Debates of June 20th, 2023

Bill C-18—Time Allocation Motion

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, history will remember the Conservatives as those who stood up for tech giants and forgot about all the media outlets in the different regions, including the regions they represent.

Small media outlets from everywhere across the country, including in their ridings, have been coming to tell us that they are disappearing. Our bill will help those media outlets to survive and thrive, whether in English, French, indigenous languages or other languages. We need those small and big traditional media outlets because they are here to ask the tough questions. The Conservatives hate that. They do not want those media outlets to come here and ask the tough questions.

Of course it is tough. Sometimes, it is not fun to answer the questions, but that is our job, and the Conservatives do not want to do it.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, let us cut to the chase. We are not talking about the bill itself here. I think that the Bloc Québécois, through my colleague from Drummond, has shown how hard it is fighting for passage of this bill and the good reasons why we must pass it.

What we are talking about here is democracy and, for the last few weeks, the repeated use of closure motions and the repeated imposition of time limits on parliamentarians' debate. Limiting debate time is an attack on democracy. When I hear some members of the opposition rise to denounce it, I wonder why they unequivocally support each closure motion.

We need to change our parliamentary rules to ensure that we have time to debate such important government bills, instead of seeing yet another closure motion being imposed at the last minute, which is anti-democratic.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, what I like about this is that the Bloc Québécois wants to have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand it is saying that this bill is very important, but on the other hand, it is saying that we must not move forward with it, that it is not voting with us on this motion, and that it is giving up on us and abandoning the people it wanted to support.

The Bloc has done remarkable work. The member for Drummond has stood up the entire time. He was remarkable, as was the Bloc Québécois. However, now that it is time to move, there is a problem. It is one or the other. Either we end the debate and move forward with the bill, or we do not. The Bloc cannot have it both ways. It is hypocrisy pure and simple. Those members need to stand up and show some backbone.

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

Madam Speaker, this debate is important to my riding. I met with Terry Farrell from the Comox Valley Record and Peter McCulley from PQB News. They talked about the sense of urgency right now, because they cannot compete with Google, Facebook and so on. PQB News had to lay off Scott Stanfield, one of the top local reporters in the Comox Valley, who has covered really important and critical stories. Now it is short-staffed and does not have the capacity to cover as much as it would like to make sure that the people in our communities are well-informed and not at a disadvantage.

What we are seeing from Conservatives and finding out is that they are the gatekeepers for Google, Facebook and the big web giants.

Scott Stanfield has lost his job, and we know there are going to be more if we do not make sure that local media outlets can produce good local media in our communities. Can the minister speak about the sense of urgency to get this legislation passed, so local media outlets get the proper financial supports?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and the New Democrats for their overall work on this very important bill. I can say that they get it.

His question points to why the bill is so important. It is not a silver lining for now; we need more, and we are doing more as a government. For example, we put in place a tax credit on labour. We put in place local journalism initiatives. We have the Canada periodical fund. These will support everything we are doing, and we are open to doing more.

One thing we are not willing to do is to just stand down like the Conservatives and say that we are not going to do anything for our local media. That is totally unacceptable, and history will remember it.

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

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the minister could reflect on how, when the leader of the Conservative Party had a press conference in regard to the budget bill, he said that he was going to speak and speak.

His intentions were to prevent the bill from passing until the Prime Minister made changes to the budget. Now we have the Conservatives opposing this particular bill. They have already expressed an interest in terms of speaking and speaking in order to prevent the bill from passing.

Would the minister not agree that, just as when the leader of the Conservative Party vowed to speak endlessly, without the time allocation, we would never have been able to pass the budget and we would not be able to pass Bill C-18? Would the minister provide his thoughts on that issue?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is a very important question. I want to thank my colleague for his work on this bill and the overall work of the government. He is a key member of the government team.

Sometimes, it is necessary to use time allocation. With this official opposition, it may be used more, because they like to filibuster. The opposition likes to play with the tools it has to hurt our democracy.

Bill C-11 is an amazing bill that is asking the streamers that we all love, such as Disney, Netflix and others, to contribute to Canadian culture, which is a good thing. Normally we would all agree on this. I know the NDP agrees. I know the Bloc agrees. The Conservatives are not too sure. That bill spent more time in the Senate than any other bill in the history of this country, because it was blocked by Conservative senators under the order of the leader of the Conservative Party. That is totally unacceptable.

The Conservatives are trying to do the same thing on Bill C-18, with the budget and other bills. They are hurting our democracy.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, that is incredibly rich coming from a minister who used to decry any closure motions when he was in opposition.

