Debates of March 9th, 2023

Online Streaming Act

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot wrap my head around what it is the Liberals do not understand. When they are saying they are going to control what Canadians see and read, it makes no sense. The critics have spoken up. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. They have said to the heritage minister that he has completely rejected the senators' amendment that would exclude user content from CRTC regulation. They said that they were going to do one thing and they are doing another. It makes no sense.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her passionate speech.

She began by talking about art. Art certainly offers a certain perspective on nature. Something becomes art when the viewer decides that it is artistic. An author once said that to read a book is to write another. The artistic aspect certainly lies in someone viewing it more than its distribution. We know that everything in the art world is what ultimately constitutes culture.

I want to ask my colleague what impact Bill C‑11 will have on culture.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoy conversing with the hon. member and I promise him that I will get better at my French one day and answer him in French. In answer to his question, culture is not force-fed by the government. Culture is created by the people.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, since the 1970s, the Government of Canada has regulated television broadcasters and radio broadcasters. When people turn on the radio, a certain amount of the content that they listen to has to be Canadian content. People may agree or disagree with those rules, but I have never heard it characterized as censorship.

I wonder if my hon. colleague down the way would consider those rules around Canadian content, which we have had since before I was born, to be censorship.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, having worked for a Canadian broadcasting company as I did for 12 years, I understand Canadian content. I understand that the Broadcasting Act needs to be updated, and I stated that clearly in my speech. However, this bill would not do that. There is an unintended intention here to control the Internet. This is a massive problem to society. That is what we are speaking about. Therefore, absolutely, that is censorship.

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

Madam Speaker, I feel as though we are in a space where we are talking past each other, because nothing I am hearing about this bill being about censorship makes any sense when I read the bill. We have a Broadcasting Act, and we would now be equalizing some of the playing field, so that Canadian writers and Canadian screenwriters are not losing out because of the online streaming from the big producers of Hollywood content, and sometimes Canadian content. All I can ask is—

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

I have to give the member for Peterborough—Kawartha some seconds to answer.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would actually like to think we all want the same thing, but the more I am in this House, I start to doubt that. I really do, because at the end of the day Conservatives trust Canadians to decide what they want to watch, and we do not believe that the government getting in the way of what their gifts are should be what decides what Canadians should or should not do, so that is my answer to the member.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, normally, there would not be much debate in the House when we talk about making updates to the Broadcasting Act, which came into effect in 1991. At face value, most Canadians would say that a lot has changed since then. A little thing called the Internet came along, and most would agree.

I have talked about this topic in the House before and I am pretty proud of myself. I am pretty sure that I was the first MP in Canadian history to put Boyz II Men in the parliamentary record, when talking about the legislation before us, because times have changed a little bit. Back in 1991, Boyz II Men, Bryan Adams, MC Hammer and Monty Python were on the charts. I wanted to put that in the record again, and I am glad I have done that.

The goals of the Broadcasting Act have been reasonable: respecting official languages and providing an avenue for Canadian content in the traditional media at the time of TV and radio. Here is the thing I have said in the House, sadly, on many issues over and over again: Only the NDP and the Liberals, working together, can take something so mundane and so innocuous and make a disaster out of it when it comes to policy.

Here is how I know that. Outside of the Ottawa bubble, there are not too many Canadians who know what Bill C-4 or Bill S-252 or Bill C-39 is when it comes to government legislation. We know that the government is in trouble and we know it is on the wrong side of public opinion when a bill title becomes famous. In the last couple of weeks or couple of months, Bill C-21 has become synonymous with an attack on rural Canadians, indigenous communities and hunters, when the government tried to ban commonly used hunting rifles. Here we are now, with the famous term “C-11”, known by millions of Canadians across the country today as the most blatant attempt by the Liberals and the NDP, and bureaucrats in Ottawa, to have control over what Canadians see and what they search on the Internet.

If that was not convincing enough, Bill C-11 being a household name to millions of Canadians, we know we are in trouble when Conservatives and Margaret Atwood are on the same page, pushing back against the government. She is a wonderful Canadian, one of the most regarded and successful Canadian artists and content creators this country has ever seen. Canadians do not have to take my word for it or believe this side of the bench if they do not want to. Canadians will take Margaret Atwood's word on Canadian culture and content any day of the week over that of the Liberals and the NDP.

