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.

Online News Act

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The Chair wishes to inform the House of an administrative error that occurred with regard to Bill C-18, an act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada.

Members may recall that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage made a series of amendments to the bill, which were presented to the House in the committee's fourth report on December 9, 2022. The committee also ordered that the bill, as amended, be reprinted for the use of the House at report stage.

The House concurred in the bill, as amended, at report stage on December 13, 2022, and adopted the bill at third reading the following day.

Following passage at third reading, as per the usual practice, House officials prepared a parchment version of the bill, which was transmitted to the Senate. Due to an administrative error in the committee's report, which was also reflected in the version of the bill that was reprinted for the use of the House at report stage, the report and the bill both included a subamendment, adding a new clause 27(1.1) to the bill, which had been negatived by the committee and should not have appeared in the bill.

Given the tight timelines between the presentation of the report and consideration of the bill at third reading, the error went unnoticed before the bill was passed. Nonetheless, the decision taken by the committee was clear, as recorded in the minutes of the meeting. The Chair has no reason to believe that members were misinformed when they adopted the bill.

This error was nothing more than administrative in nature. The proceedings which took place in this House and the decisions made by the House with respect to Bill C‑18 remain entirely valid. The records of the House relating to this bill are complete and accurate. However, the documents relating to Bill C‑18 that were sent to the Senate included an error and were not an accurate reflection of the House's intentions.

Similar situations have been addressed by my predecessors, such as in a ruling on April 12, 2017, found at page 10486 of Debates. Guided by this precedent and others, similar steps have been taken to address the current case.

Once the error was detected, House officials immediately communicated with their counterparts in the Senate to inform them of the situation. The Chair then instructed House officials to take all the necessary steps to correct the error in both the committee's report and the bill itself, and to ensure that the other place has a corrected copy of Bill C-18. A revised version of the bill will be transmitted to the Senate as per the usual administrative process.

Furthermore, the Chair has asked that a rectified “as passed by the House of Commons” version of the bill be printed and that the fourth report of the committee be corrected accordingly.

In light of this situation, the Senate will be in a position to make its own determination as to how it will proceed with Bill C‑18.

I thank all members for their attention.

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard on a point of order.

The House resumed from December 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, be read the third time and passed.

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

Madam Speaker, as I have said, Bill C-18 would, in our view, threaten the independence of local media. It would not allow single-journalist outfits, like those I mentioned in my riding, to qualify. Therefore, we cannot support it.

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

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to participate in debate in the House of Commons on behalf of my constituents in Chilliwack—Hope.

I do want to take some latitude, as I have noted has been given to other members, to pay tribute to Jim Carr. I had the honour to serve as the critic for natural resources during the time Jim was the natural resources minister. I disagreed vehemently with Jim on almost all of his policies, but it was impossible to dislike him as a man. I had the opportunity to travel with him, as critics and ministers often do, and we spent more time together than I think I spent with many family members over that period of time, in places like Mexico, Rome and China. I got to see Jim shine in those scenarios.

I even got to see him dance at the opening of a Mexican playground. A Canadian mining company had opened a playground for the children in the community near its operation, and he was not invited to dance, but he took it upon himself to join in the festivities. It is a memory I will always cherish. He was a good man who loved his family, and he will be missed, not only back at home in Manitoba, but also here in the House. I want to pay tribute to him, and I think of his family and his colleagues, who have all been devastated by the news.

I will move now to Bill C-18, the online news act. We have been hearing all day about some of the issues Conservatives have with the bill, and we think it would miss the targets. It would not do what it is intended to do, and it has been a bit rich to hear members of the Liberal government and its coalition partners in the NDP talk about web giants hoovering up advertising revenue. If we go through the public disclosures of their MP expenses, we will see tens of thousands of dollars in voluntary advertising payments to Facebook, so forgive me if I think it is a bit rich to be hearing about these web giants swooping down to hoover up ad revenue when members of Parliament are feeding tens of thousands of dollars into Facebook or Meta's bottom line.

Let us not get too self righteous here about what we are talking about, because members of Parliament, when they want to communicate with their constituents, as do many Liberals and NDP members, have no problem giving money to those web giants to use their platforms to communicate with constituents.

Members do not simply give to their local papers. They do not simply give to local online news organizations. They have willingly given money from their member of Parliament budgets to Facebook and others, so let us just spare the self righteous sanctimony about the evil of Facebook, when they are voluntarily giving it tens of thousands of dollars a year out of their own budgets.

In Chilliwack—Hope we now have only one weekly newspaper in each community. There is the Hope Standard and the Chilliwack Progress, which serve those communities respectively. It used to be, when I was first elected, that there were two local newspapers in Chilliwack, the Chilliwack Times and the Chilliwack Progress, and they both published two papers a week. We are down from two organizations with two newspapers, for a total of four editions a week, to one edition per week.

