Honourable senators, I just want to put some comments on the record.

First of all, let me just say that I thought we have had a good debate on this. I’m looking forward to hearing the final few speakers before we vote on Bill C-11.

I have listened carefully. I think there have been good points made on all sides. I sense, though, a fatigue — maybe a frustration — among some of us on how often we seem to be debating how to work rather than just getting on with working.

But I have to say that I think this is an important issue for us to pause on before we plow ahead. If you believe, like I do, that we are in a new era of independence, then we are setting precedents as we go.

I will just go through a few of the impressions that I gained.

I am not persuaded much either way by the kind of he-said-she-said in 1990 or 2017 — or whatever — that has been quoted by the government and the opposition. The government’s job is to pass legislation through this place as quickly as possible. Period. The opposition’s job is to defeat — or, failing that, delay — legislation for as long as possible. Period. So I think that while the speeches were interesting, and there were great, wonderful arguments on both sides — compelling arguments on both sides — the rest of us who are independent and trying to make a decision about a side need to weigh the interests of others at all times.

In my view, we need to come to decisions on matters like this without hanging our personal feelings on whether or not we like the bill or the government of the day. There will be times when it will be a different government. Those of us who like today’s government may not like tomorrow’s government.

If we are truly exercising our independence, then we will need to be consistent, won’t we? Given the same circumstances five years from now — with a Pierre Poilievre government in place and Senator Plett making the case about how we ought to give ourselves the extra time to study a policy that many of us find appalling — we want to make sure we’re consistent, don’t we, if we are going to be independent.

I think that is partly what is at stake in these kinds of detours that we take into process — because there are precedents. It is not about somebody calling us out five years from now. It is about looking ourselves in the mirror and saying, “Yes, I was truly independent. I made the same decision for the same reasons five years ago that I am going to make today.” That consistency is something that I reflected on. What is the consistent thing I can support today that I know I can support in the situation where there is a different government? For myself, I am satisfied that in this case I am doing that.

This does not mean that I won’t ever support pre-studies. We’ve all talked about this. There are times when pre-studies are an important tool. I just do not happen to believe that these particular two items have arrived at the right thresholds for us to agree to do this.

I also think about the role of the Senate, and some of the debates that were done pre-Confederation talked about the role of the Senate to pass, reject, amend and delay with dispassionate consideration. All those things, I think, come into play here, in particular with Bill C-11. This bill is going to come to us, I believe, with a lot of heat. It is going to come to us with a lot of people who are passionately for Bill C-11 and a lot of people who are passionately against it. I think it was Senator Plett who talked about that today. There are going to be winners and losers in this.

In my instinct, this is not the time that we should be trying to get into the mix quickly. We should be the ones who take the heat out of it. We should be the ones who say that we’re going to take space and time and make consideration here. We are going to see this bill come to us time-allocated, where debate has been truncated, and where activities in committees, whether they are dilatory or not, have been truncated. We may see it as we did at Christmas and last June with last-minute deals and whole sections written in — like we had. All of those things give me reason to think that it is not a good idea in this case for us to embark on an adventure of pre-study.

But I want to be clear. My vote has nothing to do with the bill. It has nothing to do with the contents of the bill. I don’t know how I’m going to vote on the bill. The way I deal with my job here is to not pay a lot of attention to what is going on until it is in my chamber, and I am supposed to be focused on it. I know that others deal with it differently.

But I honestly can say I have no hot clue how I’m going to vote. For me, this is 100% about whether or not it is a good idea for us to embark on pre-study. I know a number of my colleagues feel the same as I do. It is not about the bill and its contents.

That is really all I wanted to say. In closing, the idea of us being appropriately cautious in guarding our space and time on Bill C-11 will be important to the credibility of the decision that we make in the end.

I encourage you to give my thoughts today, short as they are, some consideration as we move to a vote. Thank you.

In your estimation, can we still give time and space to the study of a bill and start a pre‑study as well? Does one preclude the other? The government is asking us to study — without a time frame and without constraints around anything other than asking us to study. Can we do that and give time and space?

I think we can. It comes down to some degree — and I will be frank — of a measure of trust that we do not wind up in a situation where we create the expectation that a pre-study equals that we know everything there is to know, so if we have a quick debate here, we can get this all done before summer.

I know the subtext is all the way through here; and I know Senator Gold has been clear, both in private and in public, that this is not going to be the case. But I think we will add to the heat, because it will become a narrative; it will, potentially, get in the way of the work that will be done; and it will add to the commotion that will potentially carry on in the House. I think that, in a controversial situation like this, we risk getting dragged, along with our reputation, into the game that is going on there, with whatever calculus and score there is.

I think there are many places for pre-study and that it is a good argument to say that this is sufficiently complicated or the timing is such — because of a deadline, a court decision or money — that we need to do it.

