Bill C-42

An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Canada Business Corporations Act to, among other things,
(a) require the Director appointed under that Act to make available to the public certain information on individuals with significant control over a corporation;
(b) protect the information and identity of certain individuals;
(c) add, or broaden the application of, offences and provide the Director with additional enforcement and compliance powers; and
(d) add regulatory authority to prescribe further requirements in certain provisions.
It also makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak today.

I thank my colleague for pronouncing my riding name so well. She did a very good job. Above all, she has a wealth of experience, having been a minister in a previous government, which did a great deal for technology, among other things.

We are talking about a report on facial recognition technology that was tabled two years ago. The reality is that the government has had two years to act on the report's recommendations. Unfortunately, it has done nothing.

Many of our colleagues here have talked about Bill C-27. I have the pleasure of serving on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, which is responsible for Bill C-27. It is important to understand that facial recognition is nowhere to be found in Bill C-27. It is a bill on artificial intelligence and privacy, but there is not a single line in that bill that talks about facial recognition.

I would like to review the chronology of events surrounding Bill C‑27. This is important, because it gives us one more opportunity to consider how the government operated. Earlier on, my colleague from Winnipeg North said it was transparent and proactive, that it was doing lots of things, that it had introduced bills, and that it was holding consultations. I have news for him: On June 16, 2022, two and a half years ago, Bill C‑27 was introduced for first reading here in the House. On November 4, 2022, six months later, we debated it at second reading. The bill reached the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology on April 24, 2023, another six months later. However, Bill C‑27 was delayed when other government legislation was given extended consideration, including Bill C‑34 and Bill C‑42. Therefore, to some degree, the government deliberately delayed consideration of the bill.

During the study of Bill C‑27, we heard from numerous witnesses. We learned that 300 groups had been consulted. The problem is that they were consulted after the bill was introduced, not before. Surely, if the minister had consulted the organizations beforehand, he might have been able to include something about facial recognition in his bill. It is good to hold consultations, and we have absolutely nothing against that. It is an important thing to do, but ideally, it should be done before the bill is introduced, to avoid situations like the one we are in now, namely that we are still debating Bill C‑27 at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. I think there are roughly 250 amendments, including 55 amendments that the government moved to its own bill. How can such a thing happen? How can the government introduce a bill and then move 55 amendments a year and a half or nearly two years later? Someone somewhere must have done a bad job drafting the bill if, after introducing it, the government ended up consulting 300 groups and moving 55 amendments. We call that working backwards.

On September 26, 2023, we began studying Bill C-27, and we heard from the industry minister, who, we know, is an excellent salesman. I will give him that. Since the member for Winnipeg North told us to try to say nice things about what the government is doing, I will do just that. The government has an excellent Minister of Industry. He is a good salesman. I have no doubt he could “sell fridges to the Eskimos”. It is incredible. That said, I think that as the bill progressed, the minister was put in a position where he should have backed down, in a sense.

Contrary to what my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou said earlier, Bill C-27 does not cover a whole slew of topics. It covers two: artificial intelligence and privacy. The part of the bill on privacy is what we are debating right now. The progress of Bill C‑27 has been hampered because the Liberals want to establish a tribunal, even though no other country in the world has done that. We do not want this bill to establish a tribunal. There are already other authorities that could do this work, such as the Privacy Commissioner. We do not want to create an additional authority because that would require additional funds.

We also want Bill C-27 to move forward. The minister keeps telling us that Mr. Bengio from the University of Montreal is the father of AI in Canada and basically in the world. When Mr. Bengio appeared before the committee, he said that we needed to act quickly. We want to, but the reality is that the bill is ill-conceived. The very first witnesses who appeared before the committee told us that this bill is poorly designed.

First, artificial intelligence should have been addressed in a separate bill rather than bundled together with privacy, even though we agree that these two topics have elements in common. That does not necessarily mean that the two topics needed to be addressed in the same bill.

We moved several amendments to this bill. I must say that the committee is working collaboratively. In some committees, there are attacks, it is very politicized, it is very political and it is very partisan. I must say that at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, we all work very collaboratively. We try to move bills through as quickly as possible, but in the case of Bill C‑27, that was unfortunately not possible.

Other events took place in 2023 and 2024. I think we have done an amazing job. At committee, many witnesses came to talk about artificial intelligence itself, and their testimony was very interesting. One witness in particular surprised us a bit. They practically said that we are facing a third world war, a technological war that will be fought not with weapons, but with AI. We were a bit shaken when the witness told us that. We thought they were being a bit alarmist, but the reality is that we heard very solid arguments from the experts from across Canada who also appeared at committee on this topic, at the invitation of the various political parties.

