Pablo Rodriguez Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is, or will soon become, law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment regulates digital news intermediaries to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contribute to its sustainability. It establishes a framework through which digital news intermediary operators and news businesses may enter into agreements respecting news content that is made available by digital news intermediaries. The framework takes into account principles of freedom of expression and journalistic independence.
The enactment, among other things,
(a) applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to specific factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting those factors;
(c) specifies that the enactment does not apply in respect of “broadcasting” by digital news intermediaries that are “broadcasting undertakings” as those terms are defined in the Broadcasting Act or in respect of telecommunications service providers as defined in the Telecommunications Act ;
(d) requires the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) to maintain a list of digital news intermediaries in respect of which the enactment applies;
(e) requires the Commission to exempt a digital news intermediary from the application of the enactment if its operator has entered into agreements with news businesses and the Commission is of the opinion that the agreements satisfy certain criteria;
(f) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting how the Commission is to interpret those criteria and setting out additional conditions with respect to the eligibility of a digital news intermediary for an exemption;
(g) establishes a bargaining process in respect of matters related to the making available of certain news content by digital news intermediaries;
(h) establishes eligibility criteria and a designation process for news businesses that wish to participate in the bargaining process;
(i) requires the Commission to establish a code of conduct respecting bargaining in relation to news content;
(j) prohibits digital news intermediary operators from acting, in the course of making available certain news content, in ways that discriminate unjustly, that give undue or unreasonable preference or that subject certain news businesses to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage;
(k) allows certain news businesses to make complaints to the Commission in relation to that prohibition;
(l) authorizes the Commission to require the provision of information for the purpose of exercising its powers and performing its duties and functions under the enactment;
(m) requires the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to provide the Commission with an annual report if the Corporation is a party to an agreement with an operator;
(n) establishes a framework respecting the provision of information to the responsible Minister, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, while permitting an individual or entity to designate certain information that they submit to the Commission as confidential;
(o) authorizes the Commission to impose, for contraventions of the enactment, administrative monetary penalties on certain individuals and entities and conditions on the participation of news businesses in the bargaining process;
(p) establishes a mechanism for the recovery, from digital news intermediary operators, of certain costs related to the administration of the enactment; and
(q) requires the Commission to have an independent auditor prepare a report annually in respect of the impact of the enactment on the Canadian digital news marketplace.
Finally, the enactment makes related amendments to other Acts.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
The hon. member knows full well that this was the time allocated for the debate on Bill C-18, and that was the end of it.
The hon. member for Hamilton Centre.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
The hon. member was not censored. The time was limited on debate, and that was it. That was the end of debate on Bill C-18. That was it. There is no point of order.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
It being 8:29 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-18 now before the House.
The question is on the amendment.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the amendment be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the well-informed constituents of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke and speak to the Liberals' online news censorship act.
Every single day, thousands of Canadians have their online identity stolen. Every single day, a woman has her privacy and dignity stolen by revenge porn. Every single day, the mental health crisis grows in scale, driven by social media use among teens. Online crimes run rampant. Do these Liberals care? No, they do not. Instead, their priority is propping up dying broadcasters and failing legacy media corporations.
They have already passed their online streaming censorship act. We are already beginning to see the consequences of that first stifling bill. Smaller foreign streamers are telling the CRTC they'll leave the Canadian market. These Liberals were warned this would happen. I personally warned the member for Winnipeg North what would happen if foreign-language streamers such as a Filipino streaming service blocked people living in Canada from watching their content.
Now, here we are again. Every independent voice is telling these Liberals that their plan is terrible. Their scheme to force two foreign companies to subsidize the entire Canadian media industry is obviously ridiculous. Even the legacy media have finally admitted they make millions of dollars from Google and Facebook. The legacy media even buy ads on Facebook and yet their lobbyists continue to lie, and claim that these two tech companies are profiting from their content. We know this is a lie. Facebook and Google do not profit off the dying legacy media. These companies profit off our privacy. These companies strip minor data and sell it to the highest bidder. News links generate very little profitable data. Google does not even run ads on most news searches. That is why these companies have been clear: If they are forced to choose between negotiating unlimited payments for links and blocking news links, they will choose to block news links.
