Bill C-27

Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022

An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Consumer Privacy Protection Act to govern the protection of personal information of individuals while taking into account the need of organizations to collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. In consequence, it repeals Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and changes the short title of that Act to the Electronic Documents Act . It also makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 enacts the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act , which establishes an administrative tribunal to hear appeals of certain decisions made by the Privacy Commissioner under the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and to impose penalties for the contravention of certain provisions of that Act. It also makes a related amendment to the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada Act .
Part 3 enacts the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act to regulate international and interprovincial trade and commerce in artificial intelligence systems by requiring that certain persons adopt measures to mitigate risks of harm and biased output related to high-impact artificial intelligence systems. That Act provides for public reporting and authorizes the Minister to order the production of records related to artificial intelligence systems. That Act also establishes prohibitions related to the possession or use of illegally obtained personal information for the purpose of designing, developing, using or making available for use an artificial intelligence system and to the making available for use of an artificial intelligence system if its use causes serious harm to individuals.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Much has been said, so I won't repeat what has already been highlighted.

I have a continuing concern with respect to the way that the industry is going, with respect to the profound impact that we will see as a result of artificial intelligence and with respect to, if we don't act swiftly and decisively with respect to Bill C-27, the profound impact that it may have that we may not be able to undo. I don't want anyone to minimize the importance of going forward with Bill C-27 because it's an important thing on an ongoing basis as well.

I also believe that if we're going to look at this, we should be sincere and should make sure that this is a fulsome, thorough and fact-based review. Already we've heard two different perceptions of what Statistics Canada tells us. I think we should look at opportunities where all of those facts are on the table for everyone to consider. I think it's important that it captures all of the dynamics of the issue in telecommunications and recognizes some of the changes that we've seen in the Competition Act.

Concentration in marketplaces is turning out to be not as advantageous as we thought it would be, so there's been some change there. I think we need to give this thorough thought, and I think we need to give this the time, the framework and the scope that's being proposed in Mr. Lemire's motion.

Therefore, I would agree with the suggestion that Mr. Turnbull has made.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've listened intently to all the interventions. I'll start off by saying, no, I don't think we have consensus that cellphone prices have been down. I don't think I have a single constituent in my riding who would agree that cellphone prices have come down or that they're paying 22% less than they were paying last year in cellphone prices.

I'll just help MP Turnbull. This wasn't some mythical thing. It was announced by Rogers on January 3. You can google the media articles, if you like. The media articles state quite clearly that Rogers is putting up the price of new packages seven to nine dollars on average. That follows almost a month after your government approved the Freedom sale to Quebecor, where Quebecor put up the price on all BYOD. For those who don't know what that means, it's “bring your own device” packages. They put it up after sitting in this committee and saying that they would reduce prices.

We have contradictory...or I shouldn't say “contradictory”. We have cellphone companies saying one thing to parliamentarians so that they can get their deal passed. Then we have the other—the actual actions by them, not even when the ink was dry, saying they were putting up cellphone prices.

Again, only a few days ago.... Maybe you should google that article. Perhaps Rogers is putting this up because former industry minister Navdeep Bains, who was in charge of reducing cellphone prices and has now gone to work at the most expensive cellphone company in the world, has given them advice that, you know, Parliament's on to other things, so don't worry about it; you can squeeze through a price increase and nobody will notice.

Well, Canadians are noticing. That's where this comes from. While I appreciate that some members have been busy with other things since Parliament has risen, it's been in all the news that cellphone prices are going up. I do appreciate MP Lemire's motion. I will agree that it is broader, although it has a lot of micro things in it. I think it's an easy thing to make an amendment to the motion I proposed.

I just want to be clear here, because I'm not sure everyone read the motion clearly or heard the motion clearly. The motion basically says that we will start, because we have this crowded agenda, by doing hearings the week before we come back. Specifically, we will ask first about these price increases and about the inconsistency with regard to the commitments these companies have made to the federal government. Second, it talks about the broader industry opportunity. It lists specific witnesses. To MP Masse's concern, it lists the four big companies and not just the two.

With regard to (e), I can't amend my own motion, but another member could amend it to add in some of the elements from MP Lemire's motion on the earlier study. It says in (e) that we can have all other witnesses deemed relevant. The list that MP Masse and others went through are all eminently invitable under that, but you certainly can add into that a broader look at the cost structures, competitiveness issues and access, if you like.

The motion also goes on to say—as MP Sorbara said, we are in charge of our own domain in committees—that we can add more meetings. The suggestion here is to tag them onto the end of our existing meetings that we have scheduled with the new committee schedule of Mondays and Wednesdays for this committee. Another hour can be added on, as we've been doing with the green slush fund, to continue and to add this on. Obviously, I think the Liberals would prefer that we not look at cellphone prices until Bill C-27 is passed so that we don't have to deal with it until April or May, long after this story on the issue of cellphone prices is in the news.

I think we can do two things at once. That's what this motion is trying to do. It's saying that we can do not just one thing at once but two things at once, as we did in December. We can start the study the week before Parliament comes back and continue it by adding on meetings.

I'm open, as I said in my opening, to anyone other than me—because the parliamentary rules are that I can't amend my own motion—adding to item (e) or perhaps adding a new item (f) that incorporates some, if not all, of the elements of Mr. Lemire's motion. Then we can get on with the study and get to dealing with what Canadians want, which is getting to the bottom of why it is that these cellphone companies promised the government that they would reduce fees and then announced that they are increasing them.

That's what this is about. I would think that all members of Parliament, including the government, would want to get to that. Heck, the minister even said that this is not what he was expecting when he laid out the rules of this merger. He was not expecting cellphone companies to be increasing fees. He expected fees to go the other way. I would think that Liberal members would want to hear about why they are doing that in contravention of the commitments that they made to the minister only a year ago. I would think that Liberal members would want to hear about that urgently, not some time before the summer.

I would hope that either an MP on my side or MP Masse or somebody would be able to make an amendment that finds a way to mush those two motions together so that we can get on with this study dealing with one of the major cost-of-living problems and issues that Canadians have: their families' growing cellphone prices.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I wish everybody a happy new year. It's great to see you all, a little earlier than I thought. Thanks for the well wishes for my newborn daughter.

My condolences, again, to Mr. Masse and all NDP members. My riding is next door to Oshawa and at one point Ed Broadbent actually represented the people of Whitby as well as the people of Oshawa because it was one riding. I knew Mr. Broadbent to be a great leader. I didn't know him well, unfortunately, and I feel bad about that. I think we all know what great a legacy he left; my condolences for that loss.

It's sort of life and death for me. When thinking about Ed Broadbent as a loss, I think of my newborn daughter as a gift, a miracle of life. It's great.

I think the debate is good and this is an important topic. We've had several attempts to study this, as it has been on a list of studies. When I saw this letter from the members who signed the Standing Order 106(4) request, I immediately started Google searching information on cellphone prices. I confess that I wasn't 100% clear as to where the market was at. I felt bad about that because I felt that I should know more about it.

