Bill C-18

Online News Act

An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada

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.

Bill C‑18 — Senate Amendments

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I too enjoy the work we do and our close collaboration at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Most of the time, our work has been constructive.

There is a reason journalism and news are called the fourth estate. The news media has a duty and an important role to play in society. I said “important”, but I really mean “essential”.

If Bill C-18 is not passed, more media outlets will shutter, continuing a more than decade-long trend. The news media are in trouble. Bill C‑18 is one of the tools we need to ensure their survival. If it is not passed, we could lose more media outlets, including regional media, which would be especially unfortunate.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I very much enjoy working with him on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I enjoyed his description of journalists and what they do for our society. I wanted to ask him what he thinks will happen if we do not adopt Bill C‑18 and if we do not support our journalists. What will happen to our democracy?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to pick up where we left off last night.

I have to say I was a little disappointed. We had a great opportunity to debate Bill C‑18 last night, but we were cut off at about 6:30 p.m. in the middle of my speech. I had about 12 minutes to go. The classy thing to do would have been to let me finish my speech before interrupting the proceedings. Let us not talk about that right now. Let us talk about Bill C‑18 for the time we have left because, as everyone knows, the House just voted in favour of time allocation.

During the debates on Bill C‑18, there was a lot of talk about money. Basically, people talked about the financial difficulties news outlets have been experiencing for decades, ever since the web giants came on the scene and helped themselves to the lion's share of advertising revenue. People have talked a lot about money, which is certainly important because that is the crux of the matter, obviously. That is what news outlets need in order to succeed and keep providing the essential service they provide: high-quality, independent, fact-checked, thorough information; essentially, news that meets recognized journalistic standards.

Bill C‑18 will benefit the news sector. It will most likely help save many news businesses. That is the objective of the bill, and I think that it will largely achieve that objective. Today, I also wanted to talk about something else that Bill C‑18 will help preserve or even save, and that is journalism itself. We have heard all kinds of things about eligible news businesses and which businesses would benefit more than others from this bill and from the regulations and regulatory framework that will be put in place by Bill C‑18. However, we are forgetting to define and discuss journalism itself.

With the advent of social media and digital platforms, it is true that we have seen the emergence of new types of news media, new types of businesses, new ways of disseminating information. However, we have also seen more news businesses engaging in what we might call advocacy journalism. In some cases, it could even be described as activist journalism, a form of journalism that involves embracing a cause and using the medium to provide news to the public in a way that is biased in favour of that cause. One example would be environmental journalism. We agree that the cause is worthy, but environmental journalists will always deliver the news with an activist slant. I have nothing against that, but is that journalism in the true sense of the word? No, not really, in the same way that a certain type of media outlet might have a political bent. I know some people will say that CBC/Radio-Canada has a pro-government, pro-Liberal bias.

What is journalism, really? Journalism is a profession that demands a lot of meticulous work and a lot of passion. It has certain standards, certain rules that I would hazard to say are accepted around the world. Its first guiding principle is independence. What does independence mean for journalism and for journalists? It means the ability to work unfettered by the influence of a government, company, movement or cause. That is what journalistic independence means. The second guiding principle is handling the news in a meticulous way. That means having an almost obsessive passion for truth-seeking and fact-checking, while remaining objective.

The other guiding principle is respect for individuals and groups and respect in handling sources.

These are the guiding principles of the journalism profession. I am not saying that advocacy journalism, activist journalism or opinion journalism are bad. However, they are not necessarily what we are trying to protect through Bill C‑18. That is why we included eligibility criteria in Bill C‑18. News outlets eligible under the regulatory framework proposed by Bill C‑18 will have to espouse a code of ethics. The code in question may not necessarily mirror the journalistic standards and practices of CBC/Radio-Canada or the ethics guide of the Quebec Press Council. However, the media outlet would need a code, even one scribbled on a piece of paper, that reflects its commitment to complying with the guiding principles of journalism.

I think this should offer some comfort to people who think that Bill C‑18 will favour certain large media outlets that they believe show a bias for the government and could act as a conduit for the government's opinions.

