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.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I'm going to turn for my last bit of time to Ms. Monica Auer, from the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications.

You made a comment about timelines and the timeliness of the CRTC—I think you said based on rumours, guesses and gossip. I'm not sure I have that written down exactly.

If the CRTC is going to be given this additional responsibility through Bill C-11—and down the road through Bill C-18 as well—how do you see that affecting the timeliness and the responsiveness of the CRTC going forward, given this new scope of responsibilities that they'll receive through this piece of legislation?

[David Fares, Vice President, Global Public Policy, The Walt Disney Company]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me here today. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the important relationship between Canada and the Walt Disney Company, as well as Bill C-11.

Canada is one of Disney's top four production markets. In the last three years, our content spend in Canada, across all of our production companies, was approximately $3 billion on content to be featured on multiple platforms for worldwide distribution.

We produced six of our most recent feature films in Canada. In 2021, we produced 18 TV and VOD original series in Canada, with Disney+ Originals offering a source of growth for productions in Canada. Indeed, when Disney+ launched, three of the six originals on the platform were produced in Canada.

We have also produced in Canada uniquely Canadian stories. Barkskins, produced by National Geographic, tells a unique Quebec story, following two French families over a 300-year period, beginning with their arrival in New France. The Barkskins production team worked closely with the Wendat nation to ensure historical accuracy and respect.

Turning Red, a Pixar animation film released on Disney+ on March 11, is a love story to growing up in Canada, created and directed by Canadian award-winner, Domee Shi.

We are also producing a series based on the award-winning Canadian novel, Washington Black.

It is important to note that Barkskins, Turning Red and Washington Black do not qualify as Canadian programs under the CRTC's current definition, notwithstanding their unique Canadian stories.

Our close relationship with Canada is not limited to productions but includes a permanent physical footprint with state-of-the-art and innovative facilities staffed by high-skilled talent. Two of Disney's production companies have a physical presence in Canada and are expanding to fuel growth in the audiovisual sector, including infrastructure and skills development. Industrial Light & Magic, a visual effects subsidiary of Lucasfilm, has one of its five global offices in Vancouver, employing 500 people at any given time. ILM is expanding its footprint in Vancouver, building a 20,000-square-foot virtual production stage. The Stagecraft LED system will ensure that Vancouver continues to be one of the most innovative visual effects hubs in the world.

In August 2021, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced that it will open its first production facility outside of Burbank, California, in Vancouver, hiring 400 high-skilled employees over the next two years.

Disney also works with independent Canadian production companies, helping them grow and establish themselves as leaders in their fields. Two important examples are Mercury Filmworks in Ottawa, an animation studio with which Disney has worked on at least 10 productions, and Omnifilm Entertainment, based in Vancouver, which is a live action production company with which we have worked on at least five productions.

Madam Chair and committee members, I understand that a main motivating driver behind Bill C-11 is that, if you benefit from Canada, you should contribute to Canada. I hope that in the last few minutes, I have successfully demonstrated Disney's proud contributions to Canada and its creative ecosystem. We hope to invest further in Canada, and a flexible regulatory regime will allow us to maximize those future investments.

From our perspective, a flexible regulatory regime would recognize that each company offers a different proposition to its consumers. Accordingly, consumer expectations flow from a company's particular offering. Disney+ is unique in that it predominantly offers content from Disney's own brands: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and Star. Given this unique offering, we hope that Bill C-11 will allow each company to contribute to the health of the Canadian AV ecosystem in a manner consistent with the service it offers, thereby fuelling consumer choice, benefit and diversity.

As I noted, Disney is proud of our contributions to Canada, but they differ from those of Canadian broadcasters by the very nature of the content we offer. For example, Canadian broadcasters devote a significant portion of their content spend on news and sports, which is content that Disney does not produce in Canada. We would welcome the opportunity to work with you to ensure that Bill C-11 recognizes and embraces such differences.

The Motion Picture Association of Canada will be filing proposed amendments to the committee in writing, and the Walt Disney Company fully subscribes to these amendments.

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members. I look forward to answering any questions that you may have.

[Patrick Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada]

Good morning.

