Pablo Rodriguez

[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.

[Online News Act, June 19th, 2023]

moved:

That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that, in relation to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, the House:

agrees with amendments 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 made by the Senate; and

respectfully disagrees with amendments 4 and 5 because they undermine the objectives of the bill, which focus on encouraging fair deals that reflect what each party contributes to, and how each party benefits from, the making available of news online, and narrow the scope of the bargaining process and the key factors guiding final offer arbitration decisions;

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank all parliamentarians for their important work on this bill, starting with the members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and also the senators who sit on the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications. In particular, I would like to thank Senator Harder, who did a truly remarkable job as the sponsor of the bill in the Senate.

Last, but certainly not least, there is my incredible, formidable parliamentary secretary, the member for St. Catharines. I thank all of them so much.

I have said it in the past and it bears repeating today: Since 2008, more than 500 media and newsrooms have closed their doors in 335 different communities all across the country. There are very few members who have not had a newsroom in their riding close. It affects us all. We are talking about local newspapers, television stations, local radio stations and news sites.

We discussed this here last week when Bell announced the closure of radio stations and the elimination of 1,300 jobs. Furthermore, we will recall, especially my Quebec friends and colleagues, that not so long ago Québecor announced 240 job cuts, including 140 at TVA. We are talking about real people who lost their jobs.

This bill is about them. It is also about the future of the news industry in our country. It is about upholding our democracy, because our democracy, or any democracy, needs a free, independent and thriving press. We all rely on fact-based and timely news to make rational decisions to counter misinformation and to participate in our democracy. Today, I would say, it is more important than ever.

We all know that the Internet has dramatically changed the way we create, search and consume content, especially when it comes to news. We see that more and more Canadians are using digital platforms to stay informed, and 77% of Canadians consume their news online, including 55% of them doing so on social media. We can see the impact right here. Meanwhile, our traditional news sector is in crisis; we all know that. It is very clear to all of us that there is a big power imbalance in our news marketplace, and the actions of the big platforms, as we have seen very recently, are a clear demonstration of this. Right now, there is absolutely no incentive for digital platforms to pay our news businesses and our journalists fairly for their content. Everything I have just mentioned here has a direct impact on our ability as Canadians to access reliable news.

The bill proposes practical measures to respond to everything I just said. It proposes to put an end to the status quo because it is not working, as we have clearly seen. When we are talking about nearly 500 newsrooms or news media outlets, whether big or small, in cities or in the regions, that have closed their doors, we clearly see that the status quo is not working at all. We therefore need to take strong, definitive action.

Bill C‑18 sets out clear criteria that the platforms must meet in their negotiations with news organizations. I hope it will be passed in the coming days with the help of my colleagues here and the administrators.

As soon as the law is passed, we will consult with Canadians, who will get to have their say. It is essential that Canadians have a say because this bill is partly about them. Basically, we are talking here about access to good quality, reliable, neutral, independent and non-partisan news. We are talking about local journalism, one of the pillars of our democracy. Because of that, we obviously want Canadians to express their opinions and have their say. It will therefore be a completely transparent process.

During their study of the bill, senators made 12 amendments to Bill C-18.

There is a provision to have the entire act come into force within six months of royal assent. There is also a guarantee that no media will be required to take part in this if it does not want to. Then there is the addition of provisions on official language minority communities, as well as Black, indigenous and other communities.

There are some important and interesting amendments that are in the spirit of the legislation that I would say improve the legislation. We propose supporting 10 of these 12 amendments, which is a lot. I want to take this opportunity to thank the senators for their work, in particular Senator Harder who, as sponsor, did extraordinary work. I thank him and the members of the committee and all senators. We are support 10 out of the 12 amendments.

The only one we cannot support is an amendment that would force negotiators to set boundaries on bargaining by setting a simple value for news content and limiting negotiation over other items of value. Currently, the legislation intentionally would not set boundaries on what parties can negotiate on. This would allow them to bargain over the elements outside the scope of news content if they want.

If you do not want to take my word for it, Madam Speaker, which I am sure you and everyone in this room would want to, but just in case—

[News Media Industry, June 15th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, our government will always be open to new solutions. We will always look at what more we can do and what we can do better.

However, when we introduced the Canadian journalism labour tax credit, the Conservatives were against it. When we created the Canada Media Fund for the regions, the Conservatives were against it. When we introduced Bill C‑11, the Conservatives were against it. When we introduced Bill C‑18, the Conservatives, again, were against it.

Do they understand that their actions have real consequences?

[News Media Industry, June 15th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, my thoughts are with all those who have lost their jobs, and with their families. It is always worrisome when radio stations shut down and journalists lose their jobs. That is why we have been there from the start. We worked with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP to study Bill C‑11 and Bill C‑18, but the Conservatives did everything they could to delay the passage of those bills.

Do they finally understand that their actions have consequences?

[Democratic Institutions, June 6th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, if the Bloc Québécois really cared about what is going on in Quebec, if the Bloc Québécois really cared about what is worrying Quebeckers right now, it would be asking questions about the wildfires, because that is what is worrying Quebeckers. If the Bloc really cared and had asked a question about the fires, I would have told them that my colleague is in constant contact with the Quebec government. We have received specific requests to which we have responded promptly. We will always be there for Quebec.

[Disaster Assistance, June 5th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we are all concerned about this situation.

First of all, I want to thank the firefighters for their work and acknowledge their courage. Quebec reached out with a request last Saturday and we answered yes within hours. The Canadian Armed Forces has deployed 150 service personnel. We will continue to be there for Quebeckers.

[Intergovernmental Relations, June 1st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what kind of relationships my colleague has been in in the past.

To come back to the debate that concerns us, I have a great deal of respect for the National Assembly. What is happening is that we are respecting jurisdictions. Right now, there is a debate going on in Quebec and we are talking about it. We respect all that.

However, the Bloc Québécois is trying to bring 30-year old arguments and debates up here. Why does it not focus on what we can do together to help society, to help Quebec move forward? That would be more productive than always trying to go back to the past.