Thank you.
I have proposed this amendment for exactly the reason Mr. Coteau is talking about. It is taxpayer dollars. Therefore, give it back to the taxpayer, and if Google can help facilitate that, great. If Facebook can help facilitate that, great. If Twitter can help, great. Whoever can help get that taxpayer-funded material back into the hands of the taxpayer, great. I'm not sure why we would want to hold that back. It's for the public good, so why the CBC would be scoped in with this legislation is beyond me.
The taxpayer is already on the hook for $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion with regard to CBC and making sure that news is produced and put out there. We should want that to be spread as widely as possible, but scoping the CBC in under this legislation means that their content could potentially be excluded from Facebook, let's say, if Facebook chooses not to participate in Bill C-18 and not to carry news anymore. That's a problem because taxpayers then are not able to access the media, the news they paid for.
Further to that, the entire purpose of Bill C-18 is to make up for lost ad revenue. This government in February of 2022 said that the CBC actually shouldn't be reliant on ad revenue and that it actually was against the public good, so this government committed to giving $400 million to the CBC in order to help them not be reliant on ad revenue.
If they're not supposed to be reliant on ad revenue, and that's the foundation that's being set by this government, then why are we are we scoping them into Bill C-18, where they can claim to be hard done by because they don't have ad revenue, even though this government says they shouldn't have ad revenue to begin with. Now they should be able to come to the bargaining table under Bill C-18 and enter into bargaining in order to make up for the lost ad revenue that this government says they shouldn't have to rely on to begin with. It just makes no sense.
The government is speaking out of both sides of its face by keeping this within the legislation. I just would ask, which one is it? Do we support that the taxpayer is putting out over $1 billion on the CBC and, therefore, should have access to the material, or should the CBC be scoped in this legislation and, therefore, withheld from some Canadians, potentially?
The point is that this is the public broadcaster; the public paid for it. It's already been paid for, so why does further negotiation need to be made with big tech companies to get them to pay even more? The material's been paid for. It was paid for by the Canadian taxpayer. It's a done deal, so it's crazy to me.
When I look at the spending of the CBC as well, I see that more than $30 million was spent on retention bonuses alone during the pandemic—$30 million just on bonuses, just to retain. I could keep going down a long list of wasted spending by the CBC, and this is the organization that we think should have the ability to continue to enter into negotiations and take 75% to 80% of this money when combined with Bell and Rogers. That's crazy.
The CBC, which is already taxpayer-funded, is going to be able to elbow out the little guys and get more money because of this bill. Meanwhile, those small rural papers are out. This government made sure they're out because they made sure that there has to be at least two journalists. Ethnic media—they're out, but don't worry. CBC, with more than 1,000 employees—you're in. Already $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion of taxpayer money—no problem. We'll keep you.
That's shameful and incredibly disingenuous, especially when the minister brought out this bill saying that it was supposed to help out newspapers and keep them in business, and especially when it uses words like “sustainability”. It's crazy. The little guys are getting killed by this bill. It's shameful.