Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member opposite. He is from British Columbia, and I certainly understand many of his positions, but I do not agree with them, and I will say why.
First of all, many members today have said that they specifically support this because they want to see diversity, they want to hear indigenous voices, and they want to hear young people and have their voices magnified. However, Irene Berkowitz and her colleagues put out the “Watchtime Canada” report last year, which said that there are 160,000 Canadian YouTube creators who produce content, and 40,000 of them are monetizing: that is, they are actually drawing funds from YouTube's model, and they employ 28,000 Canadians.
The problem we have here is that the member and many in his caucus believe that Google, the owner of YouTube, is a broadcaster in the traditional sense. If this government forces this legislation onto the CRTC, then those YouTube creators, who actually create the content, may be forced to adhere to these rules. They may then elect to actually have their Canadian-drawn content pushed out to other parts of the world, and would not advertise, would not show up here in Canada, because they would not qualify under the rules.
Does the member understand that, by changing this, it is a misperception that YouTube would somehow respond by forcing all of these small ma-and-pa content creators to change their business model? I think the member is mistaken.