Pablo Rodriguez

[Online News Act, June 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and his party for their incredible work on this bill. I thank the Bloc Québécois too, with the little exception here today. Its members did a good job too, because this bill is fundamental.

The question is a very important one, but I have no answer for it because I do not know why the Conservatives are blocking such an important bill. This bill is good for big cities and small communities, and for papers and radio stations across the country. Why is it? It is because big tech is getting all the money, as 80% of all advertising revenue is going to two companies: Google and Facebook. The Conservatives seem to be comfortable with that. They are super happy. They stand up for the tech giants all the time, instead of standing up for small papers and small community radio stations. They do not have the guts to stand up for local journalism. We will stand up for them.

[Online News Act, June 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I will make an exception to the rule. I usually have kind words for my colleague. I still have very kind words for him, but the Bloc Québécois is being a little hypocritical. Bloc members never like time allocation, but they want to take credit when a bill is passed. They say that it is thanks to them that a bill is passed, and that they moved heaven and earth to do it. However, when it is time to vote for a bill to pass it, they hide. Let them show some backbone. Either they support it or they do not. It is one or the other.

[Online News Act, June 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, there is a reason why the bill is here in front of us, and that is because there is a huge power imbalance between the tech giants and local journalists. In the last 15 years, we have seen around 500 newsrooms close their doors: big and small; in cities and rural areas; English, French and different languages. That is hurting our democracy.

This bill is absolutely essential. It is essential that we move forward. We had the chance to debate it here in the House. We debated it in committee for a long time. We went to the Senate. It was debated in the Senate. It was debated in committee at the Senate. It had the chance to go there. It is now time for us to pass the bill.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I am just sorry he sees their platform as a prop.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, this shows how good he is. I will quote a portion of the Conservative platform in the last election, which says:

Canada's Conservatives will:

Introduce a digital media royalty framework to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook. It will:

Adopt a made in Canada approach that incorporates the best practices of jurisdictions like Australia and France.

This is exactly what we are doing here in Canada, but they changed their minds.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his extremely important question.

I mentioned earlier that nearly 500 media outlets and newsrooms had closed down. These were media outlets across the country, both in urban centres and in the regions. They were in ridings like my colleague's, which we had the opportunity to visit together. We had a great time doing that. In fact, I bought several things in his riding to support the local economy.

There is a direct impact. There are regions where there is no media reporting the news at all. This shows a lack of respect and is deeply undemocratic. It is concerning when a region does not know what its member of Parliament is doing in Ottawa, what its member of the National Assembly is up to in Quebec City, or what decisions its municipal councillor is making. These businesses must be allowed to resist, and even to rebuild, so that Quebeckers and Canadians have access to free, independent and unbiased news. This is fundamental.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, once again, I thank my colleague for his question and his tireless work. He is an MP I respect enormously. We have known each other since we started working together in 2004. I have seen the quality and thoroughness of his work over all these years, particularly on Bill C-18.

He is absolutely right. There is no democracy or sovereign nation that can allow a web giant, a foreign company, to come in and dictate terms.

We cannot allow a company, any company, to come in and tell a sovereign government, one elected by the people, that it must do this or that or risk suffering the consequences and paying the price. That is absolutely unacceptable. Some of the actions taken by certain web giants constitute bullying, pure and simple. They are bullying Canadians, members of the House of Commons and senators. It is unacceptable.

We must stand strong. Unfortunately, the Conservatives caved immediately. They caved to pressure from the web giants at every step and at every opportunity, but we will stand strong.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I would like to extend my warmest and most sincere thanks to my colleague, who just spoke about his work on this important bill. I think that there has been productive and very professional co-operation between the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Liberal government.

The hon. member referred to the value of the content produced by our media. What our media outlets produce does have value. When we give an interview in a newsroom, as every one of us has done, what the interviewer does has value. What the researcher did has value. What everyone does has value. What the window washer does has value. All of it has value.

The web giants exploit this work. It helps them ensure that people spend a lot of time on their devices. It attracts a lot of eyeballs and creates financial value by allowing them to sell advertising.

However, they are not sending any money to newsrooms in return. It is completely imbalanced. The reason the government has proposed this approach rather than the Bloc Québécois's approach is that we want to be as far removed as possible from all decisions. What we are doing is simply providing a space for the web giants, the newsrooms and the media outlets to all sit down together to negotiate fair value between them.

That is what we are doing, rather than creating a fund, appointing a manager and so on. That is essentially the reason behind our approach, but I thank my colleague for his very important work on this.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the question is why the Conservatives are supporting tech giants all the time, every time, using their speaking points on this point.

We are standing up for our democracy. We are standing up for traditional media, and new media of course; they all have a role to play. However, 500 of them have closed their doors, which is hurting our democracy. The Conservatives do not care. They have fought against this bill, and by fighting against this bill, they are fighting their own democracy. That is a shame.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, let me quote some other people, for example, Paul Deegan, CEO of News Media Canada. Let us hear what he had to say about this bill. I am sure members will find it very interesting. Paul Deegan said, “The amendment would limit the ability of news publishers to negotiate fair compensation with dominant platforms. [Fair] value will be determined during negotiations.”

That is not all; I have another quote.

Pierre-Elliott Levasseur, president of La Presse, said, and I quote, “This amendment would tie one hand behind our back and hamstring us in negotiations with the platforms that enjoy a massive power imbalance over news publishers.” He went on to say, and I quote, “This amendment benefits the platforms at the expense of publishers.”

Because we are rejecting that amendment, we also have to reject a second amendment, which is a technical amendment tied to the first one. We are accepting 10 amendments out of 12. Again, I want to thank the senators for their amazing work.

Canada is currently leading the way with Bill C‑18. We are leading the charge.

I also want to thank my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, especially the member for Drummond, who did an outstanding job, as well as the NDP heritage critic, who did great work. I thank them for their interest in this bill and for the valuable and productive work that they did.

Thanks to this collaborative effort, Canada is leading the way. Even Australia, which served as a model for us in the beginning, is now looking to us to be guided by the transparency measures we included in the bill. In the beginning, we followed the Australian model, but then we improved it. We added a lot of transparency, and now Australia is looking to us to see what we are doing and it may even copy some aspects of the Canadian model.

Transparency is fundamental. Transparency is always central to every decision we make and every action we take. It is important. Canadians also expect transparency. They want things to be done in a transparent way.

As a government team, we want everything to be transparent. That is why, every year, an independent auditor is going to assess how well the act is meeting its objective of ensuring a fairer news ecosystem. Having an auditor will also enable us to adjust course as needed.

We have studied this bill. We have examined it and made it better. We have listened to what everyone had to say. We addressed many of the concerns that stakeholders raised in Parliament, and I would say that the bill is much stronger because of this.

The online news act would not be a silver bullet for all the challenges facing the news sector. We are very realistic and we understand. There are different programs that we have put in place. We did this collectively as a team to improve the situation, and there are many other things. However, this is an extremely important part. Through this bill, we would address many of the concerns we have heard in the House and in the other place, in discussions with experts, with people from platforms and with people from the media, including journalists. It is not a silver bullet, but it would definitely give the Canadian news media a chance to rebuild and thrive in a more sustainable, fairer news ecosystem.

As I have said before, the world is watching Canada, and we have to take clear leadership. I would say that this is a call to all parliamentarians in this place and in the other place. The world is watching, and we are all taking clear leadership on this. I want to thank all parliamentarians for this.