Paul Manly

[Keystone XL Pipeline, January 25th, 2021]

I am not cheering. This is a reality check.

[Keystone XL Pipeline, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's speech, but there is a lot of misinformation here. Forty-eight per cent of the total amount of crude that gets imported into the United States comes from Canada. We exported 3.7 million barrels per day, every day, in 2019. Ninety-eight per cent of Canada's crude exports go to the United States. There is no problem exporting crude to the United States: 79% of our imports are from the United States, so we are trading oil back and forth.

The problem with job losses is companies like Suncor that are automating the industry. Without building more infrastructure, there are no more jobs in the oil patch. This is a sunset industry, and when we see the big money, the smart money, not investing in oil and gas in Canada and the United States, we see governments, and provincial governments in the case of Alberta and British Columbia, throwing taxpayer dollars down a swirling drain to keep projects going.

We have international agreements. Stephen Harper signed an agreement in 2009 in Copenhagen to reduce emissions by 17% over 2005 levels. Eight provinces and three territories, representing 85% of the population, met that target. Two provinces increased their emissions so much that we levelled right out, and they were Alberta and Saskatchewan.

What do we do about our international commitments? Out of the G7, we have the highest climb in greenhouse gas emissions. They have increased by 21%. All other G7 nations have lowered their greenhouse gas emissions, except for the United States, which has only increased its emissions by 3%, and that was under the Trump administration. Where does the member stand—

[Housing, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the world's ultra wealthy use Canadian real estate to launder money and evade taxes. At the same time, corporations, numbered companies, hedge funds and real estate investment trusts are squeezing huge profits from residential properties. As a result, rents are skyrocketing, affordable housing is disappearing and more Canadians are experiencing homelessness. Will the government introduce strong regulations to stop the predatory activities that are distorting Canada's housing market and making homes unaffordable?

[Canada Revenue Agency, December 11th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, during this pandemic, some private long-term care home operators used government assistance money to pay millions to shareholders and CEOs, and some corporations used wage subsidy programs to pay employees, while their wealthy owners raked in billions. However, this holiday season, the CRA is going after low-income, self-employed Canadians for taking the CERB based on unclear rules.

Will the government stop taking the Conservative approach of punishing the poor, while giving the wealthy who game the system a free pass?

[Persons with Disabilities, December 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to hear that some programs are coming forward. However, we need to do more for those in the diverse ability community. They stood by and watched everybody get their benefits during the pandemic and waited eight months to get a $600 payment.

Many people with diverse abilities who received the CERB because they were self-employed are now being told they have to pay the CERB back. This is because the government was not clear that the eligible income amount was based on net income, not gross income. Self-employed people with home-based businesses write off a portion of their rent and utilities against their income. Small businesses receive rental assistance, but not home-based businesses.

There is a total disconnect between how governments speak about people with diverse abilities and how they are treated, and we need a national strategy to correct that disconnect.

[Persons with Disabilities, December 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, in my question last week I highlighted three areas where the government and society are failing the disability community.

The first one I would like to highlight is the plight of disabled veterans in this country. Veterans Affairs Canada has a backlog of almost 50,000 disability benefit applications. Our veterans deserve far better. It is disrespectful to attend commemoration ceremonies on November 11 to honour the dead while we dishonour the living in this way.

For a number of years I worked with the disability community in Nanaimo—Ladysmith in employment skills training programs. It was my job to discover the talents of the participants, understand their ambitions and dreams, and learn what skills they wanted to share with an employer. I then sought out employers who were ready to create jobs that worked for those individuals. When successful connections were made it was rewarding for the participant, their family and the employer, as well as for me.

However, many employed people with diverse abilities live in legislated poverty. People who receive provincial disability benefits are only allowed to earn a certain amount per year before their disability benefits are clawed back. In British Columbia a single person can receive a maximum of $14,196 per year in disability benefits. That person is permitted to earn an additional $12,000 a year without penalty. Every dollar earned above that $12,000 is clawed back, dollar for dollar, from that person's benefits. A person who earns too much money in a year can be completely cut off from disability benefits and has to go through the process of reapplying. This is legislated poverty.

Until this year, in B.C., if people on PWD lost their jobs and received EI, the EI they had paid into was clawed back dollar for dollar. This was also the case with the CERB, until I pointed it out to the provincial minister and asked him to have some compassion for the diverse ability community.

