Bill C-11

Online Streaming Act

An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Broadcasting Act to, among other things,
(a) add online undertakings — undertakings for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet — as a distinct class of broadcasting undertakings;
(b) specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation;
(c) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of the Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should
(i) serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including Canadians from Black or other racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages, and
(ii) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(d) enhance the vitality of official language minority communities in Canada and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs in both languages;
(e) specify that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) must regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a manner that
(i) takes into account the different characteristics of English, French and Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide English, French or Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) takes into account, among other things, the nature and diversity of the services provided by broadcasting undertakings,
(iii) ensures that any broadcasting undertaking that cannot make maximum or predominant use of Canadian creative and other human resources in the creation, production and presentation of programming contributes to those Canadian resources in an equitable manner,
(iv) promotes innovation and is readily adaptable toscientific and technological change,
(v) facilitates the provision to Canadians of Canadian programs in both official languages, including those created and produced by official language minority communities in Canada, as well as Canadian programs in Indigenous languages,
(vi) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities,
(vii) facilitates the provision to Canadians of programs created and produced by members of Black or other racialized communities,
(viii) protects the privacy of individuals who aremembers of the audience of programs broadcast, and
(ix) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which the Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on any class of broadcasting undertakings if that imposition will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(f) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(g) replace the Commission’s power to impose conditions on a licence with a power to make orders imposing conditions on the carrying on of broadcasting undertakings;
(h) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(i) authorize the Commission to provide information to the Minister responsible for that Act, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, and set out in that Act a process by which a person who submits certain types of information to the Commission may designate the information as confidential;
(j) amend the procedure by which the Governor in Council may, under section 28 of that Act, set aside a decision of the Commission to issue, amend or renew a licence or refer such a decision back to the Commission for reconsideration and hearing;
(k) specify that a person shall not carry on a broadcasting undertaking, other than an online undertaking, unless they do so in accordance with a licence or they are exempt from the requirement to hold a licence;
(l) harmonize the punishments for offences under Part II of that Act and clarify that a due diligence defence applies to the existing offences set out in that Act; and
(m) allow for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties for violations of certain provisions of that Act or of the Accessible Canada Act .
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 26 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, May 12, 2022, the committee is meeting to the study Bill C-11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other acts.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, as you can all see, pursuant to the House of Commons order of November 25, 2021. Members attending in person must wear a mask at all times, and members attending virtually will be using Zoom. As for the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on March 10, 2022, all those attending in the room must wear a mask at all times. Actually, you could wear a mask and speak. We can hear you very well. The clerk speaks with a mask all the time.

I want to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members. First, you cannot take photographs of this meeting, so please remember that. Wait until I recognize you by name before speaking, and for those participating by video conference, if you look at the bottom of your screen, you will see a globe icon. Please use that for interpretation. Those of you in the room, you know that you can plug in for interpretation in the room itself. If you want to activate your mike, there is a mike icon at the bottom of the screen, and when you're not speaking, I would ask you please to mute yourselves.

We will now begin this meeting, and I want to welcome all of the witnesses. Thank you for coming in to meet with us on this very important bill.

Witnesses all have five minutes per individual, or group, to make opening remarks. If you are a group, you can split your time in any way that you choose, and I will give you a 30-second notice. I'll just say it, so you don't have to look up from your notes to see if I'm holding up a card. When you have 30 seconds left, I will give you a signal, and you can wrap up.

Our witnesses today include, as an individual, Philip Palmer. Oorbee Roy is a digital content creator. Pierre Trudel is a professor at the Université de Montréal, and Timothy Denton is chairman of the Internet Society Canada Chapter.

We'll begin with Mr. Palmer, for five minutes, please.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are the ones who got rid of the boutique tax credits. By the way, it is a tool to use in the marketplace to incentivize consumer choices; that is why we do it like that.

Let us get back to what the member said earlier. I actually really appreciated the beginning of his response to that question. He said their job is to critique legislation and to make it better. He said to look at Bill C-11, and that he did not think the government should be doing that.

That is not what the Conservatives are doing, though. The member and his party are not coming here and saying they want to make the legislation better. They are coming here and putting up every single roadblock possible to prevent anything from happening. That is not their job.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, that is a fair question. Lots of people wonder what the role of the opposition is in government.

The role is to make sure that government legislation does get better. We have some very thoughtful but maybe critical arguments on some of the legislation, for example Bill C-11. I do not think the government should be legislating the Internet and regulating what people can and cannot see. I believe in free speech. The Liberals do not. There is another example. I do not think people should have to pay a carbon tax on the gas they use in their vehicles, on the equipment they use to seed or on the machinery they use to grow food for people across Canada. I do not think schools should have to pay carbon tax on their heating. I do not think there should be a carbon tax on bussing kids to school in Saskatchewan. These are policy debates we could have.

The Liberals say, “But they get it back.” My question or comment, and Premier Wall made the same comment, would be this: If the government is just going to give the carbon tax back to Canadians in boutique tax credits, why take it in the first place? Please, why do we not let Canadians keep the money in their own pockets?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Based on that, and we talked about it last time you were here, in all of your social media, in all of your advocacy, you are pretty much just anti-C-10 and anti-C-11. You don't advocate for better working conditions and you're taking money from tech giants. Why should we listen to anything that you have to say, especially in light of the fact that the vast majority of Canadians on these platforms are making zero dollars, and 60% of those who are eligible are making less than $10,000, which is far less than traditional artists? You're representing a system that—

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I appreciate that.

I want to step away just a minute from you, Mr. Benzie, and go to some of our other witnesses.