I want to give members the dictionary version of what she said. She said some pretty harsh things, calling out the government on Bill C-11. When we break it down and use the dictionary to further define what she is calling out the government for, it is creating a centralized and dictator-like system of control that requires complete subservience to the state.

This is bad legislation. They know it. It has been ping-ponged back and forth between the House of Commons and the Senate. It is back in the House of Commons, and it is going to go back to the Senate. Every time there is a committee hearing, every time there are more witnesses testifying, there are more questions than answers about what the government is doing here with this bill. From consumer groups to legal experts to content creators, many, many groups from every walk of life and every angle on this topic are calling out the government's direction and how bad and how flawed the bill is.

I am proud to stand as a Conservative to say that when we form government, we will repeal Bill C-11. We will kill Bill C-11, as simple as that.

Let us get into the weeds and talk about some of these pieces bit by bit. One of the things we hear the Liberals and the NDP say is that we need to support Canadian content more.

When I think about that, I pull up a list and say, sure, let us support Canadian content, things like Deadpool. It was filmed in Vancouver, starring Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds, with a screenplay by Canadian Paul Wernick, based on a Canadian comic book character.

We have Canadian Bacon. Who could forget that? There is John Candy, a legendary Canadian actor, in a story involving Canada.

I talked about Margaret Atwood. We have The Handmaid's Tale, based on her book. When we look at the production, the series was filmed in Mississauga, Toronto, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Cambridge.

I think of Canadian content like All or Nothing, a series on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It is a five-part series that followed the Leafs for months during the 2020-21 season. It is narrated by a Canadian, Will Arnett. It used Canadian crews.

Is this all Canadian content? No, every one of those examples I just cited does not meet the definition and criteria for Canadian content in the definitions that we have.

Bill C-11 is currently 56 pages long, and any Canadian can go online and look at it. They can hit Ctrl+F and search. Nowhere in there does it talk about modernizing and cleaning up that definition. I will argue that this is not about Canadian content, but about something else.

Every time, we put an amendment forward to clarify. If the government wants to debunk a myth and say that what we are saying is not the case, it can clarify it and put in amendments to say what it is not, to exclude certain things. The government refused to do so. It says, “Don't worry. We are not going to determine that. It's going to be the CRTC.”

This brings me to my next point, about another fundamentally flawed part of the legislation. The CRTC is an Ottawa-based acronym. Federal acronyms go left, right and centre around here. It is an agency in Ottawa, and on the Quebec side as well, in the national capital region, full of bureaucrats who, behind closed doors, would not only set the rules for what is Canadian content, but also, through the bill, be directed to start controlling the search results we have on the Internet.

Members heard that right: “behind closed doors”. We have asked repeatedly to put some sunshine, sunlight and transparency on those protocols. There are no criteria in the bill. There is no public formula. There are no clarifications or guardrails on what those protocols are, so for Canadians, when it comes to what they search and what they want to see, whether it is searching on Google, Crave, YouTube or any other platform, as a Canadian here and now, the government will control what goes up in search results and what goes down, and we would not be able to find out the algorithms and calculations it uses, because of CRTC bureaucrats doing it behind closed doors. They never have to share their reasoning, or what I call “showing their homework”. That speaks volumes.

The Prime Minister and the NDP will say not to worry because the CRTC is an arm's-length agency of the federal government. “It is independent,” they say. Let us just debunk that right now. The CRTC reports to the Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage. Its chair and the commissioners who are working there and leading that organization are appointed directly by the Prime Minister and the Liberal cabinet.

Nobody believes it is arm's-length, and nobody believes the legislation is about Canadian artists and everyday Canadians, because if it were the right thing to do and the popular thing to do, and if there were no problems about it, the government would have made that whole process a lot more public, rather than punting it over behind closed doors.

The bill is not about sunlight. It is not about Canadian artists and content creators. I say the bill is a Trojan horse, because there are some very big cheerleaders for it. The bureaucracy at the CRTC would be exploding in size. The size of the Internet is massive. The amount of content uploaded every single day is huge. It is going to take an administrative swarm of new bureaucrats to go through, and the people who are going to hit the jackpot, the people who are doing cartwheels in downtown Ottawa, are the lobbyists who would be hired by all these groups, associations and artists to try to lobby to get them, when the CRTC goes behind closed doors, to take what is going on.

