Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to rise today to speak to this very important piece of legislation.
I want to start off by thanking you and the Chair occupants, who have been doing a phenomenal job during these virtual and hybrid sessions of Parliament we have been having. It has been remarkable to see the way you have been able to handle the technical difficulties of the members who are participating and give advice on where to hold the microphone when they are speaking. I think congratulations are in order to the Chair occupants and indeed all the staff who have really made this work.
I want to welcome new members to the Liberal Party. Last week the member for Fredericton decided to come and join the Liberal Party, and it looks as though tonight we may have some other members who are eying up the idea. I can assure them that we have a very strict vetting process. I encourage them to apply and go through that process. No promises can be made in advance, but we will certainly review those applications to see if they qualify to sit with the Liberal Party. We certainly do appreciate their interest in doing that.
When we talk about this bill, one of the first things that come to mind, which I have been hearing the Conservatives say time and again when they get up, is that there has not been enough time, that they have not debated it long enough and need more time. They are nodding in agreement right now. It is the same line that we have been hearing over and over.
Canadians should know that this bill occupied 28 meetings of the committee. To put that into context for members and the public, there have only been 44 meetings of the committee, so this bill has occupied more than half of the meetings of the committee. As well, 130 witnesses have come forward to speak to this bill. In total, 47 briefs have come forward for the committee to consider. Therefore, despite the fact that the Conservatives might not be happy with the way things came about, I certainly have a very difficult time believing them when they say there has not been enough time. On the contrary, indeed there have been tons of opportunities for this bill to be debated.
One has to wonder why the Conservatives are playing this game. I think they are starting to find themselves in a corner, especially tonight. I do not think the debate that has been going on tonight has been particularly helpful for the Conservative members, because time and again they have had members from all different parties ask them to tell them more about the legislation and where they find it to be offensive, to read the parts of the legislation that they have a problem with. Time and again they do not answer the question. They keep going back to how the minister did a horrible job on an interview here or there, or something like that, but they will not tell us which parts they are. To that point, earlier when I asked that of the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, and I will give him credit for trying to answer it, he threw out some random numbers and my staff went back and looked at exactly which clauses he referenced.
The first one was subclause 9(1). That subclause does not even exist. However, there is a subclause 9(9), which states, “Fees payable under this section and any interest in respect of them constitute a debt due to Her Majesty in right of Canada and may be recovered as such in any court of competent jurisdiction.” If that is what he finds offensive in this, it certainly has nothing to do with freedom of speech, so the member might want to go back and check that section. Again, the section that he actually referenced does not exist.
He went on to another clause, clause 10. He mentioned a subclause, but all clause 10 talks about is regulations. It talks about “developing, financing, producing or promoting Canadian audio or audio-visual programs, including independent productions”. It goes on to talk about “supporting, promoting or training Canadian creators”. It talks about “supporting participation by persons, groups of persons or organizations representing the public interest in proceedings”. It talks about minimum expenditures, application of regulations, recipients.
It does not say anything about content, which is what the Conservatives have been harping on about being the offensive parts of this. Although I respect and admire the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South for trying to answer that question, whereas the previous people who were asked that question completely diverted away from trying to answer it, what he read out either does not exist or has absolutely nothing to do with the Conservatives' stated concerns about this particular bill.
One of the other things that I find very troubling is the borderline conspiracy theories that seem to be developed by Conservatives over this bill. We heard the member for Saskatoon—University say that, in his opinion, the only reason the Bloc was supporting this bill was that, at the end of the day, Bloc members want Canada to separate and they see this as an opportunity to push Canada toward failure. A Conservative actually said that tonight. I am being generous by saying it is a borderline conspiracy theory, quite frankly.
The member then went on to talk about what the Prime Minister was going to censor from people and how this was going to become a quasi-communist state as a result of the Prime Minister interfering with what individual people can share on social media. Nothing could be further from the truth, nor can Conservatives point to anywhere in the legislation that talks about this. What has happened is that the Conservatives have seen an opportunity for political gain, to solidify their base, to fundraise, to rally the troops, and that is what they have jumped on.
One has to ask, is that the proper role of an opposition? Members of Her Majesty's opposition are coming into the House of Commons and suggesting that an issue exists when it really does not, and then when they float the idea and gain some momentum, they keep repeating it. I bet some of them are actually starting to even believe it at this point because of how much time and energy they have spent telling people that it is the truth, but it certainly is not. Nothing should be more telling for Canadians than the fact that the Liberals, the Bloc, the NDP and the Greens are all asking the Conservatives what part they are worried about, and nobody has an answer.
I said earlier that I quite often disagree with the Bloc, with the NDP and even with the Green Party from time to time, but 99% of the time when I disagree with them, it is based on policy. My fight is a policy issue, whether a certain objective should be advanced or not. The Conservatives come into the House and everything is about political opportunity, and they spend months and months on it. They do not worry about the Prime Minister's policies, just trash-talk him, call him a trust fund baby and everything else because that is what is going to get them votes. That might help their base, but it is certainly not doing their job.
