Evidence of meeting #40 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
First of all, as we just heard from witnesses, they already take their direction and policies through orders in council that get issued by cabinet. In this amendment, this is still a cabinet decision by Governor in Council. It's still very specific on Mr. Oliphant's concerns about censorship, but it's tied to “breaches of international peace and security, transnational repression, gross and systemic human rights violations or acts of significant corruption”. It's very well defined, and we trust cabinet in drafting regulations. Regulations all become public at some point in time, and everybody gets to comment on them.
Again, I think it provides direction and policy for the CRTC, and it refers to the list that is provided to those that are providing services to Canadians across this country for their TV watching. I think this falls in line with government policy. It definitely strengthens this bill, and it ensures that, again, it's in the hands of cabinet to make the decisions on who, on those bases—which entities—should be removed from those lists.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Mr. Chair, I would add, though, that the CRTC has a system and series of processes whereby every decision they make in this sort of line has hearings, and there are appeal procedures. This gives cabinet absolute power to do something by directive to the CRTC, and we don't believe CRTC has the investigation power. This is something we're very concerned about.
Even from the government side, we think that the CRTC needs to be protected as independent. When concerns are raised by the public, the CRTC has to deal with them, but not by direct order from the cabinet to make a decision. That's our concern, but I would turn to the officials to correct me or not.
Senior Director, Communication Legislative and Regulatory Policy, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yes, that is absolutely correct. In fact, the CRTC has a number of measures that it can put in place to bring a licensed Canadian broadcaster into compliance. For instance, if there was some soupçon of influence, or vulnerability to influence, the CRTC could issue orders. It could monitor things; it could ask for information, or it could issue administrative monetary penalties. These are all of the tools that it has available to it to bring a licensed Canadian broadcaster into compliance. Yes, certainly this would be the procedure that the CRTC would use to do so.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
When was the last time CRTC actually sanctioned, banned or fined a non-Canadian broadcasting entity?
Senior Director, Communication Legislative and Regulatory Policy, Department of Canadian Heritage
I would have to do some research on that. I do not have the answer available to me.
Conservative
Senior Director, Communication Legislative and Regulatory Policy, Department of Canadian Heritage
If I may respond to that, it took two weeks to remove RT once the—
Conservative
Senior Director, Communication Legislative and Regulatory Policy, Department of Canadian Heritage
—section 15...was issued.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Some of us have spent years asking that RT be removed.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON
The amendment doesn't actually ask the CRTC to adjudicate whether grave breaches of international peace and security, transnational repression, gross and systemic human rights violations or acts of significant corruption have taken place.
What the amendment says is that the Governor in Council must issue a direction regarding state-controlled broadcasters from foreign states who have done those things. Presumably, this is not going to be the exact wording of the Governor in Council's direction. It is going to issue direction in line with this law, and that direction will be worded in a way that the Privy Council Office thinks is consistent with the other measures in the Broadcasting Act. That will be signed by certain ministers and then provided to the CRTC.
This clause is not mandating that the CRTC is going to adjudicate the items enumerated here; the government is going to issue a direction to the CRTC regarding state-controlled broadcasters that have undertaken or committed these acts. I just want to point that out, because I think that's an important point to make.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I'm afraid I read it differently. It says, first of all, that “The Governor in Council must, by order under subsection (1), issue to the Commission a direction that state-controlled broadcasters”—and this is undefined; we're still not always sure exactly what state-controlled and not state-controlled are, because some of them are grey—“from foreign states that have committed [these atrocities] not be on the List”. It's not giving discretion to the CRTC. It gives a direction saying that if this has happened, they are no longer on the list, so they're taken off with no recourse, no hearings, no anything.
What I would say is that we, on this side of the House, have heard and seen it. I think we have to go back to the government to say that if this is defeated here, the government—not this committee necessarily—has some work to do on the Broadcasting Act so that Canadians have a way into this discussion to find out how we can ensure that our broadcasting system is not used by malevolent state actors. I think it's a good warning. It's a good signal. We just think that this is not the appropriate place to do it, and it is going to be difficult. We would be against the amendment; even if the amendment failed, we would still be against clauses 23 and 24.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON
Mr. Chair, debate has been exhausted. I think that's clear.
Liberal
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON
It's not on division. It's defeated, period. There's a problem with clause 23.
(Clause 24 negatived)
(On clause 1)
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
We would just like to hold for now, because there's a relationship between the SEMA change of title—we added Magnitsky 2—and the short title of this bill, which we would like to do as Magnitsky 3.
However, we recognize that clause 11 is still in play in terms of how it affects the later two clauses. If we have to come back to the bill, we could come back to these two clauses—clause 21 and clause 22—in a separate meeting, as well as the short title and the preamble, so that we make sure to clean it up appropriately.
That would be our suggestion.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
It's just a request.
If you're changing the short title, can you put on the record what the amendment will look like, even though we aren't going to vote on it today?
Liberal
