Canadian Heritage Committee on March 20th, 2023

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

I want to acknowledge the fact that Mr. Bittle put forward a motion and it's now been replaced by this motion from Mr. Housefather. This motion is much more appropriate, so I appreciate that, but I still have some concerns. No doubt about it, Meta and Google certainly are throwing around their weight, and that is concerning. I think the Canadian public is somewhat concerned, and I think Parliament is concerned.

I also have a concern, though, with regard to this motion and the precedent it sets. Under (I)(b)(i), it is compelling that:

Meta Platforms Inc., and its subsidiaries, be ordered to provide: (i) All internal and 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 or is considering in relation to all Canadian regulation since January 1, 2020, including that under Bill C-18, including but not limited to, restricting the sharing of news content on its platforms in Canada.

This reaches beyond the scope of looking at Meta and its decisions with regard to Bill C-18. This is looking at its response to any government regulation or legislation.

I'd be curious as to Mr. Housefather's motivation behind that. I would also be curious with regard to the date, January 1, 2020. Normally, a date following an election would be chosen, or a date when the legislation, Bill C-18, was brought forward, which was April 2022. This date of January 1, 2020.... I'm curious as to why that one has been chosen.

Thirdly, if we're asking for “all internal and external communications”, Meta could have been contacted, let's say, by a content creator or by a news outlet with regard to how Meta is going to respond to the government legislation. That correspondence, to my understanding, is scoped into this, so I am very concerned with regard to the implications this has for privacy and freedom of speech issues.

Furthermore, this will have an incredibly chilling effect, not only on the Canadian public, knowing that their words could be summoned, but also on businesses in Canada. Businesses need to be able to have conversations with regard to how they're going to respond to government legislation, and they should know that they're able to have those conversations internally without government surveillance. As soon as we start sending the message that it's okay for government to surveil or demand these types of communications, I think it puts a huge chilling effect on investment in this country, and I am very concerned about the precedent that sets for our nation going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas.

Mr. Housefather, would you like to respond? She's asking a question based on your motion, so can you clarify?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Absolutely. I'm happy to try to answer these questions.

The first thing, with respect to you, Ms. Gladu, and the documents, in terms of delivery date, I'm flexible if somebody wants to put a later date in terms of delivery of the documents. I think it would be useful to get them during the course of the study. I think an Order Paper question is different from at committees, where we have asked the government to deliver documents, and when the government delivers, it has to be translated, which usually causes the delays. Here, we're not asking them to translate. They would just provide us whatever they have, and we would have to translate it. I don't think March 31 is out of range, but I'm happy if you feel you want to propose an alternative date, like April 15 or April...I don't mind.

On Mrs. Thomas's points, it's understandable. The first one relates to the scope of what we're asking for. I think this is equivalent to what we asked of Google, and we all unanimously approved the Google motion. If there's something in there that is beyond Google....

The reason I put January 1, 2020 as a date was that the Google motion had no date, it just said anything going back. I thought that you shouldn't have to go further back than that, and I arbitrarily put January 1, 2020, which I think was the first year we started talking about a bill like Bill C-18. Again, if there's an alternative date somebody wants to propose, I don't have a major issue with an alternative date. If it's January 1, 2021, versus January 1, 2020, I don't think I have a major issue with that.

Finally, in terms of the chilling effect, I think parliamentary committees frequently summon documents like this. Look at what was summoned from the WE Charity; look at what has been summoned from McKinsey at the OGGO committee; look at what we've summoned from sports federations, although they're a bit different. I don't think this is chilling, because again, number one, if there was a litigation—for example, the United States is taking antitrust action against Google—all these would have to be produced in the context of the litigation. Parliamentary committees in other countries, such as the United States, would summon documents like these relatively frequently, so I would again acknowledge there may be solicitor-client privilege and attorney-client privilege and litigation privilege that might attach, and if Google or Facebook have those issues, they'll identify them, and I think the committee will be flexible in addressing them.

Since this was the language largely approved for Google, hopefully that's okay. I didn't want to go further and I didn't want to go less, but again, I'm open to talking to you about wording and being flexible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Ms. Thomas, your hand is up.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

My return comment—and I understand what you explained and I appreciate that—is that, again, there are individual Canadians who will get scoped into this, and I do not believe that is the road we want to go down. Correspondence with any individual who may have contacted Meta with regard to Bill C-18 or any other government legislation—because it says “internal and external”—must be made known to this committee. I think that's a very dangerous precedent.

