Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 4th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I call this meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting No. 52 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

Pursuant to the order of reference adopted by the House on Tuesday, May 31, 2022, the committee is meeting on the study of Bill C-18, an act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House of Commons order of June 23, 2022. Some members are attending in person, and others are attending remotely using the Zoom application.

I want to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon at the bottom of your screen to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

For those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. There is a little round globe icon. That is your interpretation icon. For those in the room, obviously, you can use the earpiece and select your desired English or French channel.

As a reminder, all comments should be made through the chair.

I will ask the clerk to clarify and confirm that all witnesses have completed the required connections tests and that they are using House of Commons devices. We have had an accident with a non-House of Commons device used by a witness, and we don't want a repeat of that.

Can you confirm that for me, Madam Clerk?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Aimée Belmore]

Yes, Madam Chair. All the witnesses have done their equipment testing, and they're using House of Commons headsets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I want to welcome the witnesses.

For the benefit of the witnesses, I want you to know that you have five minutes to present. If there is more than one of you representing your organization, then one of you will speak. You can make that decision. We don't make it for you.

I will give you a 30-second literal shout-out when you have 30 seconds left so that you can wrap up. After that, we will go into a question and answer session.

Again, welcome to the witnesses. I will begin with Dadan Sivunivut. Jean LaRose is the president and chief executive officer. He is here by video conference.

We're going to begin with Monsieur LaRose.

The other people present are, from the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, Maria Saras-Voutsinas, executive director; from UNIFOR, Randy Kitt, media sector director; from the University of Ottawa, Dr. Michael Geist, Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, faculty of law; and from McGill University, Dr. Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook chair in media, ethics and communication, associate professor and director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy.

I will begin with Monsieur LaRose for five minutes, please.

[Jean LaRose, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dadan Sivunivut]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I start my presentation and my time, dadan means “our peoples” in southern Tutchone, and sivunivut means “our future” in Inuktitut.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

[Jean LaRose]

My pleasure, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Please begin, for five minutes.

[Jean LaRose]

Good afternoon, Madam Chairperson and committee members.

Thank you for the invitation to discuss Bill C-18. I am Jean LaRose, president and chief executive officer of Dadan Sivunivut. I am Abenaki from the Odanak First Nation, and I thank the Algonquin nation for allowing us to meet on their unceded territory.

Dadan Sivunivut was created by APTN in 2019 to assume responsibility for APTN's non-television activities. Among other businesses, Dadan Sivunivut oversees First Peoples Radio, which operates radio stations in Ottawa and Toronto, and is active in IndigiNews, a digital news service based in western Canada that covers the ancestral and unceded homelands of the Halkomelem and Squamish-speaking peoples.

Dadan Sivunivut supports the objective of Bill C-18, which will provide ongoing support for news organizations to offset the impact of dominant digital intermediaries on Canadian journalism.

However, the bill needs to better reflect the unique place of indigenous news organizations based on Canada's commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. UNDRIP includes the express recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples to operate our own media in our own languages.

At the least, Bill C-18 should place indigenous news outlets on the same footing as non-indigenous local news services. Intentionally or not, the bill creates a kind of hierarchy of news services, and diverse news outlets, including those serving indigenous communities, are placed on a lower tier than other local news services.

Let me explain. As it stands now, subclause 11(1) of the bill requires that agreements with digital intermediaries must include “a significant portion of...local news businesses” and “contribute to the sustainability of those businesses”. In comparison, with regard to indigenous news outlets, those agreements need to include only “a range of news outlets that reflect the diversity”, which includes language, race, and indigenous communities. This is a much lower standard. The bill does not require that a significant portion of indigenous news outlets be included or that the agreements contribute to sustainability. It should.

We have proposed specific language to improve the bill that would address this issue. I will quickly take you through it.

Our proposed language would include a reference to UNDRIP in the recitals to the bill and a reference to indigenous storytelling as a component of indigenous news. We propose a specific definition for an indigenous news outlet: one that is controlled by indigenous peoples and produces news content for indigenous peoples.

