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Results: 76 - 90 of 251
View Rachael Harder Profile
CPC (AB)
View Rachael Harder Profile
2021-06-14 18:25 [p.8370]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood.
Last week culminated in a devastating assault on democracy as MPs were forced to vote on amendments that were not made public and vote on sections of the bill without any discussion or debate. There was zero openness and zero accountability, and it was absolutely wrong.
How did we get there? Earlier in the spring the Liberals brought forward an amendment to their own bill, which removed a section that originally protected the content that individuals would post online. When that section was removed, of course it caused disarray at committee and a great discussion ensued.
That was the case because Canadians deserve to be protected. They deserve to have their voices contended for and their freedoms established. When that part of the bill was taken out, of course the Conservatives went to bat. The Liberals did not really like that very much, so they moved something called time allocation in the House of Commons, which limited debate at committee to five hours.
This meant that hundreds of pages of material was only given five hours of consideration, after which time members of the committee were forced to vote on the bill, including its amendments and subamendments. Again, those were not made public and no discussion was allowed.
It was not exactly democracy in its finest state. It was a sham, and not how good legislation is meant to be created in Canada. This is not democracy.
Once again, the bill is now in the House. Although the Liberals have not moved time allocation, they have moved to have our debating time restricted again.
From here the bill will go to the Senate where it will be discussed further. My genuine hope is that the Senate will have the opportunity to examine this bill and hear from witnesses. In particular, it is my hope that the witnesses it brings forward include creators from digital first platforms because those individuals have been left out of the conversation despite being impacted to the greatest extent.
Let me back up and explain what this bill does for a moment. There are two things. The first is, as the government argues, it levels the playing field between large streaming companies and traditional broadcasters. The second thing this bill does in fact do, however, is censor the content we place online.
With regard to levelling the playing field, the minister claims this is about getting money from web giants, but if he is concerned about GST being paid, that is already taken care of because there is already an initiative starting in July that will require companies, such as Disney+, Netflix, Spotify, Crave, etc., to start paying GST, which takes care of levelling the playing field.
However, Bill C-10 goes far beyond just levelling the playing field. It is backed up by many lobby groups that are pushing for a 30% Canadian programming expenditure requirement as a share of revenue per year. What this will do is not simply increase the cost to these large streaming companies, it will actually pass that cost down to consumers. According to experts, costs are actually expected to rise by about 50%.
Canadians already pay some of the highest rates in the world, so with Bill C-10, they can expect to be taxed even more. This of course will have a huge impact on them with respect to money coming out of their wallets. Furthermore, the bill will impact the content Canadians can post and access, which brings me to my second point on censorship.
When I talk about censorship, I talk about the government getting involved with respect to what one can and cannot see and post online. I am talking about the government putting an Internet czar in place.
Peter Menzies, the former CRTC vice-chair, stated Bill C-10, “doesn’t just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a full-blown assault upon it and, through it, the foundations of democracy.” That deserves consideration. It is quite the statement.
Bill C-10 is in fact a direct attack on section 2(b) of our charter. Under this section, Canadians have the right to speak and to be heard. Much of that speaking takes place within our new form of the public square, the Internet.
The bill before us would infringe upon the ability Canadians have to post online and to express themselves freely. Furthermore, the bill would infringe upon the rights that viewers have to access that content online, which means that the right to speak and the right to be heard will be infringed upon if the bill passes.
Let us talk about viewers for a moment. Viewers go online in order to access the content they want. They go on YouTube perhaps looking for a video on how to fix a bicycle chain, or they may want to look up information having to do with the war of 1812. They are looking for content that is going to fit their needs.
However, if the bill is passed, they would go on YouTube, and the government would determine what that need might be. The government would dictate the type of material that they would be able to access. The government would dictate this based on how “Canadian” the material is.
The government would curate what we can and cannot see by bumping things up or down in the queue, which means that the content a viewer really needs to access might be pushed back to page 27 of a YouTube search whereas, normally, right now, according to the existing algorithms, that content would probably be found on page one. The government would actually infringe upon a viewer's ability and right to access that information, because it is going to curate and determine that, no, a viewer does not want what is on page 27, but rather what the government is putting on page one. It wrong. It is dictatorial. It is anti-democratic.
Canadians know what they like. They know what they want to watch, and they know how to find it. Platforms such as YouTube are curated in such a way as to point people to more of the content they desire. When a viewer searches for content, YouTube gives it, and then it might suggest more that is similar to it. However, that would not be the case going forward. Instead, the government would steer viewers in the direction that the government wants them to go, and it will do it through the power of its Internet czar.
