Canadian Heritage Committee on May 30th, 2017

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I want to continue on that theme of the Liberals' war on history, the refusal to have history. Confederation has themes of Canada 150, and how Canadians are—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Mr. Van Loan, I jumped the gun, sorry.

Mr. Vandal, you have two more minutes, if you'd like to go ahead. That was a seven-minute round. You and Julie were splitting that.

Would the two of you like to carry on or do you want to come back to it later?

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

I'll continue.

When you concluded, Minister, you talked about partnerships with the three provinces. Can you speak more on the partnerships with the north?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Yes. We were able to do an agreement with the three territories to support French and indigenous languages in Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. These territories have proclaimed some indigenous languages as part of their official languages. In that context, we agreed on the support of these indigenous languages. I think that indigenous organizations, and of course the territories, are extremely pleased with this new funding, which is $17.8 million every year for indigenous languages.

I will have my deputy minister provide more information on these agreements.

[Graham Flack, Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage]

To give the scale, the existing funding for indigenous languages for the territories is $3 million a year, plus the funding through Yukon, which is through self-governing agreements through INAC. With the new funding at a steady state, it will be an incremental $8 million a year, plus an additional $3 million through the self-governing agreements through Yukon. It's a very significant increase, well over double the current funding.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Loan, you have five minutes.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

As I was saying, there is this disconnect between the government's refusal to allow history and Confederation as themes of Canada 150 and what ordinary Canadians are doing in the communities. I went through a bunch of them.

It's happening in the private sector as well. Fitzhenry & Whiteside publishers are celebrating Canada 150 by profiling our books about Canadian history. Harbour Air Seaplanes in Vancouver has 38 Otters and Beavers. They are iconic in aviation and Canadian history. Some of them are being painted in special Canada 150 colours to show that. Moosehead Breweries has an advertisement on TV, “We are still pioneers”, which shows a conveyer belt with bottles bearing labels all about Canada's history going by. CIBC is linking the bank's history to Canada's history. CP Rail has a transcontinental train initiative with 13 stops celebrating the first transcontinental train trip.

Then there's my favourite one. Clera Windows has this beautiful add, “Even our founding fathers had beautiful windows. So can you! Happy 150th birthday, Canada!” Of course, it's the picture that we see up there that all of us know so well.

The private sector is doing it.

Another way in which the Liberal government has, I think, failed to honour the histories and traditions is the unfortunate decision to not have a medal honouring ordinary Canadians. We had medals in the Canada 125 year, in the Centennial year, honouring ordinary Canadians, and in the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927. Of course, there were medals in the Confederation year. That initiative, although well advanced under the previous government, was actually cancelled under the Liberal government.

People are stepping in. A lot of communities are going to have Canada Day celebrations where they honour their community leadership and give out awards. Bradford West Gwillimbury in my riding is one of them. In addition to communities like that, St. Francis Xavier's history department is starting a new tradition of issuing pins for their graduates in history.

Then believe it or not, you have the private sector stepping in with efforts to fill that gap. Molson is doing an initiative to seek nominations for significant community members across Canada. It's going to give 150 of them one of their red beer fridges.

There's a clear desire among Canadians to have that kind of recognition, but again, the Liberal government has failed by stepping back from it. Would you acknowledge that was a mistake and abandonment to the tradition that meant a great deal to Canadians? Is it something that you wish you had done differently if you could do it over again?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Yes, of course, in the context of Canada 150, hundreds of companies are involved in supporting Canada 150. Maybe CN, maybe Le Creuset, maybe Canadian Tire. I really see that the private sector has been extremely involved, extremely interested in making sure that this celebration is actually celebrated by all parts of our society. That's great news.

I would like to continue to present other projects that are presenting our history. In the context—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Perhaps you could answer the question. The actual question I asked was about the Canada 150 medals.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Van Loan, I would just like to continue to answer. You had your time.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I would like you to start to answer about the Canada 150 medals. Time is short.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I would like to talk about the different other projects. I'll get to the medals as well.

The National Film Board actually is also supporting different documentaries explaining our history. I'll give you a couple of examples. There's the documentary Apocalypse 10 Destins on the First World War. Also, there's a French version of John McCrae's War: In Flanders Fields. There's an important NFB project to talk about 40 years of history and culture in Labrador from Inuit communities, which is called Unikkausivut - Sharing Our Stories.

Also, there is “Legacies 150”, a collection of 14 interactive pictures exploring the themes of heritage in the context of Canada 150.

There's going to be a co-production about Louis Riel that will be presented at the National Arts Centre. I'm convinced that my colleague Mr. Vandal will be interested in that in one. We're supporting it.

There's the very important documentary La Grande Traversée , which will be presented by CBC/Radio-Canada and which talks about the first French settlers in Canada.

