science. There was massive government overreach at every step. They would say one thing and do something different.

They would have experts, chambers of commerce and international organizations saying that what they were doing makes no sense, but they still kept misleading Canadians by saying they were just following the science. They have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted when it comes to our freedoms in this country.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am saddened by the member's speech. I have had conversations with him in the past and always found him to be very level-headed. It is obvious that he has not read the bill. He does not understand the bill at all, which is fine, as members can stand in the House and speak even if they have not read the material.

However, what he does talk about is disturbing because it does apply, but it applies to the web giants. We have seen with the Facebook papers the indiscriminate collection and use of people's private data, and it is indiscriminate by the web giants. There is not a single Conservative who has risen in the House to say that is wrong, so I want to ask the member about that.

What he says about Bill C-11 is simply not true. It has no relationship to the bill, as I am sure he is aware. He is a very intelligent man. However, the indiscriminate collection of data is taking place, and it is taking place by private companies. As the Facebook papers have revealed, it is something we should be concerned about. Why is he not concerned about private corporations collecting that data and tracking Canadians? Why is he not concerned about that?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been great working with the hon. member over the years. We spent some time on the trade committee together.

I would point to the fact that I have not heard one speech on this side of the House that has not said we should level the playing field. We believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that big corporations should not just get away with whatever they feel like. We have not said that they should not have to pay their fair share. We firmly support that. That is an issue. We need to make sure we level the playing field. We have said that. We have said that before, and we will continue to say that as we move along.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to build a bit on the CRTC. We have heard a lot about the frustrations tonight. We have seen this time and time again with the Liberal government. Of course, the NDP is supporting them, and then a couple of years down the road when, for example, the CRTC has been given very vague definitions and broad powers to interpret a lot of these things as it sees fit, the government will say that it is not the government, it is the CRTC. The NDP and the Bloc will say they cannot believe that happened, as that is not what they intended.

Could the member speak to the vague definitions in this bill, as we can see this Trojan horse coming, and the CRTC intervening in a wide way? This is apparently not the intention of the bill, but Liberals have had more than enough opportunities to intervene and clarify, and it has refused to do so.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is one of the challenges we have with a lot of the legislation we see in the House: the vagueness. It is so open-ended that definitions are not nailed down. This has happened with many pieces of legislation before, when we did not get definitions to define what something is. It created a lot of ambiguity.

At a point later in time, the Liberals could do exactly that. They could say it was not their fault and that it was not what they meant. This creates a lot of vagueness. We would like to see those things nailed down.

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

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in the House of Commons to represent the constituents of Peterborough—Kawartha.

Today, I am speaking to one of the most important bills that will come before this Parliament: Bill C-11, also known as the online streaming act. Bill C-11 would impact anyone who uses the Internet. Bill C-11, or the online streaming act, is a significant piece of legislation. It is long and convoluted in how it is written, but in a nutshell it would mean that the CRTC would have significant governing powers over content creators and what is uploaded to the Internet.

For those who do not know, the CRTC is the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. According to its website, it is an administrative tribunal that operates at arm's length from the federal government. This bill appears to make it even closer to the government, meaning more government overreach. As we have all experienced, more bureaucracy never equals more efficiency or equity.

In this speech, I am going to outline three key reasons why Canadians should be deeply disappointed and concerned with this bill. Number one is the lack of transparency. Number two is logistics and the fallout from not foreseeing the consequences of this poorly written bill. Number three is unnecessary urgency.

If someone Google searches Bill C-11, they will read the following: “The online streaming act does not apply to individual Canadians, whether they are users, creators, digital influencers or workers.” Just for the record, in case people at home do not know, an online content creator could perhaps be a child who has uploaded their performance at their talent show, Justin Bieber, perhaps one's favourite cook, an athlete or a musician. All of these people are considered to be online content creators. This is the biggest area of mistrust and lack of transparency when we go back and read that “the online streaming act does not apply to individual Canadians, whether they are users, creators, digital influencers or workers.”

