Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 5th, 2021

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have a question for Daniel Bernhard, from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

Mr. Bernhard, one concept is kind of like a huge bug that mere mortals, and I include myself, cannot begin to understand. I am talking about the algorithms that social media use. You know a bit more about them than I do.

Explain to me how significant algorithms are and what role they play in social media programming in general.

Furthermore, how can we make sure that social media don't play tricks on us with the design of their algorithms?

[Daniel Bernhard]

The act says a lot about broadcasters' responsibility for their decisions. In the future, however, most decisions will be made by algorithms, by machines. Discoverability is a good example. Human beings are no longer determining programming choices; machines are.

Companies that use these machines must take full responsibility for their decisions. They want to benefit from these decisions when it suits them, but they no longer want to be held responsible when the results are inconsistent or do not meet the established standards. That is unacceptable.

When you use algorithms, it is very important that you be fully responsible.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Companies that use their own algorithms should therefore be held responsible for them.

Shouldn't we have access to them? Are algorithms basically the company's private domain, their treasures that they do not want to share? That's what I gather. Nevertheless, would it be possible to require companies to be more transparent about these tools?

[Daniel Bernhard]

I hope so.

Companies may say that they are secrets of great value. However, I can't think of a single case where, after an inspection, the government would divulge a company's trade secrets, in the banking sector, for example. It is not a convincing excuse to me.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You believe that online broadcasters are fully capable of creating algorithms to promote regional content on their platforms, such as French-language content from a given region. It's entirely feasible for them.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Yes, exactly.

Companies also need to show us their code from time to time to prove that they are willing to follow the rules. The algorithms' results are not always perfect, but it is crucial that companies prove that they are well-intentioned.

The CRTC inspects the documentation of conventional broadcasters. We need to find a way to do the same thing for digital platforms.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

Ms. McPherson, go ahead for six minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank you, witnesses, for joining us today and sharing your expertise with us. I apologize that you have had to sit through some of our committee discussion.

I want to start with Mr. Bernhard from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. You have done a very deep dive into Bill C-10. You have done an awful lot of work around this. You've come today with 19 amendments.

Could you expand on two, three or maybe even four of those that you think are absolutely crucial for the success of this bill, please?

[Daniel Bernhard]

Thank you very much. I will speak to two of them, if I may.

In the first instance, I have to find myself agreeing with Professor Geist—which is a rare and, in this case, fortunate opportunity—that thresholds for the regulation of digital broadcasters really—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Bernhard, I apologize for interrupting. I think you probably know why. We're having an issue with your audio as well now. The interpretation is having a hard time understanding. Something may have switched. I don't know if you want to do what you did prior, which was to unplug your headset and plug it back in again.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Sorry about that. The thing keeps cutting out. Can you hear me now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. We have an thumbs-up from interpretation on that.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Thank you.

I have to agree with Professor Geist that thresholds are very important. The new law, according to the minister's comments, would force or compel companies like Netflix that have substantial operations in Canada to invest their fair share in the production of original Canadian content, but the law doesn't do that. The law clarifies that the CRTC has the option to impose these types of contributions, but it doesn't compel them to exercise that option, and as Professor Geist said, that's extremely problematic.

We would like the bill to clarify that once a digital broadcaster exceeds a certain threshold, whether that is by users or revenue appropriate to their unique business model, the regulation and obligation to contribute become mandatory, because as the law is currently written, the CRTC could continue doing exactly what it is doing today and still be in compliance with the law. We find that problematic.

The second point that I'll end on is about social media, which I mentioned earlier. The law has a categorical exception for social media sites, and this is hugely problematic. The idea that we should not force little Timmy, uploading videos from his bedroom, to have a broadcasting licence is, of course, one that we support, but Facebook and little Timmy are not on the same level. These companies should be responsible for the content they broadcast. They should be responsible for rules around political advertising, advertising standards, emergency alerts and all other measure of rules and regulations that are subject in the act.

I'll give you an example of why. Mr. Chan last week again said that Facebook takes a great measure to take down content that is illegal. He should tell that to Chris Trottier from Vancouver who opened his phone in March of 2019 to Facebook and saw 51 people being murdered in real time in New Zealand right in front of him. Mr. Chan says that Facebook doesn't choose what you see. You connect to it, and it's your choice. I promise you, Mr. Trottier did not ask to see that. It was pushed to him. It was promoted to him. That would be illegal for any other Canadian company to do, and Facebook should be no exception.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

That's important. I think that making sure the CRTC is given that direction is vital.

