The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable on a point of order.
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is, or will soon become, law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment regulates digital news intermediaries to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contribute to its sustainability. It establishes a framework through which digital news intermediary operators and news businesses may enter into agreements respecting news content that is made available by digital news intermediaries. The framework takes into account principles of freedom of expression and journalistic independence.
The enactment, among other things,
(a) applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to specific factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting those factors;
(c) specifies that the enactment does not apply in respect of “broadcasting” by digital news intermediaries that are “broadcasting undertakings” as those terms are defined in the Broadcasting Act or in respect of telecommunications service providers as defined in the Telecommunications Act ;
(d) requires the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) to maintain a list of digital news intermediaries in respect of which the enactment applies;
(e) requires the Commission to exempt a digital news intermediary from the application of the enactment if its operator has entered into agreements with news businesses and the Commission is of the opinion that the agreements satisfy certain criteria;
(f) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting how the Commission is to interpret those criteria and setting out additional conditions with respect to the eligibility of a digital news intermediary for an exemption;
(g) establishes a bargaining process in respect of matters related to the making available of certain news content by digital news intermediaries;
(h) establishes eligibility criteria and a designation process for news businesses that wish to participate in the bargaining process;
(i) requires the Commission to establish a code of conduct respecting bargaining in relation to news content;
(j) prohibits digital news intermediary operators from acting, in the course of making available certain news content, in ways that discriminate unjustly, that give undue or unreasonable preference or that subject certain news businesses to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage;
(k) allows certain news businesses to make complaints to the Commission in relation to that prohibition;
(l) authorizes the Commission to require the provision of information for the purpose of exercising its powers and performing its duties and functions under the enactment;
(m) requires the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to provide the Commission with an annual report if the Corporation is a party to an agreement with an operator;
(n) establishes a framework respecting the provision of information to the responsible Minister, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, while permitting an individual or entity to designate certain information that they submit to the Commission as confidential;
(o) authorizes the Commission to impose, for contraventions of the enactment, administrative monetary penalties on certain individuals and entities and conditions on the participation of news businesses in the bargaining process;
(p) establishes a mechanism for the recovery, from digital news intermediary operators, of certain costs related to the administration of the enactment; and
(q) requires the Commission to have an independent auditor prepare a report annually in respect of the impact of the enactment on the Canadian digital news marketplace.
Finally, the enactment makes related amendments to other Acts.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-18s:
Online News ActGovernment Orders
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43(2)(a), I would like to inform the House that the remaining Conservative caucus speaking times are hereby divided in two.
Online News ActGovernment Orders
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Mr. Speaker, I understand I will be having to split my time before and after question period.
I wanted to start off with a tribute to Jim Carr. We have this tradition in place that we refer to members of Parliament by their riding names, like the member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre. When they pass away, as Jim did, and we received the sad notice of that yesterday, we can use their real names as opposed to their riding names. It is a sad moment, and we have been through this over the last few years with a number of members of Parliament.
With Jim, it was particularly saddening, because tomorrow we would have been paying tribute to him in the House of Commons with a round of speeches. We were aware that we needed to do that, and I think all 337 of us would have loved to have had Jim hear those words of praise for him. We will now be doing that in his absence and in his memory.
It is important to note that his popularity was such that within the NDP caucus a number of members of Parliament wanted to rise to speak. The tradition is one speaker from each party. We had difficulty determining that in our caucus, because people respected Jim so much. He was a gentleman. He was very eloquent. He was passionate about Canada. He will be sorely missed, and I want to pass on my condolences to his family. As we pay tribute to him informally through the course of our work today, having had to suspend the House yesterday, I know that through the course of the week and tomorrow, we will be paying more formal tributes to him. He will be missed.
The object of the debate for the next few minutes is Bill C-18.
My first letter as Canadian heritage critic to the Canadian heritage minister right after the election in 2021 was to push the government to bring immediately to bear a bill that would force big tech to start making its contributions to Canadian society.
As members know, over the past few years we have seen a hoovering up of ad revenues, which have decimated our community news, whether we are talking about radio stations or newspapers, right across the country. My community of New Westminster Burnaby has lost two publications: the New Westminster News Leader and the Burnaby News Leader. We continue to have Burnaby Now and the Royal City Record. We also have new online publishers and two community online publications that do a terrific job: the Burnaby Beacon and the New West Anchor.