I just do not know why, if we say we are going to take all the time necessary — and it has never been directly said that June is off the table. Given the state of play right now, I think we risk signalling that we are in a rush to pass this, and I don’t think that is appropriate.

I am glad that you spoke about the complexity of the bill. The question I have for you is this: Do you believe the committees are masters of their own domain and that they will chart out the scope of the study and how many witnesses they hear from? The committee will make the decision as to how broadly the bill will be studied. If that takes us into September, so be it. Once we start the pre-study, the committee is in charge of that.

I caught your “if the study goes into September,” meaning that it might not. Depending on how you listen to things and how sensitive you are to the circumstances, it can be imputed many different ways.

I don’t feel that way about it. This is a bill with a large amount of controversy, as far as I can tell. I don’t know what the fuss is, but there is a lot of controversy around it. Why would we rush into the politically charged environment that is over in the House of Commons when we don’t have to? The government has said, “Take as long as you want. We want to get this right,” et cetera. Why would we rush in and potentially diminish the work we will do afterwards by being seen to be part of the show in the House of Commons?

Will the senator take another question?

Sure.

I think you are articulating well something that we are all trying to work through and make the best decision in terms of balancing whether we can do a pre-study. Pre-study provides another layer of information, hearing from witnesses and getting to the heart of what some of the issues might be with this bill. One says, “Could we start a pre‑study?”

The other piece of what you are talking about I think is clear: This is not, for you, in this moment and with this bill, the right time.

I’m trying to take it all in. My question for you is this: If we were sitting here and it was March 1 or October 1, would your criteria or mindset shift or would you still feel the exact same way? I think the time of year is a factor and what that can or cannot mean in “the heat,” as you describe it.

I think one of the elements is the fact that we are here, that there are still people with a light in the window and that we could somehow tie this all up by the end of the session and before we rise.

For me, it is the controversy and the fact that I was persuaded by thinking about — we have an experience going on right now where some of us — not me, but others here — have had a ringside seat to what a House of Commons committee looks like vis-à-vis the Joint MAID Committee and the committee studying the Emergencies Act. I think we do not want to be very close to that in terms of the decision that we have to make when it is controversial.

I also believe that nobody is going to be listening to whatever advice we might give in that forum such that it would generate any kind of meaningful or valuable advice that would inform the decisions that are made in that committee.

I would not be worried about the time element the way that I am now, but I still come back to the one issue of whether we should or need to get involved — when, in fact, we don’t need to and traditionally we have not.

Senator Tannas, would you take a question?

Absolutely.

I will refrain from — I appreciate your acknowledging that I have said publicly what I have said, and privately. What I said was that a pre-study is not a Trojan Horse to displace all other stages of study, which it is for the Senate to decide. I have two colleagues whose votes I hope I can count on. I have the responsibility to quote Spider-Man but not the power: With great responsibility comes no power except the power of persuasion and the power of my own integrity and reputation.

I will allow myself to take the liberty of saying that it is very fine to be told, “Of course, we think you are a wonderful person, but the government could always change their mind. And what is to stop it? We haven’t been told this and we haven’t been told that.”

At the risk of revealing more than I wish, it is offensive to me that despite my public and private pronouncements time and again and the respect I have shown for this chamber, we still think it relevant in this debate to trade on the suspicions.

I can’t do anything about it, colleagues, except to tell you that my question is as follows: Can you explain two things? First, why is it that you think we in the Senate — for the reputation which we all extol, and properly so — will be drawn into the political partisanship in the other place? If we choose to not be drawn into the politics, surely we will not be drawn in. If we choose to play the politics, as some do in this place, then c’est la vie.

Secondly, why do you assume that the government — or I should say, more accurately — the parties in the other place will not be responsive —

— to the Senate’s views when, in the case of the four pre-studies that have been alluded to — Bill C-14, Bill C-91, Bill C-92 and, most recently, Bill C-7 — the Senate interventions had a material impact on the amendments that were accepted in the other place? We played an important role in improving legislation. Why not in this case as well?

You have strained my attention span with your questions. Let me start with the first one. I do not believe that the files that you quoted have anything like the potential acrimony that these do.

Maybe we would have to go back. That may be a matter for somebody else to debate down the road or for history to judge about how long they have taken in the House of Commons, the fact that closure has been utilized and that we still do not have a bill. We do not know what amendments there are going to be.

In the case of the pre-studies that you did mention, we did do some great work, and it was collaborative. Certainly, during Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, which you mentioned, there was no rancour. There were no theatrics. There were no winners or losers. We were all pointed at a result that we wanted to get to and to create the best product that we could.