I quickly found some Statistics Canada information that is quite easy to find on their website in relation to telecommunications in Canada. I was interested to see information that shows that cellular services decreased in price by 22.6% over the course of 2023, from November 2022 to November 2023. This sort of conflicts with the claims made in the letter that was signed for the Standing Order 106(4) request. It is important to dig into this topic and get to the facts.

Mr. Sorbara and others have commented that hearing that Rogers is increasing prices is challenging to hear. My constituents, along with all of our constituents, I'm sure, would be concerned to learn this. Within a broader context, we need to understand what is happening with cellphone prices.

I've been listening intently to the comments. They are making me question whether the media report of a price increase is within the broader context that Statistics Canada is reporting on and maybe cellphone prices are actually going down. I think we should get to the bottom of this and talk it through.

I can see us doing a study. The challenge I have with the current motion, and I've heard this from other colleagues, is that perhaps Mr. Lemire's motion might give us a more robust study. Maybe there's a way that we could include Mr. Perkins' suggestion and do a broader study by using Mr. Lemire's motion that was adopted on September 26.

I would humbly submit that we should look at that as an option. I have some challenges in what's included in Mr. Perkins' motion, which says, “be immediately recalled to undertake a study”. I think the timeline is too short to do a robust study on this topic. It's in the best interests of Canadians to do a good job and, as Mr. Lemire suggested, broaden the scope of the study.

I also feel that the subcommittee should probably meet relatively soon to determine whether we can get additional resources and what they should be spent on. I know that Bill C-27 is a really big deal for us and all of us know it's a priority for us as parliamentarians. On behalf of Canadians, I think the evolution of artificial intelligence is something the world is talking about. The more we delay on Bill C-27, the more we fall behind. That's a dangerous place to be in. I think we need to really focus our attention on getting C-27 done.

I'm supportive of doing this work. We have to think about how we prioritize it. I would suggest that we refocus our attention on perhaps amending Mr. Lemire's motion that was previously adopted by the committee so that we can do an even broader and more in-depth study. I know we can't move this because we're debating the current motion, and I don't want to take our attention away from that. What I would like to do is just let you know in advance what I would suggest. As I was listening to others, I was thinking about this and writing down how we could include what Mr. Perkins has suggested but still work with Mr. Lemire's motion.

I would propose adding one line to Mr. Lemire's motion. It would state, “and that it examines the position of each player in the market, explores companies' service offerings and the factors that can influence competitive dynamics”.

That's a bit broader, I know, in terms of wording, but it gets at prices, at competition and at the service offerings. Mr. Lemire's previous motion also focused on operating cost and the maintenance of critical infrastructure. Mr. Sorbara made a really good point and Mr. Masse made a really good point about cellphone infrastructure being public infrastructure. We also know that private companies are investing a lot in that infrastructure. I have examples in the northern part of my riding, which is all rural, and the Durham region where I live is largely rural. There are urban centres close to Lake Ontario, but a large portion of our ridings in Durham region are rural. We've had significant investments in rural broadband and cellphone infrastructure, and those have been needed.

It's a combination of public and private investment that is making those things happen today. We have to think about how that impacts the industry, how we open that up and how we create more competition. There's been a lot of conversation about that.

I'm open to the conversation. I think it's a good study to have and I think we all agree that we have to ensure that cellphone prices come down. The way to do that is to have some witness testimony. I would love to hear from Statistics Canada, given the fact that I can find so easily from googling it on the Internet—it took me all of 10 seconds—information that shows that cellular service prices have decreased by 22.6%. That's over the entire industry in Canada. That's a significant amount given the fact that general inflation has been high. I actually found a graph that showed that cellular services are one of the only indexed CPI items that have come down dramatically. That flies in the face of what is being said in the letter that was sent. I would like to undertake a study that's broad enough that we can get to the bottom of that and really assess whether the competition policy of our government is working to bring down cellphone prices on average. I would really like to get to the bottom of that on behalf of Canadians.

Thanks very much. I can't move the amendment, but if we were on Mr. Lemire's motion, I would move an amendment in an attempt to get to consensus on this.

Thank you.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Going back to the beginning, obviously, congratulations to Parliamentary Secretary Turnbull on the addition of a new family member.

To Brian Masse and the whole New Democratic family, but really to all Canadians, we lost a passionate and great Canadian we were blessed to have for so many years. I still remember the first election campaign I paid close attention to at a young age. I think it was in 1988 and I was about 14 years old. It was the free trade election. I will never forget the debates that we were able to watch and that Mr. Broadbent participated in, and the passion he brought to workers and how he fought for all Canadians.

Rest in peace. I send my prayers to his family and friends.

To Mr. Masse, I very much enjoyed your analysis of the wireless industry. It has always been the goal of governments—I say “governments” on purpose—to ensure that we have four participants in the wireless industry. We used to use terms in the private sector such as the “quad four bundle”.

With new participants coming in, how will they be financed? If you look around the world, in literally every country, it's very unusual to have more than three wireless participants in most countries—large participants, as I would say. Here in Canada, getting to four participants in our markets has been a goal that, I think, we've achieved on many levels. Obviously, we need to continue to monitor it.

There are big sunk costs to enter into the market, whether they're on the wireless side or the wireline side, with the Internet or cable, and all of the changes in technologies that have taken place over the top and so forth. Now we have the idea that you can become a straight aligned wireless provider and not provide any other services. There are even those thoughts happening within countries.

I enjoyed your comments on the wireless spectrum and how that happens. For folks who want to understand, auctioning the wireless spectrum is a pure economic theory that is done. What's behind it is quite fascinating.

The issue here, and I agree with Minister Champagne's comment, is that now is not the time for wireless companies to be raising rates on consumers and hard-working Canadians. I agree with the minister on that front. Canadians—my constituents, like all constituents—have been through a lot in the last few years. We've had COVID. We've had global inflation. We have a war in Ukraine that continues on and has ramifications. We know with global inflation that people's pocketbooks have been pinched, to say the least.

We, as a government, have acted in unison with parties to put in place measures to help Canadians, whether on a temporary basis, like the GST/HST credit and the grocery rebate, or on a permanent basis, like the Canada child benefit and the national early learning and child care plan.

Here in the province of Ontario, by September 2025, we will have $10-a-day day care on average for Ontarians. I just met with the officials in York Region and went through how that is going.

I'm moving toward a national dental care plan. I was, much like many of my colleagues, with our seniors just last night, talking about the implementation of that and how it's going to save seniors. It's going to save nearly nine million Canadians literally hundreds of dollars, and sometimes thousands of dollars.

Going back to the issue at hand and looking at this sector, being relatively new to the committee during the last several months, and going to Mr. Lemire's....

Good afternoon, Mr. Lemire. I would like to wish you a happy new year.

