Evidence of meeting #70 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agreement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you.
Is there anyone opposing this motion? If so....
If there's no one on the floor, Clerk, I think the motion passes unanimously.
12:45 p.m.
The Clerk
Monsieur Lemire has his hand up.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I just want to ask if the Committee prefers holding two separate meetings, or if there is an opportunity to address both topics in a single two-hour meeting. I'm simply asking the question. I'm not a permanent member of the Committee, but in my opinion, one two-hour meeting might be sufficient to address both topics.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Because the motion on the floor is for four hours—two hours each—are you moving that we then go to two hours in total, with one hour each, Mr. Lemire?
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
All right. Is there anyone opposing that? If there's no opposition, I will call the question.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
I'm sorry, Chair. On a point of order, I would seek clarification from the clerk. One motion has already passed, so I'm curious, then, if this motion were to be amended.... The other one still passed, so then you would have—
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
Right. Okay. You still have the first motion, and you have the second motion amended, is my understanding.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I don't know if it's been amended. I don't know if everyone is unanimously supportive of the amendment or not.
Can I please get an indication? I see no hands up, so obviously....
12:50 p.m.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, maybe I can clarify.
I believe there's a motion to amend the second motion in such a manner that it would be included as part of the motion that was already adopted—
12:50 p.m.
The Clerk
—so that both of these would happen on the same day.
Ms. Gladu has her hand up.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
If this amended motion should pass, my concern is this. Whenever we ask the ministers, they always say that they're going to come for two hours and then, at the last minute, they say, no, you're going to get an hour with the minister and an hour with department officials. Let's just be clear that we really need to have the minister for two hours if we're going to combine these things.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. Gladu.
Is there any further discussion?
If not, I will call the question on the amendment and on the motion as amended. It looks like this is unanimous.
(Amendment agreed to)
(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
All right. This motion passes as amended....
Yes, Mr. Housefather. Please go ahead.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you.
The motion has passed and I'm going to another motion now, Madam Chair, if that's okay.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Yes, thank you. Let me just finish saying that the motion has passed unanimously.
Thank you. It's for the record.
Go ahead, Mr. Housefather.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you so much.
Madam Chair, I want to put forward the motion. It's a very long motion, so I'm not going to read the entire thing. It's the motion I gave notice of yesterday and that the clerk has circulated.
In the French version, second bullet, the words “et ont reçu l'ordre de comparaître devant le Comité“ should be deleted. I have already spoken to the Clerk about it. The rest is correct.
Basically, Madam Chair, we all saw what happened last week when Ms. Geremia was here. I don't think any of us were satisfied with the answers she gave, although I very much appreciate that Google has now agreed to send its two top American executives to us.
This motion is similar to what my colleague, Mr. Bittle, put forward. It's a motion about international ways that large companies are seeking to subvert parliamentary accountability. We're going to look at current and ongoing use of intimidation not only in Canada but around the world. We're going to learn from what happens around the world.
One meeting would be with Meta, and we would summon Mark Zuckerberg, Nick Clegg and Chris Saniga.
We would ask Meta to provide the documents that Google was asked to provide earlier, as set out in (i) and (ii), but we will not ask for third party documents. Parts of what were in Mr. Bittle's motion, (iii) and (iv), are gone. I've revised part two of his motion because Google has accepted to appear, so there's no need to order them to appear again. We're simply recognizing that Mr. Walker and Mr. Gingras will appear here for two hours at a publicly televised meeting and that it will be incorporated into the study.
We would hear from government officials, civil society and experts from other jurisdictions, like the European Union, Australia and also the United States, that have experienced tactics that are similar to what has happened in Canada. We note that the Department of Justice in the United States is taking antitrust actions against Google.
One meeting would be allocated to the study of tech giants' abuse of power around the world. We'd hear from domestic and international antitrust and competition experts.
Basically, this is a motion that I think would enable us to delve deeper into the international field. This is not only about Bill C-18. I think we can agree or disagree with Bill C-18 and still support this motion, because this motion speaks to larger issues of how very large companies use anti-competitive monopolistic tactics to seek to influence parliaments to meet their desires. This is not whether Bill C-18 is the right approach or the wrong approach. It's about how tech companies are tackling it and other similar laws around the world.
I hope we can find unanimous support for that motion.
I'm happy to listen to my colleagues.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Mr. Housefather.
We have Ms. Gladu, then Mrs. Thomas and then Mr. Lemire.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I have a couple of concerns about this motion.
First, we're asking for a huge number of these internal documents, memos, etc., to be delivered to the committee no later than March 31. About 90 days ago, I submitted an Order Paper question to the government, trying to get a breakdown of the safe sport calls by organization. If they can't do that in 90 days, I don't know how these people are supposed to get the documents in this time frame. I think we asked for documents from Google previously and the same thing happened. They didn't deliver them. I don't know if that timeline is realistic.
That would be my first objection.