However, if we ask the Chilliwack Progress's editor, he is quite bullish about its current situation. He talks about its various revenue streams, and whenever somebody calls into question the paper's longevity and whether the Chilliwack Progress will survive, he assures his readers and the people in Chilliwack that it is on a strong financial footing and that they will be just fine.

Out of those closures of some of those newspapers came innovation. Journalists who had been employed, for instance, at the Chilliwack Times took it upon themselves to gather a couple of other journalists, and they formed the Fraser Valley Current.

They put together an online news service that actually uses Twitter and Facebook to distribute its product to our community. They did particularly excellent work during the flood and mudslide events that took place in and around my community in November of last year. They were on the ground, providing detailed analysis, things that, quite frankly, a weekly newspaper just cannot do. That was born out of innovation. They did not wait for, or need, a government incentive to create this. They went out into the marketplace and have been very successful in doing so.

We also have the Fraser Valley News, which is an online organization run, as far as I know, by one journalist who used to work, for many years, in different radio newsrooms right across the country, as most radio news people do. They move around from small town to small town, covering small community events that are ignored by the bigger publications. Don Lehn had the final layoff from the local radio station when it was cutting back on its news services, and he took it upon himself to create the Fraser Valley News, which continues today. Again, he has a business model that seeks online ad revenue, etc. He did not need Bill C-18 to succeed.

We have Fraser Valley Today, which is another online news organization that has come out of when other newspapers have left the town and there is a void. When the newsrooms were cut from the local radio station, there was a void, and it was filled by journalists who wanted to provide a service to our community.

That innovation, the unique business model they have sought out, has been one that has worked for them. My fear was echoed by Jen Gerson at the committee, when she said this about the bill:

[I]t is predicated on a lie. The bill adopts a very ancient complaint of newspaper publishers that aggregation-based news websites and social media networks are unduly profiting by “publishing” our content. However, we know this isn't true. In fact, the value proposition runs in exactly the opposite direction. We publishers are the ones who benefit when a user posts a link to our content on Facebook, Twitter and the like. This free distribution drives traffic to our websites, which we can then try to monetize through subscriptions and advertising.

She went on to say:

I suspect that what we see here is a form of rent-seeking behaviour in which struggling media corporations are using every last iota of their dwindling financial and social capital to lobby for subsidies and regulations like Bill C-18.

I fear that Bill C-18 is going to backfire spectacularly, undermining the very problems it is trying to fix.

Peter Menzies, a former CRTC commissioner, said:

Bill C-18 will only perpetuate a market already distorted by subsidy and it will punish independence.

He went on:

If Parliament values a free press, it will not approve Bill C-18.

He continued:

Bill C-18 is as likely to kill journalism in Canada as it is to save it. The very prospect of it is already perverting news coverage and undermining trust, the commodity upon which the industry depends most. Bill C-18 will permanently entrench the industry's dependency not on the loyalty of citizens, readers and viewers, but upon the good graces of politicians and the ability of offshore, quasi-monopoly tech companies to remain profitable.

Those are some of the people who have been directly involved in the industry. Jen Gerson used to be involved in the traditional news model and has moved to an online subscriber model. She recognizes that this independence and this business model are what work for her, and that organizations who say they need a subsidy model are in fact distorting that market and are going to be competing with her and her organization, which has gone out into the market to seek innovative solutions.

There are local journalists who are struggling, but I think we need to encourage them to use the tools that are available and, quite frankly, to take a look at some of the entities that have succeeded in this market and are innovating and adapting to changes in the way we consume our news.

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

Madam Speaker, it is like following a bouncing ball. The Conservative Party said that it liked the Australian model, and put that in its campaign platform. The Liberal legislation is a reflection of the Australian model, and now the Conservative Party is saying that it does not support Bill C-18. The member says that, well, they want to be there for the smaller community newspapers, but a question was just raised that indicated that there has been a greater uptake than expected in the Australian example and community newspapers have benefited by it.

However, the Conservative Party, even though its members talk about the community newspapers, what they are really talking about is empowering Facebook and Google search engines to distribute the money how they feel is appropriate and that they will work with different media.

I wonder if the member does not realize that it is a pretty hard ball to follow because the Conservatives are bouncing all over the place on a very important issue.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, several of my colleagues have spoken in the last day and a half about a member who is no longer with us. Over the number of years I have been here, we have lost a number of members in different ways. It is not just a member from one group or one caucus. It is a member of the House. We are 338 members and it is one of us. We all know the role that we have here. We know the commitment people make to be in this position. It is an honour and a privilege to do it, but we all understand the loss when we lose one of our 338 members. It is always a hardship. I recognize the challenges we have as members and losing one of us is a tragedy for us all.

Moving onto Bill C-18, I had been on the heritage committee before but I came back onto the committee when it was just getting to the bill itself, the amendments and going through the legislation.

