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Results: 91 - 105 of 251
View Candice Bergen Profile
CPC (MB)
View Candice Bergen Profile
2021-06-14 18:57 [p.8374]
Madam Speaker, everyone who is here virtually or physically is here, and I am very happy to state that. I am also really happy to be here physically on the government side to take this place.
My colleague, the Conservative member, has done such a fantastic job talking about Bill C-10 and what we can do to ensure that two things happen: that Canadian content is protected and that we have freedom of speech, with the ability to express ourselves online.
Can my colleague from Saskatchewan tell Canadians how we can protect both Canadian content and freedom of speech?
View Kevin Waugh Profile
CPC (SK)
View Kevin Waugh Profile
2021-06-14 18:58 [p.8374]
Madam Speaker, I would say to the House leader that freedom of speech is big in this country. It is democratic and it is fundamental to why we exist. We have seen some awful incidents in Canada in the last month and a half that show there is a lot of hate speech we need to talk about. We know as Canadians that it is not acceptable. On both sides of the House we know that.
I want to thank the hon. member for bringing this up, because what the Broadcasting Act should have looked at was conventional broadcasting and the Internet. We did neither.
View Tom Kmiec Profile
CPC (AB)
View Tom Kmiec Profile
2021-06-14 18:59 [p.8374]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be joining the debate on this bill once again, at a different stage. I am pleased that my colleague from Saskatoon—Grasswood has moved an amendment, so I am going to speak directly to it. It is about sending Bill C-10 back to committee.
Members know that he has had a 40-year career in broadcasting, which is probably longer than that of any other member in our caucus. We actually featured him in something called “member spotlight” at a caucus meeting, noting his 40-year career using different clips from different videos of his time in sports broadcasting and with CTV as well.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon—University, another one of our colleagues from Saskatchewan who will be adding to this debate.
I first spoke to this bill on February 5. I warned Canadians then that the contents of the bill were going to attack free speech, were calling into question the difference between users and programming, and were trying to jam the Internet age into a broadcasting act that was meant for before the 1990s, for a totally different time before Internet, Wi-Fi, cellphones and everything else.
At the time, I brought up the example of content creators in my riding. A few of them run YouTube channels. They run very successful businesses. Since I am splitting my time with a member from Saskatchewan and the member who spoke before me is from Saskatchewan as well, I want to bring up one of my favourite Instagram TV shows. It is called Leroy and Leroy. I hope the members from Saskatchewan know these two. There is always something to do, and indeed there is. It is a fantastic online content.
One of the latest very funny videos has a sign in the middle of what seems to me like nowhere, and I apologize to all the members from the Saskatchewan caucus for saying this. It is a parking sign in the middle of nowhere, and these two gentlemen turn around and show us that there is nothing there. It is unclear why there is a sign that allows people to park. I assume they can park if they want to.
They are content creators, and they will fall within the ambit of Bill C-10 and its changes to the Broadcasting Act. All of their programming will. It is not them as users, but them as programming providers, as if they were the CBC, as if they were a show like Kim's Convenience or one equivalent to it. They are incredibly funny comedians. It is great content they are producing.
Every expert I have heard, including those from OpenMedia, Michael Geist, Peter Menzies and other former commissioners, has said the exact same thing: YouTube creators, people on IGTV and all others online who are running shops, creating content and trying to get noticed by perhaps one of the large broadcasters are going to fall within the ambit of this legislation. I warned Canadians on February 5 that this was going to happen, and now it is happening.
The minister completely botched the sale job on this legislation, from the time it was before the committee to the time it got to the committee. The member who spoke before me spoke about the fact that he was unable to explain in 15 minutes, on a national TV broadcast, what the bill was about because the bill is all over the place. As I said, the bill tries to jam together the Internet era, the different content creators and the total democracy that now exists. Anybody can create content and anybody can provide it. The middle man is gone now. Anybody can go out there and entertain others, make music for others, give acting classes or provide a how-to for fixing a Jeep. Everything is out there. However, now all of it will perhaps fall within the ambit of this piece of legislation.
We have gotten to the point now where the government is trying to ram it through the House of Commons before the June sitting days are done, because it has recognized that it has botched the management of the House calendar as well. This is entirely the Liberals' fault. There was no reason to rush this through. If they did not like the fact that members of Parliament wanted to provide amendments and hear from more witnesses at the committee, they should have allocated more time. The Liberals should have run the calendar appropriately to avoid situations like the one today. Now they find themselves trying to ram the bill through using undemocratic measures, hoisting it out of committee to ram it through half finished and sending it over to the Senate side. I shudder to think what senators will think of this bill, incomplete as it is.