I do not think that what I am about to say will be a big surprise to members who did not participate in the debates on Bill C-18. My Conservative friends were not very supportive of this bill and they do not generally like what we call the mainstream media, the major news media outlets. I am talking about traditional media companies like CBC/Radio-Canada, Vidéotron, Bell Media and Québecor, of course. I am talking about these major companies that produce the news. The Conservatives find them biased because, in general, they take positions that are not relayed as the Conservatives would like, for all sorts of reasons. Generally, the populist spin gets filtered out in the mainstream media, which adopt journalistic standards and adhere to broad journalistic principles.

I will now digress briefly, since we are talking about CBC/Radio-Canada. I know someone who has worked in the news service for a good part of his career and who received complaints from the public. On the French side, Quebec separatists have often accused Radio-Canada of being federalist and not reporting the news or doing so in a biased way when it comes to the separatist cause. Conversely, Quebec federalists find that Radio-Canada is a gang of separatists. This person I know told me that when it comes to the news, if he receives the same number of complaints from people who complain that they are being too federalist relative to those who complain that they are being too separatist, he feels that they did a good job, that they worked objectively and that they were “on the right track,” as my friend, the House leader of the Bloc Québécois and member for La Prairie might say. In short, it is all a matter of perception.

However, there is something that is different about the mainstream media. I do not want to advocate for CBC/Radio-Canada, but in general, these major media companies are objective. Obviously we see biases from time to time, but not serious ones. These major media outlets must change course and correct the situation when they make a mistake, when they err, when they are, for example, partisan, or biased, or handle a news item badly. They all have mechanisms for receiving complaints, processing them and making retractions as needed. Knowing how to make retractions after recognizing that a mistake was made is also one of the major principles of journalism.

I am talking about mainstream media, but I also spoke earlier about the new media, new forms of news media that we have seen emerge, media of all kinds. There is a lot of opinion news, as I said. I wondered whether these media had to be neglected. The answer is obviously no.

Changes are happening in the news sector. Everyone acknowledged that when we studied Bill C‑18. A lot has changed. The fact is that news companies need to adapt, transition to digital technologies and make sure they reach people where they are.

Consumer habits have changed in recent years when it comes to the news. People get their news on social media. They go on Facebook, for example, or they search for a particular piece of news or subject using Google. These are now the ways we get our news. What is more, these outlets and general content companies sell huge amounts of advertising, since 80% of advertising is said to now be in the digital sector. I think it is normal that these outlets and these companies, which profit heavily from the news sector and the content generated by newsrooms, contribute to the content they are benefiting from. It is the least they can do.

I am well aware of the fact that Bill C‑18 will not solve all the issues with the news sector, the media in general and culture, the latter being addressed more specifically in Bill C‑11. Bill C‑18 will not solve everything. There will still be problems and challenges. In my opinion, it is normal that governments come to the aid of a sector as fragile as the news sector. It is a fragile sector, but it is essential.

Clearly, we will need more tools to help the media. That is obvious. The fund the Bloc Québécois is proposing would be a very effective tool, allowing us to collect royalties from the digital giants that are making outrageous profits and use them to support more fragile media, such as regional media. I think that would be a good solution.

Once again, the Bloc Québécois is the party proposing solutions rather than simply opposing suggestions and obstructing Parliament. I would be very pleased to discuss this with my colleagues and to make a more detailed proposal to the government.

The House resumed from June 19 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.

Bill C-18—Time Allocation Motion

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam. Speaker, I do listen to what is happening in the committee. It is very important for me, being the Minister of Canadian Heritage. I have a lot of respect for the work of the committee, and I have had the chance to go committee many times.

However, there are many programs for local papers. As I said before, there is the tax credit on labour, local journalism initiatives, especially for small communities. There is the Canada periodical fund. We are open to work with the other parties to come up with other solutions. However, Bill C-18 is one of those solutions. It is there, it is ready, it has been studied in the House and in the Senate. It is time we move on.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will be delighted to hear what I have to say.

My colleague just said that he supported the concept of closure when the bill is essential. Bill C‑18 is certainly essential to our newsrooms across Quebec and Canada.

The Bloc Québécois members ultimately lack that little bit of courage to say that it is important for them, even if it is no fun to limit debate. No one likes it, and no one got into politics to invoke closure. At the end of the day, they just do not have the courage to say that this step is necessary to get the bill.

