Debates of Dec. 10th, 2020

Business of the House

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased, unlike last week, to concur with the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I too join my voice with that of all 338 of my colleagues to thank you and the people who ensure that we can do the excellent work that needs to be done here in the House, as well as all the people who have helped make the hybrid Parliament possible over these past months.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, allow me to quickly say a few words to wish everyone some well-deserved rest as the session comes to a close.

Allow me also to acknowledge and thank several people, including all Quebeckers for their resilience, their creativity and their solidarity.

My thoughts are with caregivers and seniors who will not be seeing their family this year in most cases, and with the people who will be alone, unable to see their friends. My thoughts also go out to the workers and business owners, who have been hit hard by COVID-19. Christmas might be more difficult for them this year than it has been in years past.

I wish all our colleagues in the House a merry Christmas. We look forward to seeing everyone again in the new year.

I thank all the clerks as well as the interpreters, who had a tough job this year and did exceptional work.

I wish everyone a Christmas as wonderful as it is odd and a 2021 as festive as 2020 was quiet in its own way. Every year we wish everyone well and sometimes we might say it lightly, but this year I feel the weight of my words. I wish everyone love, prosperity, but most of all good health.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP caucus and its leader, the member for Burnaby South, I would like to wish the House of Commons' security staff, the administrative staff, the clerks, the security people who are on the front lines every day, the food services and cleaning staff, the Speaker's entire team, including you, Mr. Speaker, and the pages, who work hard every day in Parliament in the midst of a pandemic, a merry Christmas and happy new year.

We wish a merry Christmas and happy new year to all these people.

On behalf of the NDP caucus, I would like to say to all members of Parliament, who have worked together in this pandemic Parliament, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. We of course urge all to redouble efforts to ensure that nobody is left behind during this pandemic, and we mourn the thousands of Canadians who have passed away.

We wish everyone a safe Christmas, for sure, and urge all Canadians to continue to stay safe. Let us be kind to one another. As we stand together, let us socially distance, wear our masks and make sure to follow the instructions of our health authorities. We will get through this pandemic, there is no doubt.

On behalf of the NDP caucus, merry Christmas and a happy new year.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to echo my colleague's sentiments. On behalf of the Green Party of Canada, I sincerely thank the entire parliamentary team, the clerks, the pages and the entire security team. All these people work very hard for everyone.

I hope that all of us in the House, and all of our loved ones, will be safe and well. I hope all Canadians will take the health advice they are given and will get through this horrible year.

I remember when the Queen said she had an annus horribilis. I think all of us have had a pretty difficult year. However, members on all sides of the House have worked very hard, and the best of our work came when we worked together without partisanship.

For those who are lighting menorahs tonight, happy Hanukkah; for those who celebrate Christmas, celebrate the birth of our Lord; and let it be said, Festivus for the rest of us.

I thank the Speaker and the House team for all of their hard work as well.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I will take this occasion to add my own remarks about the remarkable work of so many people in the House of Commons administration this past year in helping us function well in these really unusual circumstances. Their contributions have been nothing short of heroic.

I also wish to thank the House of Commons team, the people in IT services, the proceedings and verification officers, the Sergeant-at-Arms and his office, the pages and their coordinators, the clerks, the interpreters, the security officers, the language instructors and all parliamentary staff. I thank you for your professionalism, dedication and courteous service to all and to Parliament.

Finally, to all my colleagues in the House and in ridings all across the country, and on behalf of the Speaker and my fellow chair occupants, may I wish you and all your families a wonderful and appropriately socially distanced holiday season in the time ahead.

Safe travels, merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah, until we meet again in the new year.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Broadcasting Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

When the House last took up debate on the bill, there were three minutes remaining in questions and comments for the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, what I especially like about the legislation is that it reinforces how important Canadian content is. It is one of the ways for us to ensure that many talented individuals, in what is a large industry in all regions of our country, will have many more opportunities here in Canada. We can better celebrate our heritage by ensuring we have additional Canadian content.

