Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 28th, 2022

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I appreciate that, Mr. Dinsdale.

It's disappointing, again, to see these robber baron tactics come in, threatening parliamentarians and Canadians. I know I'll be reaching out to Whistleblower Aid and Libby Liu, their CEO, to request that they submit a briefing to this committee, because the tactics Facebook and Meta employed in Australia to endanger the lives of citizens without a care.... Even if you're saying it was a mistake, that doesn't play out in emails and correspondence among your CEO and yourselves. You came here unwilling or unable to talk about it. What you're doing is truly shameful, sir.

[Marc Dinsdale]

I would say that Mr. Bittle mis-characterized—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle. I'm afraid your time is up.

I'm now going to move to Mr. Champoux from the Bloc Québécois for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, Martin.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Charette, I'd like to continue our discussion on the quality of journalism and the ways to ensure that eligible news organizations are serious organizations.

We've received some suggestions for amendments. Google, for instance, would like us to delete clause 51 of the bill, that seeks to prohibit so-called undue preference. According to Google, this provision will prevent its platforms and others from applying policies and offering functionalities that elevate reliable sources of information over those of lesser quality. When you read between the lines a little, what that means is that we're to rely on Google to judge which content is reliable and which isn't.

As a federation representing a large number of journalists and newsrooms, what do you think of this proposal and this statement?

[Annick Charette]

Fundamentally, this bill, which draws inspiration from the Australian experience and that of the Competition Bureau, seeks to regulate the economic ties between various companies and to address the current imbalance. That's what it's really about.

Interestingly, professional journalism is already held to certain standards. Indeed, most journalism organizations in Canada are already monitored by press councils that audit the quality of their publications and that individuals and various interest groups can call upon if a publication is misguided or is otherwise in breach of journalistic standards. All over Canada and Europe, there are news businesses that agree to these councils monitoring the quality of their publications. That's what professional news outlets do.

Let's take the example of qualified, quality journalism. I spoke of the criteria—

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You spoke of the eligibility criteria for qualified Canadian journalism organizations—

[Annick Charette]

They're the same.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

—but these criteria deal with eligibility as defined under the Income Tax Act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

What I'm talking about and what I'd like to see are more criteria that guarantee quality. I'm talking about journalistic, ethical standards, which came up earlier in conversation.

In your opinion, should these be included in the bill, and possibly, one day, in the act, so that this doesn't become the responsibility of the CRTC or another organization?

[Annick Charette]

It would be really great if eligible organizations—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Madame Charette.

I'm going to go now to the NDP.

Mr. MacGregor, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Chan, I'd like to turn my questions to you.

I'll level with you. I have had some concerns about your company and its influence on our democratic institutions and on our civil society.

My main role in the House of Commons is as our public safety critic. I sit on the Standing Committee of Public Safety and National Security. Earlier this year, we did a report into ideologically motivated violent extremism, and we heard some pretty damning testimony about the role that social media companies have played, especially with misinformation, disinformation and plain fake news.

In the article that you wrote on October 21, you made the threat that you may be forced to consider whether Facebook continues to allow the sharing of news content in Canada.

Is that what's really going on here? You've had all of this damning evidence against your company about its role in sharing misinformation and disinformation. Are you seriously now considering making the situation worse by getting rid of credible journalism, which is one of the bulwarks we have in a democratic society? Is that what's going on here, Mr. Chan?

[Kevin Chan]

I think it's important to indicate that, on Facebook, what you see are the conversations and exchanges of 21 million Canadians. They are their opinions, and they are their communications to one another and to friends and family. I think that's what you see on Facebook.

Having said that, I think perhaps my colleague Marc has some thoughts on fact-checking, the general idea of misinformation and how it pertains to Bill C-18 that might be helpful for legislators. If I may, I'll turn it to Marc to try to answer that one.

[Marc Dinsdale]

Thank you.

It is an important point of reference to consider that we do have the world's largest fact-checking network program of any platform. It includes 90 fact-checkers accredited by the international fact-checking network, which is a subsidiary of the Poynter Institute.

Our primary pillars in that are that we identify, we review and we act on content. The fact-checkers themselves are able to look for content they want to fact-check. They then review it. We also use artificial intelligence to do that work as well, to suggest things. They then review it and are able to apply labels like false, altered, partly false, etc.

The important part about the act, which I think has been pointed out by both Mr. von Finckenstein and Mr. Hatfield, is around concerns that the undue preference clauses in the bill do not allow us to reduce the spread of misinformation in that sense. That should be concerning to everybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dinsdale.