We have heard multiple times from the heritage minister that this bill would not target content creators, but rather the platforms, which means Facebook, TikTok, Netflix, etc. However, Ian Scott, the chair of the CRTC, the entity that would be responsible for doing the regulation on the government's behalf, says that user-generated content would be fair game. Who are we to believe?

That is fairly inconsistent information and, as such, Canadians are very skeptical of the “just trust us” approach. I do not know of any contract with any reputable organization where the customer is asked to sign now and learn the details later. This approach lacks transparency and, in the absence of information, we can expect people to fill it in with misinformation. The Liberal government continues to leave out information, which leads to mistrust. Why is the government asking Canadians to just trust it? What premise has it set to deserve such blind faith?

I want to move on to my second major concern: the logistics of this bill. As I have mentioned, there are very few clear details on how this bill would impact content creators and users. What I do know is that there are thousands of videos uploaded every day, and probably even millions. How will the government plan to manage this? What is the plan? I have seen time and again the government fail to plan and constantly react instead of prepare. We have the highest wait times at passport offices that we have ever seen, because the government was not prepared. How is it going to manage the volume of content creators fairly? I would like to know these details before we pass this bill.

Rules and guidelines are extremely important when generating content. I worked in both mainstream media and as an online content creator, and it is extremely important to have guidelines that equal the playing field, but this bill would not do that. Here is a quote from Dr. Irene Berkowitz. Irene said:

Bill C-11's wrong turn starts with the notion that CRTC has jurisdiction over the whole Internet for two reasons. The first is scale. Consider the math. On YouTube alone, 500 hours of content is uploaded per minute....

Second, new media is a feature, not a bug.... Bill C-11 gets it backwards. Instead of positioning new media as a model to engage audiences, it ensnares new media in the epic fail part of our old media: disregard for audiences.

Here is another quote. It is from Darcy Michael, a comedian and digital content creator:

Bill C-11 will directly affect my ability to earn an income.

He went on:

The sheer logistics of the CRTC trying to approve Canadian content for every video uploaded to social media is impossible. Across the country, there are thousands of videos uploaded every day. There is simply no way to approve this. You are creating a logistical nightmare, with all due respect to the members, without properly understanding the industry that we're in.

He continued:

I don't want to be paying 30% to do something I don't benefit from as a digital creator. I think it's a second tax. I think that by the end of the day I'll be paying 80% tax on my income. That isn't fair.

To my third point, why the rush? This is a significant piece of legislation that needs a lot of attention and detail, so why would anyone who truly cares about democracy want this rushed? Bill C-11 would be the first major update to the Broadcasting Act in 31 years, and this government is ramming it through. Why?

Dozens of interested witnesses have yet to be heard by the heritage committee. The government has an obligation to listen to those who are directly impacted by the bill. By imposing an arbitrary deadline to return the bill to the House, the government is not allowing members to carefully consider each clause or amendment, and this will inevitably result in a flawed and incoherent Broadcasting Act, which comes back to the second point I made earlier: There is no way to work out the logistics in such a rushed approach.

I am somebody who likes things done quickly. I am always about speed and efficiency, but this is being rushed. I would ask Canadians if they would want someone regulating every book they read and every song they hear. Do they want censorship at that level? Bill C-11 would create winners and losers based on the CRTC's rule book, which is unknown at this time and will be decided on with zero transparency to Canadians.

Here are some powerful words from Oorbee Roy, a digital content creator, who said:

Not only does the bill not help me. It also hurts me and actively undermines my needs as an artist. There is no language in the bill to tell me otherwise.

Frankly, I don't qualify. I'm just not the right fit. That I'm not the right fit is a story I've been told my whole life. ... I'm too round. I'm a nerd. I'm too old. I'm female. I'm not feminine enough. I'm not the right demographic, but I've never been the right demographic. My voice has been suppressed far too many times.

That is a powerful quote from Oorbee Roy, a digital content creator.

I will wrap up my speech by saying that George Orwell warned us of the dangers of having the thought police, and I think that Bill C-11 is a potentially dangerous bill that needs a lot more attention before we can get it right. I urge everyone in this House to vote against it and take the time it needs to make sure we get it done right.

