Thank you very much, Vice-Chair.
Members of the committee, thank you all for the opportunity to appear today. As the vice-chair noted, my name is Kent Walker, and I am president of global affairs and the chief legal officer for both Google and Alphabet. I am joined today by Richard Gingras, vice-president for news.
Let me start out by just reiterating that Google is deeply committed to Canada. We opened our first office here more than 20 years ago, and today Google Canada employs more than 3,000 people in Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and many other areas of the country.
We've been proud to support Canada’s economic growth. In 2021, Google’s products and tools helped provide $37 billion of economic activity for Canadian businesses, publishers, creators, developers and non-profits. In the last five years alone, we have provided over $16 million in Google.org grants to Canadian charities and non-profits, which have helped them expand the reach of innovative digital skills programming, empower Canadians to stay safe online and build more inclusive economic opportunities for indigenous communities.
Our commitment to Canada includes engaging constructively on regulation and policy innovation, which sometimes means identifying challenges with proposals that we believe may not achieve their stated objectives or that could have unexpected negative downstream impacts.
We support thoughtful regulation and advocate across the globe for updated rules on important issues like privacy, responsible AI development and a balanced international corporate tax system. We also have a responsibility to be clear about the potential impacts of new technology regulation and to speak up for the interests of the people and businesses that use our products and services.
Throughout our time in Canada, we have collaborated closely with the news industry and provided billions of dollars globally to support the creation of quality journalism in the digital age. Through our programs, partnerships and products, Google is one of the world’s biggest supporters of journalism.
We all recognize that the Internet has deeply changed the business models of news organizations. Technology companies, news organizations and governments need to collaborate to enable a strong future for quality content in ways that don’t disrupt access to the open web.
For over a year now, we have been advocating for practical solutions to our main concerns with Bill C-18. Both Richard and I have been directly involved in some of these engagements. That's because Canada is important to us, and we believe a reasonable and balanced solution is not only necessary but achievable.
In our conversations with the government and members of Parliament, we have repeatedly offered specific and practical solutions to the issues we have identified. We believe that the legislation could be amended to support journalism and to provide consumers with a more diverse range of perspectives, delivered in innovative and accessible formats, without undercutting core principles that allow the Internet to benefit Canadians and people around the world.
There are also thoughtful alternatives we believe would be even more effective at achieving the underlying policy goals here, such as a fund to which Google would contribute but that would be independently governed. Proceeds from this fund would be distributed in a manner consistent with clear criteria, governed by an independent board of experts, in line with the approach already adopted by Canada through its journalism tax credit.
This is not the path that Bill C-18 is currently on, but it’s not too late, and we do want to work with Canadian parliamentarians to get this legislation right.
I want to acknowledge that members of the committee were surprised by our product tests that sought to assess the potential impacts of the legislation, and we welcome the opportunity to address these issues today.
With that, let me turn it over to my colleague Richard to discuss Google’s approach to news, our more specific concerns with Bill C-18 and our deep commitment to journalism.