It's a pleasure to be here with the committee to discuss Bill C-11. Music Canada is the trade association for Canada's major labels: Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Universal Music Canada and Warner Music Canada. Canada's major labels sign and partner with Canadian artists, helping them achieve commercial success in Canada and export that music abroad. Overwhelmingly, it is artists partnered with major labels that Canadians listen to on the radio, stream or hear synched to their favourite TV shows. I'm in the enviable position of telling the committee we support Bill C-11's core principles of accessibility of Canadian content through regulating broadcasting on the Internet.

Canada's commercial radio rules, developed five decades ago, were integral to today's successful Canadian music industry, with Canada's major labels leading the way. Those rules opened new opportunities for careers and professional development for artists, labels, studios, managers, venues and an entire emerging Canadian music industry. That commercial success in turn enabled businesses to reinvest in the next generation of talent. In fact, I like to think that our members have served as an example for this bill.

Proposed paragraph 3(1)(f.1) requires making the “greatest practicable use of Canadian creative and other human resources”. That is the business model of Canada's major labels. We have offices in Toronto and Montreal full of Canadians, making Canadian music for the Canadian market and the world. In a global digital marketplace, success in Canada is a stepping stone to international success.

Music is one of the most recognizable and successful exports. Canada is the eighth-largest streaming market in the world. Out of the top 10 most streamed artists in the world, three of them are Canadian. Those names you all know—Bieber, The Weeknd and Drake—but I want to tell you about some of today's biggest Canadian success stories that perhaps you haven't heard about.

Ali Gatie, raised in Mississauga, is an artist of Iraqi descent who surpassed 3.5 billion streams for his 2019 single, It's You. Tate McRae, a singer-songwriter from Calgary, one of the world's artists to watch, held down the number one spot for five weeks on Billboard's emerging artists chart, with over 3.2 billion career streams. Eli Rose, a Montrealer, named Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2020 ADISQ awards, with numerous hits, has 14 million global streams and counting. These are just a few of the names of the next generation of Canadian talent, and they're finding success in streaming that maybe they wouldn't have found in radio alone. These successes come from both the incredible talent of these artists and from the investments made by our members, publishers, indies and the platforms that license the music.

Turning to the bill, we support the bill as the minister describes it. We agree when he says the CRTC should not regulate the algorithms of online services or user-generated content. We hope the committee will clarify the bill text to clearly reflect the minister's intent. The committee has now heard about the CRTC's potential to reach into algorithms and to regulate user-generated content. That wiggle room in the bill, compared to the minister's certainties, was at first confusing, but following the outgoing chair of the CRTC's testimony here, that wiggle room is concerning. This can be fixed by honing the language of the bill to reflect the minister's stated intent. The bill can be amended to clarify the prohibition on the CRTC regulating algorithms, and the language regarding professional content can be sharpened to reflect the minister's statement of no cat videos.

The global music industry has just come back from nearly two decades of decline. The growth reflects the hard work of companies like ours to ensure that music uses are licensed and artists are paid when their music is played. We know what happens when Canadians feel there's too much friction between them and what they want to hear: They will find their music elsewhere. If regulation proves too burdensome on our industry partners, we know that consumers will move to unregulated spaces, which, by definition, will be harder to license, which will mean a devaluation of music, making it harder for artists to be paid when their music is played. That flies in the face of the good intentions of this bill.

To that end, I ask the committee to listen carefully to the platforms that will be regulated. They are our business partners, and they are where our artists and labels increasingly make a living in the 21st century. Ultimately, they are the people who bring your favourite artists to your phone, your car and your living room.

In conclusion, this is an important bill, with real-world goals.

I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

[Monica Auer, Executive Director, Forum for Research and Policy in Communications]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for inviting the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications to appear today. We undertake empirical and policy research in communications and participate in a range of CRTC proceedings.

The forum strongly agrees that Canada needs a new statute to serve the public interest by ensuring the availability of and Canadians' access to high-quality Canadian news and entertainment programming and to serve our economy's need for jobs and investment, but we fear that the contradictions, gaps and loopholes that exist in Bill C-11 will thwart Parliament's objectives.

Our written submission recommends changing eight aspects of Bill C-11. As other witnesses have already addressed some of these issues, I will highlight just three points today.

First, while the current Broadcasting Act and Bill C-11 state that the best way to implement Canada's broadcasting policy is through a single independent public authority, Bill C-11 erodes this independence by handing cabinet the power, in proposed subsection 7(7), to override the CRTC when it exercises any or all 39 of the CRTC's powers in part II.

