Canadian Heritage Committee on May 18th, 2021

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

That's right.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Have you considered any proposed amendments that would strengthen the bill's compliance with the charter principles?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

It is the minister in charge, Minister Guilbeault, and his team who would assess amendments and proposed amendments and who would go over their legality with justice lawyers, either embedded in the heritage department or within the justice department, as the case may be, but it is entirely up to Minister Guilbeault and his team.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. McPherson.

Folks, that brings us to the end of this part. This is the witness testimony that we brought here today.

We want to thank both ministers for being here. We want to thank the officials who accompanied them for being here as well.

Is there any further discussion at this point about what we have heard?

I see none, other than Minister Lametti waving goodbye to us.

As you saw in the notice, tomorrow we're going to resume clause-by-clause on Bill C-10. I'm looking for input here. We're good to go, as the motion put forward by Mr. Housefather has been satisfied. Tomorrow we will proceed. We're going to be starting with proposed amendment G-11.1.

Go ahead, Monsieur Rayes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am wondering about something and I would like to share it with everyone.

Before me, I have the motion that Mr. Housefather introduced. The first point asks the Minister of Justice “to provide a revised Charter Statement on Bill C-10.”

The minister clarified in his speech and repeatedly in his responses to questions from the Conservatives and members of other parties that this was not a revised statement from his November 18 document, but rather an explanatory document.

I would like to know whether all members of the committee really understood what the minister said. If so, I would direct your attention to the third point of the motion, which is that the committee suspend clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-10 until the completion of both points 1 and 2.

I am wondering. I don't know what our decision will be, but I need to have some good discussions with my colleagues on my side.

I would like to hear from the other members of the committee on this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you for that, Mr. Rayes.

Mr. Housefather, go ahead.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I certainly hope we don't get into this semantic argument.

Under the Department of Justice Act, subsection 4.1(2), a charter statement can only be produced at the stage of the bill's being introduced into the House of Commons, so it can't be called a charter statement under law, because our law tells us what a charter statement is. It doesn't provide, as I have argued and explained before, for something called a new charter statement or a modified charter statement.

We asked very clearly for something that would explain to us whether the amendments we made to this bill impacted the original charter statement, particularly as related to freedom of expression, and we received it. If we're going to argue, because it couldn't be called a charter statement but rather is called a declaration or whatever, that we haven't fulfilled the motion, then at this point, it is a deliberate attempt to filibuster the work of the committee and a deliberate attempt to thwart the work of the committee, never to get back to clause-by-clause and never to finish the bill.

I will take great exception, having drafted the motion, to any argument that the motion was not fulfilled; it absolutely was fulfilled.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Housefather, before we go to Mr. Champoux, as chair, I would like to have clear or at least good, solid direction from the committee as to where we go from here. We are in the middle of clause-by-clause. We're now fulfilling the motion of Mr. Housefather. I would like to ask the committee for direction from here as to whether we have satisfied what was put forward by Mr. Housefather, and we go ahead. I want to expand this conversation.

Let's go to Mr. Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That was sort of the point of my question to Minister Guilbeault earlier. Yes, we were asking for a revised charter statement.

That being said, despite this raised eyebrow, so to speak, I am still satisfied with the explanations we received. We have had an explanation of the charter statement that answers all of our questions. How about that! We have received the minister. We have also received experts who have shed a lot of light on the situation. Although the opinions that were expressed were not all along the same lines and were not unanimous, I think we were dealing with legal scholars who were each defending their point of view and who did so brilliantly on both sides.

Personally, I am absolutely satisfied and I hope that we can continue the work. I think that we have received the answers that we wanted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you. This is more than semantics, as Mr. Housefather would describe it. This is asking for specific information. It's the content of the statement that was created.

I think the Conservative Party members at the table could get over the so-called semantics, but what was requested—and I'll just read it back to the committee—was that we would:

Ask the Minister of Justice to provide a revised Charter Statement on Bill C-10, as soon as possible, focusing on whether the Committee’s changes to the Bill related to content uploaded by users of social media services have impacted the initial Charter statement provided, in particular as relates to Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In other words, it's the acknowledgement that those amendments have potentially had an impact on the content. The motion is very specific. It says the impact on the content that users post on their social media platforms.

That being the case, the statement provided by the minister does not actually address that. I would liken what we have in front of us to an individual going to the doctor, getting a clean bill of health, going out, smoking 10 packs of cigarettes a day for the next 10 years, but still claiming that he has a clean bill of health, pointing back to what the doctor gave to him.

There are some very significant factors that have been changed since that original charter statement was granted. We can get over the wording, whether you want to call it a charter statement or an explanatory statement, whatever, but the content of that document needs to address the motion that we as a committee put forward. What we want to know is whether censoring the posts put on social media by an individual is charter compliant. The explanatory statement does not address that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe, very similarly to my colleague Mr. Champoux that we have had ministers attend this committee and answer our questions. We have had experts come to answer our questions. We have had opportunities to reflect upon the statement that was provided.

I think this is completely a tactic being used to delay our doing the work we've been tasked with at this committee. I would deeply like to get back to work. I would deeply like to fix what I see as flawed legislation and to move forward. I do not want to spend the rest of this session filibustering and listening to certain members of this committee talk ad nauseam so that we can't get our work done.

The next step needs to be to continue our work. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes, it's me again, Mr. Chair.

I would like to remind you that I asked a few questions earlier about possible remedies after a bill has been passed. Minister Lametti said that, if there are still concerns about certain sections of the legislation after a bill is passed, Canadians, individuals or groups always have a process through which to challenge its validity or constitutionality.