There probably is not a heritage minister who I have not seen in committee at one time or another. They all know I speak about weekly newspapers. I talk about how important they are in Canada. There is probably not a heritage minister who does not know that I would be up here talking about weekly newspapers and supporting how critical they are to our communities.

The bill's purpose refers to including the sustainability of news businesses and independent local ones. In my riding I have a minimum of 15 papers, and some other ones that people would say are not weekly papers, in communities in my riding.

These are phenomenal pieces of communication that are important to the riding and important to the communities. We saw what was initially set out in this piece of legislation, as I came to be back on the heritage committee, and there were many amendments that could have made this piece of legislation much better, but it was not improved.

That is the challenge in being on the committee. We are trying to work through it. Our job is to improve legislation. This bill could have been improved, but it was not improved enough.

I have many community newspapers in my riding. We have had Brooks Bulletin since 1910 from one family of three generations. The Strathmore Times goes back to 1909. The Bassano Times is more recent, from 1960. The Three Capital Hills paper is 107 years old. The Vulcan Advocate is from 1913. The Drumheller Mail is from 1911.

These are long-standing weekly papers in the community. They are very important for those communities. They really were hopeful that this legislation would be something that could help them. I have talked to a lot of the papers individually and in groups. They said that we should work for them and make this a piece of legislation that will support them. They are weekly newspapers.

I know my colleague to the west of me has worked for a weekly newspaper. It is an interesting challenge. My father had a weekly newspaper that I had the opportunity to spend time working at, especially during the summers when I was not in university.

It is often a one-person or two-person operation. People are working those deadlines to get those news stories out. They are getting out in the community and taking pictures. They are rushing to make a midnight deadline so the paper can be produced and they can go home before the sun comes up. They can get that local story out and get the local activities out that need to be promoted in the community. This occurs all across the country.

My riding happens to be home to the Brooks Bandits. The Brooks Bandits are a junior hockey team. There are 132 teams in this country in many of the smaller communities. Who covers those 132 communities? It is the hardest hockey championship to win in this country. The teams are in the smaller communities, like Okotoks, Drumheller and Brooks. The Brooks Bandits have won that championship three times in the past. Who is covering that? It is not the CBC. It is not Bell Media. It is the local newspapers.

One could say that it is just local hockey players. Well, guess what? Who was the MVP in the Stanley Cup? It was Cale Makar. Where did he play? He played for the Brooks Bandits. Nobody in the major media paid any attention to him until he was the MVP. That is the level of coverage that local communities do. For the 132 teams across this country, for example, and for many people sitting in the House, those teams are covered by weekly papers.

The weekly papers often have one or two employees. One of the amendments that I was asked to work on was for the owner-reporter, which was the one reporter working there, to qualify for this. Under the legislation, there had to be two journalists, and the owner-operator could not be one of them. What nonsense for weekly newspapers. They are often ma-and-pa operations. Often the editor-owner is a writer and has one other person writing with them. We did get an amendment that reduced it from two to one and a half, but that was not enough. Bassano Times is a one-person operation of a newspaper in that community of 1,200. It is one person, and it does not qualify for this.

The legislation could have been better. It could have met the purpose that it is was set out for, but it does not. It does not do what we need for weekly papers.

I mean, we have heard already that the money was on the table. Am I out there saying that Google, Meta and Facebook should be paying? Absolutely, and we have said to put the money in a pool and let us get it negotiated. Obviously, 75% of the money is gone. People have figured out that they need to negotiate. However, it is Bell, Rogers and CBC that got 75% of the money already. I do not think the Toronto Maple Leafs and that hockey team need more money. That is not what it was for.

This was for supporting journalists at the weekly papers that are the lifeblood in our communities. Those are the reporters of those single papers who are out there on the weekend, out there on a Saturday night or a Tuesday night, and on Sunday, they are writing the stories. Those newspapers do charity advertising for charities in our communities. Communities in Bloom, which is all across this country, is an example. Local papers are writing stories about how great their communities are doing, such as Communities in Bloom, and they doing it often for free. That is how they get promoted. Weekly papers are very crucial, as is this particular one.

As many ministers have known, I have asked, “Where is the money for your advertising?” Many ministers said to me, “Well it is decided by every department where their advertising dollar goes.”

I have said, “I have had many weekly papers where 30% of their income, because they are small, used to come from government advertising, and that is gone. Where did the Canadian taxpayers' money go?”

It went outside of our country to Facebook and Google. To me, that is hypocrisy. We should be advertising in media productions and weeklies in our own country. That is where the dollars should have gone.

I support the idea of creating the fund, working at it and getting it divided up. Obviously, 75% of it could be done without any interference from the CRTC. However, the weekly paper associations have told me that they would be lucky to get $400 or $500 out of this deal a year. All that will be left are crumbs. They will be working hard to get those crumbs, which is all that is going to be left for our weekly papers. This does not make sense.