I want to point out that, from the time of Tommy Douglas to the time of Thomas Mulcair, over those 14 Parliaments, the NDP only supported closure 17 times. With today's vote, we are at over 40 times in the past two years that the NDP has supported its Liberal partners in shutting down democracy and debate in this Parliament.

That is shameful behaviour. How can the NDP members stand over there and decry and heckle me now, while they are supporting one of the most unethical and most corrupt governments that we have seen in Canadian history?

On the issue of the bill, I will just say this: The minister stands here and says he is supporting local media. The Liberal government has not supported our local community newspapers or stood up for the local content creators. By going forward with this bill, it is putting more power in the hands of Rogers, Bell and the CBC, rather than actually supporting those local content creators. They are demising our democracy in this country by shutting down freedom of the press through this bill, by cutting off the voices of those who want to be independent on the Internet. That is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind members not to be heckling or trying to yell out answers or questions while others have the floor.

The hon. minister.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, the exact reason for this bill is to support the different media in our communities.

As I have said, it is not the only thing the government is doing. We have put in place a tax credit on labour to help our newsrooms. This is money for our newsrooms. We also put in place the local journalist initiative for small outlets in different regions. We did this because they are absolutely essential. We have the Canada periodical fund.

Those are three key programs, and this bill reinforces them. We have met with local small media outlets from across the country, from each of the ridings, from everywhere, and they want this bill. The bill also allows for collective bargaining. Small media outlets could get together, with 5, 10 or 100 of them, if they want, to negotiate as a group with the big tech giants, because, of course, there is a power imbalance there.

This bill is extremely important for those small media outlets. If we look at what happened in Australia, because they have a similar bill in place, proportionally, the small media outlets got more than the big ones.

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

Madam Speaker, I find this incredibly rich in the wrong sense of the word, this conversation going on about our small local news outlets and whatnot.

This is absolutely not true. The Liberal government is never there for the smaller entities that represent our communities. They have asked for support, and they have gotten next to nothing. As a matter of fact, our local papers are required to even put how much funding they have received from Canadian Heritage on each one, which is minuscule compared to the billions of dollars the government has handed out to the big guys.

I have trouble with the fact that we are shutting down debate on this issue. What I am hearing from the minister is not accurate, according to my riding.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, what is accurate is that this bill is there to support media across the country. As I said, around 500 media outlets have closed their doors. Big ones and small ones, in regions and in cities everywhere, have closed. It has a huge impact on our democracy that they are not there to tell their stories. In some regions, there is no more coverage, so the population does not know what the local MPs do in Ottawa. People do not know what the local provincial MLA goes and does in the capital. They do not know what the city councillor is doing in terms of making decisions. That is bad for our democracy. We have to be there.

Contrary to what my colleague said, there are many programs in place. As I said, we have a tax credit on labour and local journalism initiatives, as well as the Canada periodical fund. There are many projects, and this would reinforce all those programs.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is some context that is important to remember here. We are using closure to protect Canadian jobs. We are using it to stop influence from web giants and international conglomerates that are impacting our democracy, our way of life and our ability to influence our communities. It is ironic that the Conservatives complain about that. They used closure against women's rights, a number of court cases in which the Supreme Court even ruled against them and a series of different negative things. This closure is meant to adjust and for us to have some independence from the international conglomerates that are influencing us right now. It is also to protect jobs, which is a much more progressive use of closure at this point in time.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I agree.

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

Madam Speaker, we are already seeing the ramifications of this piece of legislation. There are many small online news outlets that are already being blocked by Facebook. For example, there is Pipeline Online in Saskatchewan. Its users are already getting a message saying that, in response to Canadian government legislation, Facebook is restricting the sharing and viewing of news content from pages connected to news outlets in Canada. What does the minister have to say about that?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, the difference between us and them is that we are standing up for our independence. We are standing up for our sovereignty, and we are standing up for our democracy.

Therefore, we do not accept the fact that some tech giants are threatening a government of a sovereign country. We do not accept that they are trying to intimidate Canadians or that they are trying to intimidate senators.

However, for the Conservatives, it is perfectly normal. From day one, they have been supporting whatever the tech giants do. They even take their talking points and repeat them time and time again. We will always stand up for freedom and democracy in our country.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to the minister's heated reaction. We know he is quite a passionate man and that this bill is important to him, but I believe he misunderstood the meaning of my question earlier. I really want to refocus my question on the concept of a closure motion.