Their job is to be the official opposition. They are supposed to come in here and from time to time say, “This is good legislation, and this is bad legislation, and it is bad because of this, this reason here”, but not some trumped-up conspiracy, like the member for Saskatoon—University saying that Bloc members only support this bill because they see it as an opportunity for Canada to fail. It is some of the most ridiculous stuff I have heard, but then they fundraise off it and clearly mislead Canadians for political gain.
As much as I disagree with the Bloc, the NDP and the Greens from time to time, I do not see that kind of rhetoric coming from them. They fight with us on policy. They ask why we are not doing more on pharmacare. That is a good question. Let us work together to do that. They ask why we are not doing more for Canadian culture. That is a good question. Maybe we should look at doing that. That is what our job here is. Our job is not to come in here and look for opportunity for political gain.
They said it themselves. They keep going back to the minister having this—
Mr. Eric Duncan: Terrible interview.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: There they go again: a “terrible interview” with Evan Solomon. They are yelling it from across the way. What does that have to do with the legislation? He had a terrible interview, if we take them at their word, but what does that have to do with the legislation? They should be able to objectively look at the legislation themselves, come to conclusions and then, when I ask them what the offensive part is or to read off the offensive part to me, they should be able to do that, and none of them are able to do that. That is the problem with their approach.
I do want to take the opportunity to talk about the importance of this, because, as much as I would love to stand here and tell members about all the games Conservatives are up to, there is an underlying, more important issue here. That is the issue of Canadian content, keeping that Canadian content intact and keeping the federal responsibility to make sure that Canadian content and culture stay alive.
I would argue to the member for Saskatoon—University, who is on this wild conspiracy idea that the Bloc is using this as an opportunity to push separation in Canada, that perhaps the Bloc just sees a good bill here that would help to protect French culture in Quebec. I would argue that, perhaps, this is where they are coming from on this, and it makes sense.
I think back to the Canadian content rules. Yes, I am old enough to remember when we could only hear music on the radio, believe it or not. I can remember sitting there or driving in my car and hoping a song comes on and then maybe thinking I would go for a longer drive and maybe the song would come on. While I was sitting there listening, I was subjected to these great artists like The Tragically Hip, who came from Kingston.
I hate to think what the case would have been in the late eighties and early nineties when The Tragically Hip were trying to make their mark on the music scene and what the competition would have been like had they been drowned out by all this music and entertainment coming from south of the border. What would we be like today, representing our cultural identity, had we not had these rules around Canadian content?
While I was driving around hoping for that top-40 song that I wanted to hear so bad, maybe I was subjected to a Tragically Hip song that got me hooked on them, and maybe many Canadians were in the same situation. I can relate that to TV shows. I can relate that to so many Canadian artists. I think it is critically important at a time like this. When I drive to Ottawa and when I drive home, I usually listen to Apple Music. When I am in Kingston, I tend to listen to some of the radio stations a little more, because I am more interested in hearing what they are talking about and what the pulse of the community is.
The point is that more and more people are being driven away from the radio and TV giants toward the Internet, and when they do that, we need to figure out how we are going to promote that content on the Internet and how we are going to make sure that the next band like The Tragically Hip that is up and coming is still going to get exposure. I have news for members: My 17-year-old is not dialing in to an FM radio station in Kingston, unfortunately. He is getting all of his content off the Internet.
How are we supposed to encourage the future generations, like my 17-year-old, to make sure they are being exposed to Canadian content? We need to have legislation that supports it, and I believe that what is being put forward is exactly that. Was the handling of how messaging was delivered and how things rolled out the best? I do not know. I will let somebody else be the judge of that. I am here to legislate. I am here to look at policy. I am here to assess what is in the best interests, in my opinion, of my constituents, and I can tell members that a bill like this, which advances Canadian content and secures Canadian content for future generations, like my 17-year-old, to be exposed to, is critically important, because without that we run the risk of losing what is so uniquely Canadian about us, that Canadian culture and Canadian content.
There are tons and tons of content creators out there now. I watch them too, primarily through Facebook. I see the content that is created, and a lot of them are Canadian. Some suggest that the bill is going to impact their ability to deliver content, but show me where. Show me where the bill gets to that point. Nobody has been able to do that.
It is very important now more than ever that we look at this 30-year-old piece of legislation, bring it forward to adopt today's mediums and where people are going in their content and information, and then ensure that Canadian content can continue to stay alive. I encourage the Conservatives to really think about not just the political gain from this, but what it actually means to artists and to the people out there who will be the beneficiaries of having a system in place that promotes Canadian culture. Had Canada not done that decades ago, who knows where we would be now?
If we only ever look at issues as an opportunity for political gain, to bump our number by half a point in the polls, to try to edge out the other parties by a bit here and there, we completely lose sight of what our job is here. Our job here is to develop, scrutinize and create good policy that Canadians can be the beneficiaries of.
I do not think the Conservatives should be hijacking these issues, although to their credit, they have done a fairly good job of it. It might solidify their base and it might help them raise a little money, but it is certainly not in the best interests of Canadians.