Canadian Heritage Committee on May 3rd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Send it with the French, please, and then we can distribute it. Does everybody have an understanding of what Ms. McPherson wants to do with the language that she's proposing and putting on the table?

I see a nodding of heads.

Ms. Dabrusin, I understand you would like to propose something as well. You have the floor.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

I'll present what I'm seeking to do, and then perhaps Ms. McPherson and I might be able to strike something on the wording. We can see.

Given that there are amendments still relevant that need to be considered, if we were going to be getting the charter statement, we do not actually have to suspend clause-by-clause consideration. We should ask for the charter statement once the review is complete so that we are putting the full amended bill before the lawyers for review.

Without the full amendments, they would not be providing us with.... They wouldn't have a a full picture on which to assess the charter statement. That was the first part. I would suggest that instead we put it to the end and not suspend the clause-by-clause study. That's because of the haste that is being asked of us by the cultural industries; they're very concerned about anything that will add any further delay in going ahead with this bill.

We want to be assured that we do it right, absolutely. We absolutely should be aiming to get it right, but all of these moves to suspend clause-by-clause consideration go contrary to what the stakeholders are asking us to do, which is to move this along as quickly as we can.

I would suggest that we strike out paragraph (c) in its entirety, rather than follow the amendment proposed by Ms. McPherson, if I understand correctly what she said, and then ask for the charter statement to be provided after the complete review of the bill.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I recognize Mr. Rayes on a point of order.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Chair, with all due respect to Ms. Dabrusin, I'd like clarification from you on something. There was already an amendment put forward by Ms. McPherson. Now, it's a question of another amendment. It seems to me that we should end consideration of the first amendment, go to a vote, and then Ms. Dabrusin could put forward her subamendment, as she is entitled to do. Once again, with all due respect to her.

I may be wrong, but I'd like some clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Rayes, for clarification, you can propose a subamendment to what we are doing. We're mixing clause-by-clause machination. Remember we're doing a motion right now. It might give you more clarity if I describe what is happening.

We had the motion from Ms. Harder, and we had a few changes proposed by Ms. McPherson as an amendment. Ms. Dabrusin now wants to subamend the amendment to eliminate paragraph (c), but she hasn't moved it yet.

Let me go back for clarification. Ms. Dabrusin, are you moving a subamendment to eliminate part (c) in its entirety?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That is correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We now have the subamendment with which we are dealing.

Ms. Dabrusin, you mentioned something along the lines of talking with Ms. McPherson with regard to this issue. Would you like me to suspend for a short period of time?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Champoux, go ahead.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I'd like to make sure I've understood correctly. We are indeed talking about amending an amendment that has not yet been voted upon. I'd like to clarify the procedure. The amendment has not yet been carried, and yet a subamendment is being put forward. I simply want to make sure that's how it works. Should we not first rule on Ms. McPherson's amendment before bringing a subamendment?

I'd like to know for my own edification.

Thank you.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have sent it to the clerk in both languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

The clarification is this. Ms. Dabrusin is clarifying the motion. I'm going to suspend for a couple of minutes so that I can look at the language part. I'm concerned about the language part of it, because we respectfully distribute motions in both languages. I want to make sure we got that right.

In a couple of minutes, I'll get back to you, and Mr. Champoux, I'll address your situation as well. Please give me a couple of minutes.

Ms. McPherson, go ahead.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

The French version has been sent to the clerk. I have also sent the English version to at least one member of each team, because I don't have everybody's—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay. Please allow me these couple of minutes. I'm going to clarify this, just so that we're respectful of our rules. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We do have the other language. It's being distributed as we speak.

Mr. Champoux, you had a question about connectivity and losing your spot. I believe you are next in line. That's not according to what's on the screen, but since you did lose connectivity for a short period of time, I will give you the floor.

In re-examining the amendment put forward by Ms. Dabrusin, I see that it's substantially different enough that it does make a change, so it has to be ruled as an amendment, not a subamendment. My apologies.

Therefore, we are still on the amendment put forward by Ms. McPherson. We have to dispense with it before we get to the other one. Again, I say that because it's substantially different from the other. My apologies.