The reality is that the impact has been felt right across the country. It has decimated local news and it has meant fewer journalists. What has been worrisome about this is that at the same time we have seen a parallel rise, because big tech has not taken any sort of responsibility for the rise in hate, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia. These two trends are connected.
On the one hand, there is pressure on local community media that brings us together in the community and ensures that people understand that even if their neighbours are different, they all share the same values and goals in the community. Second, there is what I would not even say is big tech's reluctance to curb hate. What it has actually done is promoted it, because extremism, hate and disinformation help to fuel revenues for it. It has been proven many times that the algorithms big tech uses help to foster hate and conflict in the community. Big tech profits from that. The increase in so-called “engagement” leads to more revenues for them.
The importance of bringing forward a bill like Bill C-18 to force big tech to start to provide that support for local community journalism is absolutely fundamental.
That is why the NDP, right after the election, told the government it had to bring forward this legislation on the Australian model. Although it has many weaknesses, which I will perhaps address in the second half of my speech, the Australian model is also a good one, because it stared down big tech. The Australians decided that even though big tech was threatening to withdraw, they were going to push companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to take responsibility and provide funding for journalism. It paid off.
Therefore, we pushed the government, and it introduced Bill C-18, which represents a significant step forward in forcing big tech to provide supports for local journalism and journalism right across this country.
The reality is that when Bill C-18 was tabled, it was a bill that we supported being brought to committee, but at committee we wanted to improve the bill. There was much that was missing in the bill regarding transparency, supporting local community press and journalism, supporting non-profit journalism, and allowing indigenous news outlets to have a role. There was radio silence regarding indigenous news outlets.
We had to fight to get all those things into the bill. We brought it to committee, and I am pleased to announce today that 16 NDP amendments were adopted by the committee working together to ensure just that, a better Bill C-18, one that we can be proud of. It includes, in a comprehensive way, indigenous journalism and indigenous news outlets. It ensures community supports. It ensures that the community radio and non-profit outlets can benefit, and it ensures transparency. Therefore, I am pleased to say that because of the NDP's work, and working with committee members from all parties, Bill C-18 is better than ever, and I am proud to support it in the House of Commons.
I look forward to the second half of my speech after QP.
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.
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Mr. Speaker, I just want to conclude my remarks by thanking members of the committee. The 16 amendments from the NDP that were adopted have improved Bill C-18 immeasurably, and we have a much better bill coming into the House.
I look forward to questions and comments from my colleagues.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Madam Speaker, I appreciated the comments prior to question period that were made by the New Democratic House leader. With respect to the Facebook, YouTube and Google search engines, they have been a major benefactor of journalism here in Canada, yet the creators, the journalists and so forth of a lot of the things that appear in social media do not get the credit and, in particular, the compensation. What this bill would do, in good part, is ensure through the CRTC that there would be an appropriate compensation of sorts. I am a bit surprised that the Conservative Party would not support that and I do not quite understand why.
I wonder if the member has some thoughts in regard to the importance of passing this particular piece of legislation and if he wants to provide commentary as to why the Conservatives would not support this.
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North is asking me to imagine what it is like to be in the mind of a Conservative and I have great difficulty in doing that.
I found a bit of a muddle from the Conservative side, and we have seen this before in other legislation. On the one hand, Alberta community newspapers and Saskatchewan community newspapers stepped up. These are newspapers that basically represent nearly half of the Conservative caucus. Their representatives came to committee and said that Bill C-18 has to be adopted, but to improve the aspects from journalism so that more journalists and more Canadian newspapers can benefit from this.
Conservatives should have taken their marching orders from their constituents, including the local community newspapers across Alberta and Saskatchewan who said that Bill C-18 was needed but improvement needed to be brought. The NDP brought forward that improvement. The NDP brought forward an amendment that would allow for a two-person operation, even if they are owners and operators of that business, to access the money that would come from big tech and those negotiations. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against the NDP amendment.
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Madam Speaker, later today, I certainly will have the opportunity to, in great detail, let the members of this House and all Canadians understand why the Conservatives voted against the measures in this bill.
One of the more controversial discussions was about the fact that we wanted this to benefit local news media outlets, many of whom have one person who is the owner-operator and the journalist. Although we brought amendments to include them at committee, the NDP and the Liberal members voted against that. Why did they want to exclude ethnic media and those smaller media outlets in rural communities that only have one journalist?