Proposed part II.2 also lets cabinet regulate eight administrative violations. Bill C-11 also leaves intact the existing limit on CRTC decision-making independence, enabled by the chairperson's power to “decide who decides”—that is, which CRTC commissioners may actually make decisions. Rather than weakening the CRTC's decision-making independence, Bill C-11 should strengthen it.

Second, gaps in Bill C-11 will make current serious problems with the CRTC's transparency, accountability and timing even worse. The section 5 regulatory policy now ignores the public interest and discourages the CRTC from regulating if doing so may be a “burden”. It is next to impossible for the public to refute claims about future burdens or to make the case for stronger regulation to implement the broadcasting policy. Despite collecting programming data from Canadian radio and TV programming services for half a century, the CRTC has not published such data in decades.

Bill C-11 should require the CRTC to report annually on section 3's implementation to enable oversight by Parliament and Canadians alike, and should set a more rational test for undue regulatory burdens. Bill C-11 does propose that the CRTC publish relevant evidence before consultations affecting minority-language communities, but it should do so before all consultations, and CRTC determinations should be signed by those who make them.

As for timeliness, divining when the CRTC will decide matters is now based on guesses or gossip. Bill C-11 ignores this problem and makes it worse, since those accused of administrative violations may wait forever to be formally cleared of wrongdoing. The bill should require the CRTC to complete its investigations within a reasonable period. In brief, this bill is a rare opportunity to reduce problems with the CRTC's transparency, accountability and timeliness.

Finally, drafting loopholes may, in any event, stymie Bill C-11's implementation. In particular, proposed paragraph 2(2.3)(a) excludes online programs that are “ancillary” to a business's primary activities. This may simply encourage creative business structuring and court challenges, and is at odds with the existing requirement in section 9 that the CRTC exempt broadcasters unable to contribute materially to the broadcasting policy. Requiring off-line but not online distributors to negotiate reasonable terms of carriage with programming services will simply hurt, if not kill off, Canada's small and medium-sized domestic programming services, fuelling, in the interim, calls for “me too” deregulation. If Bill C-11 wants the single system envisaged in subsection 3(2), it should clearly define its reach and treat “like” media alike.

To conclude, our fear is that, if left as written, Bill C-11 will simply not achieve Parliament's stated objectives, and that, even worse, court challenges of its implementation by the CRTC will create long delays and cost Canada and those working in its creative sectors quite dearly.

Fixing Bill C-11's drafting problems will strengthen Canada's communications system by ensuring that it is an independent regulatory authority actually serving the public interest by making evidence-based decisions in a fair and timely manner.

We strongly support the general purpose of Bill C-11, but thoughtful revision now gives you the opportunity to craft outstanding 21st-century legislation. We are confident that this is your committee's intent.

Thank you.

[Luc Perreault, Strategic Advisor, Independent Broadcasters Group]

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Luc Perreault and I am a strategic advisor for the Stingray Group, which is a member of the Independent Broadcasters Group, more commonly known as the IBG. With me is Joel Fortune, who is legal counsel for the IBG.

Our association consists of 13 independent broadcasting companies that are not affiliated with any of the major Canadian cable or satellite distributors.

The members of our association are television and radio broadcasters working in all areas of digital media. We offer Canadians a wide variety of content: local news, weather information and emergency alerts, documentaries, lifestyle magazines and programs, Canadian and world-class cinema, music, drama and sports. We do this in French, English, indigenous languages and 25 third languages spoken in Canada today.

We support Bill C-11. Canada needs to update the Broadcasting Act to better reflect the Internet and the ever-increasing presence of online broadcasting services in Canada. Our primary concern is that Bill C-11 restricts the CRTC's authority to supervise a critical element of online activity: the oversight of the distribution, discoverability and fair treatment of Canadian apps and services online.

Let me be clear. We are not talking about access to social media services. What we are talking about is access to closed platforms operated by Internet services, like Roku, Amazon and Apple TV, and by Canadian operators, like Rogers, Bell and Quebecor. These large companies use the Internet to distribute third party programming services in the same way and compete directly with cable and satellite.