Mr. Champoux, go ahead. The floor is yours.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to go back to the fact that it's been frequently said that it was a very imperfect bill when it was tabled, hence the 120 amendments, including several from the government itself. Now when we decided to agree to study the bill in committee, we were also committed to improving it, and that's what we did. I think we have a responsibility to people in the cultural industry, who need Bill C-10 to become a reality. My view is that we ought to keep forging ahead to achieve that. We need to put our energy in the right place and do what we can.

I suspect there might be some political manoeuvring going on behind the Conservatives' comments about the deletion of proposed clause 4.1 from the bill. I think everyone knew that amendment G-13 would dispel any concerns that might arise. Nevertheless, when we are asked to deal with questions as fundamental as a charter statement, we have no choice but to listen to what's being said and to ask the appropriate questions.

This motion was introduced on Friday. The rumour was that the NDP and the Bloc Québécois would very likely support it. We might do so reluctantly, but it's nevertheless legitimate to do so. The Liberals might get the opportunity to speed the process up on Friday by agreeing for one of the two ministers to appear today. In short, there are, as it turns out, ways to avoid slowing down the process.

Today is the second time we are spending an entire meeting discussing this amendment, when there are ways of considerably speeding up the process without slowing down or suspending the work. We have before us a legitimate request for ministers to come and clarify the situation, and we need to show that we are willing, because there are options available.

For example, in the discussions I had over the weekend, the possibility was even raised of once again considering the clause in the bill under which the addition of clause 4.1 was proposed. Our friends in the Liberal party did not really like this idea much, but it remains an option that is perfectly conceivable. It would also be possible to propose considering amendment G-13 a little earlier to see if that would dispel the concerns of people around the table.

In any event, I'd like to remind everyone of how important it is not to slow down the work unduly. If there is still hope that Bill C-10 might be adopted before the end of the parliamentary session, we have a duty to make every possible effort to get there.

Well, Mr. Chair, I think that we should rule quickly on the amendment proposed by Ms. McPherson, so that we can move on to the next question as soon as possible. We need to show the best of intentions and respond to this legitimate request. We could then continue with the urgent work required on Bill C-10.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Ms. Harder, are you there? No?

Go ahead, Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but I see Ms. Harder has returned, so I'll wait for her.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. We're in a technical world. We can be forgiving.

Go ahead, Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm so sorry.

Mr. Chair, with regard to the amendment on the floor, I am, of course, the member who moved the motion, so I would like to convey my support for Ms. McPherson's request. I think it's very reasonable.

I would also like to comment on what Ms. Dabrusin has said. One of the comments she made is that the Conservatives were in support of the regulation for social media companies that act as broadcasters. That's a fair statement. However, the context in which she is making that statement is unfair and makes the statement incredibly false, because right now we're not talking about that. We're not talking about social media companies acting as broadcasters. We're talking about individuals who are posting videos of their kids or their dogs or their cats on social media platforms. We're talking about user-generated content. That is what we are discussing when we talk about proposed section 4.1. That being the case, let's maintain truth when we're talking about the terms on the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Housefather is next.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As a member who rarely gets riled up or rarely tries to be very partisan, I have to express some discomfort as to some of what has been said already today.

The idea that somehow Liberals—and in this case also the Bloc and the NDP, because all three parties voted to remove clause 3—are somehow less dedicated to freedom of expression than the Conservatives is somewhat shocking to me. I can point to numerous examples over time of the Conservatives being less charter-prone than the other parties, but I won't right now. I find that to have been an unfortunate type of allegation that really should be withdrawn, and if I wanted to point to support of a law that was recently adopted that uses the notwithstanding clause, I could.

With respect to the question of what happened the other day, we had a clause that is going to be dealt with by other amendments to the bill. There's an original clause in the bill that deals with user-generated content. There's G-13. There's another amendment that we intend to introduce. They all deal with user-generated content and ensuring that users are not subject to CRTC regulations. They are not broadcasters.