In its entire history, the Bloc Québécois has supported under 10 closure motions. When it did give its support, it was because it was truly crucial that the bill being considered at the time be freed up. In 2021, in regard to Bill C‑10, the Bloc Québécois even suggested publicly that closure be used and recommended that the Liberals impose a time allocation motion because the government had lost control of the agenda. Something needed to be done to move the bill forward.

Right now, the government has not lost control with Bill C‑18. Everything is going pretty smoothly. We are in the final stage and there is no need to, say, free up something stuck somewhere due to filibustering. Earlier, I asked a question about the fact that we have two or three days left to debate Bill C‑18.

Yes, I want to see it passed this week at all costs, but my question was whether the minister had given up hope of having the bill passed in the usual manner by the end of the week and that was why he was imposing the closure motion today.

I would like to hear from the minister on this.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will be delighted to hear what I have to say.

My colleague just said that he supported the concept of closure when the bill is essential. Bill C‑18 is certainly essential to our newsrooms across Quebec and Canada.

The Bloc Québécois members ultimately lack that little bit of courage to say that it is important for them, even if it is no fun to limit debate. No one likes it, and no one got into politics to invoke closure. At the end of the day, they just do not have the courage to say that this step is necessary to get the bill.

Right now, they want Bill C‑18, but they do not want to do anything to help the government pass the bill. They do not want to help. They could stand up today, vote with the government and the NDP, and show how important it is to pass it before the summer break. If they do not do that, then the Conservatives will block it all week.

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

Madam Speaker, there is no respect for democracy in blocking every piece of legislation that the majority of members of Parliament want to adopt, and that is what Conservatives have done systematically. I remember the dismal decade of the Harper regime. The Conservatives imposed closure 150 times, and destroyed pensions, environmental protection, all kinds of awful things.

We have a bill that is supported heavily by Alberta and Saskatchewan community newspapers. They have been saying for months that the bill needs to be brought in. How can members represent the communities of Grande Prairie, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Medicine Hat and Swift Current by blocking bills for which those community newspapers are calling? It makes no sense at all.

My question for the minister is simply this. Why are Conservatives blocking something that stands up for their communities and is good for their community newspapers?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind hon. members, especially one in particular who mentioned that he was being heckled a while ago, and now he is doing the same thing to that exact member, not to heckle or try to answer questions and comments while someone else has the floor.

The hon. minister.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would never heckle personally.

However, the question from my colleague is extremely important. I really do not understand why the Conservatives from all those small communities are fighting this bill, which is there to help local media in their own communities. How can they do that? Why are they doing that? Only they can answer that.

We can only look at the pattern of how often they only side with tech giants, repeating their points, to understand part of the question. They are not there to support local media. They absolutely do not care, which is a shame. Therefore, we will stand up for them.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, we have just heard some comments about newspapers in Saskatchewan and Alberta, but not one of those are in my riding. I talked to those newspapers and asked what they wanted, and they told me. They are independent and do not belong to that group. They want the $60-some million back that would be given to the foreign nationals. They want that money for advertising, the 30%. They do not want that to be given to internationals.

Also, when the minister said that we supported tech giants, he should go to committee and listen to my comments about big tech. It was the Liberals who agreed with me on big tech, while hammering away at it. You did not find me in the committee supporting big tech. We did not do it. I did not do it. The Liberals agreed with me on how I opposed the big tech. Therefore, when you keep saying that things like that, you should listen to the committee and my comments.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sure the hon. member was not referencing me when he was saying “you”. I would ask the member to address his questions and comments through the Chair by using the correct words.

The hon. minister.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam. Speaker, I do listen to what is happening in the committee. It is very important for me, being the Minister of Canadian Heritage. I have a lot of respect for the work of the committee, and I have had the chance to go committee many times.

However, there are many programs for local papers. As I said before, there is the tax credit on labour, local journalism initiatives, especially for small communities. There is the Canada periodical fund. We are open to work with the other parties to come up with other solutions. However, Bill C-18 is one of those solutions. It is there, it is ready, it has been studied in the House and in the Senate. It is time we move on.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, the minister has disingenuously stated that the bill is about helping local newspapers, when, in fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is a non-partisan figure of this place, has reported that with the bill, the tune of 75%, the funding would go toward CBC, Bell Media and Rogers. These are the three big broadcasters. I would ask the minister this. Does that sound like newspapers to him, because it sure does not to me?

To the point from the hon. member who went before me, for our local newspapers in ridings like Lethbridge, where we have towns like Picture Butte, Coaldale or Coalhurst that are trying to make a go of it with one journalist, the bill would leave them out in the cold. There are hundreds, if not thousands, across the country that are in a similar boat. Does that sound like supporting local news to the minister?