John Nater

[Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C-11, June 13th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, here we are with a closure motion on a motion to time-allocate this bill. The closure motion on Motion No. 16 is a guillotine motion on a guillotine motion.

We are debating today a motion that would constrain debate at committee stage. It is a motion that would force us through clause-by-clause study and amendments without a word of debate on a bill to amend the Broadcasting Act for the first time in three decades. We are debating a motion that would also limit debate in the House at report stage to a single day and would limit it again at third reading.

All of this is in one single government motion, and just moments ago the government voted for closure. It invoked closure to cut off debate on this motion, to cut off debate on a motion that would limit debate. I could not make this up if I tried, yet this is what the government is doing.

I am sure folks at home are wondering, after reading The Globe and Mail over the weekend, why there is a rush. Why is the government—

[Online Streaming Act, June 13th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, we would request a recorded division.

[Online Streaming Act, June 13th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I would ask the minister why his government is blocking the release of the policy directive that they will issue to the CRTC.

We are waiting to hearing how the Liberal government will force the CRTC to implement the measures contained in Bill C-11. I note that on Friday the minister said he would not rush this through the Senate in order to allow the Senate lots of time to debate it. The bill only came to the heritage committee on May 17. Now the government is rushing it through both the committee and the House.

Now that the government is not going to rush it through the Senate, would the minister at least commit to tabling, for all Canadians to see, the policy directive that it would issue to the CRTC?

[Instruction to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to correct the record and confirm that the Conservative Party, as of last Friday, has submitted a number of amendments to the committee clerk for the purposes of this legislation, but we are not done. We have not finalized all of our amendments because we have not finalized the review of this piece of legislation.

We have made very clear publicly, and did so in a release, the challenges and concerns we have with this piece of legislation, including section 4.2, the definition of discoverability, the redefinition of Canadian content and the thresholds that these institutions ought to meet.

The question I want to ask to the NDP House leader is very simple. Much of this interpretation will be left to the CRTC, based on the policy directive of the minister. The minister has said that he will not release it until after this piece of legislation receives royal assent. Would the member not agree that it would be better for transparency and for the benefit of all of us in the House who are debating and voting on this legislation if the minister would simply, as the government did with Bill C-10, release the draft policy directive to the CRTC so that we can see it, review it and make a judgment on it before we vote on Bill C-11?

[Instruction to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP House leader knows full well that it was the Conservatives who originally moved the motion to hear from Hockey Canada. The record must reflect that.

[Instruction to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you in the Chair. You are doing a fine job.

The member just asked that we vote and get this done. My question to her is this. Why is she currently filibustering this motion? The House leader of the opposition moved this motion, spoke for about four minutes and hoped that we could have a vote on it. What the government members are now doing is filibustering the motion to prevent the House of Commons from voting on it. The House leader spoke for only four minutes and now the government members are filibustering the motion.

I am not surprised, because the member was the chair of PROC when the Liberal members spent 100 days filibustering that committee to prevent the Prime Minister from having to testify, trying to save him rather than getting the work done for Canadians.

[Online Streaming Act, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I just want the record to reflect that the member for Ottawa—Vanier just introduced a guillotine motion on a guillotine motion.

[Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C-11, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South says there cannot be more, but there is more, unfortunately.

The government has tools available to it in the House to force through legislation. On motions it can use what is called closure, and on pieces of legislation it can use time allocation. That is the traditional process. If Bill C-11 were to be reported back to the House and the government felt that it was not proceeding as fast as it would like, it could move time allocation. However, it did not. At least with time allocation there is an opportunity to put questions to the minister for a period of 30 minutes. It is not a lot and it is not sufficient, but at least there is a process. Motion No. 16 pre-emptively time allocates this piece of legislation before clause-by-clause happens, before the process even begins.

I want to quote paragraph (b) of the motion. It states:

not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at report stage, and that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders that day, 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

That means one day for Bill C-11 at report stage.

Canadians listening at home may not quite grasp the severity of this provision. In the House, there are certain days of the week when government orders are debated for a lengthy period of time, for multiple hours. Sometimes when the government moves time allocation, it will say five hours. This is still, in my opinion, not enough time for an important piece of legislation, but five hours is more than what is foreseen for this piece of legislation.

If Bill C-11 is called before the House at report stage on a Wednesday afternoon or on a Friday, there will be not more than two and a half hours of debate in the House on each and every report stage amendment that may be brought forward. There is no discussion to extend hours. There is no discussion of additional time for Canadians to hear from their elected representatives.

