Bill C-11 The Liberals plan to rush the Broadcasting Act with Senator Housakos
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Summary
Sen. Leo Housakos (D-Quebec) joins the show to fight against Bill C-11, which seeks to regulate what you can see on the internet and which you can't see on it.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to the Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps with Alex Brock with
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new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like,
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comment, subscribe, share this program together. We can push back against that ever-moving liberal
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agenda. And of course, if you can't listen or watch the program in its entirety, right this second,
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download it, listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it,
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it is out there because I know you have two friends. They will tell two friends about it.
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We'll make sure Pierre Polyev is the next Prime Minister of Canada. A great show lined up for
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you today. We brought on a few guests in the past. We had Rachel Thomas, we had Kevin Wong,
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we were talking about censorship, specifically Bill C-11. And we're going to bring on one of the
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fighters of this bill, this terrible piece of legislation that talks about regulating what
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you can see, what you can watch on the internet, C-11. We have Senator Leo Houssakos from the
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island of Montreal, the beautiful province of Quebec. Thank you so much for joining us,
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first time on the show. Thank you for having me on, MP Schmael. Good to be with you.
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That's an oversight on my part. I apologize. All right, C-11, lots of interest. And we're going
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to share on our social media as well, some of the work you did on committee, you really pushed back,
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you really brought to light what C-11 is all about. So for the guests joining us for the first
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time today, what is C-11 and why is it so horrible? Why are people raising alarm bells about it?
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In a nutshell, C-11 will determine for Canadians what they can post on their platforms,
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what they can watch, what they can read. And at the end of the day, in 2022, with all these new
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digital platforms and technologies that are out there, it's the way of how Canadians communicate,
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particularly young Canadians like yourself, people younger than my generation.
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Some of us were used to just sitting in front of that TV box to get our news and to get our
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information. But today you can get it on Google, you can get it on Twitter, you can get it on YouTube.
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There's so many platforms out there that have opened up the world to Canadian artists,
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to Canadian broadcasters, to Canadian freelance reporters for that matter. And essentially what
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this bill does, it's an attempt on the part of the Trudeau government to take the old broadcasting
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system of regulation and determining what you can broadcast, where you can broadcast it,
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and trying to bring these new platforms into line. And it's just incompatible. It's incompatible
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to create that alignment. The reality is these new platforms have given Canadians the opportunity
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to explore, expand, and export our culture around the world. They've created tremendous businesses.
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There's a number of independent content producers across this country who are selling Canadian content
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around the world and distributing it around the world at volumes never seen before. And on the other
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side of the equation, on the left side of the equation, we have the CBC and Bell Media and all these
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corporations, legacy media that we love and adore because we put in billions of dollars of taxpayers'
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money directly into the CBC, into the Canadian media fund. And these are organizations that Canadians
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are just watching at lesser and lesser numbers. Less eyeballs means less revenue. So C11 right now
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is trying to put a square into a circle and it just doesn't work.
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I think this is also the very clear divide on how conservatives view the world and some liberals
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view the world, right? Conservatives like the free market, right? And abundance of choice.
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Abundance equals peace. People can choose what they like, right? Because what I like as music,
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what I think is good music, is totally different than what you think is good music. And it's definitely
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very different than what the government think is good music, right? If the government decides what
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you see and watch, you get what the government decides. It doesn't matter if you like it or not,
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right? So the liberals by this bill are picking winners and losers in the marketplace instead of
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realizing that the world is changing. People are getting their information from different sources
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because they want a variety of ways they get information. It could be through a podcast like
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this. It could be another YouTube channel. The world is open right now. And right now the government
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will see this bill, this piece of legislation is closing it down. That's exactly the point. It's a
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question of consumer choice. And in this country, we've seen that liberalism has brought us to the
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point where they want us to have less choice. They want a narrow cast. They want you to pay more than
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ever before. The truth of the matter is Canadians pay more for web connectivity than any other country in the
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world. And we have in regions of the country where you can't even get good connectivity. And in terms of the
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broadcasting situation right now, like I said, they essentially want to take a new platform, a new way of doing
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things that has become prosperous. We've created millions of Canadian success stories that are
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generating revenue for themselves, for our Canadian coffers, for that matter, even for the Canadian
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media fund. And who benefits is the old legacy platforms who, like I said, are not being successful.
