Debates of March 27th, 2023

Online Streaming Act

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

I think we are getting a bit warmed up right now. We are trying to keep an orderly House. I ask that we allow the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay to proceed with his speech. He has less than one minute to conclude, and then there are questions and comments that could be made during the 10 minutes following.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am really glad to know that my hon. colleague has a son. I do not know what that has to do with stopping me from talking about the failure of the Conservative leadership to deal with disinformation, falsehoods, paranoia and conspiracy.

I would think it would be in the interests of all our children if, as parliamentarians, we act like adults. Obviously that has not been happening with Bill C-11. I am going to be here all week. I sit and listen to disinformation and falsehoods every day, but I think it is really important that we are clear when we call it out.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, although my colleague talked a little about conspiracy theories, the Senate is the place of sober second thought. It looked at this bill in detail and brought in amendments, one of which is to try to exclude individual content.

The senators recognized that the CRTC really should not be determining what individuals are posting. Clause 4 looks at the extent to which a program contains a sound recording that has been assigned a unique identifier under an international standard system, the fact that the program has been uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service, the fact that a program or significant part has been broadcast by a broadcast undertaking or that it is required to be carried on under a licence. This amendment was brought to make sure that those who are doing commercial business are overseen by the CRTC, but individual content is excluded.

The NDP, in their unholy marriage with the Liberals, have rejected this amendment. Could the member explain to the Canadian public why that is?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really want to thank my hon. colleague. I could say “Exhibit A”, and I could probably just sit down.

What is this “unholy marriage” stuff when it comes to parliamentary work? The Conservatives cannot do this without disinformation. I like my hon. colleague, but she was the member who believed that horse tranquillizers were going to help deal with COVID and ran on this obvious falsehood.

Let us talk about what the member is saying. I do not see anything in this bill saying that the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau would be able to look at people's search functions. The Conservatives believe that, so—

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The individual on the other side of the floor continues to malign and treat other members in this House with great disrespect, as—

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

The hon. member knows that this is a matter for debate. On all sides, this is going on. There has been no name-calling. It is not unparliamentary language. I understand what the hon. member is saying, but it has been a very lively debate.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I married my wife in the church. I have not been involved in any unholy marriages with any Liberals. Members could look that up.

Now, I bet there is probably a Reddit page run by Conservatives that would say otherwise. I feel the need to challenge that disinformation and that paranoia because I bet by tomorrow morning they are going to say that Klaus Schwab looked over the wedding, and it did not happen. I married my wife—

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

We are going to go to another question.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really want to thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for his intervention. I appreciated how he has been calling out some of the harmful, and frankly, disgusting rhetoric coming from the other side of the House.

Could the member explain to us what he thinks would happen to Canadian arts and culture if we did not have a Bill C-11 to hold these companies with market dominance on the Internet to account?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is a good question because, again, I am not totally sold that Bill C-11 is the best solution. However, I think it is a solution to making sure that the tech giants pay their share and that we actually pay into the arts system in Canada. The tech giants have not paid tax.

Again, I am sorry, but I have been in the House for 19 years, and I have never heard the Conservatives talk about artists before. Now, today, I have heard them denounce this as big art's union bosses, as though Jimmy Hoffa played the mandolin.

Their idea is whoever the guy is from Diagolon, right? They are YouTube broadcasters who are promoting ivermectin. They are worried about them, but I can tell them they do not need to worry. Nobody is going to stop all the insane conspiracy-driven hate and paranoia. However, we need to hold Facebook and YouTube to account for the algorithms because they are undermining democracy, and that is an obligation.

There was a time, just in 2018, when Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats worked together because we recognized that threat. What we are dealing with now is a Conservative leader who believes that there is an opportunity in spreading disinformation.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I laughed a lot during our colleague's speech. It was very colourful, but, at the same time, the substance of it was very worrisome.

When the leader of the official opposition gave a long speech to oppose Bill C-11, he went on and on singing the praises of the free market. I think that we are all in favour of a free market, but there are some areas, such as culture, where I think that does not apply. There are some areas where we need to rely on the government we have to help protect and regulate that culture, which may be thriving but is still, in many ways, more fragile than the U.S.-based web giants.

Can my colleague explain why the real danger is not government dictatorship but the dictatorship of the digital multinationals?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the idea that the Conservatives are floating, that there is somehow a free market when one is dealing with YouTube and Facebook, is ridiculous. These are the largest broadcasters in the world because their algorithms decide what one sees. The idea that this is all some kind of free market is a falsehood.

Maybe the Conservatives just discovered the Internet a few years ago, but there is no longer a free Internet. It is a very controlled Internet. It is the algorithms.

One of the fundamental principles we fought for in Canada is the need to promote, preserve and ensure that Canadian, francophone and indigenous voices have a place in Canada to have their stories told. We can sell that to the world. In fact, our greatest export from Canada is not our oil and gas. It is our artists, and we need to support them.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by sharing with the member for Timmins—James Bay, and he is aware, that I agree with him. There is so much good in Bill C-11. There is no censorship in it. We need to cut through that noise.

