Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the motion of my colleague Mr. Housefather.
As I said before when I took the floor, I really like Mr. Housefather, and not only because he is a Quebecker and a Canadian. The openness he has shown in various debates and his willingness to work in partnership have often been highlighted by the members of all parties in the House of Commons. However, that does not mean we are always in agreement. I see him smiling; he knows what is coming. I don't have only praise for him, but I don't want to criticize him, either.
Before I begin, I want to come back to the fact that he raised a point of order to underscore that, had my colleague not taken time to speak, the committee could have already voted on his motion, and even on Ms. Harder's motion, if necessary. I have two things to say to him. First, we would have liked to vote on Ms. Harder's motion, but the Liberals ended the debate by moving a motion to adjourn. So we did not even have the opportunity to do that. Second, since the beginning, we have been calling for the committee to suspend its operation, while waiting for the Minister of Justice to provide us with a new statement and for the two ministers to appear before the committee. Had this proposal been agreed to, we would have already had the minister's new statement and we would already be working on the amendments to the bill—in other words, proceeding with the clause–by–clause consideration of the bill.
However, that is not the decision the committee made. A motion to adjourn was proposed to end the discussion on Ms. Harder's motion, even though the NDP and the Bloc Québécois had proposed an amendment to impose a deadline on the minister to quickly submit a new statement to us, so that we could continue our work.
We are now dealing with a new motion. Some people feel that this is an acceptable compromise to Ms. Harder's proposal. The motion enables us to continue with the committee's operations and to avoid slowing the process down. What is more, depending on the minister's new statement, we will have an opportunity to propose new amendments, as needed, at the very end of the process.
That said, Ms. Harder highlighted one of the major flaws of Mr. Housefather's motion. I sincerely don't think that Mr. Housefather acted in bad faith. I think that, when he moved his motion, he truly wanted to find an acceptable compromise, so that we could get back to our clause-by-clause consideration of this bill. Nevertheless, an element was forgotten, although I am sure it was not intentional. We found that flaw upon reading the House of Commons Procedure and Practice—the big green book.
The motion proposes that we work together on amendments before we even get the minister's statement on the central element of this debate, the deleting of the initially proposed clause 4.1. After we finish our work, if, in light of the minister's statement and despite the amendments that have been adopted or rejected, we note that the bill still has real flaws, we could amend the bill further. However, since we need unanimous consent to return to an amendment, members of the government or of another party will have the power to block the process.
I think that is the motion's major flaw. We are not pausing committee work while we wait for the statement from the Minister of Justice and hear from him and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, as it was requested. The motion also does not impose a deadline to avoid this taking too long. A deadline would help our work mover forward nicely, as the case was before the fateful moment when clause 4.1 was deleted and clause 3 of the bill was proposed.
I want to tell people who are listening to us that this is not a debate between culture and freedom of expression. Those are two important elements. We all agree with defending culture. Unfortunately, the minister and his parliamentary secretary, I think, are saying things in the media that are misleading us. I apologize, Mr. Chair, I should not be saying this. Even the minister tried to accuse me of misleading people during question period, and he had to apologize for that. Let's rather say that the wrong message is being sent to cultural stakeholders by making them believe that culture is not important to us. Our desire to defend freedom of expression, which is the very foundation of our job as members of Parliament, is implying that we are opposed to culture, and that should not be the case now.
This is why it is important to clarify that matter before going further. I am personally not comfortable continuing the process, knowing that, at the end of the day, we may not be able to make the amendments we deem necessary, based on the Liberal minister's statement, to protect users who generate content on social networks.
This is not about creating a war between major social networks, on the one hand, and users, on the other hand. I think users' freedom of expression must be protected and precedent setting avoided. We must avoid a well-meaning group being able to decide what is good and what is not. I think this is important and want to point it out.
My colleague Mr. Shields felt the need yesterday to show his love for culture. I also felt that need. I was sincerely offended, upset and shocked to see our will to protect the French fact and Canadian culture questioned. In reality, we have been responsive to organizations in these areas. We have even proposed a number of amendments and subamendments that show this.
Two weeks ago, a shocking event occurred that no one saw coming. On a Friday afternoon, with no warning, the government proposed that a clause from Bill C-10 be deleted. That took us by surprise. The change caused a huge outcry across Canada by citizens, experts and university professors. Some well-known experts have already been named, but I could name some others. I took the time to name a few during oral question period.
Among those who are often named is Peter Menzies, former commissioner at the Canadian Radio–television and Telecommunications Commission. He made a scathing comment, which is making me reluctant to support Mr. Housefather's motion. I am not fully convinced that we could ultimately make changes to the amendments, as that would require the committee's unanimous consent. So I implore my NDP and Bloc Québécois colleagues to be careful about this element, which I did not see coming right away either, when we received in our emails the idea of Mr. Housefather's amendment.
Mr. Menzies said this was a full–blown attack on freedom of expression and the very foundations of democracy. He finds it difficult to understand the level of pride or incompetence, or both, that may lead someone to believe that such an infringement of rights is justifiable. Those are pretty strong statements from someone who has been commissioner of the CRTC, when we consider all of that organization's powers.
Michael Geist was all also named numerous times, and I will talk to you about him a bit later to explain why Mr. Housefather's motion worries me. Mr. Geist said that this was the most anti-Internet government in Canadian history. Unfortunately, I have still not heard any Liberal members attack Mr. Geist by saying that his statements were demagogic or inappropriate. I don't know whether the Liberals are afraid of provoking him or they are all simply fully aware of his expertise level and of how right he is. It is true that, every time an issue is raised in his area of expertise, Mr. Geist is quick to react thanks to his relevant knowledge on international matters.
So I would like people to stop saying that we are opposed to culture because that's not true. Here is what I have to say to the committee members and to people listening to us. The government has been in power for six years. It prorogued Parliament for reasons I don't want to get into, as I will be told that I am getting off topic, but there have been scandals related to the WE Charity, which the government wanted to bury by trying to halt the project.
By the way, some are blaming us by saying that we are now filibustering. However, if we look at the list of committees, we see that a number of them currently have their work completely blocked because the government wants to avoid discussions on Liberal scandals, such as the allegations against Mr. Vance, the WE Charity, and so on.
We are speaking out to defend freedom of expression. I don't feel that I am filibustering, but rather fighting for Canadians who feel that Bill C-10 attacks their freedom of expression.
What I am getting at is that the Liberals have been in power for six years, and that is how long it took them to introduce this bill.
We have been debating in committee without issues since the beginning. I challenge anyone to find a single moment, before the proposed clause 4.1 was deleted, when the consideration of the bill was delayed. Despite what the minister and his parliamentary secretary said in the media and on social networks, can a single moment be found when the legislative process, which is managed by the government leader and his team, was delayed?
We agreed to conduct a preliminary study of the bill, so that the committee would start hearing from witnesses at the same time as members were using their legitimate right to express themselves on the bill in the House of Commons. Some felt that the bill was incomplete, or that it was a bad bill, while others thought the bill was basically good, but they wanted to improve it through amendments. Everything was going well, even in committee. Liberals were supporting Conservative amendments, the NDP was supporting the Bloc Québécois amendments, and vice versa.
Mr. Chair, I am hearing the interpretation in English.
It's okay, I think the problem has been resolved.