What it was set out to do could have been better, but it is not, and that is why it is a challenge for me, for our journalists and our weekly papers.

(Bill C‑285. On the Order: Private Members' Business)

June 15, 2022—Member for Niagara West—Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Health of Bill C‑285, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act.

(Order discharged and bill withdrawn)

(Bill S‑4. On the Order: Government Orders:)

June 21, 2022—Minister of Justice—Consideration at report stage of Bill S‑4, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make related amendments to other Acts (COVID-19 response and other measures), as reported by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights without amendment.

(Bill concurred in at report stage, read the third time and passed)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, be read the third time and passed.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise and speak in the House once again.

Before I begin, I also want to take a moment to offer my sincere condolences to the family of Jim Carr, the hon. member who passed away, as well as to his colleagues in the Liberal caucus who have worked with him over the years. I want to offer my thoughts and prayers to everyone.

When I decided to run for office in southern Saskatchewan, one of the driving principles for me and generally a lot of people in Saskatchewan was to see less government interference overall in our lives. That is one of the interesting elements in this bill, that it provides an opportunity to have less government interference in people's lives. That is the opportunity that exists with the bill. That is what we are going to get to as we get through the rest of this debate. As the bill has come through committee, we see how some of the interventions at committee reflect that.

Generally, a government bureaucrat in a distant office does not know what is best for individuals in a family given that family's own unique circumstances, so responsibility for those people should be left to the individuals and not to the government.

Usually, when there is a discussion about smaller government in Canada or somewhere else, it has to do with issues of expanding state power, which directly or indirectly restricts people's lives further. This results in less freedom, either because there are fewer options and choices available to make, or because sometimes it gets to the point of trying to plan citizens' lives for them. In this case, the problem with interference is not so obvious when we compare it to something like the situation in George Orwell's 1984, or maybe the other lurking threat that is another government bill, Bill C-11. It got a lot more negative attention in its previous iteration as Bill C-10, and later passed in this Parliament as Bill C-11.

The Liberals want to hand over way too much power to the CRTC with this bill, Bill C-18, which we are debating tonight. The Conservatives stood with the people and policy experts to make our opposition absolutely clear.

When the same Liberal government with the troubling history of Bill C-11 introduces yet another Internet bill, it is reasonable for Canadians to look at it with a healthy dose of skepticism. However, the problem with government does not always come from control or overreach; sometimes it seems friendly and tries to help out with something good, but it can still create problems despite the best intentions. Unfortunately, although what we saw with this bill when it was first drafted was an honest attempt to support small media outlets, it has turned into a large bill that needlessly grows the size of government institutions.

The CRTC already wields a great deal of power in regulating the Internet and the dissemination of information, and now the government wants to further add to it. Should it have the power to determine who is considered a journalist, or the eligibility of a news agency, which is part of the process of this bill?

It does not end there. The CRTC can resolve disputes and issue penalties. As part of that, the bill allows it to set mandatory terms to which both parties, news outlets and platforms, must agree.

What is perhaps most concerning of all is that the CRTC would have the authority to demand information from these platforms and news outlets whenever it pleases.

At the end of the day, Bill C-18 is inflating the size of the CRTC and giving it enormous power, with little accountability, to regulate the news all of us view. This begs the question: What are the impacts of doing this? An important part of a free society is having an independent press and free speech to hold our leaders accountable, but how much can we trust the Liberals to maintain these things? If the government and the Prime Minister want to talk as much as they do about defending democracy and promoting diversity around the world, they need to take these things seriously when it comes to our own country.

Sadly, over the last year they have damaged their national reputation with respect to these values by abusing emergency powers and allowing vulnerable Canadians, including veterans, for example, to be offered death instead of the help they need. They have undermined our freedoms and respect for human dignity.

My fellow Conservatives and I have spoken a lot about the danger of censorship. I also say that I understand the importance of small media organizations and their place in the local communities, because I represent a very large rural riding. To this day, many still rely on these small media organizations to inform them of the happenings both locally and on the global stage, and rural Canada is better off because of it.

There are many of them in my riding, and they all play an essential role. For instance, the Southwest Booster, which is located in Swift Current, has been producing a weekly paper since 1969. We also have the Prairie Post, which covers both southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta. North of Swift Current, for example, in the small town of Kyle, we also have the Kyle Times, which has been operating for a number of years. Up in the northwest corner of the riding we have papers like Your West Central Voice and the Kindersley Social, both providing a unique perspective on what is happening in their communities.

Cypress Hills—Grasslands is also home to The Shaunavon Standard, which was founded back in 1913, along with the Maple Creek & Southwest Advance Times and the Maple Creek News, which provide a weekly newspaper and distribute it in the southwest corner. In the eastern half of my constituency, we also find many papers such as the Gravelbourg Tribune, The Herald and the Assiniboia Times. All these papers contribute greatly to the social fabric that we find in rural Canada. In a place where most people do not have access to reliable Internet, these papers are critical to keeping my constituents informed.