Right now, they want Bill C‑18, but they do not want to do anything to help the government pass the bill. They do not want to help. They could stand up today, vote with the government and the NDP, and show how important it is to pass it before the summer break. If they do not do that, then the Conservatives will block it all week.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to the minister's heated reaction. We know he is quite a passionate man and that this bill is important to him, but I believe he misunderstood the meaning of my question earlier. I really want to refocus my question on the concept of a closure motion.

In its entire history, the Bloc Québécois has supported under 10 closure motions. When it did give its support, it was because it was truly crucial that the bill being considered at the time be freed up. In 2021, in regard to Bill C‑10, the Bloc Québécois even suggested publicly that closure be used and recommended that the Liberals impose a time allocation motion because the government had lost control of the agenda. Something needed to be done to move the bill forward.

Right now, the government has not lost control with Bill C‑18. Everything is going pretty smoothly. We are in the final stage and there is no need to, say, free up something stuck somewhere due to filibustering. Earlier, I asked a question about the fact that we have two or three days left to debate Bill C‑18.

Yes, I want to see it passed this week at all costs, but my question was whether the minister had given up hope of having the bill passed in the usual manner by the end of the week and that was why he was imposing the closure motion today.

I would like to hear from the minister on this.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is a very important question. I want to thank my colleague for his work on this bill and the overall work of the government. He is a key member of the government team.

Sometimes, it is necessary to use time allocation. With this official opposition, it may be used more, because they like to filibuster. The opposition likes to play with the tools it has to hurt our democracy.

Bill C-11 is an amazing bill that is asking the streamers that we all love, such as Disney, Netflix and others, to contribute to Canadian culture, which is a good thing. Normally we would all agree on this. I know the NDP agrees. I know the Bloc agrees. The Conservatives are not too sure. That bill spent more time in the Senate than any other bill in the history of this country, because it was blocked by Conservative senators under the order of the leader of the Conservative Party. That is totally unacceptable.

The Conservatives are trying to do the same thing on Bill C-18, with the budget and other bills. They are hurting our democracy.

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

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the minister could reflect on how, when the leader of the Conservative Party had a press conference in regard to the budget bill, he said that he was going to speak and speak.

His intentions were to prevent the bill from passing until the Prime Minister made changes to the budget. Now we have the Conservatives opposing this particular bill. They have already expressed an interest in terms of speaking and speaking in order to prevent the bill from passing.

Would the minister not agree that, just as when the leader of the Conservative Party vowed to speak endlessly, without the time allocation, we would never have been able to pass the budget and we would not be able to pass Bill C-18? Would the minister provide his thoughts on that issue?

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

Madam Speaker, as my colleague from Drummond just mentioned, we had dozens and dozens of witnesses. Two of the key witnesses who came forward about Bill C-18 were from the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association and the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association. These newspapers, independent outlets right across Alberta and Saskatchewan, are the ones that cover cities and other places represented by half of the Conservative caucus, and they said Bill C-18 needs to be put in place, adopted as quickly as possible.

We have Alberta community newspapers and Saskatchewan community newspapers saying the bill needs to be brought in, and we have Conservative MPs who represent those ridings fighting tooth and nail to block this bill completely, refusing to allow it through. To me, that seems to be hypocrisy and a clear contradiction of what Conservative MPs should be defending, which is their communities' interests.

Why are the Conservatives blocking a bill that their community newspapers are calling for?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I really do not like that they are imposing time allocation. I think it is an insult to democracy and parliamentary privilege.

That said, I do not agree with my Conservative colleague who said that people were not heard in committee when it studied Bill C‑18. I think everyone spoke to that bill. The committee heard as many people as possible and we had ample time to debate the bill.

The bill was debated in the House and it was studied in the Senate. This week, the government is moving forward by imposing time allocation, and I find that deplorable. I would like to ask the minister if he believes that we could have dealt with Bill C‑18 in the House this week without resorting to time allocation. Or, on the contrary, does he believe that the Conservatives would have done everything possible to drag things out to ensure that the bill, which they oppose, does not pass?

I deplore time allocation. Was it absolutely necessary to use it today? Could we have dealt with it this week in the normal course of debate?