Europe has just passed legislation on artificial intelligence. Here in Canada, if the government had been willing, this bill could have been split up to separate the two subjects. We could still do that. Right now, we could limit ourselves to resolving the issue of AI, in line with what just passed in Europe and what is about to pass in the United States. Their bills have been studied extensively. Quebec already has a law in effect, Bill 25. It is not fully aligned with the legislation that will be created in Canada. A number of legal experts told us that all the provinces' laws absolutely must be consistent with the federal legislation. All of these things come into play.

Facial recognition is a fundamental point when it comes to Canadians' quality of life. We have to make sure that people will not be identified by technology that will allow racial profiling, for example. Obviously, we do not want that anywhere. Just two weeks ago, a former Montreal police chief said that there was racial profiling in Montreal. The City of Montreal will probably be charged for that. Things would be even worse if we had tools to facilitate racial profiling.

I see that my time is up. I am happy to answer questions.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

November 1, 2023

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 1st day of November, 2023, at 4:12 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Maia Welbourne

Acting Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates the bill assented to was Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move that notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House:

(a) on the last allotted day in the supply period ending June 23, 2023, the proceedings on the opposition day motion shall conclude no later than 10:30 p.m., the House shall then proceed to the putting of the question on the motion and then, if required, the taking of any division or divisions necessary to dispose of the motion, and the Speaker shall then put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, every question necessary to dispose of the motions to concur in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, and to the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, and for the passage at all stages of any bill based on the said estimates;

(b) notices of opposed items in relation to the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, and to the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, listed on the Notice Paper be deemed withdrawn;

(c) the recorded divisions on government legislation currently deferred to the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions today be deemed further deferred to the conclusion of all proceedings in relation to the estimates tonight;

(d) the motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons related to the appointment of Harriet Solloway as Public Sector Integrity Commissioner pursuant to Standing Order 111.1(2) be deemed moved, a recorded vote be deemed requested and deferred after the recorded division on the motion for third reading of Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts;

(e) in relation to Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Judges Act, the amendment to the motion respecting Senate amendments made to the bill be deemed withdrawn and the motion respecting Senate amendments made to the bill, standing on the Notice Paper, be deemed adopted;

(f) Bill S-8, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, be deemed read a third time and passed;

(g) Bill C-40, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to repeal a regulation (miscarriage of justice reviews), be deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights;

(h) Ways and Means Motion No. 18, notice of which was tabled on June 16, 2023, be deemed concurred in, a bill based thereon standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, entitled “An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, to give effect to treaties with those governments and to make consequential amendments to other Acts”, be deemed to have been introduced and read a first time, deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs; and

(i) the written questions dated June 20, 2023, standing on the Notice Paper, be deemed to have been transferred to the Order Paper on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, for the purposes of Standing Order 39.

Online News Act

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in this place to speak to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, which has been returned to the House by the Senate with amendments.

Before I begin my speech, I would like to point out once again the hypocrisy of the Liberals, who imposed time allocation on this bill for a second time earlier today. If that was not egregious enough, yesterday a member of the government interrupted a member of an opposition party in the middle of their speech to give notice that it would be moving a time allocation motion on Bill C-18 today. The government then switched debate to Bill C-42, forcing that opposition member to finish their speech this afternoon. Perhaps it is understandable that the government is in such disarray as it stumbles from scandal to scandal, mismanaging its agenda in the House so poorly that it must now rely on these heavy-handed measures at the end of this session, although it can always count on the blind support of its NDP backbench to bail it out.

Moving on to the bill, this bill will require digital platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay Canadian media outlets for sharing their news content. Digital giants will have six months to negotiate private deals to compensate Canadian media outlets before being required to enter into arbitration. The proposed legislation will also create a framework for the arbitration process.

This is yet another ill-conceived bill from the NDP-Liberal government. Subject matter experts have raised numerous questions and concerns about it, including the impact it will have on news media, the Internet in Canada and the benefit or lack thereof to Canadian media.

Some questions remain unanswered: Why was the CRTC selected to be the regulator? Does the CRTC have the knowledge and expertise capacity to do the job properly? Does the CRTC have the capacity to enforce the regulations once they are created? The answers to these questions and others are impossible to know, because they will stem from the regulations that will follow if this bill is passed into law.

Essentially, what the government is asking of us is to grant them these new powers and just trust that it will be fair in its application. It is a ridiculous thing to ask for. The government has been chronically plagued with introducing deeply flawed and deliberately vague legislation, leaving the details to be fleshed out by the bureaucrats through regulation, which does not get the kind of public scrutiny that bills do through a debate in this place.