However, through the transition into a digital world, these organizations have had to adapt and provide their service online. Before the Internet, papers like the ones I mentioned used a physical newsstand or post office boxes to promote themselves, but today, with the Internet, search engines like Google are the updated newsstands. With Bill C-18 the government is trying to interfere with this updated newsstand, and is going too far in doing so.

In this discussion, we also need to talk about the existing government support for media and how we can fix this framework. As I said, having an independent press is fundamental. However, when our media are receiving multi-million dollar payouts from the federal government, their independence quickly comes into question. The common saying, “Never bite the hand that feeds you,” exists for a reason, and I believe it applies to this situation.

Let us be honest: The job of the media is at times to bite, to seek for answers, to find the truth and to hold those in power to account. However, they cannot fully do this when they know it may impact their subsidy. Many Canadians have seen a subtle shift in the private corporate media, with its reporting starting to resemble that of the CBC, which, as a state broadcaster, receives over $1 billion directly from the government. Because of that relationship, the question is raised as to how much the organization can operate like a PR firm of the federal government. That is why we have previously called for reviewing its funding and mandate.

Having said all this, my concerns with Bill C-18 do not stop with media independence and the newly proposed powers of the CRTC, but extend also to the current government's attempt to interfere in a free market. Bill C-18 would require search engines like Google to pay a royalty to an organization that is putting out information, but the government claims this is only minimal market intervention.

Earlier in my speech I talked about many of the small newsprint operations that we have in southwestern Saskatchewan. Here in the House, we have many former members of the press or journalists or those who have been news anchors or different things over the years. I would submit that the majority, if not all the organizations they worked for, would not receive a penny from any of the funds that would be raised by doing this.

First, the government would allow media outlets and organizations to reach a deal on their own. However, if they failed to do this, the CRTC would force both parties into a binding arbitration process whereby the government would get to set the terms of the deal. If an outlet and the organization reached a deal on their own, but the CRTC officials felt the outlet was not using the money appropriately, they would say the deal was invalid and force the two parties through the arbitration process.

They cannot call this “minimal market intervention” when they are giving an institution the power to force two organizations into a binding arbitration process as well as the power to apply hefty fines. A thing is not market-based when the government needs to step in and force two companies to make a deal or face a large fine from the government if they fail to make a deal.

While the government should aim to support small media outlets, protecting their independence should be front of mind. The implications of Bill C-18 are too far-reaching, and with the lack of guidelines there is great potential for the government to abuse this process. That is why we have opposed this bill and will continue to do so.

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

Madam Speaker, I would suggest that the bill does not accomplish what the member asked me if I would support. Yes, I absolutely support indigenous languages having coverage. In fact, I have found it deeply problematic that while the CBC has not faced cuts, it has cut service. I think it highlights a great discrepancy that exists here in terms of what this bill is purported to accomplish versus what will take place.

I agree with the member for Nunavut. There needs to be support for small, local stations, whether they be radio, newspaper or whatever the case may be.

When I read through the bill, the testimony and what the bill is purported to accomplish, the bill purely and simply does not do that justice.

Simply put, would the member trust the Prime Minister to accomplish those objectives, when the framework proposed in Bill C-18 simply does not exist?

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

Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to enter into debate in this place and to talk about the important issues facing Canadians.

Madam Speaker, I would ask that I be given a little latitude here, as this will likely be the last time I stand in this place before we all break for Christmas, whether that be tomorrow or in the next couple of days. I would wish you and all members of this place, as well as all Canadians watching a very merry Christmas and many blessings in the new year.

Further, I also want to acknowledge the passing of one our colleagues, the late Hon. Jim Carr. I want to acknowledge his service to this country, his many years in this place. Although we have disagreements on many issues, it is at times like this where we see the true heart of Canadian democracy in looking back at one's legacy and one's record. Certainly on behalf of myself and the people of Battle River—Crowfoot, I would like to pass our condolences along to you and your colleagues, as well as the late Mr. Carr's constituents and family and friends, who I have no doubt are grieving his loss.

As we discuss the issue of Bill C-18, we see before us something that I would suggest is typical of the way the Liberals approach many aspects of government. We hear them making accusations about how the Conservatives are somehow supporting Facebook and other social media companies and their monopoly of the Internet. I would like to take a moment to refute that.

First, I have never heard anybody suggest that social media is overly favourable to Conservatives. I would like to unpack a little as to why the very foundation of this bill is problematic. I am going to unpack that to the very basis that assumes that a government agency, and in this case specifically the CRTC, should become intimately involved and exercise a great deal of authority over something which I think all Canadians, or certainly most Canadians I speak with, truly support and that is freedom of expression, freedom of the press and free expression on forums like the Internet, including social media.