In the United Kingdom, the government has announced that it intends to empower its regulator, Ofcom, to ensure that the U.K.'s services are offered and treated fairly by these online platforms. Ofcom will have a dispute resolution function to address issues that arise between online platforms and online services. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission has already looked in depth into the regulatory treatment of virtual MVPDs. We call them “virtual BDUs” in our system. The FCC's review relates to whether these virtual BDUs should have carriage obligations for local television signals. This review remains open.

In other words, other major jurisdictions, including the U.S., are already seized with online distribution issues. Their expert regulatory agencies, Ofcom and the FCC, are exercising or being given the jurisdiction that IBG-GDI and others have proposed be included in Bill C-11 that are now absent.

[Tulsa Valin-Landry, Vice-President, Communications Sector, Canadian Union of Public Employees]

Madam Chair and committee members, thank you for inviting us to discuss Bill C‑11 with you.

My name is Tulsa Valin‑Landry, and I am the vice‑president of CUPE‑Quebec's Communications Sector, which represents close to 6,700 broadcasting workers in Quebec. With me today is my colleague Nathalie Blais, who is the representative for CUPE's research service.

The members we represent work in all types of broadcasting companies, whether in distribution, radio, local specialty or community television, or on the Internet. They actively participate in our democratic life by producing local, regional, national and international news, and contribute to the production of entertainment programs, just like independent producers. This is a particular feature of Quebec that we would like to draw your attention to.

Bill C‑11 is very important to us. Since 2014, we have made multiple interventions, either alone or in a coalition, calling on the government to establish legislative and regulatory fairness between traditional broadcasting undertakings and online businesses operating in Canada, like Netflix or Spotify. The impact these foreign companies have had on our industry has been staggering. In just a few short years, television stations considered cultural flagships have gone into deficit, putting jobs, information and Canadian programming at risk.

The purpose of Bill C‑11 is to improve the competitive position of our broadcasters so that they can continue to produce and present programs that are relevant to us, while providing the high‑quality, well‑paying jobs that the Canadian economy needs. By integrating web giants into the Canadian broadcasting system and regulating them, the bill will put Canadian companies on an equal footing with their foreign competitors. It will also protect our cultural and economic sovereignty.

We need new legislation quickly to allow broadcasters to regain their profitability and to protect jobs. However, in its current form, Bill C‑11 contains too many uncertainties. Amendments are essential to strengthen this bill so that future provisions proposed in the Online Streaming Act are not challenged in court as soon as they are implemented. This would have a negative impact on workers, on Canadian broadcasting companies and on the cultural sector. We therefore propose some fundamental amendments to clarify the scope of the bill and ensure the success of the resulting regulations.

First of all, let's be clear that the purpose of Bill C‑11 is not to regulate the entire Internet, as some witnesses have said. This is not true. In fact, the bill applies to online businesses operating in whole or in part in Canada, under subsection 4(2) of the Broadcasting Act, which remains unchanged by Bill C‑11. The feedback we have heard so far suggests that the intent of Parliament needs to be more clearly expressed in the bill to avoid any ambiguity.

I'll pass things over to my colleague Nathalie Blais.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Good morning, everyone.

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting No. 24 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 Tuesday, May 12, 2022, the committee is meeting to 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 pursuant to the House of Commons agreement from November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. As per the directive of the Board of Internal Economy of March 10, 2022, all those attending the meeting in person must wear a mask, except for members who are at their place during proceedings.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, you can click on the mike. I'm sure you all know how to do this already, but I'll just go over it quickly. You can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you will see a little globe, and that is what you press if you want to have interpretation. Those on the floor actually have the interpretation there. I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses who are here today.

You have five minutes for each organization, not each person, so you can decide amongst yourselves who is going to use up what time. I will say, “30 seconds” when it is time to wrap up.

With us today we have the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Representing them are Nathalie Blais, research representative, and Tulsa Valin-Landry, VP of communications sector. Also with us is the independent broadcasters group with Joel Fortune, legal counsel, and Luc Perreault, strategic adviser. From the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, we have Monica Auer, executive director. Also, from Music Canada, we have Patrick Rogers, CEO.

Without further ado, I will begin with the Canadian Union of Public Employees. I don't know who will speak, but I am just turning on my little five-minute timer for you.

Thank you. You may be begin.

[Kenneth Hirsch]

Yes, absolutely. We absolutely believe that they should and must give back to the system that they take billions of dollars out of every year. We believe strongly in the intent of Bill C-11.

[Tim Uppal]

Thank you.