It is not only that: The government has also been chronically plagued with scandals and cover-ups. How can it be trusted to do the right thing when it has shown time and time again that it is prepared to abuse its position of power to help out its friends?

The fact that the CRTC, which is a government entity, will decide which news outlets qualify under this legislation is effectively a form of indirect funding. This bill allows the CRTC to pick winners and losers by determining which news businesses are included and will get to bargain for compensation and which news outlets will be left in the cold. Conservatives proposed amendments to level the playing field but were voted down by the other parties. While the government may suggest that the CRTC is independent, I am not reassured. The WE Charity scandal came out of a supposedly independent process. The SNC-Lavalin scandal came out of that same supposedly independent process. For the Liberal government, an independent process is independent in name only.

Another flaw in the conception of this bill is the idea that hyperlinks possess monetary value. While 99.9% of Canadians may not be aware of it, a case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2011 dealt with this very issue. In the case of Crookes v. Newton, the Supreme Court stated clearly in their decision that hyperlinks are akin to footnotes. Since footnotes do not carry a monetary value when used in publications, why should hyperlinks? Although access to the information behind the link is much faster than having to look up the reference in a footnote, the two are considered to operate in the same way.

The Supreme Court was quite clear in their findings on this case. Experts are asking why the government is ignoring the Supreme Court in this matter and whether it is planning on challenging this decision from over a decade ago. How does it reconcile what is in this bill with the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2011?

Another flaw in thinking that links have monetary value is that often publishers and sellers are paying to feature their links at the top of search engines or to boost their outreach on Facebook. It is interesting that when organizations are paying to feature their links on these sites more prominently, the government now turns around and says that it is the one that should be getting paid.

Initiating this “link tax”, as it has been called, can open the door to other issues, such as the ability of larger organizations to take less money per link than smaller organizations, making the larger organizations a more attractive partner for big corporations. That raises the question of how smaller websites will be able to compete.

The reality of media marketing is that organizations pay money to push links to their sites on platforms like Google and Facebook all the time. They spend quite a bit of money to do this. This boosting of their links is essentially an advertisement for their respective websites. Does providing access to these sites not boost user engagement with their articles? If Google or Facebook were taking the articles of Canadian news outlets and republishing them as their own, then we would have a real issue, but it is an issue that can already be addressed through existing laws and legislation. However, that is not the issue at hand. Anyone who has used Google would know that search engines do not republish articles in this way. If I were to search for an article, I would need to click through to the article in order to access the content behind it.

Another deep concern with this legislation is that the CBC would be the largest beneficiary of the provisions in this bill. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that the majority of the money—three-quarters of it, to be exact—would go to the CBC, Rogers and Bell, with less than a quarter left for newspapers. After the larger newspaper businesses take their share, very little, if any, would be left for local and ethnic media.

Canadians already give over $1 billion to the CBC each year. If the purpose of this bill, as the government purports, is to support smaller domestic media sources, why include the CBC? Again, Conservatives proposed an amendment to exclude the CBC so that more money would go to local and independent news sources, but it was voted down by the NDP-Liberal coalition and the Bloc.

In conclusion, I am very concerned that rather than helping Canadian news outlets, this bill would harm them by restricting their reach, as I have mentioned. Independent media are foundational to Canadian democracy. Experts in the field have raised the concern that this legislation would negatively impact this principle in Canada. When the government creates criteria for access to funds, even media organizations may self-censor to ensure they qualify. This could lead to Canadians having less information, fewer options and an unbalanced media field.

Once again, I am unable to vote for this bill in its current form.

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

Madam Speaker, I do plan to expand on that point shortly, but before I do that, I want to provide a bit of a different perspective on how important Bill C-18 is. It needs to be placed in the real world context to see how it would protect our national community news agencies and media. It is so very important.

I often will go to a lot of events, as members on all sides of the House do. Often it is the community news people who are at those events, taking pictures, doing interviews and so forth. If it is a local basketball game or championship game at a local high school, it will be the local newspaper that highlights it.

I go to many different types of ethnic events. Whether it be the Pilipino Express News Magazine, Filipino Journal, Punjabi Today or CKJS radio, these community-driven news agencies, newspapers, radio and media are reporting on the things taking place. There are pictures and everything else incorporated.

While visiting constituents in their homes, I often see that they have a newspaper produced in the community. They will show me where their son or daughter's name is in that community newspaper or where a local community event is being profiled in the paper.