I wonder if my friend could provide his thoughts on how important it is that, as legislators, we work toward ensuring there will always be Canadian content in all forms of media.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the question posed by the member opposite is similar to the question I had hoped to finish responding to.

One of the challenges I have with the bill, which has been raised by a number of my Conservative colleagues, is that it is ambiguous in what it tries to accomplish. I point out for my hon. colleague that the absence of language guidelines in the bill disadvantages francophone communities by failing to ensure that online broadcasters create content in both official languages. We have heard much in this debate regarding the importance of ensuring that the cultural significance of the French language is preserved in this country, and that is one of the challenges.

As I have just a few moments left, I will take this opportunity to wish all of my colleagues a very merry Christmas. May God bless each and every one them as we head back to our constituencies and to our homes. Whatever the holidays look like across the country, it is certainly a challenging time for all Canadians.

I thank my colleagues, both within the Conservative caucus and otherwise, and all of those who make sure this place can run, including my constituency staff, whether it is in a pandemic or otherwise. There is a lot we have to be proud of in our parliamentary institution, and it is an honour to ensure that this legacy lives on no matter what the global circumstances are. I wish a merry Christmas to them and to all who are watching today.

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to discuss a bill that is close to my heart.

As I have been a professional performing artist for most of my life, I know that for these kinds of bills, the devil is in the details. I was very glad to see the union ACTRA endorse the bill. It said performing artists from coast to coast to coast will now be able to perform more, have their works seen on more screens and devices, and be paid for their work.

When I first started acting, I was 16 years old doing theatre in Nova Scotia at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. From there, I moved on to doing theatre right across the country, including in Edmonton, where I played Marilyn Monroe in a rock opera on the life of Marilyn called Hey, Marilyn!. I was 19 at the time. From there, I went on to do my first movie at the age of 20 in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. It was called the Hounds of Notre Dame about Père Athol Murray. Anybody from out west might remember that. I then went on to play the fiancée of Colin Thatcher, a Conservative politician who ended up murdering his wife. I played his girlfriend, who helped turn him in to the police.

These were all heady days of the business. We also did live radio. I remember the Jarvis Street studio in Toronto. We did live radio plays, and sometimes we would need to be at the radio station at 6:30 a.m. to do a live one-hour or half-hour show. One of my favourites was about a politician. The amazing Gordon Pinsent played that role, and I played a cabinet minister.

I remember one day early in the morning we were waiting for the star of the show to arrive and he was not there. We were about to go on live radio. The producer was getting ready to take his part, and was pretty freaked out, when in came Gordon, in his pyjamas, at the last minute. He went on to perform brilliantly, of course, the role he was born to play.

I have lived through the times when radio was cut and cut and cut. We called it “death by a million cuts”. CBC was being cut. Radio was being cut. Dramas started to be cut down. This is the lifeblood for performers who do a lot of theatre but who also need to be seen on camera. To be honest, it is the cheapest and best way a government can invest in tourism. It brings people to a country and gets people around the world to see the beauties of our country and the stories that make us unique and different from any other country in the world.

That is why it is so important to look after people. It is so their work can be performed and seen all around the world, and now on many different devices.

Let us fast-forward to around the year 2005, when I was living in New York doing animation for PBS.

PBS wanted me to sign a contract, and I had never seen one that said work could be shown on all devices in the universe. PBS wanted me to sign away my rights for eternity throughout the universe. It was the first time I had ever seen that and the first time I had ever seen “on devices” in a contract. I had to ask somebody what that meant, and they said that pretty soon people would be watching things on their watches or their phones. I could not conceive of that concept. I thought it was crazy. However, if we fast-forward, where are people watching things now? They are watching them on watches, phones and all kinds of devices.

Currently, online undertakings that deliver audio and audio-visual content over the Internet are exempt from licensing and most other regulatory requirements. That is why Bill C-10 really aims to clarify that online undertakings are within the scope of the broadcasting regulatory system.

It would also provide the CRTC with new powers to regulate online audio and visual content. It would allow the CRTC to create conditions of service and other regulatory requirements under which those online broadcasters would operate in Canada, and update the CRTC's regulatory powers as they relate to traditional broadcasters as well. This is good.