Going to his, what I would call, umbrella motion that was brought forward, I think it definitely needs to be done. We definitely need to take a look at the dynamics within the market. For those of us who like to follow the industry closely, there's always the CRTC monitoring report that comes out annually. It's a 300- or 400-page booklet that gives you a lot of information on market shares, pricing and dynamics.

Do you know what? It is a statistical fact that a lot of pricing changes have taken place over the last several years. There have been significant decreases in the various plans that are out there.

At the same time, we're very cognizant that Canadians, including ourselves.... As Brad said, we go to the grocery store, and we see what the prices of goods are. I have three kids at home, and I know very well what it's costing to raise these three girls I'm blessed with. I'm very cognizant of that, and I always fight for my constituents to make sure that their lifestyles and the expenses they face day to day are affordable, that there is no price-gouging going on, and that there are no anti-competitive practices going on.

I will remind the committee of Bill C-34, which was passed in this committee, on competition, and there are other measures that we've been putting in place in the recent legislation we brought to Parliament under Minister Champagne on anti-competitive practices. It's really important that we continue to follow this vein.

Again, who are we fighting for? As Ms. Ferreri said, we're fighting for our constituents. We're ensuring that prices continue to decrease. We're ensuring that, when transactions happen in the marketplace, they're not detrimental to consumers. We're ensuring that consumers are benefiting from the most recent technology, whether it's 5G or AI and so forth in that vein. We continue to do that.

I look at Sébastien's motion, and I think it's incredibly important that we look at that because each committee is the master of its own domain. It gets to pick and choose what it studies and what it doesn't study. It gets to pick and choose, in addition to when the report is issued, whether there's a minority report that it wishes to issue or if there's a dissenting report that can also be done. That's the flexibility in committees.

I would like to add, Mr. Chair, that it's very important that we also have in front of us Bill C-27. I say to my parliamentary and esteemed colleagues from all parties that the nature of artificial intelligence and the nature of privacy and how it applies to all 40-plus million Canadians in this beautiful country are things that we really need to get to the—if I can use a football analogy—end zone on in a very diligent, very judicious way.

We know that the Europeans are on it. We know that the U.S. and other jurisdictions are on it. We need to show the professionalism, which we always do, and the leadership as industry committee members on what some would consider and what I would consider is probably one of the most important evolving technologies that we will see in our lifetimes. Potentially, from what I've been reading and from what other folks who I think are probably much wiser or smarter than me are saying, it will transform the way we do many things, and it is transforming the way we do many things in life. Hopefully it will be a beneficial mechanism to the standard of living of literally hundreds of millions, if not billions, of individuals in this world.

I'll just circle back and finish up briefly—Mr. Chair and colleagues, I thank you for your patience—with regard to the motion and why we're here today.

Thank you, Mr. Perkins, for bringing this motion.

We are parliamentarians. We do work every day, whether it's in our constituency offices helping our constituents or looking at legislation issues within our committee purviews. We do need to make sure that our citizens are benefiting from technologies and from market transactions that take place. We do need to make sure that they are seeing the benefits, whether it's lower prices on goods and services or it's improved competition, which drives innovation and prices. We need to see that.

I'm pro-capitalism; I'm pro-markets. The last thing I like to see is anti-competitive practices being adopted. To go back and finish up, I'm in full alignment with Minister Champagne. Now is not the time to be raising prices on Canadian consumers, whether it's a small percentage of customers or not. It's really important that consumers out there have confidence in the services they're receiving.

I know that a lot of us have plans at home with whichever wireless provider we have for services. I tend to call them all the time to ask what new pricing plans they have. We should all pressure them all the time to make sure that we're getting the best services and the best prices for the plans that we have.

It behooves the committee to continue to put that pressure on companies—especially on companies for which the fact of the matter is that there is no foreign competition. These are domestic participants. They've invested literally hundreds of billions of dollars in their businesses in totality.

I've covered this sector for many years. Whether it's at Bell, Telus or Rogers, the employees who work there are very proud to work there. They do a great job and they've invested billions of dollars in their businesses, building out.

I was reading today.... I grew up in northern British Columbia. I believe Rogers has invested more funds along the Highway of Tears—which is close to Prince Rupert, where I grew up—to Prince George. Anybody who has driven along that line of road, which is roughly 740 kilometres or so, will know there are many parts that have never had cellphone service in those areas in northern B.C.

That applies, as Mr. Lemire said.... When you look at rural Canada, our geographic landscape and the need and necessity for these companies to invest literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and billions of dollars, in building out cell towers and building out their services, they are investing in our communities.

We want them to be good corporate partners. We want them to be even better corporate citizens. We understand the interests they need to balance. At the same time, we know Canadians need to be assured of the affordability of life and that they're receiving the measures and the help they need to have. That's where I come in and say, “Do you know what? Now is not the time for price increases on Canadians.”

Thank you, Chair. I will turn it back to you and the next speaker.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to my colleagues for their condolences for the Broadbent family.

Of course, Mr. Turnbull, congratulations. It's an exciting time for you and your family. I wish you all the best. Having a holiday baby as well will be even more fun.

I have similar concerns about the industry, and they go back for a long period of time. I also have concerns about the process here.

I looked at Mr. Lemire's motion, and this is like a subset of that motion. Quite frankly, I thought it might not even be in order in some respects, because Mr. Lemire's motion would carry a lot of these elements forward. In fact, it gave some latitude for this. I know that this issue in particular that has been brought forth—and I appreciate it—is fairly specific to Rogers, but it also affects customers of Bell and Telus. Why we throw them under the bus by not including them is something I have a concern about as well.

When you look at the telco policy and how we've arrived at the most recent decisions of the minister, they actually go back to the foundations of deregulation in this country.

When I received my posting in Ottawa, it was during the time when John Manley and Brian Tobin were starting to work on this issue, and they had the deregulation through the Mulroney years. We then had Allan Rock, who put through a process for removing foreign direct investment. He was the first minister I went through. Lucienne Robillard was after that. We then had David Emerson, who was a Liberal and later on a Conservative, going back-and-forth with his policies.

We then had Maxime Bernier, who had a lot of changes during his time in the Harper administration. I would certainly want him as a witness at this hearing, because it would help find the foundation of some of the problems we're faced with right now. We then had the late Jim Prentice, who was a terrific man. He was the industry minister briefly. He was followed by Tony Clement, who might also be an interesting person to bring to this committee because of the policy changes that took place under his tenure.

There was Mr. Christian Paradis, who moved the process that.... When you look at the Harper government, they talked about a “first in telecommunications” plan in terms of advocacy for consumers. We then had James Moore. Minister Moore was here for a while. Again, he talked about innovation and changes. We then had Mr. Bains, who is referenced in the motion, and finally, our current minister.

It's no accident that Canada has had some of the highest prices in the industry and that some of the most abusive practices have taken place. This smaller chapter of those abuses is important, but I think we need to remind ourselves of some that have taken place over the years.