I will talk about creators for a moment. They are amazing. In Canada, we are punching above our weight in terms of what creators are able to produce, and I am talking about individuals who are using non-traditional platforms in order to gain an audience. They share their talent, skill and ability with the world. Ninety per cent of watch time of Canadian content comes from viewers outside of Canada. That is amazing.
I think about Justin Bieber, and about how much popularity he has gained on the world stage. He started out on YouTube, a non-traditional platform. However, under Bill C-10, Justin Bieber probably would not have risen to the top, because the algorithms that the government would impose through its Internet czar would relegate him to the bottom. Why? Well, it is because his content just would not be Canadian enough to make the cut. Again, it is wrong.
Let us also talk about diversity. This government loves to celebrate diversity, but let us talk about the indigenous digital first creators or those who are members of minority groups. Instead of being able to make a name for themselves and follow the protocols that are already in existence, they would come under government scrutiny and, again, the Internet czar would determine whether or not their content can be accessed.
Now, members might ask who the Internet czar is. It is none other than the CRTC, which is the regulatory arm of the government. Who makes up the CRTC? I can tell members that the leadership of the CRTC is made up of six white men. It would be six white men who would be determining what type of content is Canadian and what content is not.
They would be determining whether or not indigenous first creators can be accessed or not. They would be determining whether visible minority content can be accessed or not. Six white men would be making those decisions on behalf of those individuals who are putting their content out online and on behalf of Canadians who wish to access that content.
I have not seen legislation this dictatorial since my time of first being elected in 2015. It is wrong and anti-democratic, and it is altogether harmful, not only to creators, but also to the millions of viewers who use platforms such as YouTube in order to access information and engage in the public square online.
It is wrong, and I would ask for Bill C-10 to be rescinded, at the bare minimum. When it gets to the Senate, I ask that, please do the due diligence; please research well; and please hear from witnesses who have not yet been heard from, namely the artists.
View Kenny Chiu Profile
CPC (BC)
View Kenny Chiu Profile
2021-06-14 18:35 [p.8371]
Mr. Speaker, I do not have as deep of experience as the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood does in media, but in my previous life I debated on ethnic TV and in the media. I actually championed the right for our Bloc Québécois members to be able to debate and articulate why Quebec should be independent, although, of course, I am a federalist.
I would like to hear from the member for Lethbridge what kind of control there could be, should any other province campaign to be independent because, obviously, then it would not be Canadian content.
View Rachael Harder Profile
CPC (AB)
View Rachael Harder Profile
2021-06-14 18:36 [p.8371]
Mr. Speaker, at the heart of the issue is censorship. It is the government determining what we can access online and what we cannot access, and what creators can post online and what they cannot post online. For the government to determine this does in fact mean it could swing things in its favour in curating that content, which is wrong. It should be left up to Canadians.
The Internet is this amazing free space where we are supposed to be able to access information, where we are supposed to be able to exchange ideas and where we are supposed to be able to engage in debate. For the government to dictate what can or cannot happen within that public space is a breach of section 2(b) of the charter. It is absolutely wrong and it is harmful.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the member. I would like to quote from a recent article in Canadian news, where screenwriter and actor Sugith Varughese said, “I’ve gone before the committees in Ottawa speaking on behalf of the writers and the sneering contempt that the Conservative Party members have is insulting.”
In light of this comment and the comment the member made on several occasions, more recently in a local newspaper in her riding but in the House as well, I would like to ask her if her comments in the House and this recent news article could be considered as contempt as well and, if so, if she would like to apologize in the House for having made those comments on numerous occasions.
View Rachael Harder Profile
CPC (AB)
View Rachael Harder Profile
2021-06-14 18:38 [p.8371]
Mr. Speaker, I am so thankful the minister is here today, because unfortunately he has not taken time to listen to digital first creators, but I would like to speak on their behalf.
Ms. Morghan Fortier is the CEO of Skyship Entertainment, an award-winning entertainment company owned and operated in Canada. It is one of Canada's top two YouTube creators. I do hope the minister will stay with me and actually hear this comment rather than leave.
Ms. Fortier wrote, “Despite our prominence we have been given zero opportunity to participate in any discussions regarding this legislation, and neither have any of our digital content contemporaries.” She is the first or second-largest YouTube creator, depending on the day, and she and her company were not consulted by the government. She goes on to say to the minister, so, again, I hope he is listening, “You have an opportunity to raise our traditional media companies to the standard of success our digital producers are experiencing. Instead you are choosing to antiquate digital companies. This is a step back, a step inward, and a step in the wrong direction.”
I hope the minister takes these words to heart.