The bill would ensure the act would not apply to users of social media services or social media services themselves for the content posted by their users. However, the bill aims to update key elements of the broadcasting policy for Canada to ensure the creation of Canadian content is reflective of Canadian society and accessible to all Canadians. This is what I am talking about. We need to get our stories told. We need to see more diverse Canadian faces and voices.

I have many friends in this industry who are Black or indigenous. We need to see them. We need to hear them. We need to hear the beautiful stories they have to tell. This is a great way to be able to open the door so that more of this content can be seen.

One of my favourite stations now is APTN, so here is a shout-out to APTN. It does some amazing work.

The bill would amend the act to take greater account of indigenous cultures and languages, and recognize that Canada's broadcasting system should serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic status, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identities and expressions, and age. Additional amendments would also serve to promote greater accessibility for persons with disabilities.

Is it not time we show more people and more different diverse stories? I think Canadians are open to that content now. The more we talk about different styles of living and cultural backgrounds, the more people will start to understand that we really need to walk a mile in people's shoes, moccasins and so forth, to understand where they are coming from, what their background is and what they have been through. At the end of the day, it is all about compassion and trying to understand where another person is coming from and putting ourselves in their place.

As a performer and professional actor for 30-odd years and now as a parliamentarian for 11 years, I have to say that being a performer was very good training for being a politician, and not for the reasons some people would think, such as that we can pretend and put on a stony face. It is because we can feel compassion for others. I think that is an important part of this job.

I am very glad the bill has been introduced and is hopefully going to be passed. The bill would also provide a flexible approach to regulation, allowing the CRTC to tailor the conditions of service and other regulatory requirements imposed on broadcasters, taking into account the act's policy and regulatory objectives, the variety of broadcasters in the system and the differences between them, and determining what is fair and equitable depending on the circumstances.

With that, I believe my time is up. I would like to express a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah and safe travels to all of my colleagues and everyone across Canada. May everyone's families be safe. Remember to love one another because, in the end, all there is is love.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, one thing that concerns me is that there are a lot of unanswered questions here. The Liberals are passing the buck to the CRTC to deal with most of the bill. They are doing nothing for fair tax rules. Right now in our country, journalism is under threat. I just met with the Parksville Qualicum Beach News and the Comox Valley Record, and they talked about the fact that 75% of online advertising is with Facebook and Google, and they are having a difficult time surviving. Those web giants are using local journalism to advance their goals.

There was a promise in the Speech from the Throne to get big tech giants to pay for local journalism content. Australia tabled legislation yesterday to do so.

Does my colleague agree the government needs to take action and table legislation soon, so that local journalism is protected and the web giants using their content will pay their fair share?

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, this is also a concern of mine. I understand where the member is coming from, and I understand where journalists are coming from.

Right now, it is very difficult to make a living as a journalist. As we know, many of the newspapers are closing down. People are getting their news from Facebook or Twitter and other places. Sometimes that news is not correct, as we know. It is fake news or it is paid-for news.

This is a very good step, and it is something that my colleagues in ACTRA have been asking for, for a long time. I believe it is the right way forward, so let us see what happens after this. I still stay on this as well.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am just curious if the member would have any comments on the conversation around sexual exploitation and MindGeek and hosted content, which has been debated in the House as of late. There are some absolutely disgusting, quite frankly, abuses that are taking place, with children, victims of rape and assault, and their videos not being able to be scrubbed off the Internet.

Would the member comment on that issue and how it may relate to this conversation?

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for asking this very important question.

A few years ago, I was also targeted on the Internet by some folks who started to use a picture of mine from a television show I had done. They started to flash it around and refused to take it down. I started to get notices from constituents who told me that their daughters were abused in a similar fashion by former boyfriends who had sold pictures of them to Internet providers. We discovered that most of them were not located in Canada. They were actually overseas.