There is a great Yiddish proverb for this, and members will know that I find Yiddish a charming language and use it very often. It goes, “From fortune to misfortune is but a step; from misfortune to fortune is a long way.” In the case of the minister, every time he has spoken to the bill he has further confused Canadians or made them fear even more for their liberty of expression and for their ability to communicate with others freely and post their opinions and thoughts online without having the government potentially interfere with them through the CRTC.
It is an open question how the CRTC is going to apply and use these powers. It is that uncertainty that is driving so much fear and so much public attention to this bill. This is one of the bills on which I have received the most emails and correspondence and phone calls in my five and a half years in Parliament now.
The member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, who spoke before me, said this was the worst piece of legislation he has ever worked on. I disagree with him. There is a lot of competition for that title coming from the government side, so I am going to disagree with him.
The great misfortune of the minister is that he has been trying to sell a bill that does not match with his words. He has been talking about anti-hate speech legislation. He has been talking about taxing the big web giants and online content providers. As the member for Lethbridge, who spoke before me, mentioned, that is already covered. That is already coming in July. There is already legislation in the books. There is new legislation the minister is going to add, so he keeps confusing the issue, much to his own misfortune, and it is going to affect the fortunes of Canadians. It is going to affect small-time content creators like the creators of Leroy and Leroy, whom I mentioned, and budding comedians, musicians and artists out there who are just trying to provide a service and trying to advertise for themselves using social media platforms.
It is really unfortunate that we find ourselves in a situation now, in the end days of the session in June, where the government feels the urge to just ram this through, push it through as fast as it can with as few eyes as possible on it.
I am just aghast that the Bloc is helping the Liberals along, that the Bloc is helping the most centralizing, free-spending, abusing-of-federal-spending-power government there is and has been in the last 40 years. It is worse than the Chrétien government and worse than the Martin government in its centralization of power in Ottawa. The Bloc is supporting them.
I will repeat that.
It is shameful to see that the Bloc Québécois supports putting an end to the debate on Bill C‑10, forcing a vote and sending the bill to the Senate. The Bloc is helping the most centralizing government we have had in the past 30 or 40 years, one that is worse than the Chrétien and Martin governments.
It is unbelievable. The separatists are helping the Liberals. I just cannot believe that we were brought to this situation, under the guise of getting through a piece of legislation that is so defective in its content.
I have always been a believer, and I have said it many times in this House, that when the government gets it wrong and it cannot be fixed at committee, we should just send it back and make the government redo the work. There is no harm in having the justice department and the heritage department sit down once again and draft a piece of legislation that this House could support. They could just send it back. There are thousands of civil servants whose sole job is to pre-draft legislation based on stakeholder consultation, based on the feedback that they are supposed to get. That is what they exist to do. Many of them are still working from home, so they could take on this task and bring it back in the fall session. Of course, if we do not have a fall session, they will not have it. Perhaps the government is thinking of toppling itself and ensuring that it can run in an election on the free-spending budget that it had in 2021.
However, now we find ourselves again in a situation where, in the span of just a few days, we are going to rush a bill through to the Senate that is incomplete, that would attack freedom of speech and that would not protect content creators. It would protect them as users, but it would not protect any of their content. What is the point of saying “I have free speech” if I cannot say anything online lest I anger the CRTC, lest I anger people? I do not know who they are. I do not know what rules they create. The very basis of our democracy is supposed to be that we know what the rules are so we can abide by them. We do not know what the rules will be. We do not know what the CRTC will like. I truly hope, if future CRTC commissioners are listening, that they will spare Leroy and Leroy.
This is a great amendment from my colleague. We have to vote for the amendment and against Bill C-10.
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Speaker, I have three questions for the member.
First, is it not true that the very day the Yale report was tabled, the Leader of the Opposition said that he would “throw it in the trash”, without even having a chance to read it?
Second, is it not also true that almost the minute Bill C-10 was tabled, the Conservative Party of Canada said it did not want this bill and it was going to vote it down?
Third, is it not true that the reason there is some controversy is that the Conservative Party created it by fundraising? No one else in this House did that, but you created a controversy, you fundraised on it, and now it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
View Tom Kmiec Profile
CPC (AB)
View Tom Kmiec Profile
2021-06-14 19:10 [p.8376]
Madam Speaker, is it not true that the minister's own government tabled Bill C-21, the so-called anti-gun bill? When going after lawful firearms owners, the government sent an email to fundraise off the bill and it has barely moved it forward since then.
Is it not true that the minister failed to explain the bill on national TV? Is it not true that the minister failed to carry out his basic duty to make sure he tabled a bill in the House of Commons in its correct format? Is it not true that there are many voices on the left, centre and right of the spectrum that have said the bill is defective? It is not a partisan issue. When we have OpenMedia, Michael Geist, Peter Menzies and Conservatives agreeing, we know we have a defective bill.
Is it not true that the minister failed in his responsibilities?