I know that in my caucus, my Conservative colleagues want to discuss this bill. Many of them have eagerly volunteered to sit in on deliberations at the Canadian heritage committee because they have an interest in this piece of legislation. However, they have not had a chance to speak to it in the House of Commons. Why? It is because at second reading the government moved time allocation and they did not have a chance to speak.

My friend from Cumberland—Colchester is here today listening intently because he wanted to speak and did not have the chance. It is the same for my friend from Beauce. He has not had a chance to speak to this piece of legislation, and neither has my friend from Calgary Signal Hill. Each of them has been denied the opportunity to speak to this bill, and now they will be pre-emptively denied the opportunity to speak to the bill because of the limited time available for it.

That is not all. The final paragraph of this motion time allocates the bill at third reading. Paragraph (c) of Motion No. 16 states:

on the day the bill is considered at the third reading stage, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be midnight, and that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders that day, 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.

That means one day of debate for the third and final reading of this piece of legislation.

I will remind members of the House that this bill only got to committee and began the committee process on May 24. Now, less than four weeks later, the government wishes to see this bill arrive at third reading and pass without meaningful debate in this place and without meaningful debate during clause-by-clause in committee.

Earlier this week, the Minister of Canadian Heritage appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I was in the chair for that meeting, and as members know, the chair does not actively participate in the debate. However, I listened intently to the Minister of Canadian Heritage in his opening comments. He made the comment that when the committee was finished its process, there would be more debate in the House of Commons at report stage, at third reading and then in the Senate. Then, just three days later, on notice on the Order Paper was this guillotine motion, which does not fulfill the minister's commitment to allowing more debate on this bill.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and I get along very well, so I take him at his word that he was committed to more debate. Unfortunately, the government House leader's failure to manage the legislative agenda of this place means that our colleagues, members of the House, will not have the opportunity to fulfill their duty as parliamentarians, to fulfill their duty to the people they represent.

It is interesting that with the current government, what was old is new again, because in the previous Parliament there was a similar motion. It was Motion No. 10, and it also dealt with a bill, Bill C-10, the predecessor to this bill. It forced Bill C-10 through committee, forced it through the House of Commons and forced it into the Senate.

Had the government actually been committed to passing that piece of legislation, it could have, but something else intervened: the political interests of the Prime Minister. We saw the political ambitions and self-interest of the Prime Minister in his attempt to try to win a majority government during a pandemic, when he and every Liberal member on that side had committed to not calling an election during a pandemic.

They saw an opportunity to try to get their majority, and they did not. However, what happened is that every piece of legislation that was before the House or the Senate died on the Order Paper, including the previous Bill C-10. To hear Liberal members and ministers talk about having to expedite legislation through the House and through committee because it has to get through is simply horse feathers. It is horse feathers because they had an opportunity to do so but killed their own legislation by forcing an unnecessary election, which included the dissolution of Parliament.

However, the Liberals do not learn their lesson. These undemocratic processes keep coming back time and time again, and we have seen this with different pieces of legislation. I know I have heard Liberal MPs talk about the other matters we need to get to. Our Conservative Party put forward a proposal at the heritage committee to prioritize a review of Hockey Canada. We put forward a motion to prioritize the review of the disgusting situation we have learned about from four years ago. That should be our priority at committee. That is what we as parliamentarians should be looking at.

I see that I have one minute before question period, and as I assume I will have time to resume my comments after question period, I will leave with a few interim closing comments.

Canadians expect us to do better. Canadians expect us to review legislation. They expect opposition MPs to improve flawed legislation, and that is what we as Conservative members of Parliament will do. Regardless of the outcome of this motion, we will do what we can to protect Canadians, to support our creators and to ensure that Canadian creators are able to succeed at home and around the globe.

I look forward to resuming after question period.

[Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C-11, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from South Shore—St. Margarets asks what they are afraid of. The problem is that they are afraid of Canadians. They are afraid of the viewpoints and considerations of Canadians. They are afraid of hearing more testimony from stakeholders.

In the last couple of days alone, we have had requests from dozens of stakeholders, organizations, individuals and businesses that would be directly affected by this bill. We have yet to hear from APTN, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, an amazing organization. We have not heard from them at committee on this matter.

