Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 1st, 2022

[Dr. Hal Singer]

Yes, I want to take on one thing that Ms. Gardner said just a second ago, which is this notion that the small organizations aren't going to have the resources to hire a lobbyist to negotiate.

I just want to submit respectfully that the whole purpose of forming a coalition is that everyone goes in there together, represented by one lawyer, one expert. It's going to be funded as a collective. It's not going to turn on the funding capabilities of any one particular small publisher. There is no lobbying that needs to take place, or negotiation. You just join the collective, and then the collective is going to hire a lawyer and an economist. They're going to go into the room and negotiate and try to put forward the best valuation possible.

I want to dispel the notion that somehow this is being set up in such a way as to make life difficult for the small organizations. Actually, if it's done right, it should make life easy for them. All they have to do is join the coalition, and then, conditional on winning at the hearing, they're going to get their pro rata share based on traffic generation and based on employment. That's how we're doing it, at least in the United States.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Michael. I think you have only about 10 seconds left, so I would like to move to Martin Champoux.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Palmer, I'd like us to go back to the regulation of companies that do business primarily through online platforms. We talk a lot about Google and Facebook, but you care more about the entire Internet. You care about making it easy for everyone to access and enjoy what the Internet has to offer.

Do you believe that commerce carried out by businesses should not be regulated in general, or do you primarily object to bills like C‑18 and C‑11?

Is your position on this general? Could you define it?

[Philip Palmer]

Thank you for the opportunity.

No, I think there is a great deal of work that needs to be done. My concern with Bill C-11 and with this legislation is that none of it is taking a comprehensive look at the Internet. This is piece by piece. The pieces don't necessarily all fit together. There's not a comprehensive vision on the side of the government that's proposing these various measures.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

We need to move forward. Our journalism industry is dying and it's been in crisis for years.

Don't you think that this is a first step and that we can and should improve the law over the years as we uncover the flaws we will inevitably find along the way?

Don't you think that already constitutes a good step forward?

[Philip Palmer]

My problem is that I don't think it's a good first step. I think it's a bad first step, and it will be a fatal first step for a lot of journalistic organizations and news organizations. That's my concern about this.

The American model that is being suggested is to bring together a coalition of everybody who's in the news business. Bill C-18 doesn't do that. It allows for a partition between big players and small players. There's nothing that forces them into a collective. Without that, you're going to get a lot of losers and very few winners.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

However, that could be fixed via amendments to this bill or in the coming years, couldn't it?

[Philip Palmer]

Yes, it could be, but you'd have to reshape it significantly to do that. I would be all in favour of something that would in fact force this kind of coalition that the Americans are looking at. I think that would be a very positive step.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Palmer.

That's all, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Martin.

I'll go now to Peter Julian.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

To come back to you, Mr. Singer, I asked specifically about public broadcasters and to what extent there is provision for them in JCPA. Of course, that's PBS, the broadcasting systems in the United States. Your answer about broadcasters generally was that they are exempt from some provisions of the act. Is there any particular attention given to the PBS broadcasting systems, both radio and television?

[Dr. Hal Singer]

I don't think PBS gets any special treatment under the bill. I think what happened is that the broadcasters sought and secured good-faith negotiations, but it ends there. I think they have some recourse if the counterparty is not acting in good faith, but there's no back-end binding arbitration that the newspaper coalition is going to enjoy.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

That helps to clarify it. Thanks very much.

Now, coming back to this issue...and of course we're considering amendments, so I'm a bit perplexed about some members around the committee who seem to say we should throw the whole bill out because there are some amendments that need to be brought forward. It's obvious that the bill can be improved. One component is around particularly small community endeavours, owner-operator newspapers or broadcasting entities such as community radio, as is often the case in smaller communities.

Can you speak to the importance of this approach that we saw in Australia with Country Press Australia representing about 150 small community newspapers across Australia and getting the important provision for funding that helped to revitalize the sector, and to the importance of ensuring that small community papers are included? That must mean considering some amendments to Bill C-18.

[Dr. Hal Singer]

I think the small communities obviously did better as a coalition than they would have done had they negotiated individually. They did better. They actually secured money, and we get to see what they're doing with that money now.

I'm going to stick with my thesis. They would have done even better had they been able to negotiate as a collective with all newspapers including the large ones. I don't see a good, economic rationale in splitting off the small newspapers and telling them, “You guys go negotiate as a collective.” Yes, it's better than individually, but if I could structure it, it would be everyone negotiating as one news publisher coalition.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

That's it, Peter.

We do not have any extra minutes to use in this committee this morning. We have one minute left to go.

I'm going to use that one minute to thank the witnesses for coming and answering hard questions. I think it was a very respectable meeting in my view.

Also, I want to thank you for taking the time to come and help us on this. As many members have said, hopefully out of your testimony, there can be amendments found to the bill.

I want to thank you all.

This meeting is adjourned.