As I share my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, we will continue the commentary on this and how it works. If someone is a budding content creator in north Winnipeg, a Franco-Ontarian or an indigenous artist in northern Canada, in Nunavut, they can currently upload, and may the best content win. The cream of the crop rises. Canadians will determine what they like and what they want to watch, and that should be the most popular search result. That is the most organic way possible. Trust me, the best way is to let Canadians do their own work and let the organic way go. Good videos go to the top. We have thousands of artists who have made a living by creating content and continue to do so. We do not need to fix what is not broken.

I will wrap up by saying that Bill C-11 is bad. It is online censorship. Ottawa telling 37 million Canadians what they should watch and see is wrong. The Liberals and the NDP have had years to get this right, and now they are just being stubborn.

We oppose this bill now, and as a Conservative government, we would kill Bill C-11.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, first and foremost, the member referred to the Liberals and the NDP. It is the Liberal members of the House of Commons, the Bloc members of the House of Commons, the NDP members and the Green Party members. It is only the Conservative Party that is spreading the misinformation that is out there.

The member stood in his place and tried to give a false impression, saying that the government is trying to control what Canadians are watching. In no way whatsoever can the member cite anything within this legislation that would prevent a Canadian from watching whatever he or she wants to watch on the Internet. There is nothing there, so we would think that would stop.

The motivating factor for the Conservative Party on Bill C-11 is purely finances, feeding a frenzy of individuals it wants support from. I say “shame on the Conservative Party” for not protecting cultural industries and the arts in Canada.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague spends a lot of time in the House. I would encourage him to read clause 7 of this piece of legislation. That is the exact reason why Conservatives have major concerns and are calling out this bill as flawed.

Liberals have had so many opportunities in the House of Commons, in the Senate and in committee, through amendments, to do this, but the reality of the situation is true. They are punting the power to the CRTC behind closed doors, to create algorithms on what goes up in searches and what goes down. That is control. That is censoring something.

If it is organic and what people want to watch, and the Liberals do not like it, they could put a formula in and make the company have it go down. If they have these big lobbyists who advocate to tweak that formula, all of a sudden search results can go up. It was not a problem until Bill C-11 came along and the government's intent. It has had every opportunity to clarify it, and it refuses.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, in my life as a parliamentarian, there are things I find difficult, and one example is when either individuals or parties try to trash things that make perfect sense, simply for the sake of trashing them.

The Conservatives are clearly talking here about attacks on freedom of expression. Nothing in this bill constitutes an attack on freedom of expression. In fact, Pierre Trudel, an eminent law professor at Université de Montréal who is highly respected by all Quebeckers and Canadians, has said that this bill does not infringe on freedom of expression. The Department of Justice even studied the matter and came to the same conclusion.

What does my colleague say to that?

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if my translation device is broken or not, but am I hearing the Bloc Québécois supporting a bill that gives power for bureaucrats in Ottawa and the federal government to control what the people of Quebec see on a search engine result? I could have bet on a lot of things, but I never would have bet that the Bloc Québécois would be supporting Bill C-11, especially when the provincial government and numerous groups in that province have said this should not be standardized and centralized by the federal government. Shame on the Bloc Québécois for doing what it is doing.

The Bloc Québécois was wrong on Bill C-5. Bloc members voted for it and now they are regretting it. They are going to vote for Bill C-11, and I will bet $10 that in about a year, they will be regretting that too.

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

Madam Speaker, I am finding it very difficult to address this without trying to make the context larger. Let us imagine that in the digital world we thought everything was going to be more fun, so we invited Airbnbs into our neighbourhoods and we have discovered that we lose housing because Airbnbs compete with the hotels and take up residential space.

In the world of entertainment, digital is looking like we can play with it ourselves, we can put up cat videos, but then we discover that Canadian content, Canadian screenwriters, Canadian writers, Canadian producers are being disadvantaged by online streaming of the giants. Just as in the past when we needed Canadian content to bring us the shows that told us what it was to be Canadian, whether it was The Friendly Giant,The Beachcombers or whatever, we need protection for Canadian content because in the digital world it is all different. That is all this bill would do.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, the bill is flawed in so many ways, and I will give an example. We heard at committee that we need to have this to generate more Canadian content. The minister quotes that it would bring $1 billion more. Here is the thing. At committee, various organizations in the industry have said they are already investing $5 billion per year in the industry, but they need this control.