We propose that, in subclause 11(1) of the bill, agreements reached by digital news intermediaries include a significant portion of indigenous news outlets and meaningfully support their sustainability.

We propose that the eligibility criteria for news outlets in clauses 27 and 31 of the bill also reflect the unique characteristics of indigenous news outlets and the core issues affecting indigenous rights and self-government in the same way that Canada's democratic institutions and practices are core matters for non-indigenous new services.

Lastly, we propose that the list of arbitrators to be maintained under clause 31 of the bill include indigenous persons.

These changes would help to make Bill C-18 meaningful for indigenous peoples and for our right to operate our own media in our own languages.

This is a critical time in Canada for indigenous peoples and for Canadians as we travel together on the road to reconciliation. We will face challenges, but we are hopeful that we will also earn the rewards of greater understanding and a revitalization of indigenous cultures and languages.

We support Bill C-18 with the changes we have proposed as one step on this road, but it is only a step.

We have also encouraged the government to provide direct support for indigenous media through independently administered, stable and meaningful funding. While I recognize that a fund is not what we are discussing today, I strongly believe that a fund, administered by an independent body and focused on supporting a new generation of indigenous journalists in indigenous media, as well as other diversity media, is a necessity. We should not lose sight of the high barriers that indigenous peoples face in conserving and promoting our cultures and languages. No one bill will be sufficient, though if it truly reflects indigenous rights and cultures, this one will help at a critical time.

I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I go to the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada and Maria Saras-Voutsinas for five minutes, please.

[Maria Saras-Voutsinas, Executive Director, National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Maria Saras-Voutsinas, and I'm here today representing the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada.

Our organization's membership runs the full gamut of press and media, television, radio, hard copy, and online. Our members are communications entities with professionally trained journalists who publish primarily in a language that is neither English nor French. We publish dailies, weeklies, monthlies, and so forth in non-official languages. Our reach, given Canada's birth rate and immigration policies, is currently 23% of the potential user market. That demographic is the only growing one according to Statistics Canada.

You have heard from tech experts, digital giants, and mainstream media on the impact of the transition to digital consumption of communications and entertainment content. It continues to be a valuable exercise. None of it is new.

Governments are trying to balance the playing field and we applaud this initiative. We do not want you to leave our members behind; we are just as impacted as the mainstream media. We have always competed for advertising dollars to survive.

Advertisers, including governments, turn to digital platforms. For context, the government spent more on Facebook and Instagram advertising last year than all print publications combined, both mainstream and ethnic. To appreciate the impact, consider the testimony of one of the Meta executives before this committee. His company draws over $200 million per annum from Canada, yet it produces no content.

We feel that Bill C-18 is asking those digital giants to recognize the virtual partnerships they have with content creators like our members, whose growth results in the increase of the reach of those platforms.

We would feel more confident if we knew the rules going in and not after the doors are closed on Bill C-18. That includes the conditions everyone must meet to be at the table. Our members can and will meet them.

We are also asking you to put in an amendment to Bill C-18 to allow owner-operator journalists to count toward the journalist minimum, so more ethnic and rural publishers can negotiate collectively.

The pandemic was, and is, an incredibly turbulent time for ethnic news publishers. Readership surged but advertising cratered. A number of publishers had a very tough decision to make between continuing to report the news to minority-language groups who needed vital pandemic information, or cutting their losses and shutting down. I'm very proud that the vast majority of our outlets decided that providing vital health information to their communities was paramount, and they published, even though it was at a loss.

Being able to bring news to your community, which sometimes may not have a strong grasp of English or French, brought our publishers a lot to provide. It helped new and established immigrant Canadians find a place for themselves and feel more connected to their community.

We think it is crucial for democracy that Canadians have access to news, including those who consume their news in non-official languages. There is an imbalance that needs to be addressed between large digital platforms and the local news outlets that produce the content that provides platforms with value.

We strongly believe that the framework of Bill C-18 can and will include support for ethnic publishers, who need the help now more than ever.