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

Mr. Speaker, when we are looking at Bill C-11, we hear a great deal of exaggeration coming from the Conservative Party, such as to try to give the impression that a child uploading a video from school would be impacted by Bill C-11. It is just wrong to try to imply that.

The member talked about a rush. However, this is not something that has just been in the oven for the last couple of weeks. We have seen this issue being dealt with now for two years in a very tangible way, not to mention the consultations that have taken place between the minister and the industry even before the legislation was presented.

If it was up to the Conservative Party of Canada, this bill would never see the light of day. That is apparent, and it is one of the reasons the Conservative Party does not have the support to prevent the bill from ultimately passing. Would the member not agree?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to engage with this member, who lives in the House of Commons.

I am a little surprised that the member does not care about all of the witnesses who have been on the record to say how this bill is going to impact them. Has he not listened to the witnesses? This is 100% how a content creator is created. Justin Bieber started his first video by uploading himself playing music. That is a fact.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the comparison to George Orwell is so unbelievably wacky that I cannot even address that.

I would like to stick to the facts. The facts are that we had the equivalent of five weeks of hearings. The facts are that the vast majority of witnesses who came before committee were in favour of the bill and wanted some improvements. The NDP worked very hard to achieve those improvements, but the vast majority of witnesses supported the legislation because they have seen how the cultural sector has been eroded by the dominance of the web giants.

Fact: The Conservatives blocked additional witnesses by filibustering even some of the witnesses who came, such as the chair of the CRTC and the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Fact: The Conservatives did not submit their amendments after all the other parties had submitted their amendments, leading to further delays.

Fact: The Conservatives did not want consideration at clause-by-clause.

Fact: The NDP pushed through important amendments that I mentioned earlier tonight that actually improved the bill to make Bill C-11 better than ever.

Final fact: This is important, and not a single Conservative addressed this. The fact is that right now there is indiscriminate collection of people's private data by the web giants. The Facebook papers revealed this, yet not a single Conservative has spoken to decry the indiscriminate collection of private data that is taking place right now by web giants.

How does the member respond to all of these facts?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that my colleague does not love one of the best authors of all time.

To his points, I actually agree 100% that we need to be harsh on people who are taking advantage of others. We put these amendments forward.

To his point about the witnesses, 40% of the witnesses did not agree with this bill. I would put it back to him and ask him if he thinks this bill is ready. Does he think this bill is ready for legislation when 40% of the witnesses have said it was not?

In my opinion, we have something significant that has not been touched in 31 years. The Liberals are ready to ram it through without more careful consideration. It is going to change how we consume and create everyday media. I would like to be a little more thorough than that.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

This is just a reminder that we have now hit five hours of debate. All of the speeches from this point on are automatically 10 minutes with five minutes of questions and answers.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Richmond Hill.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour to stand in the House once again to represent my constituents of Richmond Hill. As I join you from the national capital region, I respectfully acknowledge that the land on which I am located today is the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

The government is committed to implementing its digital and cultural policy agenda, which would serve Canadian interests not only today, but also well into the future. It would support our cultural and artistic ecosystem, including our many talented creative sector workers. This is urgently needed.

Today, I am pleased to speak to important elements of the online streaming act. First, I will have the pleasure of talking about the Canadian independent producers and the important role that they play. Second, I want to talk about the importance of ensuring that Canadians can find and access Canadian stories and music.

Delaying Bill C-11 would do harm to our production industry. It would leave the creative ecosystem in a very uncertain and difficult place without support and predictable funding for Canadian programs. Ultimately, the online streaming act aims to foster an environment where Canadian music and stories can thrive and be discovered. The time to act is now, and there is a lot at stake.

Turning an idea into a cultural product is no simple task. From coast to coast to coast, our creatives have undeniable talent and unparalleled work ethics. Canada's independent producers are an example of this.