I remember that one of the first ones I dealt with was Bell Canada not giving pay equity to the women in Bell Canada. That was one of the first meetings we had in Ottawa. The CEO at the time, who is now hired by the Liberals, had to be dragged before our industry committee about that issue. We fought to finally get equal rights for women workers at Bell.

Part of this industry has also had a culture in the workplace that's been very disturbing for decades.

We also had the deferral accounts. For those who don't know about the deferral accounts or don't remember them, basically, there was an overcharge by the major corporations—except for SaskTel. SaskTel was actually the only one that didn't charge. In fact, at Bell it was over $80, and it tried to keep those millions of dollars, even after it was awarded that it had to go through the court system. They had to fight to get the persons with disabilities who were awarded money some of those things. We had deferral accounts. That was another thing.

We had unlocking cellphones, which was a big challenge. I actually give Rogers credit for that, because we worked on that and it was the first one to unlock its cellphones. That was an interesting campaign that was done.

We still have issues right now with the right to repair. We have cellphone abuse in the industry for the aftermarket, whether it's fixing your screen or electronic waste with different [Technical difficulty—Editor]. It's nothing related to intellectual property and so forth, but you have consumers with the short end of the stick compared to other countries because we don't have the proper consumer supports for that.

We have foreign direct investment, which was supposed to be the panacea of opening up the industry. I know I mentioned earlier Maxime Bernier and the addition of foreign entrants into the market, which were later allowed by government policy to be bought up and absorbed into the system. Now we have even less competition.

That's the example we have right now. We have—and I predicted it at that time—the cannibalization of Shaw by our own domestic industry as the natural course of action that's going to take place. Actually, there are probably going to be further mergers in the industry that could possibly reduce more customers'....

We have had massive public subsidies in regard to this over the years to try to incentivize them to go into the markets in rural and other areas. Mr. Lemire has mentioned that.

This committee actually had a study on that specifically, the recommendations from which have not been followed by successive Conservative and Liberal governments. We should probably inventory all of those actual issues to see which have been followed up on and which haven't, because they actually correlate to some of the things that we have in the study right here. That's something we actually did. We tabled that and did a press conference. It was supported unanimously by all parties at the time. At the time, Mr. St. Denis was the Liberal chair. He led the committee on a unanimous report on rural broadband services. That's been buried as well.

Most recently—and we don't want to forget about this—the industry is more interested in its own fight than in the interests of Canadians and public safety, as we saw when we had the 911 debacle. Let's not forget about that. They put their interests about each other in front of that. The minister had to call in when he was overseas to get them to be accountable for that.

At the same time we've had this, we've had government policies over the years and what they've done is actually lower corporate taxes on these entrants and on these iconic organizations. That hasn't always led to investment. It hasn't led to new competition. It's led to the bleeding of the public purse. It's also led to a policy of spectrum auction—on which I have been advocating for a change for years—from which over $22 billion has been taken into the public purse by successive Conservative and Liberal governments, back and forth, back and forth. That cost has then been passed onto Canadian consumers in the form of high prices so they can try to get that money back.

The public spectrum is a public asset. It's the same as our air. It's the same as our water. It's the same as our land. That $22 billion has gone up in smoke, and at the same time it has given the excuse for the entrants to have their feuds over towers and their feuds over spectrum. There is actually even a system put in place whereby you can buy and resell spectrum basically as a niche business in the actual industry. We still haven't changed that fully, especially as we're moving to 5G.

What else do we expect is going to happen when we pass that bill on to Canadians?

I can't accept the motion as it is written right now because it's not fulsome enough. Again, I think it partly reflects the intent of Mr. Lemire's motion. It's something we should be looking towards. We've had the issue of a digital bill of rights. Issues of privacy have come up. We have had a series of motions for Canadians. Pricing is of course the number one thing that's on people's minds right now. This motion is devoid of the fact that the cellphone industry and the technology behind it are a benefit of the public use of the airwaves. On top of that, it's now an essential service. We need to do more now than ever before.

If COVID taught us anything, it is that being included in society and the cost of that are associated with and related to your mobile device. Whether you're actually trying to attend school, to communicate with friends, family or relatives, to get a job or to stay in touch with the world during a 911 emergency, it's now an essential service that requires more examination.

Some of the things in the motion here are quite correct and they are very important to look at. I appreciate them. I would hate to leave out organizations that have known and bled this for years. We have the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. We have OpenMedia. We have Professor Vass Bednar. We have Robin Shaban. We have the Consumers' Association of Canada. We have CARP. We have all those groups and organizations that, I'm sure, would want to get in on this and would want to have some more fulsome discussions about it.

I'm open to looking at the issue for sure. I would like a further analysis, though, and I would like to hear from colleagues about Mr. Lemire's motion and whether or not this is really in order. It's very specific but is a subset of what Mr. Lemire was trying to get at. It's at least worth talking about, because we have passed that. Most importantly, I don't want to leave the other customers of Bell, Telus and others basically to the wind because we didn't decide to do the proper thing and look at the industry properly. I have just detailed the bare bones of what has taken place over 20 years.

We're here for a reason, and this specific case is here for a reason, but even if we were able to fix this specific case, it's such a small part of the entire story that it really won't give the relief that's necessary or the justice that we could do.

I also want to make sure that this won't be shopped around to other committees at the House of Commons. That's been the practice recently. Industry stuff has been shopped around to other committees and to other places. It's caused confusion and it's caused issues. If we're going to do this, let's do it right. Let's not leave this to be tabled at some other committee for it to do the proper job that we should be doing here. Again, this is one of the reasons I support Mr. Lemire's motion. We've been doing our best to get Bill C-27 through things and to focus on prioritizing that. We've also entertained other things, but if we're just going to look at this one minuscule issue for an industry that really is titanic, in many respects, with Canadian consumers....

It's certainly one that could have been a source of national pride. It's also one that has a public interest side more than ever before. Again, we own the spectrum. We also give up land rights for some of the infrastructure that takes place for this industry to run, yet we then cast ourselves to the wind. At the same time, successive governments have collected billions of dollars from Canadians and off of the spectrum auction, and then passed it on to them in their bills at the end of the day. There's another storm coming on that unless we change ourselves.

I'm open to looking at this. I'm open to doing some work on this. I want it to be a fulsome thing. Again, I don't want to look at just one niche part of it. It's a very important part, and I'm pleased that the motion has come forward with some description towards it, but I think it's a subset of all the things we need to get at. Time is running out. Our spectrum is going to go more out to auction in the future, and there still is a lack of consumer accountability. This is just one perfect example among many of why there needs to be an overhaul of the basically archaic system that we have.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

If this approach seems easier, then that's what I propose to do. It would be tedious for everyone to work through the text of the motion in this way.