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Madam Speaker, that is exactly my point. Conservatives voted against the NDP amendment that opened it up for owner-operators. That is what the community newspapers in Alberta and Saskatchewan and across the country asked for: owner-operators and part-time journalists who are working.
The NDP amendment opens it up so that if a couple owns and operates a community newspaper, they would now qualify. If two part-time journalists are employed by that newspaper or that community publication, they would now qualify, even at a part-time level. Even if we are talking about one and a half journalists in terms of full-time equivalents or even one journalist in a full-time equivalent, the publications would now qualify.
That is why I find it passing strange the NDP amendment that was so successful and has been praised by a wide variety of groups was opposed by only one party, the Conservative Party.
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Madam Speaker, again, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby. As I said earlier, it is a pleasure to work with him at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
It is true that the NDP proposed many amendments and spoke for labour representatives, such as representatives from Unifor, who proposed many amendments that were championed by my colleague from the NDP. Several of these amendments were good ones, and some were adopted.
I would like to ask my colleague if there are any amendments he was disappointed did not get adopted. Would any of the amendments that did not get adopted have greatly improved the bill, in his opinion?
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his work. The amendments that were adopted expanded the scope so it would apply to all indigenous communities and to indigenous journalists. Bill C‑18 now allows indigenous publications and indigenous journalists to receive funding. That is a big improvement. Transparency and accountability are in the bill now, thanks to the NDP's amendments. The member for Drummond also proposed some very valuable amendments.
As far as transparency is concerned, the most important amendment is the one that ensures that owners who operate a small publication somewhere in Saskatchewan or in Alberta are now eligible even if those operators are also journalists. Even if they work part time, they are eligible. Every party around the table voted in favour of that amendment. The only party that voted against it was the Conservative Party.
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Madam Speaker, has the member ever shared a link to a news story on Facebook or Twitter? If he has, why should Facebook have to pay the Toronto Star, or wherever the link was from, because the member shared it?
Has he ever shared a link on Twitter or Facebook? Should Facebook or Twitter have to pay a fee to the newspaper whose link he shared?
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Madam Speaker, I invite Conservative members to read the bill. It is always very important to read the bill before coming into the House.
What Bill C-18 does is provide an obligatory process of negotiation. Big tech has been vacuuming up money from communities right across the country, including Pembroke, Burnaby, New Westminster and communities across the length and breadth of this land. Big tech is now obliged, as it is in Australia, to fund local journalists and local publications. Big tech has benefited enormously from the journalism that has been done in communities across this country. It is now obliged to pay its fair share, because there is an obligatory negotiation process.
I am particularly proud of the NDP amendment that puts in a strict timeline, so big tech cannot play around. It cannot skate around in circles. It is obliged to negotiate fairly and fund local journalism. I am proud of the NDP amendments that were adopted. I am proud of the committee members for working together.
Bill C-18 is a bill that will benefit all Canadians, including indigenous people.
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-18, in part because there has been so much misinformation and disinformation being spread by the government, including the minister and the NDP, about the bill.
First, let us talk about the situation that brought us the need for the bill.
Across Canada, local small media organizations have been disappearing. Many of them have gone out of business, in the hundreds. Even before the pandemic they were in disarray. The idea behind the bill was to try to help these local small media organizations.
When we look at clause 4 of Bill C-18, which I will read because it is important and it is the only clause I voted for, it states:
The purpose of this Act is to regulate digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability, including the sustainability of independent local news businesses.
That is the intent of the bill, and I am very much in favour of that. A lot of the local media outlets, like the ones in Sarnia—Lambton, are going out of business. Where else are we going to get the local news content that we all want to have?
The idea was to somehow create a fund that would then be shared among local media outlets. The problem started there, because then the idea was to make tech giants, the digital network intermediaries like Facebook, also known as Meta, and Google pay every time somebody shared a news link.
The Supreme Court in 2011 ruled that there was no value in sharing a link. In fact, the whole purpose of the Internet is the freedom to share information that is of interest to us and others and there should not be a value put on it. As soon as we start to put a value on it, for example, that we will only charge a value and give to the news intermediaries, it is a very short step to say that everybody who shares that is sharing something of value and why should it not happen with all of them. That was the problematic premise of the bill, which just got worse. The definitions with respect to who is included or excluded are being made by the government.
Freedom of the media is a fundamental principle in Canada. That means we cannot have the government determine who is in and who is out, who can participate in this and who cannot, yet that is exactly what has happened in Bill C-18.