It does not matter whether people are from urban or rural communities, whether they are from the east or the west or up north, these small news agencies play a critical role in our community development and society as a whole and, absolutely, 100% with respect to our democracy. One of the fundamental pillars to a healthy democracy is to have a healthy media. That is why the minister of heritage has often talked about the importance of supporting journalism, supporting those news media outlets.

I believe the minister referenced the year 2008, a year when just under 500 media outlets of different sizes from different areas of the country completely disappeared. We should all be concerned about that. Local media is how we often find out about the birth of a child, or that someone has died or an announcement about a parade to be held in our community It is often how we will hear about grand openings and so many other things. Not to mention that elected officials will often take political accountability by providing writing or commenting through local media.

I want people who are following the debate to understand just how important it is that we as a government are here to support our media. We are not the first government in the world to do so. We have heard about Australia and France. I believe that many countries around the world are following the debate on Bill C-18.

I am disturbed by the Conservative Party's approach to this legislation. All of us should be. Is it working with the giant tech companies? Has it been intimidated by the giant tech companies?

The member for Kingston and the Islands raised a quote. I would like to reinforce that. For my Conservative colleagues across the way, I suggest they look at that election platform, the platform that they shared with millions of Canadians in the last federal election.

Page 155 of the 2021 Conservative platform, which has a picture of the former leader on the front of it, says, “Canadian media is in crisis. The loss of digital advertising revenue to American tech giants like Google and Facebook is putting local newspapers out of business, costing Canadian jobs, and undermining our ability to tell local, Canadian stories.” I agree with that. In fact, if I did not tell people it was coming from the Conservative platform, I would feel very comfortable making that statement.

I will continue to read from the Conservative platform. It says, “Canada’s Conservatives don’t believe that the solution is for the government to provide direct funding to hand-picked media outlets”, and I disagree with that as I see the value in CBC and I will provide further comment on that shortly, “something that undermines press freedom and trust in the media. Instead, we will secure a level playing field for Canadian media, ensuring that Canadians are paid fairly for the content they create while encouraging the creation of more Canadian media and culture.” I have some difficulty with some of the things in that statement, but the Conservatives raise the importance of the issue.

It goes on to say, and this is the platform's bold statement, “Canada’s Conservatives will: Introduce a digital media royalty framework”, and that is what we are debating in Bill C-18, “to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook.” If members were to review Hansard and the debate we have had on this, what are the two platforms we are talking about? Google and Facebook. This legislation is, in essence, taking what is in the Conservative platform.

It goes on to say, “Adopt a made in Canada approach that incorporates the best practices of jurisdictions like Australia and France.” Members on this side of the House have said that. The legislation and establishment of the framework is based on what has come out of Australia and France. Our legislation goes even further. It would ensure there is a higher sense of accountability and transparency.

Let us go back to the last federal election. In that election, Conservative candidates, 338 of them, had a platform document. Every one of them campaigned on that. The legislation we are debating, what we are proposing to do with this legislation, is fulfilling something they committed to doing. I would have thought the Conservative Party would have supported Bill C-18.

Why are the Conservatives not supporting it? We listened to the critic. We listened to a few other Conservatives. We get the impression that they have been intimidated by giant tech companies like Facebook and Google. What is the other option? That they agree? What about the commitment they made to Canadians? This is in opposition to that.

This is not the first time. They did the same thing on the price on pollution. They made a commitment and they broke that.

I would argue that this is not the same Conservative Party from the past. This is very much a Reform Party and maybe even further to the right than the Reform Party was. This is what Canadians need to be aware of.

Why would the Conservatives not want to protect the national interest and give more strength to our democracy by supporting Bill C-18? They have gone out of their way to protect those giants. I would be disappointed if the government were to back down because Facebook says it is going to pull its news ads. I am not a computer tech person. I know there are all sorts of things people can do through the computer and maybe they have ways they can pull out the news ads; I am not 100% sure how that works. However, what I do know is that I am not going to be intimidated, whether by Google or Facebook. If Facebook operators believe that they do not need those stories in order to sustain the type of growth that they have experienced and wealth that has been generated because of journalism that has been utilized through their companies at no cost, I will stand by Canadians. I am going to stand by our democracy. I am going to stand by the jobs and the importance of that industry because I recognize its importance.

The Conservatives have now said they are going to pull all stops out. They do not want this legislation to pass and they have been very clear on that.

I had posed a question in regard to the budget implementation bill when the leader of the Conservative Party had a big press conference. In the press conference, he said he was going to speak and speak. He has unlimited time on the budget implementation bill. He was going to continue to speak until ultimately the Prime Minister backed away and changed the budget, even though hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through the budget implementation bill in order to support Canadians. A few hours later, that kind of fell flat. Why was that? It was because not only did the Liberals see through the charade, but opposition parties outside of the Conservatives saw the charade and the propaganda stunt that the leader of the Conservative Party was trying to pull off.

