Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
In seeing the story that the Canadian Press released, it's troubling that Google was doing this in secret to begin with but was caught by the press—they asked the questions, and we found the answers. It's especially troubling in light of what Facebook did in Australia. It was an intimidation tactic by Facebook against the Australian people and an intimidation tactic against their Parliament to see if it would reverse what was going on there, which was similar to legislation we passed.
It's important for Parliament to take a look and see what Google is doing. I don't particularly like its track record on this. It's a company that has not necessarily been responsible but at the same time does not want any regulations.
I have a motion. We have provided it to the other parties, and I believe it has been emailed out to everyone. I will read it out:
That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study into the activities of Google in reaction to Bill C-18, including but not limited to the decision by Google to test the blocking of news sites in Canada;
That pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a) the committee summon Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer of Alphabet Inc., Richard Gingras, vice-president of news at Google, and Sabrina Geremia, VP and country manager for Google in Canada to testify for a two-hour meeting on Monday, March 6, 2023;
That the committee order Alphabet Inc. and all of its subsidiaries, including Google, to provide:
(a) any and all internal or external communications (including but not limited to emails, texts or other forms of messages) related to actions it planned to take or options it considered in relation to Canada's Bill C-18, including but not limited to those in relation to the testing of the blocking of news sites in Canada;
(b) the list of all news organizations blocked by Google, in Canada; and
That this be delivered to the committee no later than 5:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 2.
Again, I won't go on too long. I appreciate the feedback from opposition members on this motion. It's something we need to look into. It's something that is troubling. We've seen these actions by foreign tech giants around the world. Again, it's important that the Canadian Parliament look into it and that we stand up for Canadians.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.