Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.
There was a comment made earlier in the meeting that if we had just not said anything different when proposed section 4.1 was gone, if we had just repeated the words of other MPs who had agreed with removing it, we wouldn't have this issue.
It's freedom of speech where we have differences of opinion. That is what this is about. In my opinion, the fundamental piece here is the comment that this controversy arose only because other people had differences of opinion. People have differences of opinion. One particular group, while perhaps made up of a number of different parties that have the same opinion while others don't, shouldn't be dictatorial in the sense that we will automatically have to repeat their words when we may not agree with them. I find it very interesting that somebody would suggest to us this morning that we created a controversy that wasn't there by not expressing the opinions of others that were different from our own.
I think we've agreed in this discussion about funding for culture. I think we've talked about the source of that. The minister in documents indicated about $400 million, but then the document became very redacted in terms of where that other $400-plus million was coming from. It's really interesting that only part of it is verified when he talks about that funding.
It's interesting about funding in the sense that we've all lobbied and many of us have for arts organizations in our communities, as I have for the Calgary Arts Commons in Alberta or the Rosebud Theatre in my riding. The parliamentary secretary will remember that, when she was chair of the heritage committee, a Liberal MP from Alberta wanted to talk about funding. It was very interesting that we found that Alberta received about 5% of the funding that went to arts and culture in Canada. Only 5% went to Alberta. It was a Liberal MP who brought this to committee for us to look at when the parliamentary secretary was chair of the heritage committee.
When we talk about funding, there get to be all sorts of interesting issues that go with the funding. It's not that we're not supportive of funding and it's not that we don't support big major foreign tech companies being taxed for the services they provide, but the minister has said zillions of times how while the Conservatives are supportive they must be in the pockets of those tech companies supporting this. I have not been lobbied by one tech company, but the list of the tech companies and the times they've been in the minister's office is huge. They haven't been in my office. I haven't talked to one of them. When the minister says, “we're listening to the tech companies”, they have to talk to you before you can listen to them, and they haven't talked to me. They haven't sent me any information. They haven't done anything to influence my decision, yet they've been in the minister's office, practically living there they've been there so many times, right at the top of the people who lobby on behalf of the tech industry. They're in his office, not mine.
When we're talking about proposed section 4.1 and we hear about the difference in opinions on net neutrality, if there is a person in between those creators and how it is placed in the world at large, then we're talking about a difference of opinion about what net neutrality is. Someone mentioned that if a judge can do it.... That's where this legislation is going to go. It's going to end up in front of judges. It's going to be there for a long time. For those who have been given to believe that the money is just going to flow and that it's going to come instantly, that's not going to happen because there are going to be judges involved in this.
There's a difference of opinions on what net neutrality is, and that's what 4.1 was protecting, people's ability to do things differently, a creator's ability to do things differently, not the status quo.
People talk about the algorithms of the tech companies out there, and, yes, those are based on data and they drive people to where they want them to go, but that's not what the CRTC does. It's not based on data. Historically it has been based on content, not data.
We know what the algorithms of the big tech companies are for. They're for making money and being data-driven, but that's not the model the CRTC has used for 30 years. It is based on content, so it's not data-driven.
Removing 4.1 took us from being data-driven to a different algorithm, not what people necessarily want but what people are driven to, so that rating system...and it's been interesting as the news stories of this past week have talked about how businesses buy services to get them rated higher, but how there are also services they can buy to take away negative ratings they might have. They might also want to buy that service to take away their competitor by driving that rating.
This is the kind of mechanism we're putting in the hands of the CRTC. It's a mechanism on content driving people to a certain platform—not on data but on content. That's why this is not net neutrality. That's why proposed section 4.1 was important, Mr. Chair. What we need to be doing is protecting.
When there were consultations done by the minister, members of this committee said consultations were done from sea to sea, from ocean to ocean, and that we talked to everybody, but we know that's not true. We didn't talk to those 200,000 creators who are on there. We didn't talk to the 25,000 who are making a living. As was mentioned earlier, they don't have lobbyists, so who was that consultation with? It was with lobbyist organizations, with those cultural groups that have been there forever, not with the new ones.
Social media has changed. It's not the mainline media of print newspapers and CTV, CBC and Global. It's not there. That's not where the younger generation is. They're in a different world, and they didn't speak to those people who've been very successful.
Chair, I think it's of critical importance that freedom of speech be protected. As we express differences of opinions on this committee, we ultimately have to ensure that we protect that for Canadians. They can be successful doing it. We shouldn't have to repeat the same opinions of other people in this committee when we have differences of opinion.
That's what this committee is about. That's what Canadians are about. We should protect freedoms of speech, and this is what we need to do with this piece of legislation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.