Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's good to see you in the chair with us.
I disagreed with the form, the content, of the CPC amendment. I did agree with the thrust of Mrs. Thomas's argument, which is that we need to make sure there are very clear criteria in terms of granting exemptions.
On amendment NDP-4, you'll recall that our testimony with respect to any independent online news publishers of Canada was very clear in this respect. The current criteria for laying out exemptions are too vague and really leave the door open for big tech to push hard for an exemption when they haven't completed negotiations.
What amendment NDP-4 proposes is that clause 11 would be amended to ensure that deals must be made with all eligible news organizations before the platforms would be granted an exemption. That would ensure, with the window of opportunity that's provided, that eligible news organizations can identify themselves and that big tech does have to make that negotiation.
Then Mrs. Thomas asked the rhetorical questions about ethnic media, small media and those that big tech may not choose to negotiate with. Amendment NDP-4 resolves that question by ensuring that all of the eligible news organizations need to have those agreements before big tech can apply for the exemption. Hopefully it will receive support from all four corners of this committee and it will help to tighten the rules around exemptions.