Senator Gold, I do want to say that I am sorry I have raised your anger with my comments. I am not making up the fact that we have had some last-minute surprises. We have had pressure put on us by ministers publicly in the media; ministers phoning us; and other officers phoning us to tell us that we needed to hurry up for whatever reasons at the last minute when the bill had only just arrived or when there were changes to it at the last minute. I am not making that up.

I do take you at your word that is not going to happen this time. Maybe next time, after it doesn’t happen this June, it will be more of a distant memory. I know it is frustrating, but it is true. We have had some problems where we have not, in my view and in the view of others, had the opportunity to properly consider government legislation because of so-called time deadlines.

I am sensitive about it. It is in the back of my mind. I have always spoken my mind here and felt that I could trust people with that. I do not mean anything bad by it. It is how I feel. I think it is how others feel. We all have scars and bruises from it, including yourself.

In this debate, it is important that we all have our say. I am having mine. I thank you and appreciate your questions.

As you know, Senator Simons and I are both members of the Transport and Communications Committee. We have discussed this bill at length. We received witnesses together — or should I say, lobbyists — to try to understand the situation a bit better. I subscribe to your analysis and I totally agree that it is complicated, that there are not just two parties, but many parties. However, I believe that the issues are very important. It is, in part, about the survival of the Canadian culture as we know it. Yes, we must change things; yes, we must innovate, but we nevertheless have a duty to protect this Canadian culture. How can we do that in an environment that is completely different?

How does starting a pre-study next week, when we could begin to receive witnesses who would give us a comprehensive view and people who are knowledgeable about the technology, prevent us from conducting a study that would no longer be a pre-study when the bill comes to the Senate? I do not see how that changes anything at all. We are seated in a room, we receive witnesses, we listen to them, we ask questions. What is the difference between a pre-study and a study we could do at that stage, which would be an extension of the other?

Would the honourable senator take another question?

Are you aware that Bill C-92, which I sponsored a few Parliaments ago — and Bill C-15 just last Parliament — had a robust pre-study rolled into the study of the bill? I think it went quite successfully. We felt really good about the robustness of that study. That’s the first question.

Second, are you willing to disclose the voices that you have heard either in your head or maybe out of this chamber? Who is saying that there is going to be a study? Senator Gold has said that we’re not “buffaloing,” we’re not pushing or doing any of those things. As the Government Representative Office, we are interested in a really robust study as well.

Yes.

Quickly, colleague, is the minister in this chamber? At the end of the day, who is responsible for this chamber? Is it us or is it the House of Commons?

Would you accept another question Senator Simons?

I had promised not to intervene because I think a lot has been said, but I want to clarify a few things. As you know, I’m the sponsor of the bill. You’ll have to trust me, after 17 years as a senator, I was never asked by the government leader to pass this bill by the end of June. I was never given a timetable by the government either.

Since we’re going towards the first anniversary of Bill C-10, I remember that last year at about this time we got Bill C-10 which had been studied, as you mentioned, for three months. Hundreds and hundreds of witnesses were heard. It arrived here after third reading in the House of Commons, and we were ready to continue studying it. I was being asked by some people in this room that I won’t name that we should have a pre-study. We did not get one. I wanted one last year, and I obviously want one again this year.

What happened between last year and this year so that some people do not want a pre-study this year? It needs to be studied. I know that you met with a whole bunch of people. But why don’t you invite them to public meetings so that we can dialogue with them to see what their interests are, what they believe should be put in or out of the bill or what is not being done by the other chamber? What was not done by the other chamber last year? Why not do it in a transparent way? This is what this place is about.

I have to admit that I’ve been here long enough — I have some seniority — to know that’s what we do. We listen — we don’t only talk to some people. This might offend some senators here, but we do listen to people. Part of our function is to have people come to our committees — stakeholders — and listen to them. What happened between last year and this year so that now we don’t want to listen to these people in public, in a very organized fashion, versus having people come to our offices or voices telling us? I’m telling you again: never, never.

There is a question, senator. It’s not to you because I know I would have a long answer. What happened between last year and this year that we do not want to listen to people talk about a very important subject?

Senator Simons, I’m sorry, but before you answer, your time is expired. Are you asking for five minutes to respond?

Only to answer that question.

Is leave granted to answer the question?

Honourable senators, before calling upon the next senator, I should point out that we are debating Motion No. 42, the substance of which is whether or not there should be a pre-study of Bill C-11, not the substance of Bill C-11. We have a fair amount of leeway when it comes to speeches and questions and answers, but, please, we’re debating Motion No. 42.

Honourable senators, in the words of former senator George Baker, “I will be brief.” I will try not to repeat the same arguments, of course, that I did in the previous motion in relation to Bill C-13.

I want to point out the following: I still haven’t heard from either the Government Representative or the sponsor of this bill what the urgency is, what the public interest is, with Bill C-11, in order for us to do what is really unusual in this particular circumstance. This place is the place of sober second thought. The role of the Senate is to be a complementary body to the House of Commons, not to be a parallel one. I agreed totally with Senator Simons and Senator Tannas when they said that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be dragged into the partisan context and aspect of studies and votes that are taking place over in the House of Commons.

