Industry Committee on May 11th, 2020

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Minister, I know that. That's fantastic. I'm talking about you and your government, because there are a lot of people in western Canada who think your government really doesn't care about us and our heritage doesn't matter to you. Therefore, I'm giving you a shot here to try to express some empathy and some understanding of what happens in my province, and you've really not given me much to work with.

Given that you're a Greenpeace activist, you're very vocal against the energy sector and you haven't even acknowledged that there's a western Canadian heritage right now, I just wonder if you can—

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Chair, I believe I have. I believe I have a number of times, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

We have a point of order from the floor.

MP Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

My point of order is that we're venturing beyond discussing the ministry and heritage, which is what we were talking about. The questions now are veering into energy conversations and the like, but really he's here to talk about what the minister of heritage is doing and the heritage ministry.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'd like to respond to that point of order, which doesn't count as part of my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Yes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

The energy sector actually contributes significantly to the heritage environment in Alberta. It's a huge source of philanthropy and funding for the arts, and a lot of that funding right now has been removed because of the downturn in the energy sector, which has been precipitated by decisions that have been made by the cabinet the minister is sitting on.

I think that this is very material, especially since the minister talked about artists bringing us comfort, and I am an MP from that part of the country. I think that it's important that we be given the opportunity to talk about our heritage.

I would like the minister, Madam Chair, in terms of relevancy, to talk about his plan to support western heritage because there are a lot of people in my province who don't feel comforted right now and would like some assurances from the government that they at least understand the plight of what's happening in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

Next we have Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I would agree. I come from an area of the country in which our heritage has defined who we are. We were the oldest European settlement west of Montreal, and then went into a staging point where the auto industry defined us as much as the story of the people. It also defined the way we are as artists. Even with the decline in this industry over the last number of decades, it still makes us who we are today.

I see the connection quite clearly. I quite strongly believe that arts and culture are a significant part of our industry as well as our heritage. They are very much intertwined, so I think that everything is very much appropriate here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I'm going to rule to allow the conversation to continue.

Ms. Rempel, you still have some time remaining.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, you haven't talked about western heritage. Have you quantified and can you give me a number on the impact of the decline of the energy sector on philanthropy and the arts and cultural sector in Alberta? How much money are you giving to Alberta out of this fund?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I think I have answered your question a number of times regarding—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Do you plan on giving any of this money to western Canada?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

—western heritage. As I said, I had—just last week—a conversation with the Alberta heritage minister. I've had several conversations with the Alberta heritage minister—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What are you doing? What are you doing? You have to put together a national strategy for unity.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

—to see how we can help and support the heritage sector in Alberta and Saskatchewan, throughout Canada. I'm working closely with allies from across the country to do that.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Yes, that's the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, minister.

The next round of questions goes to Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.

MP Erskine-Smith, you have six minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much.

My first question is for Minister Monsef.

We have seen, in the course of this recession, a deep impact on women's participation in the labour force, and very smart economists have called it a “she-cession.” Then we also see the female labour force participation to be the most difficult to come back, and have pointed to child care as central to those recovery efforts.

I noted the Prime Minister also recently highlighted the importance of child care to recovery efforts. I wonder if, in your office, working in collaboration with Minister Hussen, we are going to see significant steps down this path with leadership from the federal government.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you to MP Erskine-Smith. You are absolutely right. This pandemic has hit women hardest.

Women are the majority of those in long-term care. They're the majority of those who have tested positive. They're the majority of those on the front lines of this effort. Sixty-two per cent of the jobs lost due to COVID-19 in March were women's jobs, often low-paid, and often lost by racialized women. Women have also been called out of the workforce because day cares are closed, because schools are closed. Unlike other recessions, this economic recovery is going to require supporting women specifically. Studies show that during the 2008 recession, women with children were the last to recover from that recession.

In addition to supports through the Canada child benefit, in addition to the 40-plus thousand child care spaces that we helped support in our previous mandate, the Prime Minister has mandated me and Minister Hussen to set up a child care secretariat and to build a foundation for better access to child care for all Canadians. COVID-19 further highlights the need and the urgency around that commitment.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I appreciate that.

With respect to the secretariat, can we expect you and your office as the minister of gender equality to be pushing for that secretariat to be created with haste, and to place that secretariat at the centre of recovery efforts?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I can assure all colleagues and Canadians that we are working not just with haste within the Government of Canada, but we are pulling in smart experts, economists and feminists from around the country to get it done and get it done right.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much. I really appreciate that.

Minister Guilbeault, I have some questions, and maybe you could correct me, because my information might be mistaken. It really doesn't make sense to me.

I have in front of me an article related to the $50-million local journalism initiative. Now, civic journalism is unquestionably a public good, and a good that I would like us to support, especially as we see a struggle with local journalism. However, the vast majority of this local journalism initiative is distributed by News Media Canada and Christian Dognon, who is helping to coordinate these efforts for News Media Canada, was recently quoted saying, “LJI is a support program for the news industry, so we do not want to introduce new competition into already struggling markets”.

I guess what I'm struggling to understand is this. Why wouldn't we be encouraging innovation and new entrants to create more of this local journalism? Why would we be excluding new entrants and the competition that we sorely need?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you for the question.

I'm not sure. I haven't seen the article you're referring to. What I can tell you is that we have been supporting local journalism through an investment of $50 million over five years, which means that this year 200 journalists will be hired in communities that are not as well served from a media perspective as others. The ad-buy campaign we just did on COVID-19 for $30 million was distributed among more than 900 newspapers across the country, 500 radio stations and TV stations in 12 different languages. I think we value the diversity of the media ecosystem in Canada and—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We should. We should especially value the diversity of new entrants into the marketplace. I encourage you to take a second look at the management of that fund because when I see, as one example, the Sprawl—a digital start-up in Calgary—unable to access funding from that $50 million but able to access a start-up grant from Facebook.... I've been the first person to be hard on Facebook. Facebook has helped to gut the news industry in many ways, and it's trying to rectify that with some small funding. It's incredible to me that a local start-up in Canada would receive funding from Facebook and not from that $50-million fund. You really do need to take a second look.

The other piece that I'd like you to take a look at is that Google and Facebook make up 90% of online digital ad revenue. At the same time, Google and Facebook have profited significantly from news content that they have done nothing to create.

Has your office taken a serious look at France, Spain and Australia to ensure a fairer profit-sharing model between Google, Facebook and these tech giants and our news media ecosystem?