Just yesterday, with respect to Bill C-42, the corporations bill, the Conservative Party actually supported the legislation. Everyone supports the legislation. However, the Conservatives want to apply that very same principle in terms of what they want to apply to Bill C-18, and that is to prevent government legislation from passing. Therefore, the Conservatives continue to put up members to speak and if it were not for time allocation, again, that legislation would not have been able to pass.

Now, the Conservatives are shocked or at least surprised that the government has brought in time allocation on Bill C-18. They should not be surprised. After all, they just need to look at their record; they try to frustrate the House of Commons, to deny Canadians the opportunity to have legislative measures that are going to protect their interests. We have consistently seen that from the Conservative Party. The Conservatives put their political party and their fundraising ahead of the interests of Canadians.

Let us listen to the first question, when the Minister of Heritage was answering questions as to why time allocation was necessary. The first person up for the Conservative Party asked why the government was bringing in time allocation, saying that they should be allowed to have all of their members speak to the legislation.

They should do the math. If every member speaks, that means how many hours of debate? How many more hours are there before the summer recess? It is not a question of whether the Conservatives will allow the legislation to pass before the summer break, they want to kill the bill. They do not want the bill, period, end of story. That is their intention.

That is why I posed a question to my Bloc friend. The essence of the question was whether the member believes that the Conservatives, had we not brought in time allocation, would have allowed this bill to pass before the summer recess. If the member from the Bloc were to be honest with the chamber, he would probably recognize that the Conservatives have no intention whatsoever to pass this legislation, definitely not before the summer break. If we did not have at least one opposition party supporting what we are doing, this legislation likely would not see the light of day in terms of its passing.

I need to remind the Conservatives, as they like to remind us, about the last election and there being a minority government. In a minority government, we have to continue to be focused on Canadians, delivering legislative and budgetary measures and working with the opposition. Fortunately, most opposition parties have a more co-operative attitude and recognize that they too have a role to play in a minority government. It is not just the government's responsibility.

The only party that has failed to recognize that fact is the Conservative Party of Canada. It continues to believe its only role is to prevent legislation from passing. Then it criticizes us for bringing in time allocation motions and trying to limit debate on important pieces of legislation or budget measures. It is hard to take Conservatives seriously on things of that nature when we see them delay time and time again, such as with concurrence in committee reports. One of my favourites is when a Conservative stands and moves a motion for another Conservative to speak. Then there is a vote, which causes the bells to ring. Instead of debating, they try to determine which Conservative member should filibuster or they decide we are done for the day and move a motion to adjourn, again causing further delay. These are the types—

Bill C-42—Time Allocation Motion

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by recognizing that there are plenty of partisan games being played in our Parliament right now and that the governing party has every right to advance its legislative agenda.

When it comes to limiting debate on Bill C-42, though, we just began it last sitting day. I believe there have been four speeches so far. That is fewer than the number of parties represented in this House. If we take a further step back, this is the eighth time that debate will be limited since May 1. In fact, I could only find four instances where we have not had debate limited.

Is it not a concern to the minister and others in the governing party that by moving forward in this way and by mismanaging the agenda to this extent, it is enshrining an approach that allows others to do the exact same thing when are be power?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge, I am the only member in this chamber who participated in the amendment stage of Bill C-42. I will point out that we worked in good faith with all members of this House of Commons to put forward common-sense amendments to the legislation.

The hour before we had clause-by-clause, we had some of the most critical witnesses appear on this bill. They were from Transparency International. One of their key recommendations, in the hour before we had the amendment stage, was to adopt language from Bill 20, the Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2023, of British Columbia, which would have strengthened the provisions in the legislation regarding identity, specifically noting, “The records, information or proof must be provided under subsection (1) in the prescribed form and manner.” It also would have required that the bill strengthen the ability of the director of Corporations Canada to receive information on identity and citizenship so the bill could work clearly.

What is problematic in this case is that we wanted to bring forward good amendments. The NDP even brought good amendments forward, but the government voted against them simply because it had witnesses appear the hour preceding clause-by-clause. If we are going to have good legislation, we cannot have a parliamentary practice where witnesses appear the hour before. We limited ourselves from making the bill as good as it could have been simply because of that tactic by the government.

No, we have not stalled on the bill. We have worked in good faith to get the best legislation possible for Canadians, even to achieve the government's objectives of better interoperability, better standards and better threshold requirements. However, unfortunately, the government voted against all that and is now bringing in closure at the last minute instead of getting the bill right.