To make it worse, there are so many vague definitions in the bill, which have been criticized by critics, people who are copyright experts and many others. They have said that a lot of these things will need to be clarified. The government's response was not to worry, that they should trust it because it would define them in regulations, with no parliamentary oversight. That is a very dangerous situation.
The reality is that Canadians do not trust the government. Polls of late show that only 22% of Canadians have trust in government or politicians. That is four out of five who do not trust the government to do what is right, and I am in the four out of five. There was no willingness to take amendments that would have clarified the definitions and put some of these things down, with the oversight of the different parties at committee. That was the first thing.
Then the Parliamentary Budget Officer did a study that said that with the money that Facebook and Google would be giving and the approximate volume of the different links that would be shared, there would be a certain pot of money to be shared. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it was $350 million and the department officials said it was more like $150 million. Therefore, it is somewhere between $150 million and $350 million.
However, the most interesting finding was that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that 75% of the money would go to Bell Media, Telus and the CBC. The whole point of this bill is to try to help the local small media outlets. If Bell, Telus and the CBC walk off with the lion's share, that leaves very little money left to share among the little ones.
Why should we be giving any more money to the CBC? The government already gives billions of dollars to the CBC. In fact, it just figured out that the CBC should not have to go looking for advertising money and, really, should be publicly funded for another $400 million.
There is CBC, which is likely to get the lion's share, already being funded and now taking away from the very individuals we want to benefit in this bill. It makes absolutely no sense.
In terms of trying to keep the government from excluding the voices it does not want to hear, we tried to bring some clarity to the definitions. At the beginning, it said there needed to be at least two journalists. Other than being recognized in the Income Tax Act, there was not a lot of clarity brought. Some of the amendments were brought to keep out foreign interference, but there were many ethnic and smaller outlets that were mom-and-pop shops, where maybe the owner was the blogger.
We were very happy to support that concept, but unfortunately it was tangled in with a bunch of things we could not support.
The government has the ability to fix that. It has since excluded any organization that does not have more than two journalists, and I think that is a problem.
The other thing is that the Governor in Council will get to decide everything, and then the CRTC, once it has decided who is eligible to play in the game, is going to provide the oversight for this process. When the CRTC officials came to committee, I asked if they had a lot of experience with regulating oversight of digital news intermediaries. They fully confessed that no, they have no experience in that area. It is ridiculous for the government to want to decide who can win and lose and play in the game and then put the CRTC, which already said it does not know anything about managing this, in charge. This is just a recipe for disaster.
Facebook, Meta and Google have been very clear that they want to help small media outlets in this country and would be very happy to donate that $350-million pot and let a consortium of small news media outlets decide among themselves how best to split it up so that there is sustainability. There needs to be fairness.
We introduced amendments at committee to include indigenous voices. I think there are other ethnic voices in our country that have been excluded by the definitions, but if we took the money and had a panel that was looking at the local small media outlets, it could be fair in making sure there was an equitable dispersion.
Instead, Bell Media, which already shut down a whole bunch of small media outlets, is going to get part of that, 75% of it. What do we think giving it more money is going to do? It is going to continue to shut down small media outlets, and it is not going to achieve the purpose of the bill.
There were concerns expressed after Australia implemented a similar legislative model. Facebook at that time threatened to shut down content. It said it did not want to participate in this. It did not want the government regulating the Internet and regulating free speech. There was a shutdown, and then there was a renegotiation and changes were made.
When we recommended that those changes be brought to the bill and that we could learn from what was problematic in the Australian experience, we learned that it was about this phrase “undue preference”, which meant it was going to be illegal in Bill C-18 for those platforms to do what they do, which is using algorithms to upvote and downvote content. They try to keep hate speech down and things that are misinformation down, and they try to upvote things that people are interested in, things that are popular, so they need to be allowed to do that.
That was another problem we saw with this bill.
Then there are the privacy concerns of sharing information. The CRTC has a broad ability to ask people for any information it needs in order to verify that they are eligible, and then there are going to be arbitrators involved, who are not necessarily bound by the same codes of confidentiality. I have a privacy concern about that.
When it comes right down to it, we did everything we could to recommend that the government abandon this bill and instead work with the big tech giants to get a fund, get it together and divide it up among the local media outlets, so that the people who really need it will get that help.
However, here we are, in the middle of the Christmas season. Love did come down at Christmas, and not just for everyone in general but for me specifically. I am very happy to announce that I got married and so, with that, I wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.