A Canadian independent producer is a Canadian person or entity, usually a corporation, that creates an audiovisual media project that is not owned or controlled by a broadcaster or a distributor. In other words, independent producers make movies, TV shows and documentaries that are not subject to creative controls by a TV channel, network, streaming service or cable company. They are crucial to creative risk-taking, authentic storytelling and diverse representation in our audiovisual sector.

In film and television, independent productions cover a wide range of formats and genres, from art house films to popular animated kids shows and everything in between. To successfully realize a project, independent producers do many things. They invest in development, make pitches, secure financing, hire creative and technical teams, scout locations, and navigate complex trade, tax and labour arrangements to make projects happen. Not surprisingly, Canadian independent producers often work closely with Canadian musicians for scores and soundtracks.

There are over 600 independent production companies in Canada, most of them small and surviving project to project. In 2019-20, Canadian independent film and television accounted for $2.9 billion in production volume and more than 81,000 jobs. Many of these independent production companies are undercapitalized and often face difficulty obtaining project financing. In Canada, once a finished project is in hand, all the rights for its creative elements are clear. The producers can then make money, but it is risky business with a lot of upfront costs.

While we may recognize some Canadian landmarks in the background of some American productions, these companies work with Canadian talent below the line: the “best boys”, “grips” and “gaffers” listed in movie credits. They work with our visual effects, post-production and virtual production studios, who are valuable without a doubt.

However, Canadian productions, and specifically independent Canadian productions, are important for ensuring that the cultural industry investments touch down and take root in the places where our stories come from. For example, just one season of Heartland spent over $28 million on production, saw each dollar of federal tax incentive produce more than $11 in GDP, and hired more than 1,400 vendors across Alberta.

Independent Canadian productions also tell untold stories and develop diverse programming. Diversity is one of Canadians' greatest strength. Without independent producers taking risks, we would never have films such as Water in Hindi or Edge of the Knife in the endangered Haida language.

Our stories and our creative talent are at the heart of the online streaming act. The legislation lists several important factors for the CRTC to consider in its definition of Canadian programs, such as, for example, collaboration between Canadian producers, Canadian ownership and exploitation of IP by Canadians. This would give the commission the flexibility to require all types of broadcasting undertakings, including online streaming services, to financially contribute to the development of Canadian programs and talent. That is what Canada's important independent production sector needs to continue to thrive.

A strong independent production sector ensures Canadian stories are told by and for Canadians. However, it is not enough to encourage the production side alone. It is important that Canadians can find and access Canadian stories and music as well. As we see more of ourselves reflected in these popular media, it creates a sense of pride and a sense of unity, precisely when we need them during these difficult times.

The influx of streaming programs has meant access to endless content, but it can be difficult to find or even recognize Canadian programs. This is in part because online platforms are not required to showcase Canadian programs in the same way as the traditional broadcasters. Our independent productions, and especially Canadian music, deserve to be discovered and supported. However, in the current context, it is challenging for independent producers to remain visible in the marketplace.

Word-of-mouth marketing is no longer sufficient. Our musical tastes are increasingly dictated by algorithms. What we are asking for has proven successful in the past. Forty-one years ago, the federal government stepped in with requirements for CanCon to save our singers and musicians from being lost to the radio hits from the United States.

Without prominence, Canadian stories and songs will not be discovered, heard or remunerated. The intent behind showcasing Canadian stories and music is not to limit consumer choice, but to help raise the profile of Canadian artists. Regulation would not prevent Canadians from accessing programs from around the world. It would give us greater opportunity to discover local ones. The CRTC would work directly with platforms to determine how they can best showcase more Canadian content.

Discoverability is a tool to help audiences find Canadian works. It would ultimately be up to the commission, as the expert, independent regulator, to craft discoverability requirements that are appropriate for different types of online streaming services. The commission's scope is limited in the bill and would be further guided by the government's policy direction, as is common practice.

In closing, whether we are individual fans and consumers, career showrunners and artists, or industry players, the truth is that we are all invested in the vibrancy of Canadian stories and music. We need Canadian stories and songs to be available and accessible to Canadians. With the online streaming act, we will not just hope but plan for meaningful and sustainable change for our broadcasting and audiovisual sectors, and the production and distribution ecosystem that supports them.