Applying for disability benefits can be extremely daunting. A whole industry has been built around exploiting people with disabilities who want to apply for federal benefits such as CPP disability. It is unacceptable that the Disability Tax Credit Promoters Restrictions Regulations have still not been implemented. I have a constituent with a traumatic brain injury who was charged over $1,000 for assistance in applying for the DTC. The family could not manage the large payment, and a collection agency was sent after my constituent.

People with diverse abilities want to be connected to the community, to contribute to society and to feel the sense of self-esteem and satisfaction that comes from working. I know many people with diverse abilities who dedicate hundreds of volunteer hours every year to help those less fortunate. It is truly humbling to hear someone who faces a life of challenges talk about their dedication to serve and help those less fortunate. They should be recognized and rewarded for the contributions they make.

The Green Party believes that it is time for a national strategy to create national accessibility standards. We need to respect people in the diverse ability community as well as the contributions they make to society. We need to ensure they live lives of dignity, are free from discrimination and get the services they need, and that economic challenges do not lead to health challenges.

[Broadcasting Act, December 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, we need to work on creating a more level playing field. It is going to be hard for local media to compete with these Internet giants. We should be looking at the Australian model.

As I mentioned in my speech, we need to ensure there is revenue sharing for the content that is shared through these social media platforms and has advertising right beside it. There needs to be a system of fairness. We need to protect our local media sources and the important stories they tell. They are extremely important to our communities, to our democracy and to our identity as Canadians.

[Broadcasting Act, December 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is important to cover a lot of different ground with this act, because broadcasting affects all our lives. The Internet is affecting our elections. It is influencing our children. It can be an educational influence, but it can also be a detrimental influence. As I was saying, it undermines our democracy, it undermines our communities' strength. It can be divisive.

Therefore, there is a need to cover a lot of ground in this bill and more ground needs to be covered. I am looking forward to the committee process and to hear what the experts have to say.

[Broadcasting Act, December 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have worked in the broadcast industry and as an independent producer. I know that a lot of production comes into Canada from the United States, which helps to pay for the infrastructure and develops the talent of Canadians. That talent and that infrastructure are then used for Canadian content. It is really important to nurture that Canadian talent and ensure unique stories are told.

I am really happy to see, for instance, Eden Robinson create Monkey Beach into a film. Therefore, I am happy to see this development and this protection of Canadian content in the legislation.

[Broadcasting Act, December 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to speak today on this important update to the Canadian Broadcasting Act. It has been 29 years since there has been an update to this legislation and it is long overdue.

I graduated from the Algonquin College broadcasting program the same year that the Broadcasting Act was last updated in 1991 and I have seen many changes in the field since that time. I am a big supporter of Canadian content rules. It is important to have platforms and spaces where diverse voices and stories can be shared. I have seen first-hand how the CanCon system has benefited Canadians.

During the 1990s I worked at Video In Studios, which is now called VIVO Media Arts. It is an artist-run centre that provides access to equipment and training to video artists and media producers. I trained a lot of people in the new digital technology of that time. Many of those people did not see themselves reflected in the mainstream content being produced: indigenous people, people with diverse abilities, people of colour, street-involved youth and members of the LGBTQ++ community. Many of these people I trained went on to develop careers in the broadcasting industry and utilized CanCon rules to bring their unique stories and perspectives to Canadian audiences.

In the late 1990s, I worked with Dana Claxton, a renowned first nations artist. Her sister Kim Soo Goodtrack was a teacher who had written a children's book called The ABC’s of Our Spiritual Connection, which threads together first nations’ spiritual beliefs from across North America. Kim had an idea for a TV show, and together with Dana and their brother Don, I co-produced the pilot for Wakanheja. It was the first preschool show on a brand-new Canadian network, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, APTN. We made 64 episodes of that series before going on to create 39 episodes of a pre-teen show for APTN called Art Zone. While these shows were targeted to an audience of children and youth, the cultural sharing and stories provided an education for people of all ages. This programming would not have been possible without CanCon rules.

Funding formulas are essential to ensure a diversity of content. If it was left solely to the market we would have nothing but Disney-style caricatures of indigenous culture and many uniquely Canadian stories would never be produced for film and television.