View Martin Champoux Profile
BQ (QC)
View Martin Champoux Profile
2021-06-14 18:39 [p.8372]
Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague from Lethbridge speak for about 10 minutes. I will give her a chance. We can talk about content, but I do not think we will ever agree. As the old saying goes, if a lie is repeated often enough, people start to believe it. However, that is not what I want to talk about.
I want to talk about what she said in an interview she gave to the Lethbridge Herald, in the city she was elected to represent. Her comments were insulting and offensive to people in the cultural industry, who asked the member to apologize, as we have also asked her to do here in the House.
I am reaching out to the member for Lethbridge and giving her the opportunity to apologize to the members of the Quebec and Canadian cultural community for the derogatory comments she made about them.
View Rachael Harder Profile
CPC (AB)
View Rachael Harder Profile
2021-06-14 18:40 [p.8372]
Mr. Speaker, again, I would present to the House, and I am so glad the member is listening, that there are a lot of deaf ears in this place and, for whatever reason, a refusal to listen to digital first creators. I am uncertain as to why that is the case, why this cohort has been ignored, has been erased, has had its voice squelched.
Why are we not listening to these individuals who are making a go for themselves on non-traditional platforms? Why are they being punished through Bill C-10 rather than being celebrated for the tremendous contributions they make to Canadian culture? It is as if we are pitting one group of artists against the other, and it is wrong. It is wrong for the government and it is wrong for the minister.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, with respect to consideration of Government Business No. 10, I wish to give notice that at the next sitting of the House a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate be not further adjourned.
View Kevin Waugh Profile
CPC (SK)
View Kevin Waugh Profile
2021-06-14 18:42 [p.8372]
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to the motion at hand, which concerns the government's desire to force through the disastrous bill, Bill C-10, to modernize the Broadcasting Act.
I will step back 40-plus years, when a young Kevin Waugh got into the broadcasting business. There were a lot of opportunities from coast to coast. I started as a midnight disc jockey in Yorkton. I came to Saskatoon. I worked at a radio station and did the summer news. Then I went over to Melfort to do farm news, which I knew very little about. Then I eventually went into sports and news. I was then hired at CTV Saskatoon where I spent nearly 40 years of my broadcasting career.
When the bill was introduced, I jumped at the chance to get involved. The broadcasting business has been talking about this for the last 30 years. We talked about the CRTC, broadcasters, stations going dark, layoffs in the industry. We talked about this for decades and it finally culminated in about the last five years. All of a sudden stations were going dark. Radio, TV, newspapers, everything in the business was turned upside down.
It was interested in what the Canadian heritage minister said a couple of moments ago when he said that they missed something when they introduced the bill in 1990. For the minister, when we look back at the bill if it does get passed, we will look at you and your ministry and say a lot has been missed.
View Kevin Waugh Profile
CPC (SK)
View Kevin Waugh Profile
2021-06-14 18:44 [p.8372]
Mr. Speaker, I should know better, and so should the Minister of Canadian Heritage. He made the statement that they made one mistake back in 1990 or 1991 when there was no Internet, and now 30 years later we have this bill. It is garbage, really. I talked for two full days. We sat the last two days in committee and we did nothing. The committee chair asked if an amendment should pass but no one knew what it was. We did, but we could not share it with people, and people were watching on the Internet.
It is interesting that the minister would quote 1990, because in my era, people will quote 2021, the worst bill that ever came out of the House of Commons, Bill C-10.
I am going to highlight how really deeply disappointed I am in the Bloc members. They went along with the government. It has been talked about in committee, and we did get along. Then, it went off the rails on that Friday when 4.1 was eliminated. It also went off the rails when the minister himself could not articulate the bill on CTV on a Sunday morning with Evan Solomon. He could not articulate his own bill on national TV in a 15-minute interview. If the minister could not articulate it, how could we articulate it?
It was one of the darkest moments of Bill C-10, because the next day the Liberals had to step it back. All the things the minister said Sunday morning were taken back Monday by the government. However, I am disappointed today with the Bloc members because they put a gag on this.
This bill is 30 years overdue. We have talked about that in the House, but it is a huge bill going forward. However, it is not a good bill, and everybody has talked about that in the last two hours. We are going to pass a flawed bill, then what happens? Who did we miss? Who could we have been helped with decent legislation? Some groups out there today are really going to be affected by the bill if and when it gets passed.
We cannot even talk about it properly in this place, and that hurts. As broadcaster for over 40 years, we all had consultations with conventional broadcasters and creators. We all knew the Internet was a big juggernaut, and we have seen it. However, we did not do our due diligence in committee, and we are not doing our due diligence today in the House of Commons, which is sad. When I look at my broadcasting career, today, half of the people are now laid off, and we have not helped them at all with this bill.