However, I think it is fair to offer constructive criticism and concern. At committee last June, it was my view that we lost potentially good amendments because of animosity between Liberals and Conservatives. My hope was that the Senate might look to improve the bill and suggest amendments. Particularly, amendments could focus on ensuring that if a musician like the member for Timmins—James Bay in my community were to post a show on YouTube, it would not be open to regulation from the CRTC.

Could the member for Timmins—James Bay share whether he is concerned about this with respect to Bill C-11 as well?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I certainly think that Bill C-11 could have been better. Moreover, I think the CRTC is an extremely cumbersome instrument to deal with this. However, the Conservatives decided to take this absolutely extreme, paranoid position as opposed to saying, “What do we actually need to do to make sure this works?”

There were probably better ways to do this, but we were not given those options, given the realm. I have been an artist, and I know many people in the arts community. I certainly want to reassure the artists I know.

I do not know those who are concerned that if they post a YouTube video, the CRTC is somehow going to watch it. We can imagine if it did. Would that not be fascinating? That is not what this bill is about. It is about making sure that the tech giants pay their share.

I think there were better ways of dealing with this legislation and making sure that these tech giants are held to account. I certainly believe that, out of Bill C-11, we still need to deal with the issue of accountability in the algorithms. Certainly, there are issues with the tech giants in their refusal to deal with online harm for children and the vulnerable, the exploitation of people that has happened and the proliferation of hate and violence that we have seen in jurisdictions like Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Brazil. There have to be legal consequences. I think we need to look at those issues beyond where we are tonight with Bill C-11.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for that intervention today. He was spot on regarding how Conservatives are dealing with this issue. The one thing he missed was fundraising. I can guarantee that his speech, or parts of it, will probably be the subject of a fundraising email as the Conservatives blast the NDP for wanting to censor everybody and everything. As a matter of fact, I tweeted something that made it into a Conservative email, talking about how it was so untrue with a gigantic “donate now” button at the bottom.

Could the member comment on what he thinks the real motivation behind this is? Other than just going along with the disinformation, is there an element of this that is really about raising money for political purposes?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, they really are special snowflakes, are they not? The only problem is they have to throw in some threats like they are going to get people and they are going to die because they are a friend of Klaus Schwab. We have to be better than that. We have to be speaking about truth, and what they have been talking about is not truthful.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again to speak to this bill. I spoke to Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament and I have spoken to Bill C-11 in this Parliament, and this debate around the Conservative amendment provides an opportunity to speak again.

I would like to start out by saying that Conservatives fancy themselves experts on all things to do with markets and the marketplace, but ironically they do not appear to understand markets. They do not seem to understand marketing distribution systems and networks, and the convergence of interests, big money interests, that occurs within these systems and networks.

In any market, big players, through their market power, can control distribution of product, physical or cultural. They can distort markets by deciding what consumers can have access to. It is an immutable law of the marketplace, as ironclad as the law of gravity itself, that the big players seek greater and greater market power, including through vertical integration. For example, distributors often seek to become producers of product. In the cultural sector, they seek to become producers of content. We see this with the big streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. In the case of Amazon, a company that was basically a mail-order house has also become a streaming service that does cross-marketing. When people order something on Amazon, they are asked if they want to subscribe to Amazon Prime.

Streaming services not only distribute content; they produce it more and more. It goes without saying that they have an interest in all of us being properly exposed to the content they produce at great cost. What is more, we see platforms like Google and Meta using their monopolistic muscle to intimidate duly elected governments, which I find unacceptable. This is whom the Conservatives are defending: the big streaming platforms, not the small, independent creators. They are sidling up to the big kids in the schoolyard. We are a long way from Adam Smith's free market of equals who bargain in the town square and achieve a fair equilibrium.

On the subject of algorithms, the bill is clear: The government cannot dictate algorithms to streaming platforms, end of story. The book is closed on that. In fact, it was never opened. Proposed subsection 9.1(8) of the bill reads, “The Commission shall not make an order under paragraph (1)‍(e) that would require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code.” That is in black and white in the bill and has been since the very beginning, yet we keep hearing from the other side that somehow the government is trying to control algorithms. When members are characterizing what is in the bill as fake news, I find that very Trumpian. It is not fake news; it is fact, and it is fact in black and white in legislation.

There is also an assumption in the narrative of the official opposition that social media algorithms mean freedom, but algorithms are not the doorway to freedom. They can be straitjackets, straitjackets of the mind. They can be blinders. We know they can lock people in echo chambers that amplify their own ideological biases. Social media algorithms are not necessarily designed to expand one's horizon. On the contrary, they can be designed to narrow one's field of vision. They are myopic and can be used to promote specific economic and political interests. It can be through algorithms that biases are reinforced and, in some cases, that misinformation is given a high-octane boost.