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And it's ironic that it seems to be not enough. It's almost the liberal Trudeau way of doing things.
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We're going to pick winners and losers. We're going to have the CRTC and other gatekeepers in Ottawa
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to determine what platforms are appropriate, what aren't appropriate. And in this bill, let's be
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clear, the whole challenge here in the debate for us is we have the chairman of the CRTC who came before
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the Senate Committee on Communications and confirmed that this bill would allow him to manipulate
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algorithms and to force platforms to manipulate algorithms, which in essence determines what will
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be pushed up the technological ladder for you and I to watch and what will be pushed down.
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That is so dangerous from a perspective of privacy, free speech, and like I said, consumer choice.
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So if the CRTC determines what you get to see or determines something is wrong, that means what
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tends to happen is anything that criticizes the government is then becomes hate speech or something
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else. And I think that is so concerning to have a bunch of bureaucrats deciding what is available to
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Canadians. And like you said earlier, like, you have entrepreneurs without government permission,
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without government grants, creating content that others want to see on their own free will.
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A hundred percent. At the end of the day, we have Canadians producing content. They're downloading it
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on YouTube. They're putting it out there on various platforms, getting millions of hits, hits that you
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would not get in our small market. Canada is a small market. We don't have an economy of scale. So we need
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the world at our feet. And these platforms have provided that. Essentially, the old way of doing
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things is where Mr. Trudeau wants to stay, is they want through regulation, through the CRTC, through
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Heritage Canada, to determine these Canadians, they have to go through that little narrow pipeline called
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the Canadian Media Fund, the Canadian, all the various organizations, gatekeepers, unions, broadcasting
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corporations that will give them permission to essentially be heard and be seen. At the end of the day,
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nothing good comes out of narrowing a market of choice. Nothing good. The only thing that comes of it is you get
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less content, you get to pay exponentially more for it, and you muzzle the creativity of artists in this country and
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singers and producers and writers. It's just a terrible bill. We have to have confidence in our
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artists and Canadian culture to punch above our weight and to really be dominant around the world
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and to use these platforms as we have been. The artistic community, the cultural community in Canada,
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has never been more vibrant than it has in the last decade. And the number one change has been these
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platforms that have exposed them to the world. So instead of embracing it and allowing it to continue to
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grow and to prosper, we want to put regulations and laws in order to muzzle them and to allow
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the traditional gatekeepers, these giants that were created artificially by government laws,
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to run the show. I think it's wrong. I know that our party thinks it's wrong. We believe in free
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enterprise. We believe in consumer choice. If you look at the internet itself, you look at the
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companies that run it, you have the big ones, telecommunications, you have a few big companies,
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massive companies, some small ones. We can go into the spectrum auction and all that stuff, which is
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absolutely incredible how we still do it here. You look at how the liberals like it. They like a few
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big players and that's it. Because I guess if you're in government, it makes sense. It's very easy to deal
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with four or five big players in the marketplace, the big corporations, rather than having a whole bunch
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in a free market, a whole bunch of small players, medium players, making up a whole slew of ideas
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that anyone can choose from because there is so much abundance. To that point, what the liberals love
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is to have the government master, right? When you have two or three large giants, those giants have the
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capacity to afford lobbyists, to afford big law firms, to come to Ottawa and to wine and dine and to spread the
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shrimps and the caviar around in order for them to have influence. Where what we've done on the
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House side, and now we're carrying that fight over to the Senate side, we're fighting for those
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independent content producers, those Canadians who have the small business owners who have become
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successful using these platforms. And I'm tired of this liberal argument. We have these large
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international conglomerates coming here and benefiting from the marketplace. No, they're offering a platform
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where their success is incumbent on Canadian content producers and artists and Canadian singers to be
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successful. So if they're not successful, these platforms aren't successful. It's a happy marriage.