Now the Minister of Canadian Heritage huffs and puffs about his chest. That it is just a bluff. Hearing the minister speak like that, I can understand why some of his critics think that he is incompetent. In fact, the government knows exactly what it is doing. It is called the Liberal coin flip. If it is heads, the Liberals win; if it is tails, Canadians lose. If Google and Facebook win, it is tails and Canadians lose. If Google and Facebook comply with the extortion, the legacy media become beholden to the Liberals' continuing in power. If Google and Facebook reject the extortion and block links, fewer Canadians will learn the truth about the government's corruption and incompetence. Heads they win; tails we lose.
However, it does not have to be this way. There is a third option. Facebook and Google could respect our democracy by seeking a solution in the courts. The legislation would require negotiation on a commercial basis. The news media representatives have now admitted they receive significant commercial benefit from links shared by Google and Facebook. Google and Facebook provide these commercial benefits to the news media industry free of charge.
It is clear from the Liberals' desperate talking points that this bill has no relationship with reality. It is based on the big lie first pushed by Rupert Murdoch's Australian media companies. This bill would never withstand judicial scrutiny. Facebook and Google have a choice: They can block news links and make Canadian democracy worse off or they can use their considerable resources to fight this law in court. Facebook and Google must keep the news links working, refuse to pay the blackmail and demonstrate they care more about the fundamental principles that the Internet was built on, which is the free flow of information.
If Google and Facebook refuse to fight this and they just give up on Canadians and proceed with blocking news, then the Prime Minister wins and Canadians lose.
How many Canadians learned about blackface from a Facebook post? How many Canadians have googled the words “Communist interference” and “Liberal Party” in order to keep up with the latest news leaks?
The government would be all too happy to see fewer news stories online. Failing that, it would settle for bringing the legacy media under the control of government. This bill would give the CRTC the power to demand any information from news media. At the recent convention, Liberal Party members cheerfully passed a policy to force news media to disclose their sources. Who is going to risk blowing the whistle on the government if the CRTC can demand any news media outlet reveal their identity?
The government claims it needs to force Google and Facebook to subsidize the entire Canadian media industry in order to save Canadians from the scourge of misinformation. Meanwhile, the minister of public endangerment is a one-man misinformation man. He claimed that police asked for the Emergencies Act. He claimed he was not banning hunting rifles while seeking to ban thousands of them. He claimed the secret Communist police stations had been shut down. The current government is the greatest source of misinformation in our society today. Now the Liberals want to bring news media under their control.
At its core, the government is confused. It has confused the fundamental right of a free press with the corporate interests of a news media industry. The survival of any one particular newspaper or broadcaster is of no importance to our democracy. What is important is the freedom for any Canadian to publish. Bill C-18 threatens that freedom. If Google and Facebook give in to the extortion, then the larger established legacy media will be given an unfair competitive advantage over any media not willing to get into bed with the CRTC and—
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
I rise today to speak about my concerns related to Bill C-18. This bill should be strongly opposed. We Conservatives believe that Canadian news media deserves to be fairly compensated, while the Liberals continue to fail to create effective legislation to support Canadians.
First and foremost, the Liberals claim that Bill C-18 would help smaller newspapers and media outlets. However, they fail to mention the fact that, according to the government's Parliamentary Budget Officer, more than 75% of the funding would go to large media outlets, such as the CBC. Less than 25% would be left for small media companies. The Liberal government claims to support small businesses, yet it continues to funnel tax dollars to its friends at media companies. Small news outlets' main competition is from corporations, such as the CBC.
We Conservatives proposed amendments that would level the playing field and support local and ethnic media. These amendments were rejected. The Liberals want to pick and choose their friends instead. Is $1.2 billion to the CBC not enough?
In the Senate, Senator Carignan tried to bring forth a motion to fix this. It was rejected.
According to former CRTC commissioner Peter Menzies, “Bill C-18 will only perpetuate a market already distorted by subsidy and it will punish independence.” He said, “If Parliament values a free press, it will not approve Bill C-18.” Do the Liberals admit that they do not like a free press? The Liberal government continues to help its elitist friends in high places and big corporations, while it forgets about the local and ethnic media outlets.
Dwayne Winseck, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication and director of the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project for Carleton University said, “Canada's largest media conglomerates—some with revenue multiple times higher than what Google and Facebook earn in Canada—will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of the bill”.