I find subparagraph (a)(vi) of this motion intriguing. I find it intriguing because when committee reports and legislation are reported back to the House, who are they normally reported by? I see my friend from Elgin—Middlesex—London, who is a committee chair. When the Standing Committee on the Status of Women reports back to the House, it is the chair of the committee who does so. The chair of a standing committee reports bills, legislation and reports to the House. Sometimes the vice-chair will have a supplementary or dissenting report, and in rare cases, a vice-chair will report a bill back if the chair of the committee is unavailable. That is the typical traditional process: The chair or the vice-chair of a committee reports a bill back. However, Motion No. 16 expresses non-confidence in the chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. It states:

a member of the committee may report the bill to the House by depositing it with the Clerk of the House, who shall notify the House leaders of the recognized parties and independent members

The motion by the government shows non-confidence in the chair of the committee's ability to report the bill to the House.

Not only does the government not have confidence in the chair of its own committee, its own member, but it is not even following the traditional process for submitting reports to the House. Following question period today we will have Routine Proceedings. The rubric of Routine Proceedings includes the tabling of reports from committees. That is the process for tabling a report. Motion No. 16 does not do that. It just says that any member can take the report and give it to the Clerk rather than following the usual practice of the House. I look forward to hearing the justification from Liberal members of the committee as to why they have lost confidence in the member for Vancouver Centre to fulfill her duties as chair of the committee.

That is not the end of the motion. Motion No. 16 would be bad enough if it forced this bill through committee stage and clause-by-clause. However, there is more.

[Government Business No. 16—Proceedings on Bill C-11, June 10th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, it is shameful abuse.

We as parliamentarians owe it to our constituents, our stakeholders and Canadians from coast to coast to do our due diligence, evaluate amendments, debate amendments and ensure the amendments being proposed achieve what is in the best interests of Canadian creators, Canadian viewers and Canadian consumers.

Could members do that, with dozens of amendments and dozens of clauses, in two hours and 59 minutes? It is not acceptable. It is unreasonable, and it is not possible.

I will tell us what could happen. What could happen is the same thing that happened with Bill C-10, where the Liberals tried to force through amendments that do not improve the bill but in fact worsened the bill. That is what happened with Bill C-10. The Liberals, out of the blue, moved an amendment that took away the exception for user-generated content.

As an aside, we see in this bill, and I will talk about it a little later, an exception to the exception for user-generated content, so the Liberals have clearly not quite learned their lesson when it comes to user-generated content and the importance of protecting it.

Here is another issue: We have the unique situation where there are members of the House who are not represented at committee. I am speaking about independent members, members from unaffiliated parties, such as members from the Green Party, who do not have the opportunity, or I would say the privilege, to sit on committees.

In traditional times, those members are able to come to committee, any committee reviewing pieces of legislation, and submit amendments and move those amendments during the clause by clause.

This programming motion, this guillotine motion on steroids, in subparagrah (iv) says, “suggested amendments filed by independent members pursuant to subparagraph (a)(ii) shall be deemed to have been proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill”.

It says “deemed to have been proposed”. The member for Kitchener Centre and the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands will not even have the opportunity to appear before committee and move their amendments to this piece of legislation, which is the largest update to the Broadcasting Act in over three decades.

This is like a bad novel. It keeps getting worse and worse. Obviously, it is a bad novel written in a foreign country because Canadians only produce great novels, but this is a bad novel because it keeps getting worse as we go. Subparagraph (v) states:

if the committee has not completed its clause-by-clause consideration of the bill by 9:00 p.m. on June 14, 2022, all remaining amendments submitted to the committee shall be deemed moved, and the Chair shall put the question, forthwith and successively without further debate, on all remaining clauses and amendments submitted to the committee, as well as each and every question necessary to dispose of the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill

That means no debate. Not just limited debate, but not a word of debate on a clause-by-clause or amendments at clause-by-clause. Our job, as parliamentarians and as elected officials, is to debate legislation. It is to debate legislation on behalf of our constituents and on behalf of Canadians.

Under this motion, Motion No. 16, each and every question necessary will be put without debate. It means that we cannot even suggest minor amendments to proposals. We cannot suggest to the Chair that perhaps an amendment may be out of order based on various reasons, including the parent act rule. That would not be possible because this proposal does not provide for it.

This proposal states that there shall be no debate, no debate on the largest update to the Broadcasting Act since 1991. No debate on a piece of legislation that could affect each and every Canadian who listens to music online, watches videos online or creates content that is posted online. There will be no debate on clause-by-clause or amendments after 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.