I move that we reject the Conservative motion and prioritize the motion adopted by the committee on September 26, so that we can consider the issue in conjunction with the study of Bill C‑27. We could then take steps as soon as possible, and perhaps even now, to invite witnesses and really conduct an in‑depth study of the telecommunications situation.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to wish you all a happy new year.

I want to congratulate Mr. Turnbull and his family.

I would also like to express my condolences to Mr. Masse, the New Democrat Party family and all politicians for the passing of Mr. Broadbent.

I find it worthwhile to discuss telecommunications. The committee members know that I've been very interested in and passionate about this issue for the four years that I've been here.

During the previous parliament, I moved a motion to address the issue of high‑speed Internet and the cellular network. This was done in connection with COVID‑19.

As you know, I also tabled a motion on this topic in September. It was adopted by the committee on September 26.

At this time, I would like the chair or the clerk to clarify the procedure for proposing an amendment to Mr. Perkins' motion, in order to include the full text of my motion and thereby broaden its scope.

I think that Canadians and Quebeckers are expecting an update on the telecommunications situation. I gather that people in the industry have much to say. A great deal of information must be verified. There have been developments and setbacks when it comes to mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs. The CRTC held hearings on this matter in 2017 and 2019 if I'm not mistaken. Some updates are in order. I think that we're ready for an in‑depth study.

We all agree that our committee's priority is obviously Bill C‑27. That said, I'm ready to do my part to address this issue in conjunction with our study of Bill C‑27. The official meetings of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology will still focus on Bill C‑27 until the bill is passed. However, more meetings can be added. I think that we must look at this issue. People are certainly interested in this topic. We must carry out a real study.

Here in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue, network access and cellular network quality pose challenges. I think that some of my rural colleagues, such as Mr. Vis, would agree that this is also true in their areas. For a long time now, I've been calling on the federal government to set up a program to build cell towers so that every individual across the country can access the cellular network.

It's certainly a matter of economic development. It's certainly also a matter of public safety, quality of life and land use. In 2024, this issue should be resolved. There's also the issue of resilience in the face of climate change.

Is the industry still as viable as it once was? What about competition? In the recent spectrum auctions, companies made major investments, amounting to $2.2 billion. These auctions revealed a long‑awaited fourth player, Vidéotron, which invested between $200 million and $250 million in spectrum licenses.

My proposed amendment would involve adopting the content of the motion passed on September 26, in order to carry out a proper study.

My motion called for six meetings. Given the current situation, we could be looking at a 12‑hour or even a 16‑hour study.

The witnesses proposed in the Conservative motion seem appropriate. They include Commissioner Boswell; the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Mr. Champagne; the deputy minister, Mr. Kennedy; and the CEOs of the major telecommunications companies.

I'm also thinking of the people whom we've heard from in various studies, such as the representatives of OpenMedia. Yesterday, I was in the municipality of Kipawa, in my constituency. I met with people who described the issue involving the lack of a cellular network for a number of individuals. They would like to have their voices heard as part of this type of study.

I think that we're ready to update our approach.

Mr. Chair, do you need me to reread the motion adopted by our committee, in order to proceed with an amendment?

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

I know that sometimes you wish you had the control of my mute button, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for coming to the meeting while we're on a constituency session.

I too would like to begin by acknowledging, if I could, Ed Broadbent's passing today. I was a young staffer, as many of you know, in the Mulroney days when Mr. Broadbent was the leader of the NDP. He was a remarkable leader for that party and a great parliamentarian who represented the people of Oshawa well in his many years in Parliament. I'd just like to acknowledge that.

Also, on a happier note, I acknowledge that MP Turnbull signed in today with his new addition. We haven't had a chance to meet since you had your second child. Congratulations, Ryan. We're all very happy for you.

The letter that was sent in calling for this meeting—for those who are watching it's an emergency meeting that has to be called within five days of five MPs signing a letter—discusses whether or not we should have a particular study, an urgent study, on an issue that has come up.

This committee, as we know, is very busy with Bill C-27 and is still awaiting the next level of scrutiny of the Stellantis contracts. It was a bit surprising, I think, for most of us to see. I think it was announced on January 3, and it was in most of the media on January 4 of this new 2024 year. It was a kind of shocking way to greet the year that the most expensive cellphone provider in the world, Rogers, announced that apparently they're not making enough money and that cellphone packages are going up seven to nine dollars.

As my colleague MP Ferreri said, this is a very ubiquitous thing. It is probably the thing that most Canadians share in common: 83% of Canadians, by the last time I looked, have a cellphone. That's more people than own a house. More than anything else, probably, Canadians have a cellphone, and for the reasons that MP Ferreri outlined. It's our communication lifeline, our phone lifeline and our connection to the world through the Internet. It's our emergency lifeline, as she outlined in that difficult situation of her constituent.

This is a cellphone price increase when, a year ago almost to the day, the big three—Shaw, Rogers and Quebecor—were before this committee saying that we needed to have the sale of the Shaw assets and that it would increase competition in this country and reduce prices for Canadians. We know that a month after the Freedom sale was done in April 2023, just in that one month, before the ink had even dried on the Liberal government's approval of Quebecor buying Freedom Mobile and Rogers buying the Shaw assets—and those two transactions removed two cellphone competitors from the Canadian market—Quebecor also put up Freedom's prices, even though they said they would not do that. They waited only a month to do that.

Like I said, why is that important? Well, 83% of us have a cellphone and we're in the middle of this cost of living crisis. We know that since 2016 Statistics Canada has reported that Canadians are paying almost 20%—I know it feels like more to most people—more per household out of their income than they were prior to 2016 for cellphone services. International studies, many of them that we know, show prices for cellphone services in the U.S., Australia and other countries are actually declining while ours are going up. Cansumer reported in August of 2023 that Canadians pay 20% more than Americans and 170% more than Australians for the average cellphone package.

We hear the excuses. We heard before this committee from big telcos that the size of Canada is the reason. The size of the country with its low population is the reason we pay more. Rogers, Bell and Telus, though, are the most expensive cellphone providers in the world. I mentioned at the time a year ago—and I'll say it again—that their operating profits are quite high. Their gross operating profits are 62% to 65%. That's twice as high as the profits of the major carriers of cellphone and mobile services in the United States and Australia.

How bad is it? In Canada, the average price per gigabyte of data on your cellphone is $5.37. In a country larger than Canada—because we hear that excuse all the time about the size of Canada—in Russia, not that they're in vogue these days, they now pay only 25¢ U.S. per gigabyte. Australia has about the same density and land area as Canada. They have more competition, and they pay only 44¢ a gigabyte for data on their phones, while we're paying over five dollars and our cellphone providers are making twice the level of gross profit.

It's clear that what we have here is a problem with competition. Those who have this protected status take us, consumers, and, quite frankly, the federal government for granted. It's the federal government that protects Bell, Telus, Rogers and Quebecor, this oligopoly, because they use airwaves that taxpayers pay them for. It's that protection that allows them to have this double-the-average operating profit and be the massively most expensive cellphone providers in the world.