In December, the government cut off hearing from witnesses at committee, silencing experts from dozens of independent and digital news outlets who wished to speak. Rather than focusing on Canadian experts, the government relied mainly on non-Canadian critics of the digital platforms Google and Meta to tout Liberal talking points.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage deceptively stated that 400 news outlets had closed since 2008. However, he failed to mention that the same study he was referencing showed that hundreds of new news outlets had opened during the same time period.
After criticizing digital platforms for not disclosing the details of existing agreements with news outlets, the Liberal and NDP MPs on the committee rejected a proposal brought forward by Conservatives to require greater transparency. Now they have brought on time allocation to silence Canadians' concerns. The Liberal-NDP government has no interest in listening to these concerns. It wants to silence anyone with opposing views.
Furthermore, Bill C-18 poses a grave threat to privacy rights. The bill includes provisions that would expand the government's surveillance capabilities, allowing it to collect and analyze vast amounts of personal data without sufficient oversight. This erosion of privacy is deeply troubling. We should have the right to live our lives free from unwarranted surveillance and invasion of our private affairs.
By giving authorities unchecked powers to collect and analyze our personal data, this bill would put our privacy at risk and set a dangerous precedent for government intrusion into our lives. Just like Bill C-11, Bill C-18 would infringe on the rights and freedoms of Canadians.
Conservatives believe in the importance of a free and independent press. This bill would have significant implications for journalistic independence. Bill C-18 would empower the CRTC to obtain any information it considers necessary, including confidential information from news organizations. Conservative MPs brought forward amendments to guarantee the freedom of the press, but they were voted down by the NDP-Liberal coalition and the Bloc Québécois.
Another concern is that Bill C-18 would impact small businesses and start-ups. The bill would introduce stringent regulations and compliance requirements that would disproportionately burden smaller online platforms. This would create a significant barrier to entry for entrepreneurs, stifling innovation and competition. We must foster an environment that nurtures small businesses and start-ups, as they are often the driving force behind economic growth and job creation.
By favouring large corporations, the bill threatens to consolidate power in the hands of a few, reducing consumer choice and limiting opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. The bill would enable the CRTC to pick winners and losers among media; to no one's surprise, the Liberals' friends are going to be picked as winners. Conservatives brought forward motions to fix this. They were rejected.
Many experts feel that the bill is on a path to destroying Canadian media. They agree that the bill has deep flaws, which would lead to millions of dollars in lost revenue. This would set back media by years, and the projected losses that would be incurred because of Bill C-18 are greater than the funding and the tax credits.
The Liberals have extended the eligibility to foreign news outlets, and they have the audacity to claim that this will help Canadians. Broadcasters who are licensed by the CRTC but do not produce news are eligible.
From the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Katherine Tai has warned that Bill C-18 would have serious trade implications for Canada. In a recent press release, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy stated the following: “We have...concerns it could impact digital streaming services and discriminate against U.S. businesses”. The U.S. has warned of trade retaliation, which would likely be equivalent to whatever the U.S. believed U.S.-based digital news intermediaries had lost as a result of Bill C-18. According to the PBO, this would be $300 million-plus. The Liberals have found a way to give Canadian taxpayer dollars to American companies, while at the same time, making trade relations with the United States worse.
Any government intervention into the free press must be carefully considered, as there is a potential to warp outcomes, stifle innovation, determine winners and losers, and compromise journalistic independence. In its current form, Bill C-18, the online news act, fails this test, according to the independent online news publishers of Canada.
Furthermore, the vague and ambiguous language used in Bill C-18 raises concerns about potential abuse of power. The broad definitions and discretionary powers granted to government agencies leave room for arbitrary decision-making and selective enforcement. This undermines principles of fairness and due process, which are crucial to the functioning of a just society. We must demand legislation that is clear and specific, while respecting the rights of individuals and the rule of law. The Liberals intentionally used vague language to deceive Canadians so that they can interpret the wording in a way that will allow them to give more and more help and funding to their friends.
The legislation before us fails to address the needs of Canadian media outlets. Conservatives have brought forward amendments to fix these issues, but the Liberal-NDP coalition, along with the Bloc, voted them down.
Conservatives will continue to stand up for Canadians, stand up for small businesses and push back against the Liberal government giving money to its friends. Canada needs more common-sense legislation without ambiguous words. We need legislation that uses strong wording that can be easily interpreted.
