Evidence of meeting #51 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to continue with your argument that the value of appropriated news is content in its initial instance, so before it's been scraped, indexed, posted, aggregated and displayed. Can you explain this concept to us further?
Managing Director, Econ One
Right. The question is what would be paid to the news publishers in a voluntary negotiation, absent the power imbalance, for access to their content so that Google and Facebook can do all the wonderful things that they do with the content today. What we can do to get at that question is see how much value is created on the platform by the news publishers, and we can go backwards in time and say if Google and Facebook would have had to pay for that in a voluntary negotiation, absent the power imbalance, what would they have paid. They pay something approximating the value that is being created. That's what the fight is going to be about when we get to the arbitration panel. It's going to be about who can demonstrate credibly the value that's being appropriated by the platforms created collectively by all news publishers.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Just so it's clear for this committee, in your understanding, in Australia with the implementation of its similar legislation, it was actually the smaller publishers, in comparison, that did the best, that hired the most journalists and that got the most value. It was the smaller publishers, not the big conglomerates.
Managing Director, Econ One
I haven't done a comparison of relative hiring, but what I do know, what has been widely reported, is that money that was collected by all newspapers, big and small, in Australia has been invested, ploughed back into the investment of journalists. That, to me, is the important takeaway. If anyone doubts that's going to happen, they just need to look at the Australian experience. If you set the allocation right, you're going to create an added incentive to get the news publishers to reinvest in journalists because it's going to make their allocation, their share of the allocation, bigger on the next go around.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much.
Lisa, your time is up.
I'm going to ask the clerk what our hard stop is.
Can we go an extra three minutes or two minutes over time?
The Clerk
Actually, I was not sent the hard stop information today, but lately the hard stop has been the hour, so one o'clock would probably be it. I'm seeing that we have about 14 minutes left on the clock, though.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
That's why I asked. If we went to a suggestion of two and a half minutes per person and went to a six-person round, that would give us 15 minutes, so we'd be going one minute over time, and I'm sure we can afford to do that.
I shall begin, then, with the Conservatives for two and a half minutes, please.
Could I have the name of the member for the Conservatives?
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
It's Marilyn Gladu. Thank you, Chair.
My question is for Mr. Palmer.
Do you think that small media organizations will be benefited under Bill C-18?
President, Internet Society Canada Chapter
Actually, no, I don't think so. It's hard to conceive of how these small organizations can coalesce and resource the kind of bargaining process that Bill C-18 envisages.
The principal difficulty with Bill C-18 is that it's a partitioned process. The big players can afford to enter into the bargaining process, hire the experts, the lawyers, etc., to support their positions and have them adjudicated. That's not true of similar efforts on behalf of small independent community newspapers, and so on, which we also don't have the infrastructure in place to support.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Would it be better, then, just to have the government charge Facebook and Google for operating in Canada, and to funnel the money into some kind of a fund that's allocated to smaller media organizations?
President, Internet Society Canada Chapter
That's probably a better solution than Bill C-18 in terms of being able to get money into the very lowest levels of the journalistic community. I don't think the present system ensures that result.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Then I'll go to my other question. You know me, I never give time back.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I have a question for Ms. Gardner, the same question I asked Mr. Palmer.
Do you think that small media organizations will benefit under Bill C-18?
November 1st, 2022 / 12:45 p.m.
McConnell Professor of Practice (2021-22), Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
No, I don't think so, for the reasons I said before. I think they just don't have the bargaining power. They don't have the time, and they don't have the energy. They aren't big enough to support that kind of negotiation need.
To your second question, obviously, as I have said, I do think a fund would be better for that purpose. It's more straightforward.
McConnell Professor of Practice (2021-22), Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Yes. I don't know if I can provide them in the time you have, but there is a piece—
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Could you submit your ideas for amendments to the committee in writing?
McConnell Professor of Practice (2021-22), Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Yes, I'd be happy to.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. Gardner. Please do that.
I am going to Mr. Coteau.
You have two and a half minutes.
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to make a quick observation.
We've had witnesses come in to tell us that there have been almost 500 media corporations that have collapsed over the last decade because of the changing structure of the business in Canada. We've also been told, and I think the Conservatives probably agree, that there is no value to the media that's being distributed on the big tech giants.
I think it's astonishing to just assume that, if you open up Facebook or you click on a Twitter link or you're on Google, the Canadian content does not have value. If we agree that it has value, then we agree that we should assess that value, as Mr. Singer has suggested. It's a very fair process. You actually determine the value of that content on that platform, how much it is being monetized by, and you pay the publisher accordingly. It's a very simple concept.
Mr. Singer, do you have any final statements or reflections on that specific point? Is there anything you'd like to comment on as we close this session?