I contacted the former minister of justice at that point, Peter MacKay. I also talked to the province. I was an MLA at the time. We found that it was very difficult to get those pictures down. In the end, it was Anonymous who actually contacted me and said, “We see what you are trying to do and how difficult it is.” They took it down. They took the website down.

I do not know why it is so hard for people to do it. I understand. It is a terrible thing, and we need to do something about it.

[William Amos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation]

Madam Speaker, I would like to start by wishing all Canadians a very happy holidays, a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah and a happy new year.

I would like to ask my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester the following question: What is her view of Bill C-10, in a context where we are trying to truly help the cultural community of actors and everyone in Canada's production and arts sector?

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is going to help because it is going to push people to do more content, more Canadian content, and for people who are having their content shown on other devices, they will be paid.

I am, as some people know, Rogue in the X-Men. I do not get paid for any of the times that people see me on Netflix or on any of these shows, or Disney. I do not get paid for any of that stuff. It would be nice if there was a way that we could have contracts now where people will get paid for their work. Some people are making billions off of Canadian actors.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind the member, and I did not want to interrupt because there is not a lot of time between questions and comments, that she is not to use the name of ministers in the House by their first or last names. I just wanted to remind her of that, because she did mention the minister at one point.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saskatoon—University.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker,

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.

I believe that song, co-written by a Canadian, by the way, Alan Mills, in the 1950s, describes a little of what the government is trying to do here, and I think it is going to be ultimately unsuccessful. The Internet and the changing landscape of media in Canada is creating challenges for sure, but this bill would do nothing or, worse, make it worse for Canadians.

The worst part of the changes the Liberals are proposing is making the CRTC not accountable to elected members of Parliament. It would move the reporting process to the minister or, ultimately, the Prime Minister's Office. I cannot think of a situation where that would be good for Canada. The control the Prime Minister's Office would have over our media landscape would be detrimental to our ability to tell our stories.

I have listened closely to some of the speeches today and a value I hold is that we should be sharing Canadian stories. However, the current landscape has changed and what Liberals are proposing, as the Saskatchewan saying goes, is to rush to close the barn door after the horses have all left. If we play out the different scenarios of what the bill would do, it would cost the consumer or Canadians more and reduce competition. That is something I do not think anyone would support at the end of the day.

We must look at what is happening in the media landscape. Other members have talked about Google and Facebook, and some of the news stories out of the United States about the federal government and Facebook. If there is a problem of fairness, it is that taxation is not the same in Canada versus some of the Internet players. We are talking about massive organizations that impact people's perceptions and views, and can have political ramifications.

We have a problem and we have identified it is with a lot of these large international players, but this bill would do nothing. It does not mention Google or Facebook. Maybe that was by design because some of the indirect things we could do with pressure are probably more dangerous than what we could do with direct pressure. With Google and Facebook being threatened, in essence, that they would fall under a government organization such as the CRTC and taxation, this will change the policies and procedures of those two large companies and have a detrimental effect on Canadians.

There would be a massive increase in the powers and added responsibilities of the CRTC. How will the CRTC afford to do that under the current budget? The CRTC gets most of its funding, as far as I understand it, from fees. Fees are paid by consumers. Consumers have to earn that $1, pay tax on that $1 and then, with their freedom of choice, decide where to spend it. Would the CRTC collect it indirectly through consumers or would the Liberals go back to the taxpayer and ask for more money so that the CRTC can fulfill the mandate of what the bill would enact?

I do not know what country, maybe the Government of China would be one of the few, would admire what the bill would do. We all know the Prime Minister's view of the basic dictatorship of China and its affection for all things controlled by government, and that is where I have concerns with adding more responsibilities to the CRTC.

Once again, the lofty goals of this bill are admirable, to a certain extent, but will it actually improve the landscape of media in Canada? I do not think this is going to happen.

The reason we are talking about the lady who swallowed the fly is that when we try to regulate things that cannot be regulated, such as the Internet in a free society, we will find other actors and other avenues that will pop up that will take the place of what we currently have. What is next? That is where I get to the Government of China reference: in order for this to be successful, we need to regulate everything in the world, and I just cannot see that happening.