In conclusion, Bill C-18 represents a disregard for small businesses, as well as the principles of fairness and due process. The bill would help neither those struggling to survive nor those trying to enter the marketplace. We oppose the bill and demand a more balanced and thoughtful approach that respects our fundamental rights and effectively addresses—
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Speaker, the answer is quite simple: This bill will not do that. Although there are a few small publications that will benefit from Bill C-18, the vast majority of local and ethnic media will not.
During the study of this bill at committee, Steve Nixon, the executive director of the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association, made this point. He said that only four out of the 56 publications will benefit from this legislation.
The PBO has stated, as I mentioned in my speech, that 75% of the money will go to the CBC, Rogers and Bell. This government does not want to help small publications, and neither does that member's party.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in this place to speak to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, which has been returned to the House by the Senate with amendments.
Before I begin my speech, I would like to point out once again the hypocrisy of the Liberals, who imposed time allocation on this bill for a second time earlier today. If that was not egregious enough, yesterday a member of the government interrupted a member of an opposition party in the middle of their speech to give notice that it would be moving a time allocation motion on Bill C-18 today. The government then switched debate to Bill C-42, forcing that opposition member to finish their speech this afternoon. Perhaps it is understandable that the government is in such disarray as it stumbles from scandal to scandal, mismanaging its agenda in the House so poorly that it must now rely on these heavy-handed measures at the end of this session, although it can always count on the blind support of its NDP backbench to bail it out.
Moving on to the bill, this bill will require digital platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay Canadian media outlets for sharing their news content. Digital giants will have six months to negotiate private deals to compensate Canadian media outlets before being required to enter into arbitration. The proposed legislation will also create a framework for the arbitration process.
This is yet another ill-conceived bill from the NDP-Liberal government. Subject matter experts have raised numerous questions and concerns about it, including the impact it will have on news media, the Internet in Canada and the benefit or lack thereof to Canadian media.
Some questions remain unanswered: Why was the CRTC selected to be the regulator? Does the CRTC have the knowledge and expertise capacity to do the job properly? Does the CRTC have the capacity to enforce the regulations once they are created? The answers to these questions and others are impossible to know, because they will stem from the regulations that will follow if this bill is passed into law.
Essentially, what the government is asking of us is to grant them these new powers and just trust that it will be fair in its application. It is a ridiculous thing to ask for. The government has been chronically plagued with introducing deeply flawed and deliberately vague legislation, leaving the details to be fleshed out by the bureaucrats through regulation, which does not get the kind of public scrutiny that bills do through a debate in this place.
It is not only that: The government has also been chronically plagued with scandals and cover-ups. How can it be trusted to do the right thing when it has shown time and time again that it is prepared to abuse its position of power to help out its friends?
The fact that the CRTC, which is a government entity, will decide which news outlets qualify under this legislation is effectively a form of indirect funding. This bill allows the CRTC to pick winners and losers by determining which news businesses are included and will get to bargain for compensation and which news outlets will be left in the cold. Conservatives proposed amendments to level the playing field but were voted down by the other parties. While the government may suggest that the CRTC is independent, I am not reassured. The WE Charity scandal came out of a supposedly independent process. The SNC-Lavalin scandal came out of that same supposedly independent process. For the Liberal government, an independent process is independent in name only.
Another flaw in the conception of this bill is the idea that hyperlinks possess monetary value. While 99.9% of Canadians may not be aware of it, a case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2011 dealt with this very issue. In the case of Crookes v. Newton, the Supreme Court stated clearly in their decision that hyperlinks are akin to footnotes. Since footnotes do not carry a monetary value when used in publications, why should hyperlinks? Although access to the information behind the link is much faster than having to look up the reference in a footnote, the two are considered to operate in the same way.
The Supreme Court was quite clear in their findings on this case. Experts are asking why the government is ignoring the Supreme Court in this matter and whether it planning on challenging this decision from over a decade ago. How does it reconcile what is in this bill with the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2011?
Another flaw in thinking that links have monetary value is that often publishers and sellers are paying to feature their links at the top of search engines or to boost their outreach on Facebook. It is interesting that when organizations are paying to feature their links on these sites more prominently, the government now turns around and says that it is the one that should be getting paid.
Initiating this “link tax”, as it has been called, can open the door to other issues, such as the ability of larger organizations to take less money per link than smaller organizations, making the larger organizations a more attractive partner for big corporations. That raises the question of how smaller websites will be able to compete.