I know it’s funny coming from me because I am unapologetically partisan, but I am also the chair of this committee and I have some experience in this place. I think it’s imperative to ask questions when we see the government so dead set on trying to get something done. And I don’t want to impugn motives, but, Senator Gold, although you might say that there is no objective for the government to ram this through this chamber before we rise in a few weeks, quite honestly, the vigour and the intensity with which representatives of the Government Representative Office are debating this and trying to get the point across in this chamber are making it abundantly clear that that might just be the intention of the government.

I also want to point this out very importantly: I have a great deal of difficulty, as the chair of the Transport and Communications Committee, with doing a pre-study on such an important bill where there is such a difference of opinion. It’s such a controversial bill across this country, and to date the government refuses, from my understanding, to deposit, to make public, the policy directives and the regulatory framework, which are such important parts of this bill.

Don’t nod your head back and forth. You will remember last summer we had the same argument on this same floor. The government finally made the regulatory framework public last June at, I think, five minutes to midnight on the side of the House of Commons. Now you want us to do a pre-study on this important bill — again, this controversial bill. To my understanding, as of today the government refuses to make public the regulatory framework in the House of Commons.

Now, the regulatory framework on such bills, as you know, is really part and parcel of the bill. It really determines some of the important elements of the bill that need to be studied and reviewed.

All I would like is a firm commitment from the Government Representative before we engage in even thinking about doing a pre-study. Will you commit the government to making the regulatory framework public, allowing us to have it once we are engaged in study? And I know the government will ram this through and we will commence the study. Will you at least commit to making the regulatory framework public so that the committees in both the House and the Senate will have it? I think it’s essential. Without it, we cannot do our work. Thank you, colleagues.

Honourable senators, I, too, would like to join this discussion on the motion to force a pre-study on Bill C-11 — a highly contentious government bill, but not urgent in nature.

So let’s cut to the chase. This pre-study motion intends to ensure the passage of bills that have not been subjected to proper scrutiny or study or debate or anything close to first sober or second sober thought. We have been witnessing this in the other place for the last week, and it is shameful.

Pre-study of any bill is for the convenience, by and large, of government, not for the benefit of the public. In the case of Bill C-11, this legislation remains highly controversial. I have had literally hundreds of emails and exchanges with stakeholders and citizens who have repeatedly tried to make their cases, fact-based cases, but they have been ignored or shut down in the other place.

Government has been shown the fault lines, the evidence that, globally, we are out of step and that their attempts to control the high-tech sector will prove ill-conceived. Even their own officials have publicly contradicted them on user-generated content being subject to censorship. These are not simple commas or adjectives. This is a flawed, not-ready-for-primetime, core content problem, and it impacts fundamental rights.

In his speech on the motion on pre-study on May 18, Senator Gold said, “I just don’t know, nor does anybody else in this chamber,” if this bill will be amended in the House. Agreed. That is the point. Let them do their work, and then we will do ours. This is not a budget or a pandemic spending bill. No lives are hanging in the balance. There is no crisis. And governments can’t always have what they want just because they want it. That’s why we have a system of checks and balances.

Given all the drama that took place in and out of committee in the other place on Bill C-10 last summer — the secret amendments that were invalidated by the Speaker — it was an embarrassment then and we are seeing it again. It was then and it is again now not only a flawed bill but a flawed process.

Of course, the government wants this bill and all of their bills passed quickly and, usually, with as little examination as possible, but that is not what we do here. We have no right to turn a blind eye. Our job is to examine government legislation, fix it, improve it, make it Charter-proof and, all the while, ensure that the rights of Canadians are secured and protected.

As we know, pre-studies don’t allow for amendments. There is no guarantee that regular committee study will, in fact, ever take place when we do get the bills. But this bill, every bill, needs hearings and witnesses and, most importantly, we need some honest debate.

My concern is that by agreeing to ever more pre-emptive pre-studies, we are allowing a new culture to take hold here in the Senate — a culture of complacency, one where the government no longer needs to respect parliamentary procedure or weigh the cost of spent political capital. They no longer need to ensure actual debate or a fair exchange or airing of differing views or win the day with a solid argument with facts, never mind show that they have consulted and actually listened.

I fear that the role of the Senate to uphold the interests of the people we represent will become some quaint, out-of-favour ritual. If all government bills are deemed urgent or essential, then in fact none of them are.