While we are encouraged to see that the digital giants have signed deals with select outlets in Canada, we are very troubled that none of those outlets have been with ethnic media. It is clear Meta and Google will not willingly partner with the ethnic press to ensure that compensation is equitable. That is why we're asking for Bill C-18, so that our membership may have a fair negotiation to be paid for their content.

I have heard from so many members of my own Greek community about what a difference having Canadian news in Greek has meant to them. Many of those readers felt invested in our country, sought English and French classes and later became Canadian citizens. That is what the news can do: It can take people out of isolation and better explain their neighbours, their province, and their country, and that is good for democracy.

We have been working closely with our colleagues at News Media Canada and we agree on an approach that is fair and equitable and benefits both small and large publishers. We are one industry and proud to stand together to ensure that Canadians have access to reliable news in the language that they are most comfortable with.

Thank you all for your time, and I'm looking forward to the discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I now go to Unifor and Randy Kitt, for five minutes.

[Randy Kitt, Media Sector Director, Unifor]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Unifor is Canada's largest private sector union, with more than 310,000 members. Our union represents more than 10,000 media workers, including journalists in the broadcast and print news industry.

Journalism is a public good in its role of holding power to account. Strengthening democracy and building community have never been more important. Social media has proven to divide us, pitting neighbour against neighbour. We are more polarized than ever, but a strong Canadian news media can build community.

I don't think I need to spend too much time on the problem, because I think we can all agree that the news industry, especially local news, is in crisis. The Public Policy Forum has done some great work documenting this decline in their updated report “The Shattered Mirror”.

Advertising revenue for community newspapers has dropped 66% from 2011 to 2020. During that time, almost 300 papers either disappeared or merged with other publications. The list of dead newspapers reads like a roll call of regional and small-town Canada. Broadcasting has a similar story. News outlets are closing, consolidating and downsizing.

Unifor's own membership numbers confirm this trend. Between 2009 and 2022, The Toronto Star's membership declined from 610 to 178 members, a decrease of 70%. In broadcasting, between 2017 and 2021, employment decreased by 16%. This all results in less journalism and less news, with nothing to replace it.

Where has all the advertising gone? American web giants Google and Facebook have cornered the world's advertising market. Their market share dominance is an abuse of power, in which they dictate terms and price. It's important to note that they don't produce any news on their own, local or otherwise.

How do we solve the problem? To some, including me, the answer seems simple. Google and Facebook must pay their fair share and contribute to the creation of Canadian news, but how? Unifor first submitted that the best approach was a news fund, but Australia went in another direction and had success in creating legislation that compelled the platforms to negotiate with news outlets for fair compensation for their product.

Thus Bill C-18, the Canadian online news act, was born. Unifor supports the speedy passage of this bill, as it is almost too late for us to act. Without this support, more news outlets will close as they are already on the brink.

Unifor has three main concerns with the drafting of Bill C-18. One is inclusivity: No eligible news outlet should be left behind. Two is accountability: The money received by these deals needs to be earmarked for news creation. Three is transparency: The value of these deals needs to be public knowledge.

Although it is not perfect, and we have submitted some minor amendments to tweak the bill, Unifor believes that Bill C-18 strikes a good balance on these issues.

On the first, the bill acknowledges that diversity, along with inclusivity, must play a key role. Smaller outlets must be included, and the bill is also platform-agnostic to recognize broadcasters and podcasters. Unifor submits that all eligible news outlets should be included.

On the second, Unifor maintains that this money should go toward news creation. Hiring journalists to tell our stories and to hold power to account is the most important metric to measuring the success of this initiative.

On the third, transparency, the platforms have ensured that the value of deals negotiated thus far has been shrouded in non-disclosure agreements. Unifor submits that the value of deals negotiated should be made public. We do know, however, that this bill will allow the CRTC to give us annual aggregated numbers like those we currently receive in the broadcasting industry.

Unifor would also suggest that arbitrators have special access to the value of these deals and other relevant confidential information so they can make informed decisions in the arbitration process.

If only we had a quasi-judicial body that was arm's length from the government to handle the administration of this bill.... To be clear, Unifor has not always agreed with the CRTC's decisions, but Unifor applauds the decision to have the CRTC administer this bill, as we believe they are well suited to this work.

