Debates of June 14th, 2021

(Return tabled)

Question No.675

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

With regard to government-issued credit cards, broken down by department, agency, or ministerial office, where applicable: (a) how many credit cards have payments that are past due as of April 28, 2021; (b) what is the total value of the past due balances; (c) what is the number of credit cards and value of the past due balances in (a) and (b) that were assigned to ministers, parliamentary secretaries, or ministerial exempt staff; (d) how many instances have occurred since January 1, 2017, where government-issued credit cards were defaulted on; (e) what is the total value of the balances defaulted on in (d); (f) what is the total number of instances in (d) and amount in (e) where the government ended up using taxpayer funds to pay off the balances; and (g) what are the number of instances and amounts in (d), (e) and (f) for credit cards that were assigned to ministers, parliamentary secretaries, or ministerial exempt staff?

(Return tabled)

Question No.676

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

With regard to the renovation, redesign and refurnishing of ministers’ or deputy ministers’ offices since February 1, 2019: (a) what is the total cost of any spending on renovating, redesigning, and refurnishing for each ministerial office, broken down by (i) total cost, (ii) moving services, (iii) renovating services, (iv) painting, (v) flooring, (vi) furniture, (vii) appliances, (viii) art installation, (ix) all other expenditures; (b) what is the total cost of any spending on renovating, redesigning, and refurnishing for each deputy minister’s office, broken down by (i) the total cost, (ii) moving services, (iii) renovating services, (iv) painting, (v) flooring, (vi) furniture, (vii) appliances, (viii) art installation, (ix) all other expenditures; and (c) what are the details of all projects related to (a) or (b), including the project description and date of completion?

(Return tabled)

Question No.677

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

With regard to reports, studies, assessments, and deliverables prepared for the government, including any department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity, by Gartner since January 1, 2016: what are the details of all such deliverables, broken down by firm, including the (i) date that the deliverable was finished, (ii) title, (iii) summary of recommendations, (iv) file number, (v) website where the deliverable is available online, if applicable, (vi) value of the contract related to the deliverable?

(Return tabled)

Question No.678

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

With regard to sole-sourced contracts related to COVID-19 spending since November 25, 2020: (a) how many contracts have been sole-sourced; (b) what are the details of each sole-sourced contract, including the (i) date of the award, (ii) description of goods or services, including volume, (iii) final amount, (iv) vendor, (v) country of vendor; (c) how many sole-sourced contracts have been awarded to domestic-based companies; and (d) how many sole-sourced contracts have been awarded to foreign-based companies, broken down by country where the company is based?

(Return tabled)

Question No.679

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

With regard to ministers and exempt staff members flying on government aircraft, including helicopters, since September 28, 2020: what are the details of all such flights, including (i) the date, (ii) the origin, (iii) the destination, (iv) the type of aircraft, (v) which ministers and exempt staff members were on board?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Government Business No. 10—Broadcasting Act

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

moved:

That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, Bill C‑10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, shall be disposed of as follows:

(a) the bill may be taken up at report stage immediately after the adoption of this order;

(b) not more than one hour shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at report stage and, at the conclusion of the time provided at report stage, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, provided that, if a recorded division is requested on any motion, it shall not be deferred, except pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(8);

(c) a motion for third reading may be made immediately after the bill has been concurred in at report stage;

(d) when the bill is taken up at the third reading stage, a member of each recognized party and a member of the Green Party each be allowed to speak for not more than 10 minutes followed by five minutes for questions and comments and, at the conclusion of the time provided for debate or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, all questions necessary for the disposal of the third reading stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment provided that, if a recorded division is requested on any motion, it shall not be deferred; and

(e) the House shall not adjourn until the proceedings on the bill have been completed, except pursuant to a motion proposed by a minister of the Crown, provided that once proceedings have been completed, the House may then proceed to consider other business or, if it has already passed the ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the House shall adjourn to the next sitting day.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, The Economy; the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, National Defence; the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona, Indigenous Affairs.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, if we really want to understand where we are, we have to look at where we started.

Bill C‑10 came out of the work of the Yale commission, which worked on this for nearly a year and a half. The commission was created by my predecessors. It travelled across the country gathering input from experts and stakeholders, including groups representing people in music, visual arts, television and film.