During COVID, we let billions of dollars in spending and new programs slide by without proper scrutiny. We accepted that they were extraordinary times and that time was of the essence, but no longer. This is now a convenient and growing trend. Complicated changes are hidden in budget bills. Debate is curbed. With no ability to introduce amendments, without the guarantee of full committee study and without waiting to see if the bill will be changed in the other place, my concern is that we are truly becoming the thing that offends me to my core: We are becoming a rubber stamp.

The voters passed judgment on this government last fall and, in their wisdom, offered only a minority: a limited hold on power. There was a message from the voters: “We want checks and balances on what you do.” Yet, through a side deal, the government has now engineered a majority. So, given that, we must be, more now than ever, the check and balance in the process.

Our committees are capable of doing great work. We have been waiting to get back to our real work, stymied as we have been by technology, by lack of facilities and translators and by being considered second class when it comes to access to resources. We want the tools and the time to do our work.

The senators on the Transport Committee, of whom I am one — although I have been denied the right to participate because of hybrid scheduling — and all who remain bring a breadth of experience and expertise to any issue. I look forward to a careful examination of Bill C-11. But already under a constrained calendar, with very limited resources, and committees meeting just once a week, this is going to be a tough task.

At the Banking Committee, we have been asked to examine key components of a budget bill and Bill S-6, both of which make sweeping changes to a whole range of important laws in this country. Clearly, we do not have enough time, yet again, to address the increasingly complicated legislation. Changes to the Copyright Act and the Competition Act, which were quietly shoehorned into the budget, need and deserve more time to be carefully considered. But we are no longer afforded that right due to some contrived, I think, politically driven declaration of urgency. This trend is troubling.

Increasingly, government bills receive much less time in committee, and too often we hear from witnesses from the department or the minister, and there is little time for the critics or the concerned or even those who simply want to know why, when and how come.

Is this a fulsome examination of something as complex as a budget or changes to regulatory regimes or a bill that changes how Canadians fundamentally communicate with each other and interact with the internet?

I would like to make one final comment on this process. This debate on the pre-study motion is exactly the kind of healthy dialogue needed in this chamber. Let’s have it. Let’s have it out. Why? Because it is much more difficult to undo bad legislation than to get it right the first time. It clogs our courts and costs taxpayers and consumers unnecessarily.

Colleagues, I think it’s important that we remind ourselves of our unique role, why we exist within not only the parliamentary process but also the political world. As independent as we all believe we are, we must pass judgment on the actions of the government of the day. To believe that this motion for pre-study is somehow purely intended to give the committee more time, a gesture to afford us this luxury, would be naive at best, something I do not believe any of us are.

But I also find it an affront that someone in the other place would believe that this chamber could be tricked by such a transparent proposition.

And claiming that we’re wasting time by debating this motion is an insult to my intelligence and yours and undermines the very commitment when we swore in our oath to do the work necessary and to preserve the rightful reputation of the upper house and of Parliament itself.

So I ask, colleagues, let us not drift complacently into irrelevance. Let us not ignore the political or economic consequences of what we do. Let us not forfeit our very basic right to speak our minds, to fight in the arena of ideas and difference and not be silenced by political correctness or pressure or fear. Let the government do its homework before we do ours. It’s their job. Hash it out. Don’t silence the critics or shut down committees or curb study.

Let’s wait and see what the bill looks like when the fight has been had in the political arena.

Let’s not fall for the procedural games of any government. Please, colleagues, join me in voting against this motion for the sake of the Senate today, for those who will follow us into this chamber and for the oath we took. It is surprising what we may find when we shine a little light on some of the dark corners. Thank you.

Would the senator take a question?

Certainly.

Thank you very much. Certainly, today, a lot is being said in the Senate, some direct, some indirect and some with innuendo, but the debate is really important. I would like to maybe even think about calling out the elephant in the room. I think we are all quite familiar with our former governor general, Mr. David Johnston, who wrote a book on trust and 20 ways to make this country better.

To you, my question is: Are we talking about the debate about having a pre-study, or are we talking about trust that the process and diligence that are supposed to take place, that we hear in the Senate, are going to be done in due course?

They are inextricably linked. To be asked to do a pre-study on the promise that we will have all of the time in the world is one thing, and many other senators, myself included, have heard other comments and other suggestions about what the real intent is. Of course, trust is at the core of it. I think this was part of Senator Tannas’s point.

We have a different relationship with one another in here than we see in the other place all too often. I am sitting on a joint parliamentary committee, and it is a frustrating process. I’m trying to clean up my language because we are here in the Senate.

We need to preserve that difference and a different approach. It’s hard because, of course, we are dealing with government legislation. As I said, that’s our job. We get to pass judgment on it, whoever the government of the day is, and whatever it is that we may think about particular bills.

