Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 28th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting No. 67 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of Thursday, June 23, 2022.

While public health authorities and the Board of Internal Economy no longer require mask-wearing indoors or on the precinct, masks and respirators are still excellent tools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases, so mask-wearing is strongly encouraged.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants of this meeting that screenshots are not allowed. Taking photos of your screen is not permitted. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

I call this meeting today pursuant to Standing Order 106(4) to discuss a request to undertake a study of the censoring of news content by Google. As required, the 106(4) request has the signatures of six members.

We will now begin by opening the floor to the members who have submitted the request for this meeting, beginning with Chris Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Chris.

I will now open debate on this. I notice that Martin has his hand up.

Go ahead, Martin.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Obviously, I fully agree with the process outlined in the motion. However, I would like to make two minor corrections to the French version. They don’t necessarily change the meaning of the text; the goal is to perfect its translation.

The first correction is in the second paragraph, where we ask that "the Committee summon Kent Walker” and others to testify, “de témoigner pour une réunion.” We can summon a person to testify, “à témoigner“, or to give testimony, “pour témoigner“, but not “de témoigner.” So that correction must be made.

The other little correction is a clarification. Where the motion asks for “toutes les communications internes ou externes (y compris, mais sans s’y limiter, les courriels, les textes ou d’autres formes de messages)" I propose "messages textes" instead to be clear that we are talking about text messages and not messages in general.

For the rest, I fully support my colleague’s proposed motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Peter.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I fully support the clarifications Mr. Champoux wants to make in the French text.

I also support the motion. I think it’s going in the right direction of what we must do as the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

What Google has done is perplexing. When it saw how things backfired in Australia around the reaction of big tech....

It is perplexing that Google would do something—

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I raise a point of order, Madam Chair.

Mr. Julian, I am very sorry to interrupt you, but I’m told that the meeting is not being broadcast on ParlVU.

Mr. Clerk, can you check to see if the problem is solved?

Wait, I read that it’s been solved. It took a little time before it resolved, but everything seems to be working now. Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

I am very sorry, Mr. Julian.

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

No problem, Mr. Champoux.

That said, I’d like to ask the clerk if the meeting was broadcast from the beginning.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michael MacPherson]

Yes, but the broadcast was not fully live. There was a delay of about 90 seconds.

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

So that means the broadcast included Mr. Bittle tabling his motion and making his corresponding statement. That is good, because it’s important for the public to be aware of what we are discussing.

I was just saying that Google's reaction of attempted intimidation is perplexing, because it didn't work in Australia. Big tech has a social responsibility, and big tech has the responsibility to obey the laws of the country in which it is reaping huge profits.

Google's attempt to try to censor and block certain sites is backfiring. I've heard more negative comments about Google in the last few days than I've heard in many years. It was an irresponsible act, and it is time that Google executives be brought forward to explain their actions.

This committee has been a committee that has functioned on consensus and done remarkable work. We saw that with Hockey Canada. It was a similar situation, with an institution that was not prepared to act in a responsible way. We've seen some impacts even with our invitation summons to Canada Soccer. For Google to come forward and explain itself to Canadians is something that this committee, I believe, should be looking at passing unanimously. This would show that same force of will that it has, as a committee of parliamentarians, to ensure that massive companies like Google are held to account for their actions.

I deplore its actions. I think Google has acted in a very irresponsible way. I support this motion as a way of allowing us to question it on behalf of Canadians for the actions it's taken over the last few weeks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

I don't see any other hands up.

I'm sorry, Ms. Thomas. Go ahead.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I guess I'm just wanting to check in. I have an amendment that I would like to propose. I stand to be corrected, but I believe Mr. Champoux also put a couple of minor amendments on the table. Is that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

No, he didn't. He just corrected the translation.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

There is no vote needed with regard to what Mr. Champoux is putting forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

No.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. That's great.

The dialogue I would wish to have with my colleagues is just around the language of the motion. Right now it reads that we would summon these individuals to come to committee. On the one hand, I understand the urgency. I think there's a desire to have Google come for Monday.

Given that urgency, we're kind of skipping steps one and two and just going right to three, which is to summon rather than invite, but I wonder if that is how we want to conduct ourselves as a committee. It feels rather forceful, whereas I think Google has internal motivation and even external motivation, based on its business in Canada, to show up. I wonder if there would be appetite around the table to amend the language, to simply say we would invite or request that Google come for Monday's meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Are there any comments on Mrs. Thomas's comment?

Go ahead, Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I appreciate very much Rachael's comment. In general, that would be the approach we would all take—we would first invite—but because of the timing and the desire to have them here next Monday, I don't believe we would have the option of inviting and then, if they didn't come, holding a second meeting to summon them in time to have them here on Monday.

I also—

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Housefather, would it be possible for you to lower your microphone a little?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I am sorry, Mr. Champoux.

I hope that’s better now.

I don't think we would have time to summon them again, and that is why I believe it would be better to summon them at the beginning.

I also am concerned that we have specifically requested three people from Google, and if we simply “invited” them, I would not be surprised if Google sent only Canadian representatives and did not send people from head office, where I think the decisions are actually made.

I entirely respect the request made by my colleague, Mrs. Thomas. I just think that because of timing and the extraordinary nature of things, I would rather summon them to begin with, because I think otherwise we will not have them on Monday for sure. I want to make sure we have them on Monday, but I respect the request. In a normal context, I would have agreed with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Anthony.

Is Martin's hand up?

Martin.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes, but Mr. Julian raised his hand before me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry. Peter.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Champoux.

I also think Ms. Thomas raised an important point. Given the deadline, however, I agree we have no other choice but to summon witnesses immediately, for the reasons Mr. Housefather just gave. It seems to me that it's the logical way to proceed, although what Ms. Thomas just said on the matter really resonates with me.

I want to raise one point. Mr. Bittle may want to speak to this, or he may want to accept this as a friendly amendment. We do not have on the list Sundar Pichai, who is the chief executive officer of Google. I am wondering if Mr. Bittle would accept that fourth name—since he is an important part of the Google team—as part of his motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Chris.