The Conservatives suddenly have raised the issue of the removal of section 4.1 and argue that this is potentially the ultimate violation of freedom of expression in the charter. They fail to acknowledge exactly what Ms. Dabrusin said: When we came up with section 4.1, the Conservatives proposed their own amendment, which Mr. Rayes put forward—CPC-5—which would in itself have eliminated the provisions of 4.1 for those people who are using online undertakings that have more than 250,000 subscribers in Canada or receive more than $50 million per year in advertising, like Facebook, for example.

This section would have thus said that Facebook, with 24 million users in Canada, was not covered by proposed section 4.1. Essentially, they're saying if you are a larger undertaking, you could be a broadcaster and yet you'd be outside 4.1. If this was such a violation of freedom of expression, why would they say that a larger online undertaking could then be outside the exemption?

It's a frustrating type of thing to hear. I just feel that it was a manufactured issue to try to scare and confuse Canadians about something that is not the case.

Personally, I think a reasonable solution would be to do a charter statement once we have all of the amendments adopted in the bill. Then we stop. We don't put the bill back to the House. We wait. Once all the amendments are adopted, we have a charter statement that then calls upon the Department of Justice to review their initial charter statement. We say that in light of everything that's been adopted as amendments to the bill, we direct them to amend the charter statement and then either confirm to us that there's been no impact or else tell us what the impact has been. We don't send the bill back to the House until we get that.

If that charter statement causes us to rethink things, we then go back and review those clauses in the bill. However, I don't believe that it makes sense to have a charter statement in the middle of amendments on the bill. That essentially says that although we're halfway through our work and we don't have amendments that cover this subject, they're asking us in the interim to give a charter statement. It's very strange to me.

Therefore, I don't think we should suspend work. I think clause 3 should be eliminated for sure. I know Ms. Dabrusin has to put that forward at a future date. I have no problem that there's a time limit for charter statements when it's the time to do it, or a time limit for the ministers to appear when it's time to do it, but it does seem weird that we're accepting the premise that somehow the removal of this one clause, without considering other amendments coming forward, should halt the work of the committee.

I find this to be an exceptionally partisan manoeuvre and a really unfortunate one, given the good collaboration on this committee up until now. It doesn't seek any type of consensus whatsoever, but instead assumes the worst for something that was never intended that way and that three of the four parties on the committee supported. The members of the fourth party themselves did not propose to include everyone, but rather, they proposed something that would exempt people from section 4.1.

It is not fair where we are now; I get it, but I also want to work with my colleagues to find a solution. To be honest, I think the right solution would be to go through the bill, adopt whatever amendments we want to adopt, and stop. Don't send the bill back to the House. Don't approve the bill. Ask for a charter statement from the department at that point and say that we want to know what the effect is of all the amendments, and then call the ministers to appear before the committee at that point. If we're satisfied, we go on and send the bill back. If we're not satisfied, we go back in the bill and fix whatever we think we need to fix.

That would be my humble request to committee members. I just don't see why we're accepting a false premise, and I think this is taking us on a false premise.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Monsieur Rayes, you have the floor.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before asking my question, I'd like, if I may, to make two brief comments.

I'd like to begin by answering Ms. Dabrusin. It's true that the cultural sector says that it is urgent to approve this bill to amend the Broadcasting Act, but it shouldn't be done at any price. Just because there is some urgency doesn't mean we should adopt a bad bill. We were being criticized for asking questions in the House of Commons about this bill on second reading. However, the many amendments introduced clearly indicate that the initial bill had some serious shortcomings, even before we got to the deletion of proposed clause 4.1, which we have been discussing for a while.

I have a great deal of respect for all my Liberal colleagues, who have been fighting like the devil to reject this legitimate motion, which requires a new legal opinion from their own Minister of Justice. In fact, although he may be a member of the Liberal party, he's the Minister of Justice for Canada, and hence also my Minister of Justice.

For a week now, I've watched all these experts and university professors raise red flags to say that a violation has occurred. I apologize for saying so, but the fact that the Liberal experts are saying the opposite of what these experts are saying shows unequivocally that we need to have a look at the issue we are currently considering. The Liberals have continued to argue that we have to listen to the experts and the senior officials, and everyone who sent us messages. Well, we have seen these messages. All you have to do is go out on social networks to see that credible people have raised red, not orange, flags to say that there has been a violation.