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Where these Canadian content producers in the current form have very minimal number of avenues to go and
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present their case, minimal resources, and the vast majority of those resources are coming at the expense
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of taxpayers. Taxpayers who aren't watching those legacy broadcasters. It's such a simple formula and
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Canadians are catching on. And I'm glad to see in the course of our Senate hearings that individual
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content producers and Canadian users of TikTok and Twitter and Google, and God knows now it's the vast
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majority, it's young people. They're starting to realize that we in the Conservative Party are their voice
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for freedom, for consumer choice, and we will continue to be because we cannot allow gatekeepers in this
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town to determine what you watch, what you express, and pay extraordinary amounts of money for it.
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Absolutely, and you're talking free marketing. You said it perfectly, right? If you're producing content
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nobody watches in a free market, you either change the way you're doing business or you go out of business,
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right? But if you're continually getting government subsidies, you are censoring all the other voices
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trying to make a startup. You really don't have to improve your content all that much. You might
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make minor tweaks here and there, but in the overall picture of things, the product is not getting
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better like it would in a true free market system. And we also live in a world right now where
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productions of films, for example, documentaries, they cost, in cases, hundreds of millions of dollars to
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produce. And back to what I said earlier, when it comes to the economy of scale, we don't necessarily
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have the resources to compete on the world level. But what's wrong with international
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production companies coming to Canada and hiring Canadian writers, Canadian directors, Canadian
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actors, filming in Canadian centers like Vancouver, Toronto, and some of our rural parts of Canada.
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And again, we've seen an explosion in the marketplace here in Canada. We're benefiting from a weaker dollar
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in this particular area. And we're producing Canadian content at massive amounts. But instead of the
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government, for example, saying to these international investors, come to Canada and we're going to
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actually open up the ancient CanCon rules in this country, ancient CanCon rules. So to the point,
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take a hand, Handmaid's Tale written by an iconic Canadian writer, filmed in Canada, Canadian actors,
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Canadian directors and producers. Yet the Trudeau government says this isn't Canadian content
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because some production company who put in the money is a company out of London or a company out
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of California. So imagine we're telling foreign investors who believe in Canadian culture,
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in Canadian artists, don't come and invest here because we're going to make your life a miserable
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existence. It's ludicrous. We have to open ourselves up to the world, embrace these platforms. It's the
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Trudeau government picks and chooses when they want to embrace the world and be open. They pick and
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choose. And it's funny how when it comes to messaging and controlling what we see and watch, controlling
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propaganda, controlling culture, which is the most dangerous thing in society. They're all for that.
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They're all in on that. And we need to push back. As long as they're doing it. As long as they're doing
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and then they control the levers to get that done. And you talk about the economic scale of it. You
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mentioned about the boom that could be happening. That has happened. Even in Northern Ontario, there are some
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cities that were having trouble figuring out their economic future. And then the movie and
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television industry came in and completely transformed some of the towns and cities up
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there. It is absolutely remarkable what has been done. And that's because these companies are seeing
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the environment that's correct. It allows them to do it. It's financially viable. There's a whole bunch
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of other pieces to that puzzle. But at the end of the day, if we chase these people away, we chase these
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producers away. That content never gets done. We don't see that economic impact that happens afterwards.
