Canadian Heritage Committee on May 14th, 2021

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Let's move on now to Mr. Champoux for two minutes and 30 seconds, please.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, at the end of my first turn, I asked you about the possibility of specifying, in the Broadcasting Act, that the regulator's decisions had to promote, safeguard and ensure freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is mentioned in the bill, but in relation to broadcasting undertakings. Before objecting to your position, I wanted to revisit the subject because, now, we are talking about users, regular folks.

Don't you think those who are worried might find it reassuring if you were to add an amendment that built such a statement into the Broadcasting Act going forward? I am talking about something specifying that the Canadian broadcasting system has to provide Internet and social media users in general with an additional layer of protection for freedom of expression.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you for your question.

It requires a multipart answer.

First, as repeatedly stated, Bill C-10 will not apply to individuals. You are right to say that new subsection 2(3) of the act refers to undertakings, not individuals, because the act will apply to undertakings, not individuals.

You no doubt heard the deputy minister, Ms. Drouin, very clearly say that the Department of Justice issued a statement indicating that Bill C-10, as amended, respects the charter, on one hand. On the other hand, as she just explained, the CRTC also has an obligation to respect the charter in exercising its authority. Mechanisms are in place to ensure that happens.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Once again, you are repeating the same answer: what is currently in the bill is more than sufficient.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I'd like to say one more thing.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage is not on the committee. In addition, we are a minority government. The committee can decide to propose amendments to Bill C-10. It is true that the bill has already undergone a hundred or so amendments, which, by the way, is not unusual for a bill. As lawmakers, I think we can always do better; a bill can always be improved.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I think that's the end of my time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

Ms. McPherson, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, I would like to thank the minister for being here with us today.

Minister, as you know I am the member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona. As you probably know, Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the creative sector in Alberta. This legislation is vitally important to so many members of my constituency and so many members across Canada. We know that if a solution is not found to protect freedom of expression, this law will not go forward. It will go to court. It will not be enforced for years. This will have a huge impact on the cultural sector in Canada.

The members of this committee have been pushed hard to work quickly on this bill because it needs to get done. I, for one, supported the Liberals' motion to have extended sitting hours and to have additional meetings added. The only reason we really feel this time crunch is because your government has not ruled out calling an election in the middle of this pandemic. Otherwise, we would still have months ahead of us to ensure that we get this right and that we do our job properly.

Can you assure the committee and the stakeholders who are so desperate for good legislation that we can take the time to do this job right and that your government will not call an election?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I would like to address the first element of the question, which is about freedom of speech. As you've seen, and as you've heard today, we have a charter statement that was written by the independent civil service—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I am sorry, Mr. Minister, I know that you're trying to address all that I brought up. We're going to run out of time because I only have two and a half minutes.

Will you commit to not calling an election before we can get this legislation done?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Could I be allowed just to finish my answer on the charter statement? You have a charter statement in front of you. You've heard Deputy Minister Drouin explain very clearly that Bill C-10 respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,. Not only that, but there are mechanisms in place for the CRTC to ensure that it does that. It has discretionary powers, but these powers are not absolute. They have to be exercised in light of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I certainly don't mean to be rude, but I think that you're not going to answer the question about whether or not you would stop plunging us into an election during the pandemic.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

My government is not interested in having an election. I think we've seen that some parties have been fundraising around the controversy they created around Bill C-10. We haven't been doing that. We've been hard at work trying to do everything we can to help the arts and culture sector.

I would remind you that the budget that was just presented by Deputy Prime Minister Freeland is a historic budget when it comes to the arts and culture sector in this country. We have never seen such an important budget to help our artists, our musicians, our creators. It is a historic budget. I think we've seen that we are there for our artists, and Bill C-10 is another clear example of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. McPherson, and thank you, Minister, as well.

Folks, that brings us to the end of our first hour.

Minister, we know you have to go. You're more than welcome to stay, but we also have the officials online.