View Martin Champoux Profile
BQ (QC)
View Martin Champoux Profile
2021-06-14 19:11 [p.8376]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Shepard for his speech, a few words of which he considerately delivered in what we know is his nearly impeccable French.
However, when my colleague said that it is shameful of the Bloc Québécois to support this government's time allocation motion, I would refer him to the speech I delivered earlier this evening, which would help him understand our reasons for supporting this gag order.
My colleague also talked about the centralizing government, and several members, including the member for Carleton, accused the Bloc Québécois of being centralizing. My answer to that is that the Bloc Québécois would be happy to have Quebec's own version of the CRTC so that it could make its own decisions, but until then, we have to try to do our best with what we have, with is the CRTC and federal regulations.
In answer to the question he seemed to be raising, we are not ashamed at all. We—
View Tom Kmiec Profile
CPC (AB)
View Tom Kmiec Profile
2021-06-14 19:12 [p.8376]
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drummond for his first comment.
Getting back to the issue of the closure being used right now to force the passage of this bill, the content of the bill is bad for both Quebec and Albertan artists. It will be a bad thing. Our goal here is not to pass a law that will seriously and negatively impact the industry and the people who work in it, like artists and musicians, in all of our ridings.
We are not here to adopt a bill that would receive a D and have it passed by the Senate. We must ensure that the bills we adopt deserve an A+ before being sent to the Senate.
View Jasraj Singh Hallan Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, I want to echo something that the member mentioned about having a lot of emails and phone calls. I have noticed them going up in my own office, being a neighbouring riding. I have been hearing the most from new Canadians and immigrants. Most of them have left countries where freedom of speech is not the liberty that we are supposed to enjoy in this amazing country we live in today, much like the member is an immigrant. I would like him to speak a little more about that.
View Tom Kmiec Profile
CPC (AB)
View Tom Kmiec Profile
2021-06-14 19:13 [p.8376]
Madam Speaker, there are a lot of people I call new Canadians who come here from other countries where freedom of speech is not taken for granted because it is a very precious right and privilege. In this House, we should be the guarantors of people's constitutional, natural-born rights.
View Corey Tochor Profile
CPC (SK)
View Corey Tochor Profile
2021-06-14 19:14 [p.8376]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into debate on this faulty bill. I really hope there is some soul-searching by opposition members before this bill is passed. This bill is ridiculous. The minister has done a terrible job explaining it. He cannot explain it because I do not think he fully understands what this bill would do to Canada.
I am first going to talk a bit about my fears about this bill. Central Canada or any governments that believe they can fix a problem with a solution often create more problems. This is what this bill would do. This bill is garbage. It has to be defeated. It has to go back to committee. I get that there is a gag order on it, and I get that the Liberals are trying to push it through, but opposition members have to start asking themselves why they are in Parliament if they do not stand up to a government that is threatening to take away our freedom to express our opinions online. This is dangerous material.
Governments will try to find a solution to a problem. We know that the CRTC needs updating, and we know that helping artists is a valuable inspirational goal. I get that, but it would question our existence as a country and whether we are truly free. If governments are there to tell us what to say, what we can post, what we can hear, what we can see, we are entering a dangerous stage in our country where I fear what this would lead to.
Failed regimes resort to censorship. This is what this bill is. It is telling the citizens of Canada what they can and cannot post, what will be shared and what, through the labyrinth of programs out there, will be heightened on search engines, on Facebook. This bill is something one would see from a failed regime. This is what we are seeing out of Ottawa lately. If we were to crack open a history book, we would see that failed regimes around the world follow a bit of a pattern, and we are seeing that with this bill. We are seeing it with other things that the Liberal government has done. In our history on this planet, a cornerstone of failed regimes is censorship. Another one would be printing money, and that is exactly what the government is doing. We have seen this story play out and it ends terribly for our society.
Maybe that is why the Bloc is supporting it. Maybe Bloc members are the smartest ones and are laughing to themselves as they support this centralizing of powers because they do not want Canada to exist anymore. That is probably why. If that is their political game in supporting this bill, and the Liberals are willing to take separatist support on this bill because it gets Canada closer to, unfortunately, breaking up, maybe that is why the Bloc is supporting it.
However, why are New Democrats supporting it? This is a troubling trend. I have had numerous calls at my office from people saying they are not supporters of mine but of the NDP, and asking what the heck is going on with Bill C-10. It is not too late for NDP members. Constituents should contact their MPs, if they are NDP members, and explain why they are passionate about this bill not proceeding. That is the only way we are going to slow this bill down.
There are elements of it that can be improved at committee. It can get to the stated goal. That is the thing; the stated goal that the Liberals put forward on this bill is nowhere near what it would actually do for the CRTC, such as where it is reporting: from reporting to Parliament, which means 338 representatives from all over Canada, to reporting to the minister's office.
