Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning. My name is Michael Geist. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I'm here in a personal capacity, representing only my own views.
I've appeared before this committee many times, yet it seems necessary to expand on my standard opening by stating that I have never been compensated or otherwise received a benefit from any tech company in conjunction with any of my appearances, submissions or statements on any legislative or regulatory issue. I don't think I should have to say this, but given the tendency of some to defame critics of Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 as shills, I should be absolutely clear that my views are not for sale.
Further, I should also be clear that criticism of Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 was not opposition to tech regulation. There are real harms, and we need regulation. I recently appeared before the INDU committee, calling for the strengthening of Bill C-27 on privacy and AI regulation. I have to say that I have spent much of my time, in the aftermath of the events of October 7, focused on the alarming rise of anti-Semitism and the urgent need for action both off-line and online, which could include the much-delayed online harms bill.
Since this study is about tech efforts to influence policy, I'll focus on that.
There have been important studies and reports that chronicle tech sector efforts to influence policy. For example, the Tech Transparency Project reported on Google-supported research. It identified many papers and work by academics with links to, or financial backing from, that company. However, the investigations identified virtually no Canadian examples. In fact, a search for any articles or reports from the project, since its inception across multiple tech companies, reveals very little involving Canada.
If we consider efforts to influence Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 through lobbyist meetings—we just heard about lobbying—one organization leads the way. It isn't Meta, which had relatively few meetings on these bills—in fact, fewer than CAB, ACTRA, CDCE or CMPA. It isn't Google, which ranked second for the meetings. Rather, the organization with the most registered lobbyist meetings on these bills is News Media Canada.
It's important to state that, if this hearing is about retribution for the blocking of news links in response to Bill C-18, I think that's misguided. Companies and many experts warned repeatedly that the legislation was deeply flawed. Now that news-link blocking has gone on for months on Facebook and Instagram without any apparent interest from that company in regulatory reform, I think that's pretty clear evidence that this is a consequence of the legislation and not a tactic to influence it. It was not a bluff, as many kept insisting. Indeed, I would argue that, frankly, both companies were pretty consistent from day one in their statements about the legislation.
In many respects—we just heard about threats to remove or stop investment—it's no different from Bell's recent announcement, in which it threatened to cut capital investment by a billion dollars in response to a CRTC wholesale Internet access ruling, or Stellantis putting its investment on hold earlier this year in Canada with the announcement of the Volkswagen deal. Simply put, legislation and regulation have consequences.
If this is actually about addressing concerns around regulatory or legislative influence, however, the real issue isn't tactics. It's regulatory capture. On that front, there is cause for concern in Canada. With Bill C-11, there was ample evidence of regulatory capture, as a handful of legacy culture groups dominated meetings with officials and time with this committee. The voices of Canadian digital creators were often dismissed or sidelined, including those from indigenous and BIPOC communities, some of whom reported feeling disrespected or intimidated by department or ministry officials.
The situation was even more pronounced with Bill C-18. Members of this committee indicated they were ready to move to clause-by-clause review without even hearing from Meta. During that review, someone stated that online news organizations were not even news. This form of regulatory capture was particularly damaging. Online news outlets were sounding the alarm over the risks of the bill and took the biggest hit with news-link blocking. They too were ignored. Some have now stopped hiring or been forced to suspend operations, yet News Media Canada somehow managed, in the span of five years, to obtain a $600-million bailout, the swift enactment of Bill C-18 and now an expansion of the labour journalism tax credit, in which their demands were met down to the last penny. Now that is influence.
Cultural policy is the bedrock of this committee, but culture isn't static. It's essential this committee and the department ensure they avoid regulatory capture and provide a forum for all voices. Failure to do so makes for bad policy and raises the risk of intimidation, in which—inadvertent or not—it may be the government, or this committee, that does some of the intimidating.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.