Last year the Liberal government approved the sale of Shaw's assets to Rogers and Quebecor, removing two of the competitors in the market. The Liberals claimed at the time that the companies would respect the fact that prices would still go down, even though there would be fewer competitors. It has never actually happened in any competitive market that you have reduced competitors and prices go down. Now Rogers and Quebecor are thumbing their noses at this Liberal government by raising prices.

The Liberal Minister of Industry, in meetings, has had tough talks, we hear. We've heard it in the House that there have been tough talks on groceries and on cellphones, but the prices still go up. What did he say about cellphones? He said, “I'm watching closely”, as MP Ferreri outlined. Watching closely doesn't help people pay the bills when the Liberals promised that the prices would go down, but they're actually going up.

Telus and Bell are refusing to answer the media's questions, in response to Rogers' increase, about what they plan to do. If they weren't planning to increase prices, we know that they would say, “We're not planning to increase prices,” to the media. I guess they must be planning increases as well, or they would come clean on that in public.

Because the Liberal Minister of Industry, who helps oversee this cost of living crisis that we have.... These cellphone companies came before this committee a year ago, and before the Competition Bureau, claiming they would reduce prices if the Freedom sale went through. They claimed that, but they're doing the opposite now by increasing the cost to Canadians. That's why this committee needs to have urgent hearings with these players as to why they said a year ago we should trust them and prices would go down, but now they've done the opposite.

Canadians want this gouging to stop. It has been going on for too long. Not a single Canadian I know who doesn't work for Bell, Telus or Rogers thinks that prices have gone down. I suspect the people who work for them think that, but they may be the only ones.

Mr. Chair, I think the clerk has a copy of the study motion that I would like to propose. If she could circulate it, I'll just read it out for the committee members while it's being circulated. I move:

That, in relation to recent reports that Rogers will increase customer cell phone bills following a pledge by Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri that “prices are going to come down” as part of the $26 billion Rogers-Shaw merger approved by the Liberal Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, after committee experts and the Competition Commissioner warned that the deal would lead to higher prices for consumers—

I'll interrupt myself in the middle of it. This committee, by the way, recommended unanimously not to approve that deal, but the government went ahead anyway.

I'll continue:

—the committee therefore agree to be immediately recalled to undertake a study of up to four meetings, of at least two hours per meeting, to study the impact of the Liberal-approved merger and that these meetings begin at the earliest opportunity and conclude by Friday January 26, in order for the committee to return to its regular agenda when Parliament resumes, and that the committee invite the following witnesses to appear before the committee:

(a) François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and Simon Kennedy, Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada;

(b) Tony Staffieri, CEO and President of Rogers; Mirko Bibic, President and CEO of BCE; Darren Entwistle, President and CEO of Telus; and Pierre Karl Péladeau, President and CEO of Quebecor Media;

(c) Navdeep Bains, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer for Rogers Communication, and former Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry;

(d) Matthew Boswell, Commissioner of Competition; and

(e) all other witnesses deemed relevant by the committee;

and, that the committee request that the department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development provide a progress report on Roger’s five legally binding investment commitments to improve connectivity over the next five years; and, subject to the approval of the recognized party’s whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold additional meetings and/or extend committee meetings beyond an hour on each allotted day for each meeting on this matter.

We have a full agenda. I've suggested that we try to do these meetings before the 26th. I know that's maybe a challenge, given that's it's not next week but the week after. I understand that we all have, at various times during the week, the presession caucus gatherings. As always when we all propose and study motions here, we're open to improvements and suggestions on ways fellow committee members think we might be able to get this done within the agenda timing and with the many pressures that all of us have with various meetings.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'll leave it there for now.

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

It says “Print”.

We tried that for a few days of my schedule. It took five seconds to print out a single day. I am making that offer right now to the department of industry, which can't negotiate good contracts with Stellantis because they can't figure out how to hit “File” and “Print” on the deputy minister's schedule. Mr. O'Brien will come over and teach the department of innovation, science, and industry how to use “File” and “Print” on the Outlook schedule.

Not to be outdone, the deputy minister is an important man, as we all know. He has an associate deputy minister who appears before the industry committee on just about everything we do. We asked for his schedule for a year too. We did. Clearly, he's much more important than the deputy minister. Do you know why? I made a mistake earlier when I said it would be 11 years for the deputy minister's schedule, rather than eight, but for his associate deputy minister it was 11 years, because he's a much more important man than the deputy minister. It would actually take another three years to hit “File” and “Print” for all the days in his schedule.

I have to tell you that this is the department that MP Masse wants to rely on in item (i) to release the contract and for the ATIP.

I might challenge it, but it would probably take 11 years. That may be a dilatory sort of thing that the industry department is trying to hide. The industry department is actually trying to hide the deputy minister's schedule for some reason. They made claims in Bill C-27 that they've had 300 meetings over the summer, and it turns out they had about 300 meetings with the Canadian Marketing Association and the Canadian Bankers Association, but nobody who actually cares about the privacy of individuals, just people who care about abusing an individual's privacy, so they're trying to hide things at every turn, and that's why we need the transparency of the amendments that Mr. Genuis put forward, or my genuine compromise motion that I put forward today, which has about 80% or 90% of MP Masse's motion in it. It has the idea of having a third party review it, which is a compromise on our part, and having it released publicly.

The only difference, aside from all the grammatical errors, is the issue of a public or a private release. We trust parliamentary officers to release it and make those judgments. Apparently the government doesn't. I wonder why. Now the NDP no longer trusts the officers of Parliament to make the decision and release things publicly.

This is a production of documents motion, or that's the intent of what we originally put forward. MP Masse's version is somewhat of a production of documents motion, but it actually asks for things that aren't documents, so I don't know that it actually qualifies. I've not challenged the chair on whether or not this motion is acceptable under the rules. It's not really a production of documents motion in the truest sense, because it's asking for things that are not in the contract. It's asking for things like the number of foreign workers who are building plants involved in equipment installation and technology transfer.

Well, do you know what? Why don't we just have Stellantis before the committee and ask them that? I can tell you that this is not part of the contract. The contract has employment stuff. It doesn't list out the foreign workers they're bringing in, so it's about asking for the production of a new document that does not exist.

There are ways to do that. The member could have asked and filed what's called an OPQ around here. We're in Ottawa. Ottawa, like all governments, lives on acronyms. We're in the OGGO committee—another acronym. I sit on the INDU committee. The industry department is called ISED, which actually doesn't bear any resemblance to the title of the minister: The minister is Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and it's the Department of Industry, Science and Economic Development. They can't even get the title and the department straight and linked up, but we want to trust them that they're not hiding something and that they're negotiating a good contract.