Whatever has been said by the minister and the parliamentary secretary so far has been false. We have been there to move the legislation along, and the government has used tactics to delay work to get the best clauses possible and to improve it in good faith for all Canadians.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his wise leadership in the House.

I agree with the member's comment. It is not just the dilatory tactics and the wasting of time. It is that the Leader of the Opposition is relishing in that in front of the media, being proud of the fact he is trying to grind Parliament down to a stop to prevent good pieces of legislation from moving forward. These are bills such as this one, Bill C-42, and Bill C-40, which I mentioned an hour ago. Over the last month, we have witnessed, time and time again, the misuse of time, the use of delay tactics and the real negativity these bring to the House of Commons.

We want to move forward with this bill because it is a positive bill for Canadians. We want to move forward with this bill because it would help us fight organized crime, money laundering and terrorist financing, and would give us better principles of corporate governance. We rely on the market to do many things in our country and in our economy. For that market to function properly, we need corporate governance structures that are transparent and that allow proper corporate decisions to be made, for the purposes of not only shareholders but also the Canadian public, to the extent that we allow the market to regulate these kinds of issues.

It is an important bill, and we need to pass it.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, having spent my life in opposition, I do know that the one tool the opposition has is time. We have the time to speed things up and the time to slow things down. However, at the end of the day, time is about serving the Canadian people.

I see Bill C-42, which has the beneficial ownership registry. It is legislation to deal with Russian oligarchs. We could be debating that. Instead, we have been having to witness Conservatives with their long litany of whining, perceived slights and imagined microaggressions. It is always about them and their feelings. I get a feeling that European soccer teams might hire them over the summer to give them lessons on how to do the theatrics of lying on the grass and holding a knee.

Meanwhile, we have legislation to get done. We are staying until midnight, night after night. Instead of the Conservatives standing up for their constituents and talking about legislation that needs to get passed, they are talking about themselves, how bad they feel and how their feelings have been hurt.

I would ask the hon. member to give us a basic sense of the level of importance of getting this legislation through.

Bill C-42—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Minister of Seniors]

Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the respective stages of the said bill.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to respond on behalf of the government.

This afternoon we will continue debate on Government Business No. 26, concerning amendments to the Standing Orders. When debate concludes later this evening, we will consider Bill C-35, respecting early learning and child care, followed by Senate amendments to Bill C-9, concerning the Judges Act.

Tomorrow we will consider Bill C-42, respecting the Canada Business Corporations Act, at report stage and third reading, and Bill S-8, respecting sanctions.

The priorities for next week shall include Bill S-8, on sanctions; Senate amendments to Bill C-18, respecting online news; Bill C-40, concerning the miscarriage of justice review commission act, also known as David and Joyce Milgaard's Law; and Bill C-33, which strengthens the port system and railway safety.

Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Finally, I request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the next sitting be 12 midnight, pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

Industry and Technology

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the following three reports of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology.

I am tabling the 14th report, entitled “Domestic Manufacturing Capacity for a COVID‑19 Vaccine - Prevention is Better than Cure”, and the 15th report, entitled “Blockchain Technology: Cryptocurrencies and Beyond”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to each of these two reports.

I also have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology concerning Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report it back to the House with amendments.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the analysts, the interpreters and our clerk, and now our new clerk. Their work was instrumental in the committee's successful presentation and tabling of these three reports.

Business of the House

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, when we return the Monday after the week in our ridings, the agenda will include debate at third reading of Bill S‑5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Tuesday and Thursday will be opposition days. On Wednesday, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C‑42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act.

On Friday, we will begin debate on Bill C‑40, miscarriage of justice review commission act, also known as David and Joyce Milgaard's law.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform members that we have posted the position of law clerk and parliamentary counsel in the House of Commons. I encourage members to share that job posting so that we can be sure to find a permanent law clerk as soon as possible to support the important work that we do as parliamentarians.

Again, we have done the process in French and English.

With that, I would like to wish all parliamentarians a wonderful constituency week. I know that we are going to be busy in our ridings.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague on the other side for the question and the opportunity to illuminate the government's agenda for the coming week.

On Monday, we will resume report stage debate of Bill S-5, which would amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

On Tuesday morning, we will call Bill C-42 regarding the Canada Business Corporations Act and then return to debate on Bill S-5 in the afternoon.

On Wednesday and Friday, we will call Bill C-13, an act for substantive equity of Canada's official languages.

Finally, I would like to inform the House that Thursday, May 11, shall be an allotted day.