To sum up, the news industry is in crisis, and local news is essential to the public good in a functioning democracy. We know from the Australians that a bargaining code with an arbitration process can be successful, and we believe that Bill C-18 is an improvement on the Australian legislation.

Unifor supports speedy passage of this legislation with very minor adjustments. Let's not get sidetracked by noise. Let's get Bill C-18 passed to ensure a sustainable future for local news.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Randy Kitt]

Imagine a world without news. Imagine the void. Now imagine you can do something about it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I will move to Dr. Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook chair in media, ethics and communication.

Dr. Owen, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Dr. Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communication, Associate Professor, and Director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, McGill University, As an Individual]

Thank you so much for having me here today.

A lot has been said about Bill C-18 in the media and at this committee over the past months. I want to start by acknowledging the real and often existential stakes involved for the journalism businesses on all sides of this debate. I'm just an observer to this, but I value the views of all those who are ultimately materially impacted by the policy decisions that you're making here.

Some want no government intervention at all in the market of journalism, which is a view I respect but don’t share. For me, journalism and, more broadly, the access to reliable information are a precondition for democratic society. In the face of clear market failures, they warrant careful public policy intervention.

With that said, let me make a few observations about this particular intervention.

First, I think we need to acknowledge the reality that platforms already have deals with publishers. These deals, with a select group of publishers chosen by the platforms, are for undisclosed sums of money and hidden behind NDAs. We simply have no idea whether publishers have been pressured or incentivized in their reporting in any way. I understand that some publishers who already have deals would rather stick to the devil they know, but the interest of public policy should be to make these deals more equitable and accountable to the Canadian public.

Second, it's very clear that no one policy will fix journalism. The effect that the Internet has had on the businesses and practices of journalism is wide-ranging and complex. This policy mechanism addresses one aspect of this challenge: the bargaining imbalance between publishers and platforms. A very asymmetry, I would argue, is demonstrated by the inequity of these current deals. However, analysis of the role of this policy must be done alongside other policies that support Canadian journalism. Most importantly, in my view, is the journalism labour tax credit.

Third, while many—including myself in the past—have suggested an alternative, centralized fund model, I think we need to acknowledge that it, too, has some fundamental challenges. It would require government to either create a dedicated tax on platforms—a link tax, if you will—or put general revenue into a fund of its creation and design. The former could be in breach of USMCA, and both are far more intrusive government interventions in journalism than the bargaining code.

Fourth, while this bill has been widely characterized as the Australian model, it is in fact, in my view, fundamentally different. The addition of specified exemption criteria is the central policy mechanism in this bill. The list of those terms, how platforms demonstrate they have met them, and how they are evaluated and audited are all absolutely critical to this policy working in the public interest. This bill also adds meaningful public accountability and transparency tools that the Australian bill lacked.

This brings me to my last point. The fact that this bill has improved materially on the Australian model has significantly increased the likelihood that other countries—such as the U.K., Germany, South Africa and maybe even the U.S.—will very soon adopt a similar model. It is this likelihood, not of Canadian implementation but of its global spread, that I think has shaped the character of the platforms’ response to this bill.

Google has every right to lobby for their interests, but their strategy in this case has sought to divide news organizations, parliamentarians and Canadians. I hate that journalist friends from small and large organizations alike are being pitted against one another. Facebook’s threat to turn off access to reliable information is, to me, revealing about their place in our democratic society. I hope that it is being treated with the seriousness it warrants at the highest levels of the Canadian and U.S. governments.

With all of this said, this bill is not perfect and it involves difficult trade-offs. I would suggest the committee ask four questions about it.

First, how can this bill make the terms of deals as maximally transparent as legally possible? I know there are real limits to what can be shared publicly, but the regulator should report as much as possible and as regularly as possible.

Second, how can the bill be maximally inclusive while ensuring the journalistic integrity of recipients? Making the bill more restrictive, as Google has proposed, would exclude smaller publishers. Making the requirements too lenient could lead to the inclusion of non-journalistic sites.

