Madam Speaker, perhaps it is a bit about control.
Let me talk a bit more about this. This $5 billion that was invested accounted for more than half of all production in this country and 90% of the growth this sector enjoyed over the last decade. That is significant. We are talking about an association, Motion Picture Association Canada, which hired, trained and provided opportunities for more than 200,000 Canadians, who are incredibly talented in the world of creativity. It supported more than 47,000 businesses. These numbers come from 2021 alone. That is a tremendous investment in telling Canadian stories, furthering Canadian culture and celebrating what is possible right here on home turf.
In fact, this is far greater than traditional broadcasters have proven capable of, so perhaps a little truth telling could go a long way and we could take delight in the tremendous success being achieved within our cultural sector.
We have to ask then, given this incredible investment, do we really have a problem? Do we really need this legislation? Is it true investments are not being made into Canada's production industry or that somehow culture is at risk? No. On the contrary, the sector is alive and well. It is simply the gatekeepers, the traditional broadcasters and the unions, do not control the outcome anymore.
Furthermore, this bill is based on the false notion that Canadian content cannot thrive without government intervention. As I have outlined, these production companies are hiring based on merit and their films are succeeding based on consumer demand. Do we really need the government then stepping in and mandating what percentage of content needs to be Canadian, as if the government were to not do that somehow Canadian content would not thrive? A $5-billion investment tells me Canadian content seems to be alive and well.
The problem is that a great deal of truly Canadian content does not meet the government's imposed definition of what it calls “CanCon”. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for example, is written by a famous Canadian author, is being filmed on Canadian soil, it stars Canadian actors and it employs Canadian producers, but it fails to meet the government's definition of CanCon.
It would be kind of funny, a bit humorous, to realize all that, except that it is incredibly damning to our cultural industry, which takes the humour out of the definition altogether and makes it antiquated and destructive.
Traditional broadcasters are forced to show a certain percentage of CanCon, and they feel stifled by this. Now the Liberals want streaming platforms and new media creators to come under the same rules, to wear the same shackles. Perhaps the government should consider taking the extra regulation off the traditional broadcasters instead of putting those same handcuffs on new media platforms. Perhaps instead of taking us back and maintaining the status quo, we should be looking forward toward a great, vibrant, creative, free future.
Make no mistake. This bill is not about supporting Canadian culture and Canadian artists. It is about protecting big broadcasters and the interests of the government.
Everything I have talked about up to this point is significant, but what makes this perhaps the most egregious piece of Liberal legislation is the fact that it does not just go after large streaming platforms or regulate traditional artists working with the support of a big union or a guild, but it actually extends to user-generated content. In other words, it is about the things that normal, everyday, average Canadians would post online, or ordinary content. Aunty Betty's cat video would be captured by this legislation. Now the government will implore the CRTC to weigh all of this material according to this definition of Canadianness, and that content will either be allowed to stand online or be moved to page 900.
It sounds like a big job. I do not know exactly how the Liberals are going to roll that out, but they seem to be very committed to it. Why do I say they are very committed to it? Well, it is because they had an opportunity to make sure user-generated content was not captured by the bill. They had an opportunity to ensure the bill really was just about the largest streaming platforms.
The Senate made an amendment. In fact, even before the bill got to the Senate, the House of Commons offered the same amendment. The government rejected the amendment here, and then the Senate, after wisely giving this legislation a sober second thought and listening to witnesses, made the same amendment to make sure that user-generated content, ordinary content, was not captured by the bill. What we have learned today is that the government is not accepting that amendment, which is very telling. It tells us that the bill is far more about the government controlling what we can see, hear and post online than it is about anything else. If it were not, then why not accept the amendment?
The bill is about censoring Canadians, all Canadians. The bill would stagnate the progress that is being achieved by modern creators such as the woman who goes by Aunty Skates. She is a South Asian woman based in Toronto. She is in her forties and learning how to skateboard. She decided, in the midst of the pandemic, to start creating videos and bringing people in on her adventure, and she is going viral. The bill would stagnate that.
The bill would also go after homegrown comedian Darcy Michael. He proclaims himself to be a pot-smoking gay man. He talks about how he was turned away from traditional broadcasters, and now he is enjoying tremendous success on YouTube. The bill would target him.
Instead of modernizing the Broadcasting Act in a meaningful way to address the complexities of the digital world, this legislation would simply target the next generation of creators, the next generation of artists and the next generation that thinks outside the box and beyond the gatekeepers. This legislation would pull them back from the future and put them in the past.
This legislation would make sure that these individuals are again put under a regulator, a gatekeeper, that would determine whether their content is sufficiently Canadian to be discoverable or it has to be buried. That is shameful. In short, this legislation is about protecting the status quo rather than allowing progress.
The Senate committee heard from many witnesses with regard to this bill: creators themselves, subject matter experts and legal experts. The thing that was said loud and clear was that a step back needed to be taken and that the content created by individuals needed to be respected, that it needed to be left alone. The government has made it clear at every turn that it does not wish to make that change.
It is scary, and today we are seeing that. We are seeing creators across this country speaking out against this bill. We have seen it for months. Today, knowing that the nail is potentially in the coffin, they are all that much louder. They are concerned about their future.
The truth is that it is not just creators who are concerned, but all Canadians. All Canadians are concerned because at the end of the day, they want to be able to watch what they want to watch. We like on-demand services for a reason. Traditional broadcasters are phasing out for a reason. It is because they take choice out of the equation and Canadians like choice. Canadians are very concerned about the censorship that this bill brings in.
The government says that it wants to remove barriers for under-represented artists. That seems noble. Unfortunately, again, that is not true. That is not what this bill does.
This was made abundantly clear in the Senate. The committee heard from BIPOC and indigenous creators, as well as francophone creators, who all said that this bill would hold them back, that it would stifle the success that they enjoy. They talked about the tremendous success they are currently able to achieve based on their own merit in the barrier-free world known as the Internet. As my colleague from the Senate, Senator Leo Housakos, said so well, “What Bill C-11 does is put limits and barriers back in place and perpetuates a system of picking winners and losers by dictating, based on factors other than individual user preference and choices, what Canadians should post and what Canadians will see.”
At the end of the day, creators do not want this bill because it would hold them back. Viewers do not want this bill because it would control what they have access to online. Creators wish to succeed based on their own creativity and ability, and they are doing so phenomenally well. Most Canadian creators enjoy an audience that is 90% outside of Canada. In other words, they are reaching the world. Is that not celebration-worthy? Furthermore, it has been stated by experts that this bill is so much about censorship and control that it actually likens us to places like China, North Korea and Russia, which Canadians are rightly concerned about.
Canadians want to be able to go online and access the material they wish to access. If they wish to go on YouTube and be given the stuff they want to watch, they can do that right now. They appreciate being able to do that right now, but unfortunately, under Bill C-11, they would be given more of what the government wants them to watch, not more of what they want to watch. Does it not seem dangerous to members that we would be so regressive as a nation that under the government we would succumb to being like North Korea, China and Russia?
On behalf of Canada's amazing creators who have achieved tremendous success, based on their merit, on new media platforms, or who seek to do so, and on behalf of Canadians who value the freedom to choose what they watch and listen to online, I move the following motion. In response to the government's motion, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the first word “That” and substituting the following: “the order for the consideration of the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be discharged and the Bill be withdrawn”.
Kill Bill C-11.