The Yale commission received close to 2,000 briefs and submitted its report in early 2020. We took that input from the consultations and feedback from a group of leading Canadian experts, including the former director general of the CRTC, Ms. Yale, and started working on Bill C‑10. We worked hard to do what the previous overhaul of the Broadcasting Act in the early 1990s did when the Conservatives modernized it. The act was created to protect Canadian artists, organizations and businesses from the American cultural invasion.

We all know that the American cultural invasion is powerful and that it can steamroll any culture on the planet. I have discussed these issues with ministers in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Many countries worldwide are currently dealing with the issue of cultural sovereignty.

This is the spirit in which we tabled Bill C‑10. At the time, I was the first one to say that the bill could be enhanced, improved and amended. I would remind members that the last time the Broadcasting Act was amended, the government of the day overlooked one very important issue: the ownership of Canadian broadcasting companies. The act was amended in the early 1990s, and the Governor in Council issued an order in council a few years later, in 1997, to protect the ownership of Canadian broadcasting companies, because this had been overlooked.

All of this is to say that, when we propose a bill, we do our best to make sure that it represents the best of our intentions. I would like to remind all of the members in the House that Bill C‑10 was praised by cultural organizations across the country. According to many, its passage was a historic event.

Not only was the tabling of the bill saluted from coast to coast to coast, but the National Assembly of Quebec voted unanimously in favour of Bill C-10. It said that we need Bill C-10 and that it is a good piece of legislation. Among other things, it would help the French language, French producers, French artists and French composers to better perform in this environment. Another feature of Bill C-10 is that it would also further help and support indigenous creators, indigenous artists and indigenous producers in ways the previous incarnation of the bill unfortunately did not do.

This bill is not about content moderation. The CRTC, in its decades of existence, has never said to Shaw, CBC or TVA that they can do one program but cannot do another program. The CRTC has never had that power.

I heard one member talking about the sweeping powers of the CRTC. The CRTC is not above Canadian laws. It must comply with our bodies of laws and regulations, and it is a regulator. We have many regulators in different sectors, and the CRTC, from that point of view, is no different than existing regulators. What Bill C-10 wants to do is to ensure web giants pay their fair share.

As I have said many times in this House, as well as at the heritage committee, the independent, professional civil servants at Canadian Heritage estimate that, by asking web giants to pay their fair share, we would be adding revenues in excess of $800 million a year for our creators, artists, independent producers and musicians. That figure is an estimate, not an exact figure, as we would have to adopt the bill and implement the regulations to know exactly how much it would be.

I want to point out that, initially, when the heritage committee started working on the bill, things were going really well. The committee was able to go through roughly 20 amendments at every committee meeting. What has been really challenging to understand is the Conservative Party.

By and large, we have four parties in this House that recognize the need to modernize the Broadcasting Act and agree on the goals. We do not agree on everything, but between the Greens, the NDP, the Bloc and us Liberals, I think there is vast agreement on what needs to be done.

Frankly, I am trying to understand the position of the Conservative Party on this, as it has been a moving target. Initially, the Conservatives criticized the bill for not going far enough because we were not going after YouTube or integrating these really important companies in the bill, so we changed it. Then, all of a sudden, they changed their minds. It was not good enough. Not only was it not good enough, but they disagreed with their initial position.

Then they started talking about this idea that somehow the bill would lead to censorship, which was proven wrong by the independent professional civil service of the justice ministry. The deputy minister came to testify at the heritage committee to that effect and produced analyses that showed Bill C-10 did not go against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, there are elements within Bill C-10 and the CRTC's own laws that state that the CRTC has to abide by the Charter of Rights.

Because of that, the Conservatives claimed that it was an infringement on net neutrality. We tried to explain what net neutrality is and what it is not. Basically, net neutrality is about telecommunications. It is about the hardware and the ability of people to have access to networks. Bill C-10 does not do that. It is not about telecommunications at all.

I think we are now faced with the fact that, because of the Conservative Party, we have lost months of work on Bill C-10. For every month that passes, artists, creators, musicians and technicians in this country lose roughly $70 million per month, so we must proceed with the adoption of Bill C-10. Artists, musicians and organizations across the country are asking us to do so.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his intervention today and for trying to set the record straight with respect to what is happening with this bill. The reality of the situation is that, unfortunately, the Conservatives have attempted to hijack this bill in an effort to convince Canadians that the government is trying to limit free speech, but nothing could be further from the truth. This bill is about ensuring that Canadian content continues into the future.

I think of artists such as the musicians in The Tragically Hip, who came from my riding of Kingston and the Islands. It is quite possible that, in those early days, they may not have had the exposure they had without the requirements for Canadian content. This is really about helping to ensure that Canadian content and Canadian artists continue to have that level of exposure right from the infancy stages, before they are popular, when they really need it.