This bill would provide Canadian creators and independent producers the opportunity to own, control and monetize their work, and gives Canadian stories and music a fighting chance to reach the Canadian audience that wants to hear or see them. I urge all members of the House to support the online streaming act. It is time for us to work together to ensue that our cultural sector remains strong, resilient, competitive and representative of our beautiful country.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, broadcasters in Canada for decades have been funding Canadian content in Canada and have been paying taxes, yet web giants like Netflix have been doing neither. What we need is a digital services tax. The Liberals have been kicking that down the road for years.

My question is simple. When will the government implement a digital services tax so that we can have a level playing field, at least in that regard, for our broadcasters?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is less about implementing that tax right away and more about putting the proper elements and structure into place to be able to move in that direction. As my hon. colleague talked about, it is about making sure there is a level playing field. That is exactly what the intent of this bill is: making sure that not only do we put the proper pillars and drivers in place for that playing field, but also that we empower the CRTC to administer it.

All bills go through review. Hopefully, when the time comes to review this bill, we will be in a position to further evaluate the possibility of the tax that my colleague is talking about.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague's comments. It is the first time I have heard him speak in the House. I really appreciated the tenor he brought to this debate. Let me ask this question. He brought up the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and its role in this legislation. Right now, that body has had less and less to do and it is becoming somewhat irrelevant. In this case, we are looking at actually changing net neutrality because so much is delivered over the net here.

I would ask the member to please tell me this, if he could. How many people does he think will be employed at the CRTC to make sure it can go through all this content? They will need to make sure it meets the standards that they will set, obviously under the auspices of the government. Does he foresee a time when the number of people working for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will exceed the number of artists actually providing input into the system?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member was in the House when I was delivering the speech. I have been intervening in the House for a number of years.

It is not so much about how many people will be employed by the CRTC. It is the fact that the CRTC will be empowered and in a position to administer the bill, while collaboratively working with producers to ensure that Canadian content is not only developed but highlighted and properly compensated. It will not necessarily be all the content from social media and various platforms that will be subjected to that rule.

When we look at it, although the amount of content that is being tabled is a lot, the content producers are the ones who the CRTC will work with. They make up a much smaller number than the content creators. That will determine, as time goes on, how many people will be needed.

That was a hypothetical question, but I think it is a question that is worth taking note of.

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

Mr. Speaker, quickly, I am wondering if my colleague can provide his thoughts on the importance of passing the legislation to modernize the public broadcasting act. It has been many, many years, going back to the early nineties. Back then, the Internet was a pretty slow thing.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, honestly, I got married in 1990. This bill was passed in 1991, a year after I got married. Today, when we celebrate, we take a video that we can post online and on WhatsApp.

The key thing is that it is time for us because the content developers are developing Canadian content at a much faster rate. That needs to be acknowledged and fairly compensated.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, it has been very interesting to take part in tonight's discussion and hear the different views expressed. I am happy to have what I believe will be the last word tonight on the matter, on Bill C-11.

At the heart of it is culture and questions around culture. That is the way we make sense of ourselves and our place in the world as individuals and also as members of communities on a local level and on a national level as Canadians. In this, storytelling is particularly key. I would add storytelling by artists plays a special role as well. If there is such a thing as Canadian identity, and I believe there is, our artists have helped to shape it. They have played a fundamental role and continue to do so.

If we think about music, can we tell the Canadian story without looking at The Guess Who, for example, or The Tragically Hip? What about television? Murdoch Mysteries comes to mind, for example, and North of 60. We can name a number of other Canadian programs. My father would always talk about The Beachcombers, which I am not too familiar with, but it looks as though the Speaker is. If we think of film, there is Bon Cop Bad Cop. There are other good examples as well, but that one stands out for a number of members.

Talent explains why each of these became a success. The talent of the producers involved, the artists themselves, the musicians, the actors and all those around is at the top of the list for sure. Another factor that is key to their success is the fact we have a system in Canada that promotes Canadian culture and recognizes the importance of it.