Third, how can this bill ensure that platforms are incentivized to promote journalistic content and penalize harmful content, and not the inverse? Clarity around non-discrimination is a fairly easy fix.

Finally, I think it is reasonable to ask whether this bill is suitably flexible and amenable to future and certain changes in the economics both of the platforms and of the news industry. No journalism policy, in my view, should be designed to be permanent, but should instead aspire to be no longer necessary.

I'm happy to share more detailed amendments in the spirit of these four questions. Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Dr. Owen.

I now move to Dr. Geist, Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Geist, you have five minutes, please.

[Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Michael Geist. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa, appearing in a personal capacity, representing only my own views.

Thanks to the committee for this unexpected opportunity to speak again about Bill C-18, particularly following some of the technical challenges I faced during a prior appearance.

I'd like to focus my remarks on why I think the bill mandates payment for links, and why I think that creates a threat to freedom of expression. Before doing so, let me highlight several additional concerns I'd be happy to address in further detail during the question period.

First, Bill C-18's eligibility criteria are deeply flawed. I think everyone's aware, and I think you've already heard, that the current rules may exclude some small news outlets. Beyond that, the dominance of broadcasters in the system, notably companies such as Bell and the CBC, I believe runs counter to the professed goal of the bill supporting local independent news. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that more than 75% of the revenues will go to these companies. This is despite limited tangible connection between links and radio stations and that CBC news content, I think, is a public good for which facilitating access should be encouraged.

Second, many of the eligible news outlets will not be subject to journalistic standards under this bill. Unlike the QCJO model, which features detailed rules to ensure appropriate standards before tax support is available, Bill C-18 allows other news outlets, including foreign outlets, to qualify without similar standards, risking low-quality journalism.

Third, Bill C-18 violates copyright norms by suspending “limitations and exceptions” from the bargaining process in clause 24. This runs counter to the foundation of Canadian copyright law and may violate article 10(1) of the Berne Convention, which has a mandatory right of quotation that expressly includes news articles.

Fourth, Bill C-18 establishes final offer arbitration, yet still intervenes in the process by allowing the panel to reject final offers. That upends the entire purpose of the model, which is designed to encourage best offers by both sides.

Fifth, I think it's important to note that the government's existing policies with tax support may be working. Minister Rodriguez talked about over 400 news outlets having closed since 2008, but neglected to mention the same report found over 200 new news outlets opening in the same period, and that there have been no net new losses over nearly the last two years.

There are other concerns, but I want to use my remaining time to focus on what I think is the biggest issue—mandated payments for links.

The definition of facilitating “access to the news content” in subclause 2(2), upon which this system is based, includes a breathtakingly broad definition that clearly includes links, aggregation, and even indexing.

The inclusion of links is not in doubt. Minister Rodriguez has talked about the value of links. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, when they appeared before this committee, talked about the value of links, saying “the whole purpose of why we're here and what we're talking about with Bill C-18” had to do with value of links. And even earlier this week, Mr. Coteau said that he found it astonishing that some argue that if you click on a Twitter link there is no value.

The Supreme Court of Canada has warned that creating liability for links could impair the way the Internet functions, yet payments for links are at the core of this bill. It doesn't matter if it is an aggregate charge for all links or a per-link fee; the harm is the same.

Bill C-18 not only requires payment for links, but it says that expression with links is not equal. Links to news content from sources such as Bell or the CBC are viewed as compensable, but similar links to news content from small media outlets are not.

Further, the bill effectively says that whether compensation is due also depends on where the expression occurs, since it mandates that certain venues pay to allow their users to express themselves. Post a link to a Globe and Mail news article on Facebook, and the bill says there is value that should be compensated; post the same link on Twitter, as Mr. Coteau noted, and the bill says it doesn't.

Aside from the obvious unfairness, the broader implications of this policy, I think, are even more troubling. Once the law says that some platforms must pay to permit expression, the same principle can be applied to other policy objectives, and the entire foundation for sharing information online is placed at risk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

To be clear, helping journalism is important, but Bill C-18’s dangerous approach ascribes value to links where there isn’t any, regulates which platforms must pay in order to permit expression from their users and dictates which sources are entitled to compensation. There are better ways to do this, including the fund model that has been supported by some of today’s panellists in the past.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Dr. Geist.