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And what do you need after that? Well, another government program to fix the problem that government
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created in the first place. Look, I'm a former businessman. I've been in business, so I understand
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balance sheets. And in the last decade, we've seen an explosion in investment in our artistic film
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industry. Never seen before. And it's been driven by Netflix, by Disney Plus, by all these streaming
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platforms and corporations around the world, which the Trudeau government is trying to penalize and
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try to align them with traditional legacy media in this country, which for all intents and purposes
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is bankrupt. And the problem is the model. So if we can encourage through these streamers and new
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platforms billions of dollars of investment, and you're absolutely right, the activity, we see it. You go
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through any town and major city in Canada, you've never seen more film production on site than ever
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before. Yet we want to go back to the good old days where we were forcing people to watch Canadian
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content within the confines of our Canadian marketplace. So it makes no sense. We have to open the market,
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deregulate the market, allow for more streaming, allow for more platform and more content producers in
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this country. So we can export and continue to benefit from the reach. Let's export Canadian
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content. A hundred percent, which we've been doing. Yes. And we should do more of that. And by the way,
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we've seen also a spike in our tourist industry, even pre COVID and now post COVID, like never seen
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before. And in large part, if you talk to people in the tourist industry, because of our presence on
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these platforms, people around the world are discovering what Canada is all about, what small towns are all
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about, what our Rockies are all about, what small regions of the country that otherwise weren't
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covered by the, you know, Radio Canada International or CBC or Canadian Film Board, they're being, they're
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exposing the beauty of Canada. And we've seen a spike, which has helped our economy, our hospitality
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industry, our travel industry, and so on and so forth. Theoretically, if this bill becomes lost,
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so the second reading of the Senate, we're going to third reading at some point, we're not sure when,
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I'm assuming. If it does pass, how, how soon, I don't know if this question has come up, how soon
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could we start to see the ramifications of this bill, noticing that content that we used to watch
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or listen to isn't popping up as much as it used to? Is it going to take a few months after that?
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Well, the good news is there's a few steps here. We're in committee right now with the bill in the Senate.
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It's probably going to get through clause by clause in by the end of this month and get to third reading
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in the Senate chamber. We hope that we can be successful in passing a number of amendments
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and trying to mitigate the dangerous elements of this bill. After that, there has to be public hearings
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with the CRTC in order to put in place the regulatory framework of this bill, which is very important.
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So my call to citizens who are watching us is get out there and write and call and speak to your senators,
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particularly those that are sitting on the Senate committee and will have a say on this on third reading.
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Let them know how concerned you are. Also, when the public hearings come around in 2023,
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because this bill invariably will pass, the Senate is there to make amendments, to make suggestions.
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By no means do we think as an appointed body we have the right to defeat legislation, even though if there
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was a piece of legislation that deserves to be defeated, it's this one. We feel that we will make
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some amendments, but when it gets to the CRTC, we need to also make sure that the Canadian voices are heard.
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And ultimately sometime between now and the next 18 months when there's a federal election,
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make sure you go and you cast ballots for members of parliament who believe in freedom,
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who believe in consumer choice. And I know, Jamie Schmael, you're one of those candidates and a
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strong advocate. I've seen you at National Caucus of the Conservative Party stand up with tremendous
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energy for those values and principles. And we both know that a government led by Pierre Polyeb will
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never waver when it comes to freedom of speech and consumer choice. So these are the steps and that
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last one is the most important. Let's have a change in government that will safeguard our traditional
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freedoms and freedom of speech. I love how you said that. I usually give the guests the floor to
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end the program. I don't know how you're going to beat that ending. But if you want, the floor is yours
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for closing remarks. Look, thank you for inviting me and having me on. And thank you for the work you
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do in the House of Commons. At the end of the day, in the Senate, we're just an additional body to help
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push along the work of the House of Commons. And thank you for the work you do as a candidate in your
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region of the country. You're one of our strong voices. And I'm so excited about what's around the
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corner. I think Canadians are finally starting to realize that you can't have Ottawa dictate your
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everyday life and choose for you what you watch, what you post, how much taxes you pay, what you can
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buy, what you can't buy. We've seen in this city and in this government, they spend more, they hire more
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bureaucrats and they give Canadian citizens less. Makes no sense. I think out of this economic
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recovery, the last article I saw, nine out of 10 jobs recovered went to government. So it shows you
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the size and scope, the depth and breadth is what is happening at the government scale. Senator Leo
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Houssakos, island of Montreal, province of Quebec. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for
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your time as well. New content every single Tuesday, 1 30 p.m. Eastern time. Please remember,
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like, comment, subscribe, share this program. We do appreciate your time. And until next
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Tuesday, we say low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.