As a condition of their licences, Canadian television and radio broadcasting companies have needed to ensure a space for Canadian content. In Canada, we have the CanCon rules, or the Canadian content rules, where 40% of radio content, for example, must include content of Canadians, and 55% of television content must be Canadian. Radio and television companies also need to pay into the Canada Media Fund.

We have had this system in place for decades. This has long been expected of radio and television companies. On top of that, there is also the fact they have had to pay into the Canada Media Fund. That is an important point to recognize as well.

Here is why Bill C-11 matters. What has been expected of Canadian radio and television organizations for decades would now be expected of streaming organizations such as Netflix, YouTube and Spotify, for example. We need to recognize this is 2022. The last time the Broadcasting Act was modernized was in 1991.

I was in Mrs. Bryne's grade 4 class sitting next to my friends Rob DeVries, Sarah Wuerth and Julie Hearn. Members will not know those names, but those I just mentioned, who were part of those classes, will know what that means exactly and how far back we go. That was grade 4. We have not updated our regulations since then, and we need to.

We need to recognize where we are in Canada's trajectory or how we have evolved as a society. Streaming organizations now play a fundamental role, even more important than radio and television, in terms of content creation. When we talk about our storytellers we look to YouTube, Netflix and Spotify. They play a very important role in that regard.

Recognizing this, the bill puts forward measures in an according fashion so we can keep up and continue to support our artists. The alternative, which I know is favoured by my friends in the opposition, is to allow the free market to reign and allow every individual Canadian artist to compete on their own merits, but to put them up against the mammoth that is the American entertainment industry.

I truly believe in this, and this should not even be a debate. In fact, if we go back to The Tragically Hip, which I mentioned before, its members themselves have made the argument that, were it not for CanCon rules, their success would not have been seen. This is because they would have been up against Pearl Jam and Nirvana. They would have been up against Radiohead, and we can name other examples, on their own, but they were given supports to be on the radio and be promoted in that way. I mentioned a few television series before. Those Canadian programs that are a signature of Canadian culture were supported by the CanCon rules.

For all those reasons, we have to look to our past and learn from it, but also modernize and keep up with the times. Bill C-11 does that by ensuring that streaming organizations do their fair share to ensure a level playing field, support Canadian artists and pay into the Canada media fund. These are not unreasonable expectations of organizations such as Netflix, YouTube and so on, which are doing so well. Obviously, if they are benefiting, they can do their part to support Canadian culture and cultural production in Canada.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the important aspects of this bill is ensuring that web giants pay their fair share and that money is there for our cultural workers and the Canadian broadcasters that have not been on a level playing field. Unfortunately, the big web giants still do not actually pay their fair share.

There is a need for a digital services tax. The Liberal government has been delaying implementing legislation on a digital services tax, and I am curious if the member would speak to his commitment to ensuring that the web giants truly pay their fair share.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, every company has to pay their fair share. I look forward to engaging more with NDP members, as I think all members on this side of the aisle do, on that matter to get their thoughts. I know where they stand, but let us collaborate, let us listen and let us work toward a fair playing environment, if I can put it that way, in terms of the digital creators the member is so concerned about.

Here, we are talking about Bill C-11. It is a good bill. I know the NDP supports it, and I appreciate that.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Before we close, I just want to say that as Speaker, when I find out what people were doing in 1991, it starts to upset me just a bit. I think I am a little older than some of the folks who were speaking tonight.

It being 11:46 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, June 13, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the amendment be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

The hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think you will find consent to adopt it on division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect not. I request a recorded division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, November 25, 2021, the recorded division stands deferred until Tuesday, June 21, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect if you were to canvass the House, you would find unanimous consent to call it midnight so the House can adjourn.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from June 20 consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:45 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, November 25, 2021, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at third reading of Bill C-11.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The question is on the amendment. May I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

[Chair read text of amendment to House]

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #163

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I declare the amendment defeated.

The next question is on the main motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote, please.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #164

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)