One of the concerns that I have is that the very foundational elements of what is proposed here is to increase the size, scope and authority that an agency of government has. I would suggest that at the very foundation of what this bill is doing, that is deeply problematic.

It has been mentioned that Conservatives ran on a plan to ensure that big tech pays their fair share, and absolutely. However, when we look at Bill C-18 and what is included in this bill, we see that it misses the mark.

Instead of attempting to do what I think many Canadians actually support, the government instead simply increases the size of bureaucracy. As we have seen throughout the committee study, what the Liberals have said this bill would do and how much it would cost versus what the consequences of the bill could be and the actual cost are two different worlds.

Unfortunately, I do find this is par for the course for the Liberals who are great at making announcements, great at doing press releases and even writing preambles to bills. However, in many cases, when we look past the preamble, that is where the concerns and the problems are made very clear.

I am going to cut my speech a little short to ensure that some other colleagues have a chance to speak to this important bill.

I would simply highlight something that has been missing from the conversation, and that is rural voices. Specifically, I think it should be noted, as one of my colleagues did just a few minutes ago, that rural is missing out on the conversation. The biggest beneficiary of this bill would be the CBC. I have about 14 weekly newspapers, some of which do not even have a website, and local radio stations. There are small newspapers, family-owned businesses, and in some cases multi-generational operations that will not benefit from anything to do with this sort of bill.

At the very foundation, I find the bill flawed in how it would grant massive authority and jurisdiction to the CRTC, which has difficulty fulfilling its current mandate let alone a greatly expanded one. I look at almost anything this government touches, and the service outcomes of any department over the last seven years certainly have not been improved. Therefore, I hope members will forgive me for not trusting a massive expansion of the scope of an agency of the government. I find that deeply problematic.

To conclude, more bureaucracy and administration is not the solution. We need to see that freedom of the press is preserved and freedom of expression is preserved in this country. When it comes to ensuring that the big tech players in Canada pay their fair share, I fear this would create a bloated administration that falls far short of the mark that is required to actually deliver on what the objective was when the bill was first introduced.

With that, I will conclude a whole four minutes early and look forward to answering questions from my colleagues.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am looking at Bill C-18, which is what we are reviewing today. One of the more shocking and troubling things about the bill is the government knows full well that this is not going to the people who need the money the most. In doing research for this speech, it came up over and over again that it was not going to my local news media. It was not targeted to them at all. Here we have CBC, Rogers and Bell getting most of the money. What is with that, and why did the Liberals not fix it?

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

Madam Speaker, I have listened to a few Conservative speeches. It is interesting that they line up to be Facebook's PR team. We have not seen that in Australia, whose legislation Bill C-18 is based upon. It was brought in by a Conservative government. Republicans in the United States support similar legislation in the United States.

It is only the Conservatives in Canada who are against this type of legislation, which is especially shocking since they ran on this policy in their platform. It was on page 152 of the Conservative platform. Why was he in favour of it before he was against it?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-18.

The Internet is supposed to be a place where anyone, regardless of their wealth, status or background, can express themselves in a place free from excessive restrictions and regulations.

The Internet was designed to be open and free. It was supposed to be a place where one could contribute on one’s terms, where a business can grow on its terms, where society can learn, share and communicate on its terms, free from government overreach.

The absence of government intervention was one of the very reasons why the Internet flourished into what we know it is today, and few other inventions can be attributed to creating such a significant economic, social, and cultural growth as the Internet, but now the Liberal government has made it its priority to regulate the Internet in an unprecedented way.

The Prime Minister has decided to target the free and open Internet, and maybe for those very reasons. First, it was Bill C-10, then it was Bill C-11 and now it is Bill C-18. I believe that the expansion of the government will harm the principles of a healthy media environment for years to come.

When people hear about governments regulating the Internet, few think of Canada, and rightfully so.

At a time when inflation is reaching record highs, when the cost of gas and groceries continues to rise and when heating a home is becoming unaffordable, the Liberal government is fixated on Internet regulations. Maybe the Liberals hoped that Canadians were distracted by real-life pressures and would ignore the Internet regulations, or maybe they do not care about the real issues that Canadians are currently facing in their everyday life.

Here we are, debating another government bill to regulate the Internet. Bill C-18 would force online platforms to give away their revenues to news organizations who choose to upload their content to their platform. Canadians are rightfully skeptical when the government talks about wealth redistribution. Canadians are even more concerned when the government talks about wealth redistribution within the news and media industry.

A free and independent media is critical and important to our nation’s democracy. Whenever the government tries to intervene, elected officials should pay close attention. It is our job to thoroughly examine the consequences of any attempt to hand out money or change the rules for news and media in our country.

Canadians are still questioning the government’s $600-million media bailout, but now the government is trying to create a new revenue source for media with somebody else’s money. I must ask how we can maintain a free market if we indirectly subsidize companies by extracting the profits of their competitors.