We heard some conversations earlier in this committee and others about the definition of Canadian content and some of the challenges that certain entities have had with the definition and assumption of ownership of intellectual property.

I want to turn to Mr. Sonoda and Ms. Noble from ACTRA to get your opinions on the definition of Canadian content and what we may hope or expect to see in a ministerial directive to the CRTC on revising what Canadian content may or may not be post-Bill C-11.

[Margaret McGuffin]

It's been very interesting watching legislation being passed around the world in reference to the tech companies. What we saw in the last two years out of Europe around their copyright act and the misinformation and the misleading statements that were made around that act is something we can learn from here in Canada. We also saw this in Australia with their newspaper legislation, where Google made misleading statements and threatened that the legislation was going to break the Internet.

It is a script that we are seeing over and over again, and you as parliamentarians are going to see it as we move to other kinds of legislation. We need to make sure that the misinformation ends and that there is a way of going through the information that's being presented and making sure that we're not misleading the public or scaring people into thinking that the Internet is going to break. The Internet is not going to be broken by Bill C-11.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

That's an important point, Madam Chair. I will use the 11 seconds just to stress the importance of the fact we are seeing gatekeeping taking place now, which I think underscores the importance of the discussion we're having on Bill C‑11.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much.

Madam Chair, I wanted to go to Ms. McGuffin to ask two questions.

First off, you've mentioned that the web giants don't contribute as much to community as they should. You're very clearly advocating that C-11 help to level that playing field. I want to ask you about that.

Second is a question I'll direct to you and also to Mr. Benzie. We've heard testimony that OUTtv was excluded from a number of the online streaming platforms. We're having this conversation about gatekeepers, but it seems to me that this is an example of gatekeeping, where a whole community is simply excluded from being present on online streaming platforms.

Does that not indicate that we need to start to step up to provide for that level playing field, so those kinds of exclusions can't occur?

I'll go to you first, Ms. McGuffin.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

So we have to be very straightforward and remain vigilant in this regard. Thank you, Ms. Noble and Ms. Blanchette.

Mr. Benzie, everything suggests that Bill C-11 will be adopted and that you will eventually have to make representations to the CRTC. Among the proposals that the Bloc Québécois will be presenting again this year, there will be the proposal to reintroduce the concept of referral to the Governor in Council.

Is the fact that you will have an additional tool likely to reassure you, if ever the regulations put in place by the CRTC hurt digital creators?

[Lisa Blanchette]

Sure.

We think that the online streaming act could actually be game-changing for the future of Canadian content creation. It's a major opportunity for performers, in terms of jobs and exposure.

Amending proposed paragraph 3(1)(f) is crucial for us. Our goal is to equalize the regulatory obligations across all broadcasting undertakings delivering similar programming to avoid a cascade effect of traditional broadcasters seeking to lower their obligations to match those of online undertakings.

[Catherine Edwards]

In Bill C-11 our hope is that.... To give you an example, in 2016, the last time the CRTC reviewed its local and community TV policy, there were public notices of consultation that went out, and then stakeholders could weigh in. The not-for-profit community TV groups that are stepping in to fill service holes left in the wake of cable TV closures weren't even mentioned. There were questions of, well, we all know that cable community channels have been regionalized and this and that, but there was no mention that there's actually this viable other sector growing in its place.

What we are looking for in the act is recognition so that, when we talk about who's doing the work at the community level, not-for-profits are at the table. When the online streaming act goes into law and is referred to the CRTC to put in practice and there's more money in the Canadian broadcasting system, at that point we're hoping that there would be funding for a community access media fund that could fund community radio, community TV and new online digital types of media—virtual reality, video game production—where community groups are also involved. The funding comes at the next stage when there are clear definitions of what our role is supposed to be in the act.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to move on to Ms. Edwards from CACTUS.

You've been a strong proponent of community broadcasting. We've certainly seen an erosion in my community, an elimination of community television, except we have volunteers stepping up with New Westminster Community Television, and I'd like to shout out to their valuable work.

You mentioned I believe, if I understood it correctly, a 90% erosion of community television supports, and that effectively we've lost a wide variety of the community televison supports that existed before. How important is it to mend Bill C-11 so that we actually have a very clear obligation around community television that involves members of the community?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today.

This is important testimony we are getting. We deeply appreciate your availability in speaking to the committee about Bill C-11 but also about the possible amendments that can actually improve it.

I'm going to start with Ms. Noble and Ms. Blanchette from ACTRA. Thank you for your work nationally. I'm certainly hearing from ACTRA members across the country who are very favourable toward C-11, but you have pointed out something that's extremely important—that you effectively can't have a level playing field if you have two standards around Canadian production. Currently, the way the bill is structured for foreign online platforms, they don't have the same responsibilities in terms of Canadian production and Canadian employment.

Could you talk about the importance of making sure that the bill does set a level playing field and that foreign online platform companies actually have the same responsibilities as Canadian broadcasters do?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

That is not my style, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.

I would like to thank the witnesses once again for participating today in another important meeting of this committee and for contributing to the study of Bill C-11.

I would like to ask a question of Ms. Hinse, from the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec.

Ms. Hinse, there is a lot of talk about the erosion of regional journalistic coverage, of regional media and, in fact, of major media fleeing the regions. We are seeing this phenomenon in Quebec.

Ms. Hinse, can you tell us a little bit about the role that community media could play, particularly in terms of journalistic coverage, if Bill C-11 recognized their value and if the amendments you are proposing to the definition were adopted?

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

In what ways specifically would Bill C-11 be starting to move that conversation forward to make sure we're moving into the 21st century here?