Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 6th, 2022

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I'm fine with many more “ors”, if more “ors” means a speedy passage.

Where would that second “or” go? That is the question.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I would say that after (iii), it would be “or (c)”.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Okay, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

With all those “ors” in the water, Mr. Julian, I'm going to call the question.

Is anyone opposed to this amendment with the “or”?

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

All the “ors” are rowing in the same direction on this one, Madam Chair.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

(Subamendment agreed to)

(Amendment as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Now we go to NDP-19.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I'm pleased to report, Madam Chair, that I will be withdrawing NDP-19, given the passage of other amendments earlier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

As you well know, Mr. Julian, there seems to be an NDP-19.1. Is that also withdrawn?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Chair, I moved that as an amendment to BQ-4 and it was defeated by a very thin margin, so if members of the committee want to reconsider it, we certainly could.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Julian. NDP-19 is withdrawn.

Now, shall clause 27 carry?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

I believe there's one more amendment in this clause.

[Philippe Méla]

Madam Chair, you have my apologies for that.

I sent you an email earlier, before the committee started. Mr. Housefather's amendment is not in your notes, but it's coming exactly at this point in time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go into my.... I didn't receive it. I was busy trying to get in to the meeting, but thank you.

Mr. Housefather, is it a new amendment?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Chair, it was the amendment that was sent during the last meeting. It was circulated by the clerk last meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Would you like to read it again, Mr. Housefather?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Sure, if you feel that I need to read it into the record. It is that Bill C-18 in clause 27 be amended by adding after line 20 on page 10 the following:

(3.1) Despite subsection (1), a news business might not be designated as eligible if

(a) the news business is the subject of sanctions under the United Nations Act, the Special Economic Measures Act or the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), or is owned or controlled by an individual or entity that is the subject of such sanctions; or

(b) the news business has its headquarters in a foreign state, as defined in section 2 of the Special Economic Measures Act, that is the subject of measures under an Act referred to in paragraph (a).

Then subclause (3.2) would be after that, which says:

(3.2) If a news business described in paragraph (3.1)(a) or (b) was previously designated as eligible, the Commission must, by order, revoke the order designating the business as eligible.

Madam Chair, I will just explain it.

I think the previous Conservative amendment had some very good ideas, but I just didn't agree with the whole motion. I do believe that if you have an American owner of a small Canadian newspaper with four journalists and they're covering local Canadian news, I don't see why it would be excluded. Even if The Wall Street Journal has a Canadian bureau, why would it be excluded for the purposes of the cost of the Canadian bureau?

However, we don't want Iranian, Russian or Chinese.... To me, if there's a country that is sanctioned or if there are people who are sanctioned, then I think they should not be eligible. I tried to draft it that way using existing federal legislation that specifies people, countries, actors and organizations.

I'm happy to entertain amendments if people can improve it, but that's sort of how I was looking at it. It's to get rid of the bad actors, but not to get rid of potentially eligible or fairly eligible news businesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Anthony.

I would like to let the committee know that we have 12 minutes left. Would you like to suspend now to vote?

We can't vote because the bells are still going. I'm sorry.

Let's continue.

Go ahead, Peter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank Mr. Housefather for his always valuable work.

I do have a question for the officials. I certainly understand the intent of the amendment and I support the intent. I'm wondering to what extent this may have unintended consequences.

I'll give you the specific example of occupied Ukraine. We have entities that are sanctioned by Canada in areas of Ukraine that are currently occupied by the Russian invasion, so I'm wondering to what extent it is possible that Ukrainian media might be caught in an unintended way by this.

My second question is around non-state media. If sanctions are applied to a state.... Paragraph (b) talks about news business having its “headquarters in a foreign state”. To what extent might that have an impact?

I'm thinking about, for example, media that is active journalism but headquartered in a state that is sanctioned—even though the media's independent. Hong Kong comes to mind, though of course the independent media has now been suppressed. To what extent might it have an impact on that media as well?

Again, I absolutely support the intent of this amendment. I just want to make sure there are no unintended consequences. If there are, we can perhaps have a subamendment that would address that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Perhaps someone would like to comment on that.

Anthony, would you like to comment on that since it's your amendment?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I believe Mr. Ripley was about to comment on it, if that's okay. I think it was a question for him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. It is a complex question.

Mr. Ripley, please comment.

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, MP Julian, for the question.

In reverse—on your second question—the provision as drafted has a degree of flexibility in it to recognize that there may be non-state entities that could still be sanctioned. Under paragraph (a) for example, you could still have the sanctioning of specific individuals or entities—news businesses—independent of where their headquarters are. Then paragraph (b) recognizes or is grounded in a question of where the headquarters are. My read is that there's a degree of flexibility there.

Just to give this committee an example, RT, Sputnik and certain other Russian media are currently specifically listed in the special economic measures sanctions. I don't have a non-state example for you, MP Julian.

With respect to your first question, we did have an opportunity to look into this. The way the sanctions are articulated is that they recognize that there are certain areas of Ukraine that are currently under Russian control, such as Crimea, so the sanctions are grounded in that territorial control of specific regions. Our read would be that, if you had a Ukrainian broadcaster, for example, operating in the free part of Ukraine, it would not be caught by that because the sanctions are quite specific that the only sanctioned entities are those based in or operating out of, for example, Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.

I would also just simply remind the committee that, in addition, you would have to meet the other criteria in clause 27 in order to be eligible in the first place. That includes operating here in Canada, having two journalists, etc. It's just a reminder that there also has to be that presence here in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Ripley.

Are there any further questions or discussion on this issue? Seeing none, I shall call the question.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 27 as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

(On clause 28)

Now we're going to go to clause 28. The first thing would be CPC-23. Now if CPC-23 is adopted, G-3 cannot be moved due to a line conflict. The adoption of CPC-23 would render G-6 and G-8 inadmissible, if moved, as they would be contrary to a previous decision by the committee as stated on page 771 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition.

The committee's decisions concerning a bill must be consistent with earlier decisions made by the committee. An amendment is accordingly out of order if it is contrary to or inconsistent with provisions of the bill that the committee has already agreed to, if it is inconsistent with a decision that the committee has made regarding a former amendment, or if it is governed by or dependent on amendments which have already been negativized.

This is clear to everyone. The ones I mentioned here, which are G-6 and G-8 are on page 82 and page 87, just to clarify in case you're wondering where those were.

At the moment, if CPC-23 is adopted, G-3 moves off the table.

Shall we begin? Let's see how many minutes we have on the vote. We have two minutes and 32 seconds before the bells. Did you want to try to go with CPC-23? No. Everyone wants to suspend, so we will suspend for about five minutes so that people can vote.