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

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will resume second reading debate on Bill C-42, regarding the Canada Business Corporations Act.

On Monday, we will continue to debate Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.

On Wednesday, we will commence report stage debate of Bill S-5, regarding the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Tuesday and Thursday will both be opposition days. In order to assist the Table, I will ask my friend, the hon. Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, to confirm their designation following my statement.

Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in this House and speak to budget 2023 and, more important, Bill C-47, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

The budget this year comes at a time when Canada had the fastest-growing economy in the G7 last year and is projected to be the second-fastest-growing this year and when we have near record-low unemployment rate, having created an additional 865,000 jobs compared to what it was before the pandemic. However, we know those lofty numbers do not mean much for a lot of Canadians who are struggling right now. We have had high inflation since last year, peaking in September at 8.1%. It is now down to about 4.3%, but that has come as a result of the work of the Governor of the Bank of Canada in raising interest rates. We know that many Canadians right now are struggling with the high cost of living.

That is why the budget would make some important investments to help many folks with affordability measures. Key to this is a new grocery rebate, which would help 11 million low-to-modest-income Canadians with up to $467 per couple to help with the rising cost of food. For students right now, as of April 1 of this year, we have eliminated all interest on student loans and we have increased the Canada student grants by 40%. We are also creating a new project and expanding a project to create automatic tax filing for Canadians, because we know it is really important for Canadians to file their taxes so they can get some of the benefits that I was just speaking about.

This budget would also make historic investments in health care: almost $200 billion over 10 years, which would be key for areas like mine, where access to a family health practitioner is a very big challenge. We are also expanding Canada's dental care program for families earning under $90,000. Last year, we started it with children 12 and under. This year, it would be for Canadians who are 18 and under and those over the age of 65. There are also some very important investments that would be made to tackle the opioid epidemic, which has struck B.C. very hard.

There are also some major investments in this budget in creating the good jobs of today and the good jobs of tomorrow. We know the world is rapidly transitioning to a cleaner economy, and that is why this budget would make significant investments in supporting renewable electricity projects right across the country, not just for the private sector, but also working with Crown corporations and provinces to do that.

There are new tax credits for clean hydrogen. I know this is going to be very important for companies in my riding like Quantum Technology, which is involved in projects for the purification and liquefaction of hydrogen. There are also some major investments being made in zero-emissions manufacturing. With the creation of new funds like the Canada growth fund, we would be able to crowd in private capital for projects just like the one that was announced last week with Volkswagen, to create a massive new battery-manufacturing plant in Canada.

Because it is National Tourism Week this week, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this budget would make some significant down payments on the launch of Canada's new tourism growth strategy. There is over $100 million that would go toward the regional development agencies to support local projects. There would be about $50 million going to Destination Canada to attract international events to Canada, and there would be investments made to speed up the operations at airports, including investments in improving the protection of passenger rights.

With that, I will turn to the budget implementation act, which is where the rubber hits the road on a lot of these measures.

I mentioned passenger rights. Right now, we have a backlog of about 30,000 people who are waiting for their cases of delayed flights or cancelled flights to be adjudicated. We would change the process that we utilize for this by switching the onus so that it is not on the travellers to prove that they should be refunded, but on the airline itself to prove that they should not. This would greatly speed up the process and get passengers the refunds they deserve.

As I am a British Columbia MP, there are a couple of areas of this implementation act that are very important to me. The issue of money laundering in B.C. has really been put in the spotlight with the Cullen commission, which the Province of British Columbia commissioned and which delivered its report relatively recently. This report highlights many of the vulnerabilities that we have in Canada in tackling money laundering.

Canada has the dubious distinction of being a haven for this, a process called snow-washing. It is because we have a system without the necessary checks in it and a very well-respected financial system. This budget implementation act would make some very important changes to help us better control this challenge. In particular, it would criminalize the operation of unregistered money services businesses; it would create an ability to freeze and seize virtual assets with suspected links to crime; it would improve the financial intelligence, information sharing and strategic analysis of FINTRAC; and it would create a new offence for structuring financial transactions to avoid FINTRAC reporting. Importantly, a commitment has been made to implement all of the recommendations that are listed by the Cullen commission.

These measures also dovetail to other measures that we are currently debating in this House. We introduced Bill C-42 to create a national beneficial ownership registry so we will know who are the people behind a lot of the numbered companies, which are sometimes using this to evade paying taxes, evade sanctions or do money laundering. Importantly, this system would work very closely with beneficial ownership registries that the provinces are implementing, where the vast majority of companies are incorporated. There is also a commitment made in this budget to work with provinces and territories to look at things like unexplained wealth orders, which would greatly enhance the tools that law enforcement has to be able to locate and seize assets that could be from proceeds of crime.