I hope that all of you have received your beautiful pins with the Canada 150 emblem, which also present the copper from the roof of our Parliament. They're beautiful symbols that can be given to key leaders—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Just shorten it up, Madam Minister.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

—of your communities. I hope that my colleague Mr. Van Loan will take this opportunity to celebrate the leaders in his own riding and community in the context of Canada 150.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Did you want to answer the question in regard to—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

It's not part of the systems of honours in Canada, which of course is what all the other medals were. A pin is nice; there are all kinds of nice pins, but we were discussing the notion of Canada's systems of honours. What I'm seeing here is kind of a half-baked acknowledgement that, “We kind of made a mistake, but we don't want to admit it.” It's the same as all your other admissions that, “Here are things we funded on history even though we've excluded it as a theme.”

I'm simply asking you to acknowledge that it was a mistake to make those decisions in the first place.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

The only thing I would ask is if, before we move on, Ms. Joly wants to answer the question regarding the medallions that was asked.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Yes, I did answer the question, which is that, basically, we have a great opportunity, all MPs and senators, to celebrate the leaders and the leadership in our own communities based on the four themes, which of course I'm reminding you are youth, environment, reconciliation with indigenous people, and diversity and inclusion.

There are great, beautiful pins that have been developed with the copper of the House of Commons roof. This is a symbol. This will be a legacy pin. I really hope you share them with the key leaders in your communities. I'm convinced that people will be happy to see this important symbol.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Mr. O'Regan, your time will be split with Mr. Samson.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

I followed your visit to California closely, and I was impressed by the quality of the participants, the technological giants you met. Could you give us an account of your trip and tell us what is new regarding Canadian content?

I have another question, and the two are related. Recently, concerns were expressed internationally regarding Canada's position on the neutrality of the Internet. Could you explain your position on this important issue?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Thank you for the question.

I had the opportunity of speaking briefly earlier to the importance of cultural diversity in response to a question from our colleague Ms. Dabrusin. Why is cultural diversity important? In fact, Canada is a signatory of the Unesco Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. At the time when the convention was signed, Canada was really the leader in the development of that concept, which aimed essentially to protect the various national cultural legislative and regulatory measures. One hundred and forty signatories adhered to this convention. It is the reference in all major agreements regarding international trade, such as CETA.

I want to include this concept in discussions with digital platform representatives. That is why I went to speak to Unesco. I also went to the World Economic Forum, to the G7 Culture Summit with the ministers of Culture, and to Silicon Valley to speak about the concept of cultural diversity in the context of digital platforms, in the digital universe. That was a first.

In my discussions with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the giant Google, which of course includes YouTube, I presented five important principles.

I talked basically with these digital platforms about what the social contract is on the Internet. For me, it includes five things: first, the diversity of voices; second, being able to support local content; third, access to trusted news sources; fourth, countering cyberbullying online and hate speech; and fifth, fairness to creators, which we talked about with colleagues Nantel and Dabrusin. It was a very interesting discussion.

We have to keep leading on this discussion, because Canada is usually the first export market to the U.S. That's why we feel the impact of digital platforms before many other countries do. We need to be playing that leadership role, meanwhile developing a policy that is adapted to the digital age.

That brings me to your second question about the importance of net neutrality. What is net neutrality? It is being able to treat all data equally. It's treating data on the Internet like how we treat electricity. You aren't charged based on the light bulb you are using; you are being charged based on the electricity you're using in general.

That is based on an economic policy and a social policy. It is economic, because you want to make sure that the Internet is an open and free space for start-ups and businesses to be able to develop new business models, new projects, that will ultimately push innovation and create growth. That's extremely important. It's a social policy because the Internet is a tool to access knowledge. It's the most powerful tool in human history. As a government, we want to make sure that even people with less income are able to access data, notwithstanding their capacity to pay for content. That's why net neutrality is an economic policy but also a social policy, and we'll be defending it.

We don't see a contradiction between net neutrality and cultural diversity. We think that by having an open and free Internet, we can also have a diversity of voices, of choice. Ultimately, you can't have real choice if you don't have diversity.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you for your five minutes and 20 seconds, Mr. O'Regan and Madam Minister.

I'm going to Mr. Samson, as he had a question he wanted to ask as well.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentation, Madam Minister, and for updating certain files.

My question is brief, but it is important. It concerns court challenges.

The previous government cancelled the Court Challenges Program. I can say that minority communities lost a lot of ground because of that. I know you believe in it because you restored the program. Can you tell us why this is so important to you, and what you are doing to rebuild the Court Challenges Program?

Thank you.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Samson.

Of course, protecting language rights in Canada is a priority. That is why the Minister of Justice and myself announced that funding would be restored for the Court Challenges Program, to support both language rights and fundamental rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The objective was to stabilize the funding and adopt a broader, more general approach, and ultimately to support the groups that defend language rights. The purpose is essentially to ensure that the federal government and all of the governments in our country respect their obligations.

We feel that the Court Challenges Program is a logical extension of the protection of the language rights that are included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and are thus in the Constitution, and are also present in the Official Languages Act, a quasi-constitutional act.

That is why I had the opportunity of making that announcement. We are at this time finalizing the various details to implement the Court Challenges Program. I hope that the groups that advocate for official languages in Canada will be able to mobilize and get organized in order to promote and defend language rights.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

They have the tools, now they have to act.