But as for this process of saying we must get this pre-study done — and I think timing is part of it — if we were talking about a pre-study with months of runway in front of us, we might have a different feeling in our gut. But when we’re talking about the crisis that is at hand if we don’t start this pre-study tomorrow morning at dawn, then something goes off in my mind. I mean, I have been in and out of this city for decades covering politics and being part of the process in different ways, and my instinct tells me that you have to be wary. If somebody wants something so badly, and they want it now, let’s examine that. Let’s look at that. Let’s think about why. Let’s look at what their potential motivations might be — I’m not saying they are horrible people. Governments get to decide what they want to do. We get to decide what we want do.

I’m just saying let’s be intelligent and critical thinkers, and let’s take those gut instincts into account.

I would like to ask the senator a question if she would take one more.

You have one minute.

My question won’t take a minute. Senator Wallin, after Senator Tannas spoke, and unfortunately I was a little late getting back here, Senator LaBoucane-Benson asked a question, and I’m going to read the question:

The government is asking us to study — without a time frame and without constraints around anything other than asking us to do a study. Can we do that . . .?

I’m assuming it’s not the government representatives, it’s the government. It’s the people over there that are asking us to just simply study something without any constraints at all.

What would your comment be to that type of request from the Senate?

Well, I mean, this is what we’re dealing with, that kind of request. We have kind of merged the two issues in that we have a request to pre-study legislation, but then we are told that we can roll that into a different kind of long-term process. That’s not how we do business. Either we do a pre‑study, as we have just completed on the budget, or we do an appropriate committee study in which we choose our timetable, we choose our witnesses and all of those things.

These are two different creatures, and they don’t just meld.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Motion No. 42, which was moved on May 18 by the Government Representative in the Senate. It concerns a pre-study of Bill C-11, which seeks to amend the Broadcasting Act and is currently being studied in the House of Commons. I was appointed to the Senate as an independent senator in November 2016, and since then I have had the opportunity to participate in some pre-studies of bills dealing with all manner of subjects.

One that stands out was the pre-study of the medical assistance in dying bill, which I participated in as a member of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. In that specific case, our study of the principles and objectives of the bill enabled the committee to broaden its consultation and thereby take a deeper dive into all aspects of what was a very sensitive issue for people. If you were following the debate at that stage, you most likely know that the committee heard from numerous witnesses with highly divergent if not diametrically opposed viewpoints. They helped the committee zero in on the main issues with the bill.

The Senate’s sober second thought is not confined to a rigid procedural cycle.

I would note that rule 10-11 reads as follows:

The subject matter of a bill originating in the House of Commons may be referred to a standing committee for study at any time before the bill is received in the Senate.

The Senate is not required to wait for a bill to be passed by the House of Commons before it can begin its study. That is not our role as a chamber that provides sober second thought on legislation. We have the authority to make decisions about how we conduct our work on the bills that the government introduces.

Honourable senators, we have a duty to study the underlying issues of a bill as comprehensively as possible. We must find ways to make it clear that we want the public to participate more in our debates. Pre-studies of bills allow us to hear from more Canadians and more organizations on the issues that we are studying.

We are still governed by criteria that were set out in the last century, even though the public is much more educated. The Canadian public now has just as much expertise as we do in government and in Parliament, including here, in the Senate. We must acknowledge that and adjust our methods accordingly.

The Canadians we are today want to be more directly involved in democratic debate and decision-making. That is what we are hearing.

A pre-study is an educational exercise that is most important to us, senators, if only to provide the means to understand all the details of a bill, especially when it seems complex at first glance. A pre-study also provides an opportunity for hearing as many interested people and groups as possible, and to shed light on the views of Canadians as a whole.

In my opinion, pre-studies could become part of committee activities every time a bill meets certain criteria, including if it deals with a key element of public policy that has not been reviewed recently, if it deals with an element of public policy involving a significant change to a legislative or administrative regime, or if it deals with a controversial social issue on which it is difficult to obtain a consensus initially.

Nothing prevents us from establishing the criteria that would help us decide when a proposed pre-study would be appropriate.

Honourable senators, I am of the opinion that Bill C-11, which the government has stated has the objective of overhauling the Broadcasting Act, and in particular to make it more inclusive, meets the criteria I just set out.

First, it represents a major update to Canadian broadcasting policy, and it is intended to ensure that streaming services contribute to the creation and offer of Canadian music and literary works. Culture is the foundation of a society. The means of disseminating culture constitute an essential service and must be updated to fit the digital world.

However, the genesis of culture is found in the works of the creators, without whom we cannot talk about culture. It is important to remember this and to ensure that the work done by these creators is recognized for its value and its worth, which includes the fact that many others are able to benefit from their work. It is also important to ensure that copyright for their creations is respected and remunerated accordingly.

Honourable senators, Bill C-11 must be closely examined, particularly from this perspective.

Second, it extends the application of the current legislation to online broadcasting undertakings, but exempts them from the licensing requirement. What effect does this exemption have on creators? What benefit do they get from this exemption relative to businesses that are required to hold a licence?