On the example of the CRTC, we were talking about foreign companies. What if they have no assets and no footprint in Canada? How are we actually going to force foreign identities? Is the next thing we are going to be regulating what Visa or Mastercard could charge, so that consumers make a decision to support one platform over the other? The next one would be asking for credit card companies, and the next thing will be Paypal and then the next and then the next.

We are trying to fix a problem that needs to be addressed, but in the way that this bill is written, I do not think it is going to go anywhere near what we actually would need in Canada. Talking about the reduced competition, I think we would actually have fewer Canadian stories that actually have an impact on either our residents or internationally, if we go down the path of regulation to the extent that this bill would do.

I would like to also unwrap, just briefly, the changes on the CRTC reporting to Parliament versus the minister and how important it is that does not take place. If we live in the free society that I like to believe we live in, it is Parliament, not the minister and not ultimately the Prime Minister, that should have the final say on what is created for content. That flows over to an overarching concern I would have with a government having the ability to approve one thing over another, one platform over another or encouraging one story over the other. That, I believe, is not where Canada should be going. I do not believe that is the mandate of Parliament to enact such far-reaching abilities. The impact of that on a society would be a government controlling too much of people's lives.

I am against anything that encroaches on our freedoms, and if we are trying to be successful in the 21st century, I do not believe this is good for Canada. It is not good for competition, it is not good for consumers and it is not good for our creative industries. Where this might lead is where I will end our fable:

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
I know an old lady who swallowed a horse...
She's dead of course!

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, that was certainly a creative way to finish it.

One of the things that I have noticed in the time since I was elected is that the preamble of a bill, or the press conference to an announcement, is very different from the entire text of a bill or the action related to any announcement. It seems to me that Bill C-10 is in line with that pattern. I am wondering if my colleague has further comments on how the intent of this bill, as it is presented, is very different from what appears to actually fill the full 13 pages of it.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is true that, of late in Ottawa, press conferences announcing the new bills are filled with virtue-signalling, buzzwords and creative phrases. They seem good on their merits, but when we look at the substance of the bill before us, as I have spoken about, where the CRTC would report, and what that actually would result in does not match the preamble of the bill, which is really a smokescreen for some questionable motives of why we are taking the CRTC approval process and reporting a responsibility out of Parliament and putting it in the Prime Minister's Office, which I think is wrong.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have three questions.

First, does the member believe that CanCon regulations on radio in the 1970s amounted to government control of thought in Canada? Second, how is it that requiring Canadian content, expanding the variety of content available to Canadians, reduces competition? Third, as the member said in his speech, how would requiring more Canadian content result in less Canadian content?

Could the member please address those three questions?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, I hope I have enough time to get to all three questions before I get cut off.

I wonder if the member was talking about the 1970s in Canada, Soviet Russia, Cuba or China, because there are some parallels of governments having too much control.

On the competition aspect, if we restrict people's access to different streaming services or offerings, we will have fewer options for consumers. On the Canadian content, there are sites such as BritBlocks, a small streaming service for Canadians of British descent, which would just leave Canada, and so we would not be able to access its services and consumers would be less enriched from British stories. However, in return, does the member not think that other countries would restrict our content and our platforms if this is successful? We know that CUSMA has a regulation that could potentially cost Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars if an appeal process is granted and exercised on the impact of Bill C-10. There is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We have time for a brief question.

The hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I raised earlier, Google and Facebook have over 75% of all web-based advertising. They are using a lot of local content. Journalists are losing jobs as local newspapers are feeling the crunch. Could my colleague speak about how important it is that legislation come forward, like they are doing in Australia this week, to make sure that Google and Facebook pay their fair share?

We know that the Liberals are very close in their relationship with Facebook and Google. Maybe the member could speak about the importance of protecting local journalism.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, he is right, there are some troubling concerns on how close the Liberal government is with Google and Facebook. Maybe that is why they are not mentioned in the bill, even though that was the primary thrust in changing the CRTC regulations.