He's asking for a document that requires special production, and OPQ means “Order Paper question”. Members of Parliament can ask what's called an Order Paper question. The government is compelled, in 45 days, to respond to those Order Paper questions. This is a perfect item for that, and I would recommend that MP Masse file an OPQ. You're allowed four at any given time. I've always had four, but I actually am so curious about what the government's doing that I generally have eight, 10 or 12 in at any given time, although you're only allowed four, so other MPs have to sign them.

You find out quite interesting information. The number of foreign workers who've been building the plants involved in equipment installation and technology transfer is a number. Numbers are what OPQs are best at exposing, so we don't need this here. In fact, that's not a document that is signed in the contract. I think it should be asked under an OPQ. That's not production of documents.

Number two is about the number of Canadian temporary and/or construction jobs to be created and how many permanent production positions are to be created as part of the contract guarantees. Well, the minister has said quite clearly, publicly, as has the Prime Minister, that there are 2,500 permanent jobs. I don't need to produce a document for that unless, for some reason, MP Masse doesn't even trust that number is correct. It says 2,500 jobs. That's the answer to the number of permanent production positions created as part of the contract. That's 2,500, or 2,300—we've heard a couple of different numbers. They're close. They've said both of those, so we don't need a motion to ask for that unless we don't believe the minister that it's even in the contract.

I trust the minister that when he said there would be 2,300 permanent jobs in the contract, that's what there will be. The minister just hasn't said that they're Canadian, or at least the company has said that they're not all Canadian. The minister has said they're Canadian, they're not Canadian, some of them are Canadian, a small portion are now in there—and then it's, “I really don't want you to know because I won't release the contract.”

Maybe MP Masse has a point. Maybe we can't even trust the number that the minister has put out, but again, that would make a classic OPQ. It's just a straight number. In fact, items one and two could be—wait for it—in the same OPQ, and they would have to respond within 45 days.

Item three is about the steps that will be taken to prioritize the employment of Canadians for building plants and equipment. Again, on the release of the contract, if it says that these jobs have to be Canadian, it would say that in the contract, but it isn't listed there.

In no contract that I've ever seen, and I was in large corporate businesses for 25-plus years.... I ran them. I was on boards of directors of publicly traded companies, private companies. You don't outline in a contract all the steps you take:

Number one, let's post an ad; number two, here are the qualifications; number three, let's do the interviews at this date; number four, let's interview the people; number five, here's how we'll score them. You don't put the steps that will be taken to prioritize the employment, as in, are they Canadian? Those steps on that hiring are not in a contract. It just says you're going to hire so many people to do so many things, and either they're Canadian or they're not.

One would expect that if you're putting up, in this case, $15 billion—the largest corporate subsidy in the history of Canada, for a single company for a six-year period, meaning $1,000 of taxes per household in Canada—you would put that requirement in the contract.

I think that could be very simply an OPQ, but it's not a production of documents question because that wouldn't be in the contract. They could have put in the construction schedule of the plant. That's in one of these contracts. There are two contracts for each of these. You could put that in the contract. You could ask for the steps of the construction schedule. That would be a legitimate element of the production of documents, but it wouldn't be the steps to be taken to prioritize employment other than saying....

I think what MP Masse is generally saying is that we want to know if it says you have to hire Canadians. If it does, release those clauses. MP Masse didn't ask for those clauses to be released. It's this liberalized, bureaucratized language that says, “Prioritize the employment of Canadians.” It sounds like the people who write acronyms wrote this up.

Number four says that the documents should be deposited with the clerk of the committee within—I have “one” blocked out—three weeks. I don't know if that's an old strikeout or not, but the redacted versions.... This again is where we had some confusion. Maybe it's a typo that we're trying to fix that's in the motion, because MP Masse said many times in the industry committee and in this committee that he wants it in public, and so does his leader in the House. He actually questioned—quite emotionally—the Prime Minister and the Minister of Industry on this issue, calling for the release of the contracts. I think that was probably a typo in the rush to get this done, and that's why, in all good spirit of assistance, MP Genuis has offered to help out to make sure that the motion is clearly consistent with the public position of the NDP.

Number five is that the “information related to the above specific areas not available in the contract be provided by the above mentioned companies to the committee in writing.” Here we go. It's the cone of silence.

There is a bit of grey hair around this table, but some people here may not remember, and some may, that classic TV series—I was a tiny little kid, I must admit—called Get Smart. Do you remember Get Smart? There isn't much Get Smart in this contract, but in Get Smart they had the cone of silence, and Max would go in and they'd have something secret to talk about, he and the chief. The cone of silence would come down over them. They'd try to talk to each other through the cone of silence and they could never hear anybody. That was the cone of silence.

This is the “cone of silence clause” here that MP Masse has put in. Do you know what happens when you put a cone of silence into this committee, in OGGO, in looking at the contracts? It's the same thing that happened to Max and the chief in Get Smart: It doesn't work. It doesn't provide transparency. Nobody can hear the contract. Nobody can see it. Nobody can prove it. It ties the members' hands to secrecy, and it's the goal of the Liberals to tie our hands to secrecy.

The only reason to do it is that they're hiding something. If they were proud of this contract, as they claim they are.... I've heard the Liberal members go on at length about the pride in these contracts. I've heard them and seen them do media. If you're proud of these contracts, release them. Obviously, you're not proud of the contracts; you're just proud of the rhetoric. If you were proud of the contracts, you'd release them.

Now that my assistant Graham O'Brien is back, I'd like to thank him again for all the work he did on exposing the secret society of industry that has decided that access to information doesn't apply to them and that it will take 11 years to produce a print copy of the deputy minister's and the associate deputy minister's schedules—Mr. Schaan. I would like to thank him for that work.

Graham, did you go back to the office to get the other 110 access to information request responses? I could really use them here.

I know the committee members would be fascinated with paragraph (i) on using access to information as the way to get this contract. That's just to give examples of how effective access to information is at getting secret government documents when the government doesn't want to do it.

Graham, maybe you could send.... We have a couple of part-time students. Maybe just give them a call and ask them if they'll bring them over. It may require a wheelbarrow.

I am prepared, in the hour of transparency, to demonstrate to this committee just how many access to information requests the Liberal government treats with a great deal of openness and respect in putting things forward.

I can tell you that I think the intent by Mr. Masse is right. I think he made some typos that Mr. Genuis is trying to fix in an earnest way—as my colleague always is—in trying to fix the motion.

If it would be okay, I'd like to make two more corrections, if I could, as a subamendment to Mr. Genuis's motion.

The chair proposed at the beginning of this meeting to clean up some of the language, so I would like to propose—

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

The question I have with respect to the ethics committee is that they're not doing.... They had two meetings, and they're done, so this all rests in our.... They're done, because the Liberals voted against doing any more meetings on this in the ethics committee.

Going forward, the only way we're going to get to the bottom of some of this contradictory testimony is to have another meeting. We are the keepers of our own destiny, and we have the ability, as we have done here, either to add these on to Bill C-27 or to do separate meetings without doing any harm to our study on Bill C-27.

