Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 29th, 2022

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm going to attempt to make as clear as possible my concern and the concern that I heard from other witnesses who came to the table.

I'm going to try my hand at a tangible example here. As Canadians right now we have the incredible ability to exchange ideas within public platforms or online platforms such as Facebook. It's this new form of a public square where ideas are exchanged and sometimes quotes are taken and expressed and entire news articles are sometimes posted. I recognize that if Facebook continues to allow articles to be posted, they will be declared a DNI and they will need to enter into negotiations.

Facebook has said that they may consider removing the ability of news to be shared on their platform so that they cannot be scoped into this legislation. If they were to make that decision and Canadians wanted to take a quote from a newspaper article and post that quote on their Facebook page as a small snippet, would Facebook be allowed to permit that without being captured by this legislation?

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

Thank you for the question, MP Thomas.

The concepts of “making available” or ”facilitating access to” are really intended, again, to.... The primary driver behind this bill, if we could go back to first principles, is recognizing that Canadians use these services in order to access news content. Primarily, it's that idea of facilitating access to it.

We've heard the debate around whether linking should be included or not, but the government's position is that you need to include it because, at its core, that is what it means to facilitate access to news content in the modern digital environment.

Regarding the example you give, in a context where Facebook has made the business decision to essentially prevent the ability of users to link to news articles but an individual is quoting from a particular news article without a link, no, I do not believe that would engage or trigger the application of the act..

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

But as soon as a link is included, then they would be scoped into this legislation.

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

From my perspective, the act of linking is a critical one. It boils down to the facilitation of access. Again, at the crux of this bill is a recognition that the ways that a significant number of Canadians navigate to news content is via social media services or via a search service, which involves clicking on the link. Yes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Then therefore a value is ascribed to that link.

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

The obligation, MP Thomas, is recognizing that there is value to facilitating access to that.

Again, the business model of these digital news intermediaries is, for the most part, dependent on the advertising market. As we previously talked about, it's in a context where the news businesses are relying on those platforms as distribution platforms and competing against them in the very same advertising market. Therefore, yes, there is value regarding the digital news intermediary occupying that kind of gateway function.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

For further clarification, without the link, is it your understanding that Bill C-18 would not give rise to or provide opportunity for Facebook, in this example, to be determined a DNI and therefore scoped in by the CRTC or even perhaps penalized by the CRTC?

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

It's a question of threshold, to a certain extent. I have described the concept of making news content available as the thing that triggers whether a digital news intermediary is actually caught by the obligation to bargain. Again, that's in recognition that they play that kind of gateway function to news content. That obviously has to be done in a meaningful way.

With the hypothetical case you put in which Facebook scrubs news content from news feeds, the question of an individual quoting a news article is not going to meet the threshold of there being value in that. Again, the premise of the bill is that the value lies in making news content available. Obviously, the situation you described is very limited in the kind of news content being made available, and there's nothing in the bill that's designed to restrict Canadians' ability to share a quote.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Then what is that threshold?

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

The—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

With all due respect, Mr. Ripley, my example with Facebook is more than just theory. It's potentially on the table, so for the sake of Canadians, I think the exchange of information and the public discourse that takes place there is an important question. Are Canadians going to be able to take a quotation from a news article and share it on Facebook, or will that not be permitted? What is that threshold?

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

Thank you, MP Thomas.

The way clause 6 is constructed, it talks about “a digital news intermediary if, having regard to the following factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses”, and then you have the three factors that we previously discussed.

For there to be a bargaining imbalance, news businesses' content has to be distributed across that platform. That's why Facebook and Meta have put forward that a decision they're contemplating is essentially removing themselves from that business by saying, “We will no longer be a distribution platform.” That's why my answer to you is that I find it hard to see how you meet the designation at clause 6 if Meta has chosen to remove itself from that business.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mrs. Thomas.

Seeing no other hands up, I'm going to call the question on amendment CPC-15.1

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Now we shall to go the question of.... That's interesting—I have an amendment CPC-15.2.

Go ahead, Marilyn.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Chair, amendment CPC-15.2 is—

[An hon. member]

I have a point of order.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Oh, she has the clauses to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, Marilyn. I messed that one up.

Shall clause 25 carry?

I think Mr. Julian is frozen.

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

He would vote in favour, not against.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is there some way we can get Mr. Julian's vote, please?

(Clause 25 agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4) [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Shall clause 26 carry?

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Should we pause and see if we can figure out how to get Mr. Julian back?

[An hon. member]

He's probably going to try to call back in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Can we wait until he gets in? He has to vote.

[An hon. member]

It's the fair thing to do, the honourable thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Shall we suspend, then, for a little bit until we see whether we can get hold of Peter?

There we are.

Shall clause 26 carry?