I now go to the question and answer segment.

The first round is a six-minute round. I would like to warn you that the six minutes include the question and the answer, so can everyone be as brief and to the point as possible?

I will begin this round with the Conservative Party, Kevin Waugh.

Kevin, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses, not only today's but those from the weeks in which we have been discussing Bill C-18. This is the last day that we will have witnesses come to our committee. I want to thank those who have forwarded amendments, because today is the last day that we can have amendments ready, as in two weeks' time we will be going through the amendments here in the heritage committee.

I just want to clarify this and actually state it on the record, Madam Chair. I want to be clear here that over the last couple of months Conservatives have had a number of problems with Bill C-18 and we've expressed them.

I also want to say, Madam Chair, that we support the principle of requiring the web giants to pay more to compensate Canadian news media, particularly the struggling local newspapers throughout this country. That is why, on this side, we invited the Saskatchewan newspapers association. That's why we also had the Alberta news association come here, which said that 50% of their membership in Alberta would not qualify. I knew, because of my province, that up to 70% to 80% of my province would not qualify for Bill C-18.

I am going to quote Marie Woolf, who did a fabulous job yesterday in The Globe and Mail in pointing to one of the errors. The Davidson Leader newspaper sold a couple of years ago for one dollar. That's one dollar. She did a story with Dan Senick, who bought it. They have a subscription of 60% to the Davidson Leader newspaper. Everybody wants to find out who died, unfortunately, and the obits are number one in that newspaper. They also put that on Facebook, which should be paying for that. l just wanted to say that I was very happy with that article.

Everybody was quoted yesterday: the Liberals, the NDP and me. It's true: We're really worried about the state of local journalism in rural Canada, not just in Saskatchewan or Alberta but throughout this country.

Let's start. I think I'm going to start with the National Ethnic Press and Media Council.

It's the first time we've had you in front of us, Maria. This is a developing one. We know the Liberals want to have massive, robust immigration. You know, sometimes the local media in our country take a while to catch up to ethnic media who have people coming into this country.

How are you going to deal with Bill C-18? How is your industry going to catch up and make sure that new people coming into this country in fact get the message from your membership? Can you explain that?

[Maria Saras-Voutsinas]

Thank you for the question.

Well, as it stands, we have been around. We are considered legacy media. My members have been around for 25, 50 or over 70 years. Very specific community outreach has always been the case. We have newer members who are starting outlets as well and are getting mentorship from the older outlets that have been around forever.

We are there. We are on top of it. We have over 800 members across this country. It has been wonderful, and I'm proud to see that we have made it this far.

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

Dr. Geist, I had flagged a long time ago, along with you, how the huge three of Bell, Rogers and the CBC public broadcaster have been taking a lot of the money. It was verified by the Parliamentary Budget Officer: Nearly 75% of the money that will become available through Google and Facebook/Meta will in fact go to the big industry players.

I am very concerned. My colleague Martin Shields and I have talked about the arbitration, and that these little newspapers in Canada really have no means of fighting when they get to the table—if they in fact do get to the table—with these giants. Could you give your thoughts on that? You have been very opinionated, I would say, on the three, along with me. I just want you to back me up a little bit, if you don't mind.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

I have been vocal and I have to say that I actually thought the Parliamentary Budget Officer's data frankly took me by surprise. It wasn't included in the initial report. It only came a little while later in a link to an Excel spreadsheet. I think it took a lot of people by surprise to learn that slightly over three quarters of the money, by their estimate, would go to large broadcasters. I think a big chunk of that may well be from radio stations, which many of these broadcasters have. I must admit I don't see the clear link between radio stations and what someone may post to Facebook or what we see in Google News. Frankly, it just typically never even appears in that context, so it's not clear to me what's being compensated.

With respect to the CBC, I like the CBC. I've long been an advocate—