In the last few days, the leader of the Conservative Party has been very clear that, if elected to power, he would repeal this piece of legislation. It is understandable then that our Conservative colleagues' support for Bill C-10 is non-existent.

However, since the beginning of the work, although they do not support the bill, the Conservatives have always been willing to not interrupt, block or slow down the work, and I am absolutely grateful to them for that. Moreover, despite their opposition to the bill, their input has often been very constructive.

We stopped our study for several meetings when it would have been very important for the cultural industry and the community to move forward. We have repeatedly expressed the urgency of this bill for the cultural industry. I sincerely believe that the questions have been well answered and I am quite convinced that we will never reach a consensus. We will not agree, but, as they say,

“let's agree to disagree”,

and move on with the job we have to do. There will always be remedies available afterwards, if you feel that any of the sections of this piece of legislation actually infringe on freedom of expression.

The most important thing we have to do right now is to do our best to improve this bill and send it back to the House of Commons. We need to do this for the cultural industry, which is watching us, listening to us and pleading with us to put an end to this stalemate and move forward with the work. I think it's crucial for that industry. We must get out of this impasse.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Manly, you are next.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to see this bill get moving along, as well. I was surprised that when we hit clause 3, proposed section 4.1, there was a Conservative Party amendment to it, and after the amendment failed, there was a move to remove section 4.1. There was no debate. There was no call for a recorded vote. We didn't deal with that section at that time, and we're stuck in this ongoing filibuster.

The minister has given an explanation. We should get through the rest of these amendments. There is a stage at report stage where section 4.1 can be added back in. If enough parliamentarians think that it's an important thing to have added, then that's what we should do.

I believe in freedom of speech as much as the next person, but I find that the whole system of algorithms with these private platforms doesn't really lend to freedom of speech at all. I get countless emails from constituents who say that there is no freedom of speech on Google, YouTube or Facebook, and that their comments are being blocked or that things are being blocked, so that's another issue we need to deal with.

We're dealing with private platforms that are censoring people, and determining what gets bumped up and what gets bumped down. It's mostly for commercial interests and advertising, and to inflame people, to weaponize our anger at each other. I think we need to look at this.

We're coming up to Bill C-11 where we're going to be talking about these things, but we should get this Broadcasting Act done. If there's an amendment at report stage to fix and bring back section 4.1, that would be the time to do it. Let's get the rest of the amendments through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Aitchison, please go ahead.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm hearing people talk about the motion Mr. Housefather put forward, and I think I could probably accept that, at the bare minimum, we have scratched the surface of meeting the terms of our motion. I accept Mr. Housefather's explanation of what can and can't be called a charter statement. I'm fine with that.

As we get back into clause-by-clause for this bill, which we're destined to do, I hope that everybody keeps in mind something Minister Lametti did in fact say in his statement—and I guess this is the crux of it for Conservatives and for me in particular—when he said that some limits to the charter freedom of expression may be justifiable. We know that the removal of 4.1...we've heard that it does actually implicate some limits to freedom of expression, and I don't think we've ever truly had, as Mr. Manly said, a healthy discussion specifically about 4.1 when it was removed.

I would hope that everybody goes away from this meeting and thinks very seriously about how much freedom of expression they are prepared to limit. This is an ambition to make sure that the government regulates what Canadians see online with some policy to try to promote what they deem as most “Canadian” versus what Canadians actually choose. To me, that's a fundamental question worth debating. How many limits? How much of our freedom of expression should we be prepared to give up to make sure that Canadians are forced to see what we have determined should be Canadians' first choice online?

I hope we have that discussion as we go forward because I don't think we have adequately had it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Rayes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Housefather, I saw you turning red; I wondered if you had eaten some lobster just before you spoke. By the way, I say that with a sense of humour; it's not an insult. I certainly don't want to upset you. I was just responding to the chair's question about what's next.

I asked the question to hear the opinion of the committee members, and I gave my own opinion. I feel that my opinion is as good as yours, members of the committee. I believe that the three points of the motion have not been fully met. You say otherwise, and that is your right. But for some of us to imply things, I think that's a little uncalled for. I understand that the debate is emotional and very frustrating. We are tired, we are at the end of the session. This is an important issue. Heaven knows the Conservatives are under attack from all sides. However, I want to remind everyone in this room that prior to the removal of the proposed section 4.1, everything was running smoothly at this committee.

Also, the motion that Mr. Housefather has put forward is virtually identical to the motion that the Conservatives put forward two and a half weeks ago. Everything we have done in the last three or four days could have been done two and a half weeks ago, and our work would not have been delayed. I wanted to put things back in perspective.

With that, Mr. Chair, I think you have the answer to your question. In any event, we will meet again tomorrow. On our side, we will talk to each other and make our own decision in our organization. You will make your own decisions in your organizations.

I would ask that the meeting be adjourned, if possible, if there are no further comments. I don't want to stop anyone from speaking, but once we have gone around, I think today's meeting has been long enough. In any case, we'll see each other again tomorrow with great pleasure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

To clarify, Mr. Rayes, are you moving an adjournment?

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

That's right, but only after everyone has had a chance to speak. I don't want to cut anyone off again like I did last time with Mr. Champoux.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I'm sorry, Mr. Rayes, I can't accommodate both. I can only do one or the other.

I'll assume that you did not move the motion because, just out of the corner of your eye, you saw Mr. Housefather with his hand up.

Mr. Housefather.