We will take a break for five minutes.

Take up to five minutes. We'll see you then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Welcome back, everyone, after a brief pause. We'll get back to the business at hand.

Joining us we have the department officials from two departments, the Department of Canadian Heritage as well as the Department of Justice.

We're going to start this session with an opening of up to 10 minutes, once again, as we did in the last round, and I believe, Ms. Drouin, that would be you.

[Nathalie Drouin]

Thank you.

I hadn't planned to do an opening statement, but I have something ready if members would like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, normally I'd give you the floor, but since we didn't get anything from the Department of Justice in the first round, we got a statement from the minister, how about I give you five minutes?

Mr. Rayes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To make sure we don't lose time with the minister, who agreed to be here, Mr. Waugh asked whether the committee could revisit the issue he raised, during the second hour. I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to give him the floor now.

I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, Mr. Chair, but I think he genuinely did not want to cut into the minister's time, when he asked whether the committee could discuss the issue during the second half of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I appreciate that.

I'd like to proceed with what is on the schedule obviously but, Mr. Waugh, you would like the floor.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank Mr. Rayes.

I was going to listen to what the justice department had to say, but I think it's important to go back to Monday, May 10, when Mr. Housefather brought the motion out and I made subamendments to that. If possible, Mr. Chair, could we have the clerk read the three sections of our motion, just to get an idea of who we invited?

We did invite, I believe, the justice minister, and the department officials, and we do not have the justice minister here. Part of my concern, Mr. Chair, is when I went on the web page of Justice...you know, it's the Broadcasting Act, and to make consequential amendments to other acts, and this is the old one. They're still citing clause 3.

This is why we needed to get the minister here today. We need a point of clarification. When I see the charter statement on the web page of the justice department and it's an old one, which is it? Are we using the old one?

You sent an email out and this is what we have, so I do believe we need to hear from the Minister of Justice. We need a clarification on this because it's my recollection on the Monday that we asked both ministers to come, and we want to thank Minister Guilbeault on behalf of the committee for fulfilling his obligation for one hour. However, we also asked for the Minister of Justice to come.

When I look at the Justice website now, I am totally confused about where we're going on this. They haven't updated it, or if they have, let us know. It is the minister who is responsible for the charter. I appreciate the department officials in the first round of questioning and we're going to question them in a minute, but as a committee, all 11 of us agreed, including the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP, to have both ministers appear before the heritage committee, before we even moved on to our panel.

The clerk has done yeoman service trying to get the panel ready for Monday, but now I would say that we need to hear from the Minister of Justice himself before we move on, on Monday.

I would like a clarification on our amendment to the motion by Mr. Housefather, and we all agreed to the subamendment on Monday, so what happened to the justice minister today?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

There are just a couple of things. Let me start with the second point first, which was the statement that is currently posted.

A motion was passed on March 8 and I will read it for you:

That the committee publish on the committee's website written responses to questions provided by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

What is put on our website is exclusive to that.

Now, that being said, I am a servant of the committee itself, and humbly so. If you wish to have what was released recently by the Department of Justice regarding Bill C-10—the revised—we can have that published, but I pretty much need permission from all to do that.

Do I have permission to post on our committee website the recent opinion by the Department of Justice as we just discussed?

Seeing no resistance and a plethora of thumbs, I'm going to say that we will publish it. I will ask the clerk to publish it following this meeting.

Go ahead, Mr. Rayes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to point out that Mr. Waugh asked the clerk to reread the motion to confirm that the committee had unanimously agreed to invite the two ministers.

Then, I'd like to make a comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes, Mr. Rayes. I was just getting to that. I was doing the second part first. Now let me deal with the first part.

I'm going to ask the clerk to read the motion as was put forward, and the intent of it.

Madam Clerk, can you please read that?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Aimée Belmore]

Yes, sir.

Can I just confirm, Mr. Waugh, if you did want me to read the motion as it was adopted?