Canada Business Corporations Act

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

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

It seems as though we were supposed to be debating Bill C-18, which is legislation that deals with online news. It is interesting that, in this House, Liberals have accused Conservatives of playing partisan games, then half an hour before the debate on that bill begins they tell us we will be debating Bill C-42, so clearly these games are going both ways, but they probably do not want to admit that.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the life of Ms. Kathleen Beauchamp from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. She was my grade 5 teacher who later went on to become the principal at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Elementary School where I went to school. I ran into her a couple of years ago as I was getting into politics and I remember she gave me a really big hug. It was nice to see somebody with so much life, exuberance and vitality. She was volunteering into her nineties. I found out about her passing recently and I want to recognize her life because it was a life well lived. She was a model for the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. May perpetual light shine upon her and may she rest in peace.

I also want to recognize the life of Jared Larkin, the brother of a constituent and friend Sean Larkin. May perpetual light shine upon him and may he rest in peace.

Today, we are debating Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. It is always nice to get up to learn about areas that might not be one's area of expertise. Despite being a lawyer and having some corporate law background, the Canada Business Corporations Act is far from being my area of expertise. However, I know a bit about some of the areas, particularly when we talk about money laundering and how that has impacted corporate crime and the Canadian economy.

I recall being a young criminology student, about 20 years old, and having a professor who told us to put down the sports section and pick up the business section. It was then I realized that corporate crime costs society much more than street-level crime. The problem with corporate crime is we do not always see it. It happens through things like price fixing and illegal influencing. We do not always see these types of things and sometimes, because it almost always happens behind closed doors, it is really hard to detect.

As a former prosecutor I can say that part of what the police authorities have to do is connect the dots and sometimes build what is called a circumstantial case, which is when they take facts from here and there and paint a picture. Each piece of evidence is like a piece of the puzzle. This is obviously an important aspect when we talk about a registry under the Canada Business Corporations Act. It is something law enforcement is asking for and really does need.

Again, as has been said repeatedly in this House, this bill is required, but it could have gone further. I was speaking with our shadow minister, the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, and I believe he spoke about this in the House this morning. He said that there were witnesses at committee and within minutes of hearing from them the committee went into a clause-by-clause analysis. In other words, the testimony of those witnesses who had information to give that was directly germane to the bill at hand was not fully incorporated into this legislation, because the government seems to have been in a rush to deal with this.

I believe four speakers were put up at report stage and then the government moved closure. It is a government that has repeatedly moved closure to stymie debate by saying it needs to get legislation through. I understand that there is a legislative objective, everybody understands that, but it should not push legislation through this way; rather, it should be done co-operatively.

This is a government, as I understand it, that said it would not use closure and time allocation. I am sure it was highly critical of Stephen Harper when he did it. We now see the Liberals and the party that is supposed to be the conscience of Parliament, the NDP, backing them up at every step of the way. I cannot remember a bill, controversial or not, for which we have not seen some sort of time allocation or closure invoked by the Liberals; their coalition partners, the NDP, just go along with it. What happened to being the conscience of Parliament and to hearing debate?

Yes, the government wants things to go through quickly. Here we are at the end of June. It is not Canadians' problem. It is not everybody in the House's problem that the government did not manage its time effectively and has not been conciliatory in terms of addressing things that would be of mutual interest. The Liberals say they want to work together. I am just not seeing that when we see these types of actions.

I will move on to some of the elements of this bill and the necessity for it. For me, as a British Columbian, the necessity comes when I review the Cullen commission. The Cullen commission was authored by Austin Cullen, from British Columbia; I believe he was associate chief justice at the time. He found that money laundering had risen to an unacceptable level in British Columbia. The province and law enforcement not only were not keeping up with it, but enforcement and shining a light on these types of issues had also become secondary.

This is a timely issue to be dealing with. The Cullen commission report, I believe, came out in the past couple of years. However, we have to remember that we should not be rushing these types of things in order to simply get them through, when more things could be done.

One thing that stood out to me was that the threshold for share ownership for being listed in the registry is at 25%. That is actually a high threshold. When we look at other corporate legislation, if memory serves me from when I was studying, there is a threshold of 10%. When somebody owns 10% of shares, that is enough to trigger a warning system.