I would perhaps recommend, then, that we exclude communications that were with individuals or individual entities outside of Meta. I don't know why we would need to include that.

The other amendment I would move is that we would change the date from January 1, 2020, which seems arbitrary, and actually pick one that makes more sense: April 5, 2022, which is when Bill C-18 was tabled in the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas.

Is that an official amendment, Ms. Thomas? Are you amending this motion?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Yes. To be clear, I would offer those as amendments: that private communications from individuals would not be scoped in, and also that the date would be April 5, 2022, which is when Bill C-18 was tabled in the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Chair, on a point of order, can I make a friendly suggestion to my colleague?

I think what she wants to do is strike the words “and external”. I think the way it was worded would be very confusing. I think what she's proposing—and I'm not saying I agree, but I'm going to think about it—is to strike the two words. It would be “all internal communications” and strike the words “and external” and then change the date. I think that's what she's seeking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes. I think that's what she's seeking.

Is there any further discussion on the amendment that is proposed, which is changing the date and also removing the word “external”?

[The Clerk]

We have Mr. Lemire and then Madam Gladu.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Lemire, go ahead.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

It's really the motion in general that I wanted to address. So we can finish the current debate and I will speak afterwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Ms. Gladu, go ahead.

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

Mrs. Thomas actually suggested the amendment I was going to make. The only other one I was thinking about was amending when the documents are due, but let's just leave it where it is. They'll comply as soon as they can, basically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to see if there's anything new to discuss. We have an amendment on the floor.

Mr. Bittle, go ahead.

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

Thank you so much.

There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation coming from the tech giants through their intermediaries. We're addressing that here.

Who are we looking to protect here? We've already heard from one witness who acknowledged being an unregistered lobbyist, and that's what we're looking to protect. We're not looking at people who have engaged in friendly disagreements with the government. We're looking at people who have engaged in potential violations of the Lobbying Act, and that's what Mrs. Thomas's amendment is looking to protect.

This entire study is based on shady practices by Google and Facebook around the world. We're going to say, well, let's not look beyond the four walls of Google headquarters, where they've entered into communications potentially—maybe they haven't—with other individuals. That's the nature of it, and that's what we're looking for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Ms. Thomas, your hand is up.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I would clarify that Mr. Housefather is correct that what I would be looking to do is to simply make sure that individuals are not scoped into this legislation and that the charter rights of individual Canadians are respected. This means it is not up to the government to surveil what they have said.

In terms of Meta and Google, looking at their internal emails and anything of that nature, if that's what Mr. Bittle, Mr. Housefather and other members wish to do, I suppose that's their prerogative. However, at the end of the day, I would plead with the committee to please not put individual Canadians in a place where their communications, which were believed to be private, will now be subject to government surveillance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas.

Unless there is a new argument coming up, I would like to call the vote. Is there anybody opposed to calling the vote with regard to the amendment?

Yes, go ahead on the amendment, Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Chair, I have just one thing. I finally found the motion with Google, and it does speak to any and all internal or external communications, including but not limited to emails, texts or other forms of messages, and we did adopt that unanimously as a committee.

Again, I understand what Ms. Thomas is saying, and in order to get at unanimity...but I don't think that's what this means.

We removed all the third party stuff that was requested. This would be that “all internal and external communications” would mean communications related to actions it planned to take or considered taking on Canadian regulations. It's a back-and-forth with perhaps their publicist and others. Is she basically saying that she only wants to exempt individuals, or that she wants to exempt any communication with anybody?

Maybe we want to say “all internal and external communications, save and except direct communications with individual Canadians back and forth”, if that's what she wants to say, but we keep corporations and their external communications with corporations. Maybe that's a way to do it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes, go ahead, Ms. Thomas.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Housefather, I still see a bit of danger in that, but if that is the amendment that the committee would receive, then I will accept that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now the amendment is still on the floor, albeit a little changed. Is there anybody on the floor who is speaking against the amendment that Ms. Thomas has put on the floor?

(Amendment agreed to)

Ms. Thomas's amendment as clarified is passed.

The vote is on the amended motion.

Is there anyone opposed to the amended motion?

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I wanted to remind you earlier that the whole world is watching how we respond to such a scare tactic. We saw what happened in Australia and the precedent that was set. So I applaud my colleagues' leadership and their willingness to find common ground at this time. I congratulate them.