I am wondering if the minister could comment on how he sees this helping future artists as those in The Tragically Hip were helped.

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands is absolutely right. That is exactly what Bill C-10 is about and exactly what it aims to do.

As we know, web giants are taking more and more of the share of how we listen to music, watch TV and watch movies. Unless they are brought into the Canadian regulatory framework, then the very reason why we created those modifications in the early nineties will disappear, and we will lose our cultural sovereignty. That is precisely why Bill C-10 was brought forward and why we want it to be adopted as quickly as possible.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Canadian Heritage was right when he admitted this bill could be improved.

The last two days in committee, we rammed through everything. There were no amendments and no discussion. There was nothing. Forty per cent of this bill was never talked about in the heritage committee, yet now we have another gag order thanks to the Bloc's support of the government.

How can the minister of heritage stand here today and say that this bill is good for Canadians when over 40% of the bill was never even debated in committee?

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

Madam Speaker, it is ironic that the Conservative Party would ask my colleague, of all its MPs, to ask me a question because he was one of the MPs who initially criticized the bill for not going far enough, saying that this bill needed to include companies like YouTube. When we did this, all of a sudden the Conservative Party changed its stance.

The Conservatives did not really want one of the wealthiest companies in the world to pay its fair share. YouTube is part of Google. It is one of the largest, one of the wealthiest, one of the most powerful companies in the world. I just cannot figure out what happened to the Conservative Party, which, instead of standing for our artists and our Canadian creators, decided to stand with Google and YouTube. Frankly, I just cannot understand it.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier the minister used a generic statement when he said that if we really want to understand where we are, we have to look at where we started.

I like this kind of statement. It reminds me that it took six years for us to even get Bill C‑10. It also took 120 amendments. My Conservative colleague alluded to this, but it seems as though we have the Bloc Québécois to thank for this. The Liberals did not seem very enthusiastic about working on Bill C‑10 until we intervened.

My question for the minister is the following: What inspired the Liberals' enthusiasm for working on Bill C‑10?

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

Madam Speaker, I think that my colleague, unlike some of his colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, has not followed the evolution of Bill C-10. I would like to remind him that Bill C-10 is based on a consultation and the ensuing report, which was released in early 2020.

If we do the calculations, 2020 to 2021 is not six years. It is a year and a few months. We acted promptly, swiftly and decisively.

I defended Bill C-10 on every forum, as did our government. I would remind my esteemed colleague that the Quebec National Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution supporting Bill C-10. In addition, several thousand artists, including Yvon Deschamps, Lise Dion and Claude Legault, signed a petition in support of Bill C-10. I think that our work is recognized and appreciated by the artistic community.

I will conclude by saying that I appreciate the Bloc Québécois’s support, as well as the work done by the Bloc and other members on the committee. Unfortunately, I do not appreciate the work of the Conservative Party.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for his remarks.

Obviously, we have often discussed the fact that we need to support the cultural sector, that the Broadcasting Act is outdated and archaic and that digital platforms need to be included. We agree on the principle that web giants should be co-operating to help protect our artists.

However, this afternoon, we are talking about this type of supermotion. What makes me uncomfortable is the Liberal government’s management of its legislative agenda. The minister is telling us that the government acted swiftly, but now here we are in a mad rush at the end of the session. We get the feeling that this was not a priority, and now we are under a five-hour closure. We did not even get 10 hours.

Then we were asked to add committee meetings. We agreed to hold five meetings instead of two in one week to try to move things along a little. Now, even with the closure and the extra committee meetings, the minister is back with another fast-track procedure. Why did he not plan the work schedule better?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I do not know if he has had the opportunity to speak with representatives of the cultural and arts sector in Quebec or elsewhere in Canada in recent weeks. All those I spoke to said that they wanted Bill C-10 to pass as soon as possible. That is what I was told by the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, ADISQ, the Union des artistes and many others. Had it not been for the Conservatives’ filibustering, I do not think we would be where we are now.

However, I must admit that I am somewhat surprised that the NDP is not prepared to support artists, and that it let them down because they are afraid of the Conservative Party. I do not understand the NDP’s position. On the one hand, they say they are in favour of Bill C-10 and forcing web giants to contribute their fair share, but, on the other hand, when the time comes to support artists and take action, they run and hide. I am truly shocked.