As I am a coastal MP, there are a number of measures in this budget that I was very happy to see, particularly the new vessel remediation fund and changes to the abandoned boats program. This measure was introduced in 2017 by my former colleague Bernadette Jordan, and it created a fund to clean up boats that had sunk to the bottom of the ocean and were polluting the ocean. This was incredibly important and actually removed a lot of boats from waters around my riding. However, we need to go a step further, because it is much more effective to take those boats out of the water before they sink rather than having to clean them up once they have already sunk.

In the budget implementation act, we are establishing a new vessel remediation fund, which would be boat owner-financed, to provide the resources so we can do some of this very important work. There would be the creation of an allowance for financing of preventative measures, such as voluntary vessel disposal activities, so that vessels at risk of becoming dilapidated, wrecked or abandoned can access funding to repair, secure, move or dismantle and sell them. This is very important because it would save a lot money, reduce the amount of pollution we are seeing in the bottom of our oceans and help a lot of folks I know in my riding, like Don MacKenzie, who, out of the goodness of his own heart, has taken it upon himself to clean these boats up.

I want to talk about something that I think we can all agree on in this House, and that is changes to the alcohol excise tax. As of April 1 this year, the alcohol escalator tax was supposed to increase by over 6%. Through measures that have been introduced in the budget implementation act, we have capped this at 2%. I know this will be a hugely important measure for the breweries in my riding, over a dozen, to be able to provide their products at a cost that is much lower than it would have been. It is really important that we do things like this and support small businesses, which, like all Canadians, are facing rising costs.

The last thing I will mention is that there is a commitment in the budget this year to lower the credit card swipe fees. There is an agreement with Visa and Mastercard to lower credit swipe fees by 27%. This would save businesses thousands of dollars. It is a really important measure to support small businesses in Canada, so they, in turn, do not have to pass on some of the additional costs they would face as a result of those credit card swipe fees.

With that, I would encourage all members of this House to vote in favour of this important piece of legislation so we can make some of these great changes and put them into effect.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first, I echo my hon. colleague's statements. The next nine of the 10 weeks the House will be sitting is a long time away from families, and our families do sacrifice a lot, which is a really important point to emphasize. He and I could have a longer discussion about the Ethics Commissioner. We are both very anxious to see that important position filled, and I am sure he and I could work together on that.

With respect to the business of the House, tomorrow morning we are going to start second reading of Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.

On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of next week, we will continue with debate of the budget bill.

On Wednesday, we will call Bill C-13, concerning the Official Languages Act, at report stage and third reading.

On Friday, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-42 regarding the Canada Business Corporations Act.

Finally, there have been discussions among all parties and if you seek it, I am certain you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order, or usual practice of the House:

(a) on Thursday, May 4, 2023, when the House adjourns, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, May 8, 2023, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1), provided that, for the purposes of any standing order, it shall have deemed to have sat on Friday, May 5, 2023;

(b) on Thursday, May 18, 2023, when the House adjourns, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, May 29, 2023, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Orders 24(1) and 28(2), provided that, for the purposes of any standing order, it shall have been deemed to have sat on Friday, May 19, 2023; and

(c) any standing, standing joint, special, and special joint committees, as well as their subcommittees, shall not be empowered to sit on both Fridays.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let me join with my hon. colleague, the opposition House leader, in wishing everyone a joyous Easter. I hope that members who are celebrating Easter take time with their families. This is also a very busy time for many of our other faith communities as we recognize Vaisakhi. We are in the holy month of Ramadan right now and we have Passover. This is a time that is very rich, one when I know people will be visiting churches, mosques and temples in our communities to share with the rich faith traditions in our constituencies. I hope all members are able to profit from those opportunities to be with their constituents and families.

With respect to Bill C-11, I will simply state that I do not think there is any amount of time that would satisfy Conservatives. In fact, I would challenge the opposition House leader to indicate just how many days of debate he would like. I do not think there is any end. Conservatives have indicated they want to obstruct this bill. This bill has had more time in the Senate than any bill in history. It was in the last Parliament and it is in this Parliament. It is time our artists get compensated for their work and that the tech giants pay their fair share.

Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate of Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, and then we are going to be switching to Bill C-34, the Investment Canada Act.

When we return, we will continue with the budget debate on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday, we will start the day with a ways and means vote relating to the budget implementation act. Following the vote, we will proceed to the debate on Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, 2022, followed by Bill C-42.

Finally, on Friday, we will commence debate on the budget bill.