This bill is an effort to catch up with the new media reality that has been unfolding for the last two decades. In 2007, I uploaded my first video to YouTube. It was footage I shot of three Sûreté du Québec undercover police officers trying to provoke an attack on their own riot squad at a protest in Montebello, Quebec. We pulled the masks off their faces and when they were mock-arrested by their fellow officers we noticed that all of their boots matched those of the riot squad. The YouTube video went viral and became an international news story. YouTube has evolved into one of the most influential players in the media landscape and we have barely begun grappling with the implications of that.

One thing that Canadians really want to see is the Internet giants, Facebook, Google and Amazon, paying their fair share of taxes for the business that they do in this country. They should be paying not just the GST and HST on the advertising they sell in this market but corporate taxes on the income they generate from Canadians. One key thing that this bill does is create a new category of broadcasting under the act, the "online undertaking". This would ensure that the online streaming giants such as Amazon and Netflix are covered under the act. This would help to level the playing field. These multinational companies selling their services in Canada should be required to carry Canadian content and/or help to pay for the creation of Canadian content.

The health of our news media is another area of great concern, particularly local news outlets. Local news outlets cannot compete on a level playing field with companies like Facebook and Google. We need local media and the stories they cover in our communities. Their content is shared on social media platforms that sell advertising beside that content, but none of that revenue is shared with them. Our local media outlets are held to journalistic standards, but the social media platforms are not. This is another glaring omission.

Social media platforms are publishers who generate enormous profits from content, content which is often racist, homophobic, misogynist and misleading. Social media companies should be required to uphold the same standards as traditional broadcasters. The absence of these standards and the expectations of voluntary self-regulation has brought us to a place where social media is negatively impacting our mental health, creating deepening divisions in society and having a corrosive effect on democracy.

We must take steps to ensure the survival of local media outlets in a media landscape where the playing field will never be level. Taxing social media companies on the revenues they generate in Canada and directing a portion of those funds to support local media production would be one way of doing so.

The Broadcasting Act should not limit the definition of broadcasting, but should leave it to the CRTC to determine what should be regulated. As we have seen in the last few decades, the media landscape continues to shift and the CRTC needs to be able to regulate emerging types of media dissemination. The CRTC should not just have the option to regulate Internet giants, it must be mandated to do so. The penalties for violations by these Internet giants also need to be substantial, so it is not just viewed as the cost of doing business.

There are concerns about the removal of the paragraph that reads in part, “the Canadian broadcasting system shall be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians.” I understand the government is trying to bring the multinational Internet giants under the act, but we also need to ensure our existing broadcasting system is not opened up to foreign ownership.

As I emphasized earlier, the requirements for Canadian content are important. There are a lot of American productions shot in Canada using Canadian talent, but these are not Canadian stories.

I know we cannot expect Disney+ to create Canadian content based on Canadian stories, but it should be required to help fund Canadian content based on the amount of content it streams into the Canadian market.

Spotify does not create content, but it could be required to identify Canadian content on its streaming platforms and it should also have to contribute to CanCon based on the amount of business it does in our country.

Canadians need to be able to find Canadian content on these large streaming platforms. Companies like Netflix, Amazon and Spotify should provide the means for users to easily find Canadian content.

The Broadcasting Act must continue to protect the unique linguistic characteristics of Canada. We need to ensure that broadcasters create content in both official languages. Original French language content should not be sidelined by English language programs that have voice-over translations that are then passed off as French language content.

Bill C-10 proposes to replace the current conditions of licence with “conditions of service” to prohibit the appeal of any conditions of service to the cabinet. The public must have the right to appeal a CRTC decision that it considers unfair. While every decision of the CRTC should not necessarily be up for appeal, the process for appealing to cabinet should be retained in the act.

To summarize, this bill introduces changes to the Broadcasting Act that I am happy to see, but there are changes to the act that leave many stakeholders concerned. Some of the issues can be fixed with amendments. Some of the issues I have raised can only be addressed through regulation. Some can only be addressed through additional legislation, including proper taxation of multinational digital media giants.

I will be voting for the bill at second reading and I look forward to hearing what the witnesses have to say in the committee process.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you, Madam Speaker, the House of Commons staff, my hon. colleagues in the House of Commons, my constituents and all Canadians a happy and healthy holiday season.