It is important to note that no one is forcing news organizations to upload hyperlinks to online platforms. They are free to make this choice. Many publishers upload their content to platforms such as Facebook and Google to benefit themselves. It is no secret that more people are likely to read an article if it is uploaded online because it suddenly becomes more accessible to the public. When an article is uploaded to the Internet for the world to read, it breaks through those geographic walls that a print newspaper is restricted to.

Many writers across Canada have experienced incredible success because of their ability to upload content online. In fact, many publishers pay Google and Facebook to boost their content through ads. Without online platforms like Facebook and Google, many writers and independent news organizations would not exist today.

The Internet has provided a lot of opportunity for media companies who were previously unable to enter the market due to high barriers of entry. Members of the House should be proud of the positive outcomes that online platforms have created for content creators.

Not only is no one forcing news outlets to upload their content online, but also nothing is preventing them from negotiating individual contracts with online platforms. As of today, many news outlets have proactively entered business agreements with online platforms to progress mutual business needs without government intervention, as I heard in a previous speech here from my colleague.

We must also ask who will be eligible to receive the government-mandated shared revenue if Bill C-18 were to become law. The government claims that only legitimate news organizations will be eligible for these funds, but who does the government deem as a legitimate news organization? According to one of the government-written criteria in Bill C-18, a legitimate news organization must produce news “primarily focused on matters of general interest”.

However, I must further ask what the matters of general interest are and who determines them. I can assure members of the House that the general interests in rural Canada are different than in urban Canada, and general interests in Atlantic Canada are different than those in northern and western Canada. These are important questions that Canadians deserve the answers to.

Instead, the Liberals have left these important decisions to the CRTC, the same CRTC that is already bogged down in a mountain of responsibility from other Internet regulations that the government has initiated.

I should note that, if Bill C-18 passes, Canada's government-funded media outlet, the CBC, will be eligible for compensation. Members heard that right. There will be more money for the CBC. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that more than 75% of the money will go to the CBC, Rogers and Bell.

The government claims that Bill C-18 is to share the wealth of online platforms to smaller media outlets, such as newspapers. As an MP who proudly represents many small-town weekly newspapers, I understand that these businesses have experienced significant market pressures in recent history.

The reality is that most of the money redistributed by Bill C-18 will only go to the media giants, such as The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. They are the ones that have the most content online, and therefore, they will get the most money from this legislation.

Many local newspapers I represent do not even upload their content to online platforms. That means they would not see any of the money the government claims they will get. I wholeheartedly agree with local newspapers across this nation that are frustrated. However, Bill C-18 is not the silver bullet. In fact, many are warning that Bill C-18 would be detrimental to Canadian journalism.

At the beginning of my speech, I spoke about the importance of free and open Internet. It is a principle that I, and many Canadians, strongly believe in. However, Bill C-18 breaks the concept of a free and open Internet. Bill C-18 is bad for independent media, and it is bad for competition.

At a time when many Canadians believe the freedom to express oneself is threatened, the Liberal government continues down a path of unprecedented Internet regulation. It would be nice to see the government put as much effort into reducing Internet and cell phone bills as it is putting into regulating the Internet, but I digress.

I will end with a quote from Vinton Cerf, a founding father of the Internet. He stated, “if all of us...don't pay attention to what is going on, users worldwide will be at risk of losing the open and free Internet that has brought so much to so many and can bring so much more.” That is very true.

The Internet, a creation that was built on the principle of being open and free, is now threatened. We can either allow the government to expand its power over the Internet, or preserve the principles it was founded on. That is why I will be voting against Bill C-18.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, Edmonton was the place I had my start in journalism in 1998 at the Edmonton Journal, and at the time there were several newspapers in town, along with several radio stations and several TV stations, which were all producing news for the city of Edmonton. Over the past 20 years, the media landscape has really shrunk. There is not the same number of journalists out on the street reporting the news.

This is because of what the Public Policy Forum calls “vampire economics”. Facebook and Google take 85% of the funding that used to go to news for advertising. That now goes to Facebook and Google, and at the same time, they take the content produced by journalists and distribute it for free. What we have learned is that, yes, Facebook and Google are making deals with these outlets ahead of legislation similar to Bill C-18. They did it in Australia. They are doing it now in the U.S., and in Europe they are also considering similar legislation.

These are deals that are completely without government influence. They are business deals between organizations and Facebook or Google, so there is no government interference, and what we have learned is that Facebook and Google probably would not make these deals, if the legislation were not already on the table.