Therefore, 25% of shares seems inordinately high. I would suggest that we perhaps move back to 10% of shares. As I understand it, the RCMP was supportive of this. Its view is that 10% would get more names into this registry, and the more names, the better. With more names on the registry, more dots can be connected for the police. Moreover, the police will have more tools to combat money laundering.

Before I go any further, I just want to highlight a couple more things from the Cullen commission, because I think they are really important to this discussion. There are unexplained wealth orders. I believe they would probably be an issue for the provinces, but while we are talking about commercial crime and Canada as a whole being a safe haven for money laundering, the provinces should really explore this issue in conjunction with the federal government as we enact this legislation. They could be used in conjunction with civil forfeiture and things of that nature.

The Cullen commission made a number of recommendations and really came up with things that the government should be doing. It looked at how money laundering was occurring in British Columbia. For instance, it was occurring by laundering money through casinos; the commission looked at how this impacted the real estate market.

Before I end, I want to recognize a news anchor, Bill O'Donovan, who received the RTDNA career excellence award in broadcasting. I am the godfather to his granddaughter. Bill is a great human being and a great broadcaster. Congratulations to him.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to be able to enter into debate on the important issues that Canadians are facing in this country and, specifically, those issues that impact Battle River—Crowfoot.

However, I was celebrated, along with so many in this place and fathers across this country, this past weekend on Sunday, as our nation recognized fathers. If I could for a brief moment, before I get into the substance of what is a very substantive debate, I would just like to pass along my greetings, officially on the record, to my father, all fathers across the country and those grandfathers who have impacted us. Although I do not have grandfathers alive anymore, I know the significant role they played in my life. I wish a happy belated Father's Day to all the fathers represented across our country from coast to coast to coast.

We are debating Bill C-42 here this evening. Although, unfortunately, it seems that the government did some tricky manoeuvring to change the debate from Bill C-18 to Bill C-42, this is an important issue that bears fulsome and comprehensive discussion in this place.

I will back up a bit and talk about something that is probably not on the radar of many Canadians, because when it comes to the idea of money laundering, most Canadians do not really understand the significance of what it is. For example, I know the Panama papers are part of the discussion that has surrounded this bill in particular. I will enlighten us on the challenge that brought us to the point that we would be debating this here this evening. I will then get into what is proposed and where I think some additional items need to be challenged, discussed and addressed, when it comes to the larger issue of what the bill is trying to accomplish.

Most people who have spent much time watching Hollywood movies will have heard of the Cayman Islands, Switzerland or other jurisdictions that are known for hiding money. Criminal enterprises, gangs and thugs store money there, access it in a secretive manner and ensure they could take dirty money that was earned by some nefarious process, whether that be the sale of something illegal, the proceeds of crime or whatever the case is. They go through a process where the money comes out, and it might not be clean on the other side, but at least it is not traceable to the original way that it was earned. This is why we call it “laundering”.

Things like the Panama papers and other news articles make headlines on occasion, and specifically, they often only make headlines when there are significant figures that are involved. This may happen if there is a businessperson or a politician who has some notoriety and is named in these sorts of releases. However, one of the really unfortunate realities is that Canada has become a place where we are known for being able to have money laundering take place.

That is incredibly concerning, especially in a world where digital technology, artificial intelligence and the dynamics associated with some of these things are incredibly complex. We have not had a great deal of time to discuss artificial intelligence in this place. The fact that Canada has become something of a safe haven for money laundering and the proceeds of crime is incredibly concerning.

Some of those proceeds would be from criminal activities that take place on Canadian soil, but the unfortunate signal that has been sent to the criminal enterprises that exist around the world is that Canada seems to be the place where one can see money laundered, regardless of where those proceeds are from. This is something that definitely needs to be addressed.

This has a few unintended consequences as well that I think bear mentioning. Just to highlight for those watching, one of the things that has been highlighted that would be a possible way to see this happen is through the purchase of real estate. At a time when we already have some of the lowest per capita housing availability in the developed world, it is incredibly concerning that some of the pressures that exist there would be for purposes that are nefarious and certainly not benefiting Canadians for the pricing structure that exists. Especially when we have a price point that is determined in a market that is not based on the product and its availability, laundering artificially inflates it. This is something that definitely needs to be addressed.