All the motion does is ask the Minister of Justice to come up with a new charter statement. To the best of my knowledge, Ms. McPherson's amendment, which allows an additional 10 days, is altogether legitimate. If the minister were to file his legal opinion and come and see us before the end of this time period, things would move along much more quickly. We're talking about a few days. The Liberals are making a show of rending their garments as if everything was going to fall apart if it takes a few extra days, whereas we've been waiting for this bill for 30 years. They've been in power for six years and it took them that long to introduce it. Not only that, but they prorogued Parliament, which slowed things down even more. The government and the Liberal members of the committee themselves introduced 27 amendments out of a total of approximately 120. The bill was flawed from the beginning, and that's why the process has been taking so long and why we're still talking about it now.

Ms. McPherson, congratulations on your amendment or subamendment—I don't know which term to use—in which you suggested adding some time. It will be all to the good if this additional time reassures members of the committee and puts pressure on the Minister of Justice to give us a new legal opinion on this matter, on the one hand, and to put pressure on him and the Minister of Canadian Heritage to come and explain everything to us. It would better prepare us for our legislative work given the expertise each of us has in our respective fields.

Mr. Housefather, you're aware of the high esteem in which I hold you. You were educated as a lawyer. I have no schooling as a lawyer, but I have been trained as in administrattion. I come from the world of education and, like you I'm sure, I'm a fierce defender of rights, freedoms, and freedom of expression.

When I hear other credible experts raise red flags, I feel legitimately entitled to request further details. I don't think that what the motion is asking for is out of line. Moreover, Ms. McPherson's amendment would give an additional10 days to the Minister of Justice to produce his new charter statement and come and speak to us about it, after which we could continue with our work. I'm pleased that she added this detail, because God knows that the deadline might have been stretched out otherwise. So once the 10 day deadline is up, it will be out of our hands.

If the Minister of Justice wants everything to go smoothly, I believe that he will be able, thanks to support from all the experts and senior officials available to him, to come up very soon with a solid opinion. I don't think that we will draw out the process excessively.

As my colleague Mr. Champoux said, this is the second meeting at which we've been discussing our motion, which is asking for clarification about the status of freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I don't know what else we could say. Let's stop talking, adopt the amendment, and then adopt the motion we introduced. Let's ask the Minister of Justice to give us his opinion and to come and explain it to us, together with the Minister of Canadian Heritage. We could then get on with our work, as we have pointed out clearly, by working collaboratively as we have been from the outset, by trying to find accommodations to ultimately come up with the best possible bill. In the end, we might not all vote for the bill, and there might be dissent, but that's all part of Parliament. We represent Canadians with differing opinions from all walks of life, and from every part of the country. That's what democracy is. That's why I'm proud to be a Canadian and a Quebecker. That's why my parents left Egypt to settle here. Every day that they had the opportunity to do so, my parents repeatedly told us that they had moved to Canada so that we would have the right to express ourselves freely. That was the main reason why my father, my mother and their whole family came to Canada. It's also why I am now an MP who was elected to Canada's Parliament by citizens in my riding.

People can say whatever they want and call Conservative MPs all kinds of names, but I sincerely believe that we've spoken long enough about Ms. Harder's motion. In the name of freedom of expression, it seems clear to me that we should ask for a new legal opinion. Ms. Harder's motion, improved by Ms. McPherson's amendment, is totally legitimate. We've had the opinion of experts of all kinds, and they raised red flags. In view of our own modest areas of expertise, and out of respect for our work and concern for professionalism, we should adopt the motion on behalf of Canadians.

I will conclude, Mr. Chair, because I don't want to draw out the debate unnecessarily.

One sometimes hears it said that Conservative party MPs are demagogues and try to get people to believe certain things. If I were sitting where my Liberal colleagues are, I'd be a little bit embarrassed, because they are attacking legal experts, outstanding university professors and experts in freedom of expression who fiercely defend, with public funds no less, issues that are extremely important to us. They should therefore feel just a little bit uncomfortable.

Let's forge ahead, request this new opinion and do our work afterwards.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.