My argument to the member, the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc, the Greens and anybody else who thinks this bill is a good idea is that there have been thousands of artists across this country who have gotten their start online and with the freedom of the Internet to rise up and make a living. We have had success to date. It is gatekeepers being brought in, and it is wrong.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are here today talking about the Liberals' online censorship bill, Bill C-11. That is what this is. It is an attempt by government to meddle in the leisure time and the cultural and social education that Canadians have. Sometimes, under the Liberals' proposal, Canadians would have to pay for it. Canadians will subscribe to services and pay for their own Internet service and the Liberals would decide what they should be watching and what they should not be watching.

It is interesting, but not surprising after eight years of the Liberal government, that it is on full display now for Canadians that it is a government that wants to control what Canadians see and control what Canadians think.

This is a theme we have seen over the last eight years with a Prime Minister who is always looking to silence his critics and who is also looking to discredit those individuals who have the reputation, who are able to hold him to account. A few obvious examples comes to mind. We will first talk about media.

The Prime Minister has said on more than one occasion that stories that have appeared in mainstream media like The Globe and Mail are false, that they are fake news or misinformation. Then it comes to light, as was the case in the SNC-Lavalin scandal where the Prime Minister was found to have used his position to interfere in the criminal prosecution of his friends, that the story in The Globe and Mail was correct.

We must not let that get in the way of a good cover-up from the government. It wants to be able to control the narrative, even when there are members of the King's Privy Council who push back against the government and push back against the Prime Minister. Instead of taking that advice, that sober second thought, what did the Prime Minister do? In the case of Canada's first female indigenous attorney general, Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, when she spoke truth to power to the Prime Minister, he fired her. He kicked her out of cabinet. When another eminent Canadian, a minister of the Queen's Privy Council, Dr. Jane Philpott, spoke out on that issue, he kicked her out of cabinet too.

Canadians are best served when they get truth and honesty, and not when we have a government that is looking to exert control. That is the pattern we have seen with the government. When we are hearing from Canadians and from experts that this would affect what Canadians are able to watch and see online, we should take notice. It should give the government pause, but instead, what is it doing? It is dismissing its critics and saying it is misinformation. We have seen that pattern before.

When the Senate, Canada's chamber of sober second thought, brought forward amendments to protect some of the areas where we have heard the greatest concerns from Canadians with respect to user-generated content, the government dismissed those amendments out of hand. It said it was absolutely not going to do that, but not to worry as the bill does not affect user-generated content.

Why would the government defeat those amendments at committee and why would it refuse those amendments from the Senate? It is because, make no mistake, Bill C-11 would regulate and censor what people see. It would make the government, the Prime Minister through his Minister of Canadian Heritage and through the CRTC that reports to him, the regulator of what we can see online.

It would also censor what one can say. When I say the bill would censor, I mean the government and the Prime Minister, through his Minister of Canadian Heritage and through the CRTC. They would make sure that homegrown talent would not be able to rise to the top based on its quality.

We have seen countless examples where, against the odds, against media giants and production company giants around the world, not the least of which is the United States, Canadian content has flourished. Digital content of course is at the heart of what a lot of Canadians see and do online. The marketplace of ideas should be a meritocracy, but the government is afraid of that. The Liberals are afraid of that. They want to decide who the winners are and who the losers are, when it should be the consumers. It should be Canadians who get to decide.

We hear a lot about favourite programs that people grew up watching or listening to. No one made them watch it because it was Canadian. If it was quality, Canadians consumed it. Now that there is more content, there are more opportunities for Canadian content to flourish, and that is exactly what is happening.

We have a content creator in my riding, and I am not confused. It is McMullan Appliance and Mattress. Corey McMullan from McMullan Appliance and Mattress, which on a county road in my community, is a viral Internet sensation. He is not making cat videos. He is not doing any crazy stunts. He is talking about fridges, washers, dryers and stoves.