Third, Bill C-11 proposes a new order regime under which the CRTC will be able to impose different conditions on broadcasters, particularly regarding program content. However, the CRTC could also decide that its orders will apply to only one, some, or all of the licence holders. If the CRTC is granted this discretionary power, will it choose to favour one or more categories of businesses?

The bill also amends cabinet’s powers to issue directives to the CRTC and gives the government more time to ask the CRTC to review or reverse its decisions.

Also, what are the views of Canadian and Quebec creators, including anglophones and francophones, creators of all categories of works, when it comes to respect for copyright and the rights of performers in the new regime set out in the bill? What are the views of the groups identified in Bill C-11, namely official language minority communities, Indigenous peoples and people with disabilities? Have the general public’s views on the new regime been sought, considered and documented?

Honourable senators, for all these reasons, I will be voting in favour of Motion No. 42, which calls for a pre-study of Bill C-11.

Honourable senators, I will preface my prepared remarks by just making a few points about what I have seen unfold this afternoon and this evening.

I think that it is fair to say that this has been a bit of a raucous debate about a pre-study. We have seen increasing degrees of rhetoric, and I think it is fair to say that the words and intentions of Senator Gold and his colleagues have been unfairly mischaracterized repeatedly.

And I’m not convinced by colleagues in this place who watched the previous government routinely impose time allocations, sometimes allocating bills within a single day, lecturing us on the efficacy of the processes of the Senate.

My last prefaced remark is that I look around this room, and I look in all directions and I look at those from all groups and parties and I see nothing but impressive colleagues, both veterans and recent appointees, who will not allow this institution to slide into irrelevancy, which is a comment that I heard earlier. I’m proud to stand among all of you for that reason.

Now let’s get back to the motion.

Oh, oh.

Are we done?

I don’t know. Are we?

Well, are you done?

Colleagues, I want to speak briefly to support pre-study of Bill C-11. I want to start with a very short overview of the complexities surrounding the bill to preface my remarks. I have just three pages of remarks.

As you all know, Bill C-11 is designed to modernize broadcasting regulation in the face of revolutionary changes in the creation and consumption of online content in a context that is very much without borders.

Bill C-11 also aims to achieve more inclusivity of people who have been somewhat marginalized in the broadcasting landscape. Large swaths of this landscape are entirely unregulated, and they remain outside the requirements of other producers to create or contribute to the creation of Canadian content.

It is multivariate in nature, as Senator Simons pointed out, and some vocal opponents of Bill C-11 would like to keep it that way. Or, at the very least, they would prefer not to be enveloped by a regulatory framework developed previously for what they might term as “legacy broadcasters.”

Now, colleagues, there is nothing unusual about this in the world of regulation; absolutely nothing. There is nothing unique about it. In the regulatory sphere, colleagues, when it comes down to it, the unregulated rarely embrace regulation in any field. This is not a digital issue; it is a regulatory issue.

As you know, the first effort to regulate this ever-evolving and expanding landscape of digital content creation and consumption was represented in Bill C-10, which was set aside and has made way for Bill C-11. For its part, the government maintains that it has addressed in Bill C-11 some of the concerns raised by opponents of Bill C-10.

Now, colleagues, we have a considerable range of views on Bill C-11 with compelling arguments from those in the streaming services, traditional broadcasters, Canadian artists and creators and consumers of their content. These stakeholders have all raised big, complex issues that require a lot of time to examine. We will not be able to get a grasp of all of them, but a pre-study would allow us to look at four or five big-issue areas, to unpack them a bit and start to explain them to senators. This will be an iterative process, which makes sense. I don’t believe that anybody is rushing into anything. It is about learning, not rushing.

This would be a good pre-study service. It would mean we were all starting from the same point, and we need sufficient time, as a lot of people in this room have said, to start unpacking the bill and move us along a learning curve.

With the revised bill, with all of its complexities on its way into the Senate, why would we not start to carefully weigh the bill and the issues and questions arising from it to reduce the burden of a cold start, to complete an assessment, to get us started and to see if differences can be reconciled?

Colleagues, a pre-study could pass issues, dig into the issues and move this beyond the current polemic. The study of former Bill C-10 in the House of Commons heard from 128 witnesses over 28 meetings. We are now being told that Bill C-11 cures some of those issues identified by witnesses. Why not take a look at that? Why not hear from some of the same witnesses? That would be a good start.

Colleagues, I see this as part of the start of a linear process, not a race to the finish line. To allude to a comment made earlier, I see no buffalo in the room.

Similarly, many colleagues in this chamber have cited problems with the former Bill C-10 during second reading debate, and this would also be an opportunity for them to assess the changes in Bill C-11. We would all benefit from these sorts of analyses.