The reality of media marketing is that organizations pay money to push links to their sites on platforms like Google and Facebook all the time. They spend quite a bit of money to do this. This boosting of their links is essentially an advertisement for their respective websites. Does providing access to these sites not boost user engagement with their articles? If Google or Facebook were taking the articles of Canadian news outlets and republishing them as their own, then we would have a real issue, but it is an issue that can already be addressed through existing laws and legislation. However, that is not the issue at hand. Anyone who has used Google would know that search engines do not republish articles in this way. If I were to search for an article, I would need to click through to the article in order to access the content behind it.
Another deep concern with this legislation is that the CBC would be the largest beneficiary of the provisions in this bill. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that the majority of the money—three-quarters of it, to be exact—would go to the CBC, Rogers and Bell, with less than a quarter left for newspapers. After the larger newspaper businesses take their share, very little, if any, would be left for local and ethnic media.
Canadians already give over $1 billion to the CBC each year. If the purpose of this bill, as the government purports, is to support smaller domestic media sources, why include the CBC? Again, Conservatives proposed an amendment to exclude the CBC so that more money would go to local and independent news sources, but it was voted down by the NDP-Liberal coalition and the Bloc.
In conclusion, I am very concerned that rather than helping Canadian news outlets, this bill would harm them by restricting their reach, as I have mentioned. Independent media are foundational to Canadian democracy. Experts in the field have raised the concern that this legislation would negatively impact this principle in Canada. When the government creates criteria for access to funds, even media organizations may self-censor to ensure they qualify. This could lead to Canadians having less information, fewer options and an unbalanced media field.
Once again, I am unable to vote for this bill in its current form.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Madam Speaker, I wanted to point out to my friend from Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame that there are many things in the Standing Orders that are actually known as rules; they are not guidelines.
In the old days, Speakers who found somebody heckling, or violating the Standing Orders in other ways, would throw them out of the chamber for six months or more. This is not censorship; this is called decorum, and it is easy to follow the rules. One of them that I think the hon. member might want to take a look at is Standing Order 10, which says that, when the Speaker has stated a ruling, “No debate shall be permitted on any such decision, and no such decision shall be subject to an appeal to the House.” We should cease discussing something that happened earlier in the day.
To the member's points on Bill C-18, I do not see how it would be censorship. I may think it is flawed policy, but I do not see any censorship there, and perhaps he could explain where he sees censorship as opposed to an effort to, as the member said, support legacy media.
The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, and of the amendment.
Clifford Small Conservative Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.
The NDP-Liberal coalition has been as sly as a fox and as slippery as an eel with this piece of legislation known as Bill C-18, the online news act. This is yet another Liberal attempt to control the online content available to the people of Canada. The government will pick winners and losers among our various media outlets with this faulty legislation if it passes.
When this bill was before our House of Commons' standing committee in December, the government cut off hearing from witnesses who wished to voice their concerns about the fairness for media outlets. These witnesses and media stakeholders who wanted to put forward their concerns were simply shut down. After hastily being pushed through the standing committee, Bill C-18 came back to this place, where the censoring Liberals called time allocation after just three hours and 20 minutes of debate. What utter disregard for the many journalists and media outlets whose livelihoods will be weighed in the balance should this law pass.
The NDPs who supported the Liberals, when their blushing brides wanted to rob witnesses of the opportunity to testify at committee, backed them again by shutting debate down and rushing to get this bill passed here and sent off to the Senate. This is what we have seen time and time again with these partners in crime when it comes to legislation that supports their socialist agenda.
Legacy socialist legislation, like Bill C-11, Bill C-21 or Bill C-35, routinely gets pushed through this House with no regard for the views of stakeholders, ordinary Canadians and the opposition party.
What is wrong with Bill C-18, one might ask? Why are we using our resources to oppose this legislation? How is it bad for the Canadian public? How is it bad for small and local and ethnic media? How is it bad for journalists who want to maintain their independence?
I will tell us a little bit about that.
While this bill was in our House standing committee, the Liberals' court jester, the Minister of Heritage, deceived the committee with fake stats. He claimed that news outlets are destined for extinction. He cited a study that showed that 400 news outlets had closed since 2008. The conniving part of this testimony was that he left out a very important piece, also outlined in that same report, which was that hundreds of new outlets had opened during that exact same period, yet the jester claims that this bill is about supporting local media and building a fair news ecosystem. Nothing can be further from the truth.