From our side, we're more than willing to put in the time, effort and work to get to the truth on this. If it requires more meetings outside of our normal schedule.... I understand MP Lemire's desire to find an accommodation, but the interaction and questioning is where it happens. Pre-set questions or some sort of report from a request from us doesn't allow us to have that interaction, either with the Ethics Commissioner or with the individual we haven't heard from, who's provided all this ethical advice to the SDTC board, which, in our view, is clearly totally against the Conflict of Interest Act and the SDTC act.

We haven't had a chance to question them, and we have, clearly, testimony from officials that was a lie about their participation—in particular Mr. Noseworthy. There is absolutely no way he has sat on that board since 2017 and couldn't remember any of the meetings. There is no way he sat on that board and had conversations at board meetings about the government's priorities without having any recollection of that. There's no way he had conversations with the chair of the board outside of those board meetings and couldn't remember. That's why, for some of us of a certain age, there's Sergeant Schultz's line, “I know nothing.” That was his claim, and that's a lie.

He needs to be accountable to this committee for misleading the committee on his participation, and the fact that our committee members here don't think it's a serious offence for a government official to mislead this committee is very disappointing.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you.

From my perspective, it's a question of balance. We've heard some very good and important testimony here. We know that the ethics committee has also heard testimony on this matter. The balance for me comes on the important work that we need to do around Bill C-27.

I think that we need to focus on that important work on Bill C-27 at this committee. For me, the best use of time for us here at the industry committee is to wait until the AG report is completed. At that point, perhaps we can then revisit and see what it is we need.

My position is that we and ethics have done good work around this, and it's time for us to move forward on Bill C-27.

[Matthew Hatfield]

Certainly. My apologies.

To me, this hearing's topic seems to be pinning down what's wrong with tech platforms and what our government can do about it. I'll try to answer that question very precisely for you.

What's wrong with tech platforms and their influence on society? It's three things: their size, their vast asymmetrical data compared to regulators and citizens, and the engagement algorithms that drive their business model.

Let's talk size. Platforms like Amazon and Google have a stranglehold on a huge share of Internet commerce, app purchases, advertising and more. They often use that power to set unfair terms vis-à-vis smaller businesses and consumers. I'll note, though, that Bill C-18 misunderstood the specific dynamic around news. It assumes that news has inherent value to platforms that, for Meta at least, it does not.

The good news about the size problem is that Canada is opening new possibilities to do something about it through competition reform in Bill C-56 and Bill C-59. In the U.S., several bills were proposed last year aimed at regulating how tech giants treat small businesses and consumers. They include the American innovation and choice online act and the open app markets act, both of which OpenMedia campaigned for. In Canada, the Competition Bureau has never had the legal basis to study platform power effectively, let alone change it. Soon they will.

My second point is about data asymmetry and privacy. Platforms like Meta and YouTube have an endless volume of sensitive data about each and every one of us. They use it for advertising and to feed recommendations, but not for much else. Partly that's to respect our privacy, which is a very good thing. Their data in the hands of a spy agency or law enforcement would be a dystopic surveillance nightmare and one that we must guard against. However, that lack of curiosity on the platforms' part is also self-serving. It makes it easy to bury accurate study of what may be going wrong for some of their users and, in the worst case, lead that minority to harm themselves or others. The limited research that exists on how platform models may sometimes amplify harms is done with very incomplete data or with crumbs of researcher data access, which platforms are quick to withdraw if their interests are threatened.

Here we need both an individual and structural remedy. The strongest possible privacy bill, Bill C-27, giving Canadians meaningful and unalienable control of our personal data, is one solution, but another must be a very strong provision for both regulator and approved academic researcher access to perform studies on platform data in our upcoming online harms bill. We can't intelligently regulate platforms if we don't understand how any harms they help produce actually occur.

Last but not least, let's talk about the algorithm. Without even noticing it, we've become a society in which most information we get is delivered because it keeps us scrolling and clicking, not because it is nuanced, well researched or true. For music or hobbies, that can be a wonderful tool of self-exploration. People are not passive consumers of our feed. We curate it heavily, pruning the algorithm to serve us what we like most. However, for facts and reporting, that same process is making us a less-informed, angrier and more polarized society. We all feel the impact and very few of us like it. That doesn't make solutions easy, although I would say that Bill C-292, Peter Julian's bill, is something worth considering here.

I'll give a couple of signposts for what might help. We welcome this committee's interest in a dedicated study of how to create a viable news sector in Canada that continues producing vetted information. There's a case that Canadian news needs permanent government support, but the more involved government becomes, the more urgent it is that funds move through a system that is fully transparent to the public, has clear and fair criteria for who gets what support and prioritizes funds where they're most needed, in local news deserts and public accountability journalism, not shovelling funds indifferently toward Bell or the CBC. The alternative of stacking complex funding band-aids one on top of the other until they represent the majority of news funding is not going to build public trust in truthful journalism.

We would also welcome a Canadian study of how social media algorithms are impacting society. However, regulating the algorithm, if it comes, must be aimed at expanding transparency and personal control over how it works for Canadian Internet users, not manipulating it for what the government thinks is best for us.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mrs. Poitras, the former Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Therrien, told us that the federal commissioner and the provincial commissioners collaborated on various topics when it came to investigations of non-compliance.

Do you think lower standards, such as those set out in Bill C‑27, could hinder the investigations and co‑operation of privacy commissioners, if the federal legislation doesn't establish the same standards as those set out in Quebec's Bill 25?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you.

I have just a quick follow-up question. In terms of Canada being a fiscal federation, sometimes the provinces lead before the federal government, and vice versa. In terms of the consumer privacy protection act, Bill C-27, if I'm understanding this right—and please correct me if I'm not—do you think it's important to allow provinces a reasonable transition period? Why or why not?

I can go back to Michael on that.

[Michael McEvoy]

Let me start with one area where British Columbia, in my view, is behind. It is behind federally. That is on the issue of mandatory breach notification. There is no obligation on private sector companies in this province to report to my office when there is a breach that would cause a real risk of significant harm. Most importantly, there is no obligation on those companies to report it to individuals who are affected. This is something that needs to be changed.

There is a raft of other very good provisions that exist in other legislation, including Quebec's. I'm thinking of Commissioner Poitras' ability to oversee biometrics in the province, which is a burgeoning area and one that impacts people significantly. Facial recognition technology...all those kinds of things, where there is an obligation in Quebec to report the implementation of those kinds of programs. I think that is something British Columbia ought to be looking at.

The automated decision-making processes included in Bill C-27 should be, I think, incorporated in British Columbia, as well. However, I would urge British Columbia's government to go a step further than what is in Bill C-27. Again, Commissioner Dufresne has already alluded to what he believes—and we completely support this—are improvements to those provisions.