We did this in various ways with legislation on medical assistance in dying. We did it with cannabis reform, albeit more informally; we initiated vigorous research and debate among those interested in learning about that bill, and that included both supporters and detractors — and I can tell you that there were more detractors than supporters in this place when we started the debate of Bill C-45.

It readied us for our formal debates on those bills and for proposed amendments. This has, obviously, been done in many previous pre-studies in the Senate, including bills that had recently been referred to committee in the House of Commons. I’m not going to repeat the history of Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, both of which were studied concurrently with committee work in the House of Commons.

So, colleagues, I am not sensing that we’re breaking new ground here. I’m not seeing anything revolutionary in this. I am not seeing anything radical in this. The Senate has done it before in similar circumstances, and in doing so, the Senate has contributed to positive outcomes.

I am not sensing a rush. I am not sensing a runaway train. I am hearing a lot of rhetoric about runaway trains, though.

This is exactly what we should be doing, and what I suspect many of us want to do, because it is consistent with our constitutional mandate and responsibilities — to study bills. I am not hearing anyone talking about rushing this work, other than critics of the pre-study. This is not an emergency.

I am not supporting the pre-study because it is rushing anything; I am supporting the pre-study because it is important and I believe it can add value. I am saying nothing more than, “Let’s get on with it.”

Let’s contribute and add value to proposed government legislation. Let’s roll up our sleeves, colleagues, and give the very best of our advice and experience. That is what we should be doing. That is why we are here. That is our responsibility, and I am saying, “Let’s get on with it.”

Thank you.

Will Senator Dean take a question?

Of course.

Thank you, Senator Dean.

Let me start with a quote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Senator Dean, I would hope that you would do the same thing, and in your preamble, you chose, rather, to drive wedges again in saying or intimating that when people don’t agree with you, they somehow don’t have the right to their beliefs.

This is a political chamber. I take no issue with somebody scrapping with me in this chamber and then going and having a drink with that individual after the chamber rises. This is a chamber of debate where different opinions are expressed.

Senator Dean, first of all, I do not disagree with probably 85% of your speech, which said, “Let’s roll up our sleeves; let’s get to work.” I agree with all of that. I don’t think any one of us here, any one of us that voted against the pre-study of Bill C-13, can be accused of not wanting to do their job or do their work. We happen to have a disagreement with you on what is important and how we should do things. That is why we have a vote. That is why we have bells. That is why we get together, and when the vote is done, it is over. I have accepted fully the results of the vote we had a few hours ago.

And then you feel the need to come in here and chastise us because of our beliefs. Senator Dean, my question to you is: Do you believe in the democratic system? Do you believe that I have the right? Would you defend to the death my right to my opinion?

Well, of course I would defend your right to your opinion, and I would defend the right to the opinions of other people in this room. Absolutely. That is why I’m here. That is part of my responsibility. That is part of who I am.

If you took from my remarks that I was attempting to shut down anybody’s opinions, then I think you are mischaracterizing me, and I regret that.

I commented on the nature of the debate, on its divisiveness, on the fact that I thought that there was an excessive use of rhetoric and that I thought some of the comments that had been made by our colleagues in the Government Representative Office had been mischaracterized.

I stand by all of that without in any way acknowledging — nor do I want to shut down anybody’s right to talk and express their opinion. I have sat here, not left the chamber and listened to everything that everyone has had to say.

I was talking about the tenor of our debate, about the heat and the rhetoric of this debate, which is about a pre-study and a process. I will be honest in saying that I thought that I was hearing the intentions and the words of my colleagues in the Government Representative Office being mischaracterized. That is the way that I felt and I stand by that.

In that way, I was expressing my opinion freely, just as everyone else has in this room today. I am sorry if you did not like it, but we all have that right in this place. We have earned that right. We earn it every day and re-earn it.

Sometimes it is important to make a comment about the nature and the atmosphere of the debate, and that is all that I was doing. If I have offended anyone in doing that, I am happy to apologize. I do not think that I did. That was not my intention. I think the large majority of people in this room understand that.

Thank you, Senator Plett. I acknowledge your comments. I have nothing more to say. Just like anyone else in this place, I have stood up and offered my opinion. I am not going to make any apologies for that.

I am sorry, Senator Plett, but Senator Dean’s time has expired.

Senator Dean, are you asking for more time?

I am.

Are senators ready for the question?

It was moved by the Honourable Senator Gold, seconded by Senator Gagné, that in accordance with rule 10-11(1) — may I dispense?

If you are opposed to the motion please say “no.”

I hear a “no.” Those in favour who are in the Senate Chamber will please say “yea.”

Those opposed to the motion who are in the Senate Chamber will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “yeas” have it.

I see two senators rising. Do we have agreement on a bell?

Forty minutes.

Forty minutes. The vote will take place at 10:02. Call in the senators.