Now we are going to go to the Conservatives.

Mr. Waugh, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It was interesting the other day hearing from the Minister of Heritage, who cited that 468 news outlets have closed in this country since 2008. I will also say that many of those news outlets that closed were Bell Media, Rogers, National Post and Torstar. These are the same organizations that want to be at the trough of Bill C-18. It's really interesting.

What the minister didn't say in his testimony is that we've had over 200 news operations—independent organizations—open in this country.

I just wanted to make that statement because this bill is not going to save the media in this country. We have seen Bell, Rogers, National Post and Torstar tear down in small communities like Swift Current, Lloydminster, Prince Albert, Yorkton, Red Deer, Kelowna and Kamloops. I can go on and on. If the panel thinks that this bill is going to save rural media, think again. People are getting their information a little differently.

I'm going to go to Mr. von Finckenstein.

You are the former chair of the CRTC. As you know, you don't have any experience in regulating news or even in competition matters. I just told you how many news outlets have closed in this country. Suddenly, the CRTC is now going to have the power to determine what news publishers benefit and what the definition of a “journalist” is, and it will oversee arbitration, including the picking of an arbitrator.

Do you think, Mr. von Finckenstein, that the CRTC should be given as prominent a role as this in Bill C-18?

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Thank you for that question.

My purpose in appearing here today was to try to say that the existing legislation as it is doesn't work. It needs to be amended. I've focused my point assuming that we use the concept that the government has adopted, which is mandatory bargaining between platforms and news publishers. To make it work, the changes that I suggested—I gave you some draft amendments—are a minimum.

Is it a good way to do this? Is this really a function the CRTC can do and should do? I, personally, have never done it. I can't even go into it because it depends on who the leadership is and what resources are being given. I mean, to my mind, the whole concept is not the right way to go about doing this.

If you want to subsidize news publishers, you can do it a myriad of other ways. This strikes me as being unnecessarily complicated. If you do it—and it's my assumption that this bill will pass—then at least it should be amended as I suggested.

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

Define “DNI”.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

That was my first point. The DNI definition in the act is totally unworkable. It's based on all sorts of concepts, not objectives. It depends on the context. They all come from competition. I know that because I was commissioner of competition for seven years. If we want to apply this, it is very difficult.

Therefore, I suggest we forget about people self-identifying or the CRTC identifying them. Give the minister the power to identify them by regulation, but he should consult with the commissioner of competition so he does it in an informed and systematic way based on jurisdiction in competition.

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

Define what a “journalist” is.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

There are a lot of issues about that. What is a journalist? We have various definitions that you can use.

I presume if this bill comes into effect, the CRTC will issue guidelines on what they consider a journalist. They base it on existing precedents.

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

I would say, because I was one, that the journalist has certainly changed over the years. I think the public has actually wanted change in journalism. We've seen the public broadcaster being very heavily involved in how they actually direct their journalists in their reporting. We've seen that not only with the Emergencies Act, but with other things here in Parliament.

Is the CRTC capable of handling something they've never had to do before? They're about radio and televison, and now we're asking them to deal with, essentially, the newspaper industry. Are they capable of that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Kevin. You are over time. I'm going to have to not allow the answer right now. Hopefully, somebody can pick that up.

I'm going to now go to the Liberals and to Lisa Hepfner.

Lisa, you have five minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We have been speaking about good journalism today, so I'd like to draw the committee's attention to a Wall Street Journal article from last May entitled “Facebook Deliberately Caused Havoc in Australia to Influence New Law, Whistleblowers Say”. It says:

Last year when Facebook blocked news in Australia in response to potential legislation making platforms pay publishers for content, it also took down the pages of Australian hospitals, emergency services and charities. It publicly called the resulting chaos “inadvertent.”

Internally, the pre-emptive strike was hailed as a strategic masterstroke.

Facebook documents and testimony filed to U.S. and Australian authorities by whistleblowers allege that the social-media giant deliberately created an overly broad and sloppy process to take down pages—allowing swaths of the Australian government and health services to be caught in its web just as the country was launching Covid vaccinations.

The goal, according to the whistleblowers and documents, was to exert maximum negotiating leverage over the Australian Parliament, which was voting on the first law in the world that would require platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for content.

Despite saying it was targeting only news outlets, the company deployed an algorithm for deciding what pages to take down that it knew was certain to affect more than publishers, according to the documents and people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Dinsdale, is this true? Was the Australian havoc deliberate?