Who would trust the minister? Who would trust the minister after the way he has bungled this rollout and explanation of a censorship bill? I feel sorry for him, but this has got to get scrapped for the sake of our country. I am very hopeful that maybe the parties of other members here are whipping their support on this. I urge them to take a pause, because it is not too late to have those discussions in caucus.
Members can flesh out what would need to be changed for this to work. There is no need for this to be rushed forward in the dying days of this session before summer. There is nothing in here that requires urgency during the middle of a pandemic to force Canadians to change their ability and right to post what they want.
That is what creates fear for our country. There is this march toward centralized power in the Prime Minister's Office, because that is ultimately where the CRTC will report. It will report first to the minister, but we know that he serves at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. I do not believe the minister will stand up to, and not bend over backward for, the Prime Minister.
What does that mean for Canadians? It means that our rights to share our views and our beliefs will be censored in Canada. I cannot think of a more damaging thing for unity in this country than if Canadian citizens are not able to share their views. It is a fundamental freedom that we have cherished in this country. During a pandemic, the government decided that it would like to rush through a bill that would harm our ability to interact with other Canadians.
A lot of things on the Internet are silly and trivial, but there are some truths. We saw this at the G7 convention just recently. People on different social media platforms might have been embarrassed a bit by the Prime Minister talking about newspapers being used to wrap fish and some of the ridiculous comments he made.
Maybe in the future Canadians will not see that anymore. Maybe that is the point. Maybe that is what the government would like to do. It would like to stop the Internet's ability to share what is going on, be it a finance minister who wears no shoes at an international gathering and is mocked around the world, or someone who has embarrassed themselves by wearing blackface.
This bill gives power to the Prime Minister to stop those stories and stop people from being able to broadcast to anywhere in the world what they are seeing in their part of the country. That is the power of technology that has advanced in the last 20 or 30 years, which is our ability to tell our stories directly without going through the middleman of other broadcasters. The CRTC needs to be updated so that we can make sure that we have a modern act that would cover national broadcasts and make sure that we are modernizing our act to reflect the changes in the landscape. However, this bill does not do that.
I would ask all members to please do a soul-searching exercise and reach out to their supporters and the constituents they represent. They should ask them if they want the government to have more control. That is what this bill would do. It would give the government more control. Those who would lose are Canadians and Canadian stories.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
View Julie Vignola Profile
2021-06-14 19:24 [p.8378]
Madam Speaker, I read all 53 pages of Bill C-10, and when I listen to my colleagues in the official opposition, I have to wonder exactly which clauses indicate that our independent producers will be overtaxed or have the same obligations as the major broadcasters.
Even the preamble says that the CRTC will have to take into account the the variety of broadcasting undertakings and avoid imposing any obligations that could be harmful.
Which clauses are so frightening and need to be changed?
View Corey Tochor Profile
CPC (SK)
View Corey Tochor Profile
2021-06-14 19:25 [p.8378]
Madam Speaker, those would be sections 2.1 and 4.1. There are a lot of examples of improvements that need to be done, and if the committee had not been shut down, as a third-world dictatorship would shut down criticisms and government and committee work, maybe we could get to the actual improvements of this bill. Unfortunately there is a gag order out there. The committee was shut down, and now we are into time allocation so that this gets rammed through with all the errors that we have highlighted.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, what I found fascinating about this speech was when the member started to come up with excuses as to why the Bloc Québécois has chosen to support this. His default, and I think that this is indicative of what Conservatives do, was to say there must be something wrong with them and that it is because they want to leave Canada. He thinks this is all about their grand plan.
Is it possible that perhaps the Bloc just does not agree with him?
View Corey Tochor Profile
CPC (SK)
View Corey Tochor Profile
2021-06-14 19:26 [p.8378]
Madam Speaker, once again the member opposite is showing his hand a little too early on this one. We know that there are potential trade-offs and different arrangements with parties, and there might be something in the negotiation that the government did with that party to get them on board. I do not know. I hope they take this time right now to please think about the importance of decentralizing things in Canada, because the closer that we get to powers being concentrated in Ottawa the worse it is for all regions of this country. That is what this bill would do. It would centralize more power in the Prime Minister's Office. It would centralize more of our abilities in Ottawa versus in the regions, whether in Quebec, western Canada, the Arctic or Atlantic Canada. This bill needs to be reworked.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-14 19:27 [p.8378]
Madam Speaker, I would like to be able to say that the member's speech was enlightening, but it was absurd, to be perfectly honest. I would like him to tell me exactly where in this legislation freedom of expression is put at risk, because it is not in the four places in the act where it is explicitly protected. It is not in the place within the legislation where it is explicitly protected, and it is not within the amendments that the heritage committee approved, including Conservative amendments, to protect freedom of expression.
Would he be so kind as to read exactly where that happens, instead of just saying “some places”?
Results: 91 - 105 of 251 | Page: 7 of 17

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