The other thing I know you have commented on, that you've said Bill C-10 is silent on, is the CBC mandate. Could you speak a little about what you're asking us to consider or to update within Bill C-10 on CBC's mandate?

[Daniel Bernhard]

As a brief note of context, private media in Canada is falling off a cliff because successive governments have allowed their competitors, mostly Facebook and Google, to do things that would be illegal for the media to do. They don't pay taxes. They can broadcast illegal content. They don't pay for the content, and on and on. There is a huge crisis in Canadian media, and right now, the CBC is looking like it will be the only man standing, if things continue as they are.

The CBC, we believe, should have its mandate clarified to say that, first, it is fundamentally non-commercial. We have seen CBC management freelancing with increasingly desperate attempts to sell advertising. Tandem is the latest result of this. It's outrageous.

Second, we should say that there should be independence. There are accusations of bias against the CBC. I personally believe they are unsubstantiated, but even the perception is not helpful. Therefore, ending political appointments to the board and for the president is very important, and that can be done here.

Finally, we should mandate that CBC have local news coverage across the country. With all due respect to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, there are more CBC bureaus in Newfoundland than there are in Alberta, and there are six times more people in Alberta. It's important that the CBC have a mandate to distribute its resources equally across the country, and we think there's a good opportunity to do that now, especially considering the growing importance of the CBC, given the decline of private media in so many parts of the country.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much.

Mr. Chair, I believe that's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you so much. I'm going to have to call it a day at this point. We're running short on time, and we still have committee business to attend to.

I want to thank our guests. From Union des Artistes, Madame Prégent, Madame St-Onge and also Monsieur Laflamme, we thank you. I apologize for all the technical difficulties we had to go through. Also, Daniel Bernhard from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, thank you again.

Committee members, we need to go back to Monsieur Champoux's motion for some operational clarifications. A few things were said, but there were no amendments. I moved on to a vote, and perhaps that was premature. We need to seek some clarification on two matters. Before I do that, I need the unanimous consent to bring the motion back into play.

Do I see anybody who dissents? No.

Here's the situation. There are two things we need to clarify in Monsieur Champoux's motion. By the way, we will get to the situation that Ms. Dabrusin brought up earlier about scheduling in just a few moments. I need to deal with this first.

One issue, of course, has to do with the documents, “That all documents presented”. If I'm understanding this correctly—and I'd like you to weigh in, those of you who talked about it before—we're talking about non-federal government documents that are being fed into the committee.

I turn to Mr. Champoux for his opinion on that. Is that what we are discussing here?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

The departments translate the documents that they provide to us. This is the explanation that our clerk gave me, and it seems valid. However, we receive some documents that do not appear to have been translated as thoroughly as others. I imagine that all documents provided through the clerk to us for our work are revised. However, that is not necessarily the case for external documents, which may not be subject to the same quality standards.

I want to make sure that all external documents are revised, but I don't know how this can be formalized. In translation, there are embossed seals that confirm that the translation has been revised and certified. Regardless of the mechanism, I think that everything that is sent and presented to us should have been first revised and approved by the Translation Bureau, whose services the House uses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Housefather, go ahead.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

That is the clarification that I asked Mr. Champoux for earlier. The key word here is “first”. We want it to be done before the documents are submitted to the committee. However, I believe that, earlier, Mr. Champoux said that we could receive documents, and that they could be revised later if mistakes are found.

I believe that the clerk decided to include the word “first” in the motion. However, I do not believe that the intent was to impose a deadline for getting the translated documents. So I would ask Mr. Champoux to look into that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

This is certainly a matter of interpretation, no pun intended. I believe that the motion seeks to ensure that all committee members can work with documents that are perfectly translated and that have exactly the same meaning and spirit in both English and French. To me, that's a no-brainer.

If you prefer that we take out the word “first” and replace it by “systematically” instead, for example, that's fine. However, I believe that the word “first” says it all. If urgent documents are sent to us at the last minute, and we haven't had time to have them revised, we can still talk about them, decide to use them as they are and make sure that they are revised and approved afterwards. I believe that these will be exceptions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I think so. That goes to the heart of the second matter, which would be the distribution. I was going to get to that later, but I think you may have just clarified that one because we do need precise language on how we distribute them to make it feasible in light of the time we have.

I want to go back to the first point again. You want the motion to read “all documents”, not just the non-federal government documents.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I assumed that internal documents were translated by the Translation Bureau anyway. I then assumed that “all documents” automatically includes external documents, since internal ones are already regularly translated and revised by the Translation Bureau.