Evidence of meeting #52 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 journalism.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
2:45 p.m.
Media Sector Director, Unifor
Thank you.
Facebook and Google are global monopolies. As big as Rogers and Bell are, Facebook and Google still have to pay their fair share to support Canadian media.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much. I think that's the end of that round.
We'll go now to the final questioner.
For the Liberals, we have Chris Bittle for five minutes
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
I'd like to start with a comment.
We've been witnessing the Conservatives being cheerleaders for Facebook and being its PR team here in this committee. All of a sudden, today there's a slight change of tone that they support journalists, though now we hear that they do not support them if they work for CTV or if they work for Citytv. Mr. Waugh is agreeing with me...doesn't support journalists.
If you say one thing and mean something completely different, I guess I can't say what that is because it's unparliamentary, but this is truly shocking. The Conservatives continue to stand in the way. They don't care about journalism. They are ideologically opposed to legacy media in this country, despite the benefits and the importance it has in a democratic process.
We heard just a second ago about all of these newsrooms closing, and there's still a suggestion that they shouldn't get any money and that they shouldn't be benefiting from this legislation. Then, from another Conservative member, there was a suggestion that if someone received a grant, they should be disentitled to appear before this committee.
Dr. Geist received a SSHRC grant years ago. Does that disentitle him? No one from this side would ever suggest that. The Conservatives have no problem allowing witnesses who come here—one of whom lied to this committee—having received money from TikTok and Google. That's okay because they agree with them.
There has been witness after witness who has taken money from big tech and there have been no issue from the Conservative Party, which continues to cheerlead for big tech in this country. They are some of the largest foreign companies in the world. No other Conservative party in any country that I've been looking into, be it the United States or Australia, has been cheerleading the way the Conservative Party of Canada has. It's appalling.
I'll ask the first question of Mr. LaRose.
Across Canada we're seeing growing news deserts. I haven't seen any specific data on news loss in indigenous communities. I was wondering if you can tell us if that's the case.
2:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Dadan Sivunivut
Yes, certainly.
Some of the news organizations.... For example, at one of the organizations I represent, First Peoples Radio, we've had to lay off our reporters because of the loss of revenue from cutbacks in advertising and in other forms of support, which were minimal. We now have no reporters on staff. There are other, smaller publications that have tried to launch and haven't been able to maintain the course.
I don't have exact numbers because we really aren't structured in a way, as an organization, that would allow us to have such data handy, which is unfortunate because it would make for a stronger case here.
There have been other, smaller indigenous newspapers out west that have had to close because the advertising revenue had totally dried up and the federal advertising that they used to count on to survive dried up as well.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Thank you so much.
I would like to ask a question of Dr. Owen.
Is it fair to say that currently platforms are choosing winners and losers, especially as they set the terms of licensing agreements?
2:50 p.m.
Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communication, Associate Professor, and Director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, McGill University, As an Individual
They're in negotiation of the terms of those agreements with the publishers that they have entered into agreements with, so I don't think they're necessarily setting those terms, but they're certainly choosing the organizations with which they enter into those agreements.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Can you speak to how Bill C-18 fundamentally changes this power imbalance by leaving the determination of fair value to the negotiation?
2:50 p.m.
Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communication, Associate Professor, and Director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, McGill University, As an Individual
It does do that. It provides a regulatory oversight to that process itself, but it also allows any eligible news organization to benefit from similar kind of deals as their competitors, which in my view makes the journalism market more equitable while still providing that line of funding for journalism organizations from platforms.
To me, you continue to get the flow of funds and they get distributed more equitably across journalism organizations, which are competing against each other. We should want that market to be fair.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Thanks so much, Madam Chair.
I don't think I can get another question in, so I would just use my last few seconds to say that I hope we really have turned a corner in this debate. We've heard a change of tone from the Conservatives and I hope that continues on. I hope there's some real action on helping journalists because that has been completely absent, except for a few words today.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Mr. Bittle.
Now, this is the end of our round. It's going to be the end of the meeting. I want to thank the witnesses for coming and answering some pretty hard questions. I'm sorry if I pushed you to be concise, but we wanted to get as many questions and answers in as possible to inform this committee. I want to thank you all very much for attending and for actually taking, as I said, some pretty difficult questions.
Before I adjourn, I just want to remind the committee that the deadline—as was unanimously approved by this committee—for amendments for Bill C-18 is at 5 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. That's just a reminder. We will move to clause-by-clause on Friday, November 18.
Thank you all very much.
This meeting is adjourned.