I am wondering if the member opposite agrees that it is a huge threat to our democracy to see this demise of journalism in our—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, 50 years ago there were metal boxes on city street corners where, for 25¢, one could buy a newspaper. Each box had a window showing the top half of the front page if it was a broadsheet and the whole page if it was a tabloid. If one wanted to read anything more, one had to put a quarter in the box and remove a copy of the paper. In our cities, it was common to find three or four such boxes for competing newspapers on the same corners of the downtown of any city. Those newspaper boxes are, for the most part, long gone as the nature of the news business has changed.

Home delivery, one of the mainstays of the newspaper industry, has declined drastically. These days, most people get their news online. The news industry has changed in how news is gathered and changed in how it is delivered to consumers. Gone are the days where most people subscribe to home delivery for the morning and the afternoon.

For those in the news media, the challenge has always been to provide a public service while ensuring sufficient revenue to continue their function. Canadian journalists and publishers have always risen to that challenge.

This is not the first time technology has upended the news industry. As television became popular in the 1950s, many feared the end of print publication or journalism. Newspapers survived the challenge posed by this new medium by concentrating on in-depth reporting, which television, with its constraints, could not do. Quality journalism was still possible back then.

One could say that Google and other search engines function today as the newspapers did in the 1970s. They show the headlines but not the whole story. They provide a link for people to click on. Facebook, the other online giant the Liberals seem to be most concerned about, does the same thing. Providing a link that allows people to access and use websites could be considered by some to be a public service or an aid to the news industry. If people want to read the full article, they have to follow the rules set by the news organizations that publish it.

In the early days of the Internet, many news organizations placed their material online free for anyone who wanted to read it. Most of those now allow limited access to non-subscribers. In some ways, one could argue that the news industry should be paying the tech companies for attracting readers to their articles or their content.

Facebook and Google sell advertising on their websites and have lots of advertisements. Perhaps some of that might have gone to other media in the past. Given the way the Liberals think, it is possible and only natural that the government wants to intervene in what would be a private commercial industry.

Canada's Conservatives believe that the Canadian news media should be fairly compensated for the use of its content by platforms like Google and Facebook. The issue here is how that should happen and what should be the role of government, if any, in the process.

Media companies could inform Google and Facebook that linking to their news sites is no longer allowed and that breaking that rule without permission would be a copyright violation. Media companies deserve compensation for their work, and some have negotiated agreements with the tech companies for the online use of their content, which has me wondering why government feels the need to intervene.

The government, which has in the past shown its willingness to give taxpayer dollars to the news industry, does not seem to understand the difference between public and private. One would think that a billion dollars a year to the CBC would be enough to exempt it from receiving more money under the bill, but it is not.

This is flawed legislation. It seems as if this government has taken a worthy idea, which ensures that Canada has a healthy, free and vibrant press, and brought in a bill for which the ramifications have not been considered.

Why is the CRTC being given oversight? Despite what some Liberals may think, the Internet is not broadcasting. Print media are definitely not broadcasters. Where is the logic in asking the CRTC to oversee something when it neither has the expertise or the resources to do so? Is this all about building a new bureaucracy? Indeed it is.

The online news act is supposed to protect the struggling Canadian news industry. How could anyone disagree with such a noble purpose? Would this bill solve any problems, or would it create new ones? How would fair compensation be determined? Who would be compensated under this act and who would be excluded? Why should a government agency be making such determinations?

The tech giants have widened the reach of Canada's news organizations by bringing their materials to the attention of the people who might not otherwise know of them. I am sure this increased audience has been beneficial to all sides. Mechanisms already exist through which media can be compensated by those using their materials. We have a Copyright Act. Some companies have come to an agreement with the tech giants, so why is more government needed?

There is no need for this bill, except that the Liberals love to meddle in things that do not concern them at all. What other areas does the government wish to shove itself into rather than letting companies work out their own agreements?

If these technology companies feel there is value in linking to Canadian news organizations, why can they not negotiate contracts without government interference? If Canadians are turning to these tech companies for news, then the companies need to find a way to provide content. Short of starting their own news organizations, which strikes me as an unlikely possibility, they have to turn to existing news organizations. If they find value there, they will pay for it. It is very simple.

This bill defines a news outlet as “an undertaking or any distinct part of an undertaking, such as a section of a newspaper, the primary purpose of which is to produce news content”. It is a very nice definition. Those words, however, do not reflect reality. This is a dispute about money, pure and simple.

Producing news content may be the goal of those in the newsroom, those seeking to produce quality journalism for the public good. It may even be why a given publication was first founded, but is not the reason for its existence. The reality is that news outlets, like the big tech companies, exist to make money. This bill is about who gets the biggest slice of the advertising pie, pure and simple.

If news organizations perform a service by keeping the public informed about important issues, that is, in many ways, only a by-product of the business. Those running news organizations are rarely, if ever, journalists themselves. If news organizations thought they could make as much or more money by publishing only chocolate cake recipes, they would do so. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking otherwise.

Bill C-18 is flawed and probably unnecessary legislation, which puts it in line with the rest of the current government's legislative agenda.