That is the problem. Now we have Bill C-42, which is a step in the right direction to address some of those things. The question is whether it goes far enough, and I will get to the ways that I do not think it does. However, it does address some of the challenges and attempts to ensure that some of the currently existing loopholes that allow Canada to be this safe haven, as I mentioned, are addressed.

One thing is to ensure that there is greater accountability for those who are purchasing businesses that have those large financial interests in this country. The reason this is important is to ensure that there is that registry and that ability to have accountability at every stage of the corporate process. For those who have no reason to hide their actions, of course, this is not something that will concern them. There may be some reporting requirements through financial institutions and whatnot, but if a person is not doing anything wrong, these burdens are not something that would be part of the daily life of the accounting of a business's operations; that is valuable.

When it comes to the fines, and we have certainly heard a lot about the fines as we have had debate about this issue, there would be an increase in the penalties, both monetary penalties and possible prison sentences. Certainly, I think that is important, although I will note the irony that it seems as though the Liberals have this habit of being soft on crime in many regards, but they want to send a signal through the legislation, it would seem, that Canada is willing to get tough when it comes to white-collar crime. However, there are certainly some challenges when it comes to the crime that is affecting so many Canadians.

There are a number of aspects that build on some of the actions that have been taken by the previous Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which saw this as a challenge and started to make some of those changes. Notably, back in 2014, I believe, there were some significant changes that the Harper government made to ensure that it would tighten up some of the areas that were loopholes at that point in time. A number of steps have been taken over the last number of years.

I believe my colleague for Wellington—Halton Hills said it well when he talked about a chain being only as strong as its weakest link. We are seeing that there could be some holes plugged in the challenges that Canada faces when it comes to money laundering. However, it is fundamentally important to ensure that we do not stop here.

A lot of this discussion took place at committee, and I know folks who are watching are interested in seeing some of that. The work that the committee did highlighted some opportunities that existed in terms of strengthening this legislation, and we saw a few amendments pass. However, a whole host of other amendments could have made this legislation stronger.

To address some of this strange occurrence that happens increasingly with the government, it seems to be quick to rush everything through, because it is a crisis. This is unfortunate; as it is rushing things through, it often ends up having to go back and fix the challenges or the gaps that could and should have been addressed in the earlier stages of the process. At the industry committee, there were some challenges brought up, including from some senior public servants who were concerned about the possibility of challenges when it comes to implementation. There are privacy concerns that the Liberals have to address, and this is simply another part of those areas.

To conclude, it is incumbent on us all in this place to do our utmost to ensure that every bill that comes forward is debated thoroughly and that we have engagement from the affected stakeholders. When it comes to something like this, it may not be on the forefront of many Canadians' minds, but it is fundamentally important that we get it right, so that we can stop Canada from being a safe haven for money laundering in this world.

Bill C-18—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I was part of leading the charge on the debate with regard to Bill C-18, the online news act, and the bill was scheduled for debate tonight. A whole host speakers from all parties were prepared to speak to it. With only a moment's notice, that debate was cut short.

I would have the House know that this has happened in the past at second reading of the bill—

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

Madam Speaker, I have a point of order.

With less than 30 minutes' notice, the government informed the official opposition that it intended to switch the business before the House this evening. We had planned on debating Bill C-18, the online news act, until midnight, because that is what the government told Canadians and members of Parliament it would do through the projected order of business, which was published on the parliamentary website.

It is the common practice of the House that the government provide accurate information on the projected order of business so that all members can plan accordingly. Of course, the government has the right to determine the business it brings to the House on any given day. It also reserves the right to change the business throughout the day. That said, it should always provide at least the professional courtesy of informing other parties of its intentions as early as possible. In this case, it would appear that this standard of professionalism was not met.

I understand that the government House leaders had difficulty managing the agenda of the House, but for the future, I think it is proper that we should expect better planning. The government is in chaos as it relates to the economy. It has been embroiled in scandals, including the latest one on the transfer of Paul Bernardo. I ask that the government House leader contain this chaos to his cabinet table and not bring this level of disorganization to the House.