I did my consultations, and Bell, Rogers, Corus, Shaw, radio stations are all affected. We buy one radio station, we try to buy another and then we do satellite radio. All that means is that there are fewer people being employed. We really did not peel the onion on this bill, and now it is the worst piece of legislation I have seen in six years.
As I said before in a question to the NDP, I did not want to put my name on this in committee and I do not want it on the bill when it does come out of the House of Commons. I am embarrassed with the bill. I am embarrassed, because I spent 40 years broadcasting, and now I cannot talk about something that my union members want me to talk about. They are losing their jobs every day, and we never talked about that. We got mired in the weeds, if one so calls it, about free speech. We got tangled up in creators. Quebec got tangled up in musicians and actors.
We have had 14 months of hell with COVID. We understand the issues Quebec is having. It is no different than Edmonton—Strathcona or Saskatoon—Grasswood. We also have musicians. We also have actors. We also have people who are starving from day to day, because they cannot perform. That happens.
Here we are with Bill C-10. As I have said time and time again, it was the government's decision to remove 4.1, and then we went at it. The Liberals claimed 2.1 was the key to success over 4.1. That remains to be seen.
We all know, because we had the Minister of Justice at committee, that this bill is going to be challenged in the Supreme Court. Boy have we done our job. All we have done is taken a useless piece of legislation and given it to someone else to determine. Boy have I done my job. All of us should be ashamed of this bill, including the Minister of Canadian Heritage. That is where it starts. He should be embarrassed by this and the gag order from the Bloc to support it.
Therefore, I move, seconded by the member for Lethbridge:
that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the words “notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practices of the House” and substituting the following:
Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be referred back to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for the purpose of reconsidering all its clauses with a view to protect individual users' content from being subject to broad and vague government powers to regulate their use of the internet, including on apps and social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
I never did have a chance to talk about the CRTC, so that will be for another day.
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2021-06-14 18:53 [p.8373]
Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague, who was getting all worked up because the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of the government's time allocation motion. I am still shocked to see the Conservative members, particularly those from Quebec, ignoring the consensus.
In Quebec, most of the cultural and broadcasting industries are in favour of the bill. The only areas that are expressing reservations are in western Canada. I would like my colleague to tell me whether the problem we are seeing today is ideological and whether it shows that western Canada and Quebec are unable to come together on the same issue.
View Kevin Waugh Profile
CPC (SK)
View Kevin Waugh Profile
2021-06-14 18:54 [p.8373]
Madam Speaker, this is a Canadian issue; this is not a Quebec issue. I can say to the hon. member from the Bloc that we talked to Mr. Péladeau, who owns several stations and media outlets in Quebec, and he is as disturbed about Bill C-10 as anyone in Quebec.
The member may have talked to certain groups that like this bill because they want the money to roll out right away, but this is a Canadian issue. Bill C-10 is disastrous. There are as many people in the province of Quebec who do not like this bill as there are in my own province of Saskatchewan.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-14 18:55 [p.8374]
Madam Speaker, the hon. member is someone who I worked with at the heritage committee and someone who I honestly believe is trying to get us a piece of broadcasting legislation that will help our broadcasters. That said, this is not the way I see all of the members of the Conservative Party, some of whom did filibuster. It could be why we did not see the member filibuster at committee.
The job is to get a good piece of legislation to modernize our Broadcasting Act. However, the member knows that I brought forward a motion to continue to work on this into the summer. He can pretend, like his colleague from Quebec, that he did not know, but he knows that I brought it forward to continue the work to make this bill the very best it could be. He voted against it. I am wondering why that is the case.
View Kevin Waugh Profile
CPC (SK)
View Kevin Waugh Profile
2021-06-14 18:56 [p.8374]
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona for all the work she has done on this bill. I am interested to find out if the NDP is going to support the Bloc and the Liberals on this gag bill, because that is what we are debating here tonight with the motion.
As far as the summers are concerned, I was not the only one who said no. The Liberals have mismanaged every committee this spring, as we have seen. It is not only the heritage committee. We can look at the national defence committee and the ethics committee too, which the Liberals have filibustered themselves. It is not really fair to point out the heritage committee as the one that should meet when others have been filibustered.
View Candice Bergen Profile
CPC (MB)
View Candice Bergen Profile
2021-06-14 18:57 [p.8374]
Madam Speaker, I rise today from the opposite side of the aisle because although we are all here virtually, physically there is no one on the Liberal side. I am very happy to be here on the government side getting ready to—
Results: 76 - 90 of 251 | Page: 6 of 17

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