His honesty and his authenticity has caused him to gain global celebrity, and with that has come revenue for his business. He is able to sell products online. People buy them from him online because he talks about it. He is not advertising and he is not paying for advertising, but the innovation, the entertainment value and the character of this gentleman have propelled him to such fame and credibility that folks in my community in southeastern Ontario will take their pickup trucks from North Bay and drive all those hours to my community to buy an appliance from Corey because they trust him.

This type of obviously Canadian content is now going to be subjected to a test by the government, where it will decide if it is Canadian enough. We have heard other speakers talk about productions that are made in Canada, written by Canadians, produced by Canadians and have Canadians who star in them, but they do not meet the standard for Canadian content.

If the Liberal government is not prepared to exempt user-generated content, we need to ask why. Why does it refuse to recognize Canadians should have the freedom to say, to think and to watch whatever they want? I believe in my community and I believe in Canadians. I believe in people like Corey McMullan rising to the top based on that sometimes indefinable quality that Canadians are recognized for around the world. That is why, for a very small population, so many actors of stage and screen, so many people who write and produce, and so many people who create are household names. It is not because the government made people like them. It is because Canadians are extraordinary and we are extraordinary because of our freedoms.

After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians have had enough control. That is why a Conservative government would repeal this bill and that is why we believe we need to kill Bill C-11.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very honoured to be here today.

Listening to the comments from the other side of the aisle, one would think that the world is falling down or something to that effect. In fact, Bill C-11 is very prudent. It is a good step and a very big first step in modernizing the Broadcasting Act, which has not been modernized since 1991.

In fact, it would do nothing to discourage creation or streaming for Canadians who wish to produce content. It would encourage more Canadians to produce Canadian content. Who would not be in favour of such a goal, to have more Canadian content seen, listened to and read by Canadians from coast to coast to coast? This is a bill that has been debated on both sides, in the Senate and here, for hours upon hours and with amendments brought forward. Would the hon. member not agree that this is the best way to produce legislation, when we have both Houses working, witnesses coming forward and the committee doing the work that Canadians sent those MPs here to do?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for the question because it makes my point. The Senate came back with amendments. The senators did the work and listened to the witnesses. They said that there needed to be a carve-out for user-generated content, but the minister has rejected that. The minister should recognize the important work of the Senate, accept the amendment and exempt user-generated content.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, about two years ago, the Conservative member for Lethbridge said that Bill C‑11 was just a way to protect old, out-of-date Quebec artists that nobody cares about anymore. My riding boasts our national poet, Gilles Vigneault, an extraordinary man.

I have two questions for my colleague.

Does he, too, feel that our national poet is an old, outdated artist?

He has also been giving shout-outs to videos of dishwashers, washer, dryers and refrigerators. Is that his definition of quality Canadian content that makes him proud of his culture?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, some great Canadian content that has come out of the province of Quebec is an absolute favourite of my wife, and that is Celine Dion. My wife loves Celine Dion not because the government told her to but because Celine is Celine. That is the kind of content that we do not need the government to tell us we have to like. Although I am not familiar with the artists my hon. colleague has referenced, I am sure that if they bring him great enjoyment, they should be available on the streaming service. He should have the option to be able to listen to that if he likes it.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I am going to read just one sentence from the Canadian Media Producers Association website. I quote: “Canada needs updated broadcasting legislation to ensure we can compete and succeed on the world stage.”

Does the member agree that we need to make sure that this bill passes so that Canadians could compete and succeed on the world stage?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, we do not want this bill to pass. There have been reasonable amendments put forward. There have been amendments proposed by the Senate that would offer some protections to user-generated content, but this is a deeply flawed bill that has ignored the advice and the expertise of the witnesses who testified in committees of this place and of the Senate. It is not a solution when we have more control by the government over what Canadians see, where it is able to control its critics. That is not freedom. That is not Canadian. This is why the bill cannot move forward.

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

Madam Speaker, if anybody is looking for any Canadian content, they just need to head down to room 025-B in this building. There they will see the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, who has been generating a lot of content today based on some of the disparaging comments that he made towards a very capable and prominent female cabinet minister—

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

We have a point of order.

The hon. member for Provencher.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member just made mention of the presence or absence of one of the hon. members from the Conservative Party in this House. That is something that we try not to do here.