Let us look at radio by way of analogy. Radio of the 1970s, when CanCon was introduced by a Liberal government, is not so different from streaming today, even though the Conservatives have tried to tell us that these are apples and oranges and cannot be compared. We can superimpose the Conservative position onto 1970s radio and see what would have happened if that argument, that ideology, had been applied to music on radio.

The opposition says that Bill C-11's discoverability features cannot be compared to CanCon, that they are night and day, apples and oranges. They argue that we needed CanCon when faced with the limited resource of radio frequencies and that this solution is no longer needed because the web is limitless and opportunities to be heard are infinite.

I agree about the web. It is an infinite ocean of limitless voices, large and small, and herein lies the contradiction in the Conservative narrative. How can there be censorship by governments, or anyone else for that matter, in the endless ocean that is the World Wide Web? It is an oxymoron to speak of censorship in the cyber-era, unless we are in North Korea, where Conservatives appear to think we live. Today's challenge is not censorship, but misinformation and disinformation amplified by bots and algorithms.

Let us go back to CanCon and radio. The reason we needed CanCon was to counter a powerful, U.S.-centric distribution system whose financial interests were not necessarily those of Canadian music creators. Without CanCon, radio stations would have played only music provided to them by multinational record companies with an interest in promoting the musical artists they invested in. How would radio stations have decided what songs to play from all the music supplied to them? Playlists would have been compiled according to listener requests, requests based on the music supplied by the record companies and played on the radio, and on record sales at record stores stocked with records also supplied by the same foreign-owned record companies.

In a sense, without a requirement for CanCon, which is a form of discoverability, the de facto music industry radio algorithm would not have left much space for great Canadian music.

Finally, the Conservatives say that if Canadian culture cannot make it on its own, without any kind of government support, then it should face the judgment of the marketplace. They seem to view Canadian culture as the latest automobile.

If the Conservatives are so vehemently opposed to government intervention, the support of culture, are they asking that we eliminate Telefilm and the Canadian film or video production tax credit, which support Canadian films, many of them award winners? I think that is one of the questions that need to be asked here.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, with all respect to my colleague across the way, at committee the CRTC said that the Governor in Council, the cabinet, would provide the criteria by which the algorithms would be set to determine what content is voted up and what content is buried.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage admitted that he had given good thought to that, but he would not release what those criteria are. I am not sure how that squares with an open and transparent government, which is the platform the Liberals ran on.

Can the member comment on that?

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

Madam Speaker, the law is very clear. I read the phrase in the law that said the government, and that includes the CRTC, cannot dictate algorithms. If by “criteria” the member means a request or a requirement that streaming platforms provide some visibility to Canadian content, I think that is a pretty wide-open criterion that leaves a lot of leeway to streaming services to do that in the manner they think is most appropriate.

One of the points of this bill is to make sure that Canadian creators can find space on streaming services, the same way CanCon was meant to make it so that radio could provide space for great Canadian music, which now dominates the world.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very interesting speech and historical look at this, as well as explaining different technical terms.

Since we come from the same neck of the woods in Quebec, I would like to hear my friend and colleague speak about the importance of creating that space for Quebec content via Bill C-11.

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

Madam Speaker, I think a great part of this bill is driven by the need to provide support to Quebec content, as well as other Canadian content, and that is why stakeholders in Quebec are so in favour of this bill. The stakeholders have been consulted by the government over and over, and Quebec stakeholders are particularly keen on this bill, and for a very good reason.

I think it is a very important bill, not only for all Canadian creators but for maintaining the vibrancy of Quebec culture, which has shown itself to be extremely vibrant. It is an effort to maintain that vibrancy in the new technological environment that we have with cyber-communication.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I would like to thank the member for mentioning the web giants. I think we all agree that this enabling legislation is important and that they need to pay their fair share. I wonder if the member can tell this House when he thinks this enabling provision will be enacted.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a good question; unfortunately, I do not have a precise answer for it.

However, the member hit on another important aspect of this bill, which is that it is not only about discoverability of Canadian content creators but also about levelling the playing field and making sure that streaming services pay their fair share. It is really not fair at all that traditional broadcasters have to contribute to the Canada Media Fund but the streaming services, the foreign-owned streaming services, have been able to skirt that obligation. This bill would help make things more balanced, and that is a very important point that the member has raised.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, my understanding is that the goal here is to ensure that foreign streaming services pay their fair share. We have a plan for that. Could the member tell me what the Liberal plan is to ensure that they pay their fair share?

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

Madam Speaker, right now traditional broadcasters have to make payments to the Canada Media Fund, which is used to help in the production of Canadian content. At some point, through regulation, the streaming services will also have to contribute a portion of the revenues they earn in this country from Canadian consumers into the Canada Media Fund in order to help with the production of Canadian content for streaming.