Also, can you elaborate further on how Bill C-11 will have a detrimental effect on Canadian consumers' ability to view content that they want to view online?

[Matthew Hatfield]

Yes, I think perhaps the minister needs to discuss this with the CRTC and get his facts straight. As people know, it's been a long and frustrating conversation we've all had around Bill C-10 and C-11. I wish we could have clarified the fact that user content was in earlier. I think we all could have had a higher-quality discussion if we'd all been on the same page on that, as we now are.

In terms of telling us that we should just be trusting the history of the CRTC I think no, several times over. No, in the sense that our recent organizational experience with the CRTC has not been that we can trust them to always have the public's interest at heart. People who follow our access campaigns will know that we have a lot of concerns about who the CRTC is listening to when it comes to getting affordable Internet to Canadians and whether it's really their top priority to do that.

Certainly just as a matter of legislation, how do we go about justifying legislation as just “trust the regulator” and just trust that it will work out? That's a very poor standpoint for us to be setting out here. We think that it is incumbent on you as MPs to do better than that and to give more specific restrictions and clarifications to the CRTC as they move forward with anything here.

[Tim Uppal]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, John.

I'm going to continue with Mr. Hatfield.

Last week at this committee the CRTC commissioner basically admitted that UGC is in the scope of Bill C-11. He added that there should be a higher degree of trust in the CRTC as a regulator. What do you think about this, especially since the minister has assured Canadians that UGC is not covered under Bill C-11?

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank all of the witnesses for coming forward today. They have given us compelling testimony that is going to be useful as we look at the bill, particularly at the amendment stage of Bill C-11.

I haven't asked a question yet of Mr. Hatfield and would like to go to him.

First off, my question would be this. Are you concerned about the testimony we've heard today from OUTtv about how they were excluded from a number of streaming platforms and fear that, should there not be measures in place to counter it, other streaming platforms coming to Canada may do the same thing? That's my first question.

Secondly, I thank OpenMedia for its campaign against discrimination in algorithms. We know that there are problems beyond that and that Senator Ed Markey, among others in the United States, has tabled a bill for algorithm transparency because that is, of course, a concern in some sectors. The campaign in the United States “Stop Hate for Profit” also takes aim on algorithms, as you're aware.

I wanted to ask you those two questions. The first is on your concern about exclusion by the streaming platforms. The second is on the issue of algorithm transparency.

[Lisa Hepfner]

Okay.

Madame Paré, you said something to the effect that we have such a strong cultural sector in Quebec and in Canada right now because we have had a Broadcasting Act up until now. What do you see for the future? Should we not have a revived and renewed Broadcasting Act if Bill C-11 is passed in the House? What do you see for our future?

[Michael Coteau]

Thank you so much, and thank you to the interpreters for their important work as well.

I wanted to start off by saying that, in listening to this conversation over the last five hours, I've thought a lot about growing up in Canada in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and about turning on the radio and picking up some Platinum Blonde or Glass Tiger. Even before that, I listened to 1970s Canadian content and could turn on the television and see a lot of that content.

I think we would all agree, regardless of what your position is on this specific piece of legislation, that putting forward good Canadian content is good for Canadians. It actually teaches about our history and about our present. It helps us understand where we're going as a nation, as well.

I think we need to find a balancing act. The simple truth is that these big Internet giants have become the new deliverers of content. The Amazons, Googles and YouTubes deliver content. If you go into any household in this country today and talk to a young kid, most of their content is coming from online services. We need to build a modern system that's reflective of our values as Canadians, but which also puts in place the realities of today. The world has changed.

I do appreciate everyone joining in on this conversation.

I have a question for Ms. Paré.

Specifically, why is it essential for us to include social media platforms in Bill C-11? Why is the regulatory flexibility under the bill so important to the music sector?

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, thank you for the answers thus far.

I want to start with Mr. Hatfield as well and follow up on something he mentioned in response to a question from Mr. Champoux in which he used the terminology of basically firewalling parts of Canada off to effectively prevent international participation. I was just wondering if you could follow up a little bit more about this.

I'm thinking about Canadian creators, indigenous Canadians, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and people from racialized communities who have found success through online means of basically exporting Canadian-created content internationally and how Bill C-11 might impact their ability to reach the global market, especially with very important groups that may not find that success domestically but have found that reach globally thanks to online means.