This bill will favour darlings of the costly coalition like the CBC. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that more than 75% of the money generated by this bill will go to large corporations like Bell, Rogers and the CBC, leaving less than 25% for newspapers. Very little of that will be left over for local and ethnic media after big newspaper businesses take the lion's share of that 25%.
According to the PBO, the Liberal claim that this bill will help sustain local newspapers and ethnic media is completely false.
That is why Conservatives tried to fix this grave injustice at committee but the NDP-Liberal coalition, and the Bloc, voted against the amendment.
Conservative senators tried to amend this bill to stop state-backed broadcasters like the CBC from competing with private broadcasters and publications for this limited money when they already receive secure funding from taxpayers' dollars.
According to the PBO, this bill would generate $320 million, and of that amount, $240 million would go to the big broadcasters: CBC, Bell and Rogers. They would be entitled to more resources than they can possibly use, to help them increase their market share, while smaller outlets like the Toronto Star could disappear, heaven forbid.
Bill C-18 is another greasy attempt at online censorship. It walks hand in hand with Bill C-11. The other place sent this bill back to this place with amendments made by its independent senators, while amendments proposed by Conservative senators have been completely disregarded. Witnesses at the Senate committee painted a grim picture for most journalism in Canada, but that testimony was disrespected and trashed, along with the amendments that arose from it. The Liberal government is determined to control what we see online. According to witnesses from The Globe and Mail, News Media Canada, La Presse, Le Devoir, CANADALAND, The Line, and Village Media, this bill would create enormous risk for the independence of the press, for the bottom line of news outlets and for the future of digital media across this country.
The government has disguised its eagerness to control what news can be shared online with its appearance to want to straighten out big tech, like Facebook and Google, and to protect small media. Does that sound familiar? The same Minister of Canadian Heritage used these exact same tactics with Bill C-11 by touting his protection of Canadian content; however, at the same time, he cut small media's global revenue streams.
The government is enlisting the help of the CRTC to determine what is news and what is not. When something is created to share information about something new, otherwise known as “news”, it would be up to the CRTC whether it can be seen online in this country. Who asked for this bill? Legacy media asked for this bill, and the Liberal government has responded. The bunch on that side of the House will make sure that their story, their narrative, their agenda and their propaganda get out, and that opposing viewpoints are silenced. That is what this is all about. The government will use this legislation to choose winners and losers in the information world, and if it does not match its socialist agenda, news will not see the light of day. Good journalists and independent news media risk falling by the wayside if this legislation receives royal assent.
Conservatives will fight censorship and stand up for freedom of the press, which is now much broader than what it once encompassed. This is a new world, and a new approach is required to fight censorship. Censorship can be easily enacted in the online world without anyone ever suspecting it. On this side of the House, we stand for freedom and for protecting the public from legislation which would restrict the news content they would see. This bill to protect legacy broadcasters would drastically impact what news Canadians can see online, and Conservatives will not go on the record as supporting it. Censorship is censorship, however one slices it, and I will not vote for a bill that supports it in any way.
To conclude my remarks, my thoughts are with my colleague from Lethbridge, who, in my opinion and in the opinion of many of my colleagues, has been censored. She has been treated unfairly. It rushed to my mind as I was speaking so much about censorship. Hopefully, my colleague will receive justice.
The House resumed consideration of the motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, and of the amendment.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Madam Speaker, I am much in sympathy with what I have heard from the Conservatives around Bill C-18 to the extent of whether it will solve the problem. I am not hearing us identify the problem of social media outlets like Google and Facebook and the others having eviscerated the news media in this country, not necessarily by putting their content up without paying for it but by actually getting rid of the business model our newspapers used to rely on, like classified ads. The newspapers used to be able to rely on a source of income that is no longer there because foreign enterprises not paying taxes in this country have created a different marketplace that provides access to Kijiji and so on. I wonder if the hon. member has any comments on whether we could replace the word “platforms” with the word “publishers” and solve this problem.
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
We are studying Bill C-18, and it speaks about freedom, censorship and power imbalance. I notice the member for Lethbridge and the fantastic shadow minister for Canadian Heritage has been getting up to ask questions over and over, and ironically, the Speaker is censoring her on a very important debate that she has much to contribute to. I urge the Speaker to reconsider her ruling and stop censoring the member immediately.