Evidence of meeting #30 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Oh, undoubtedly; Net neutrality is the issue of the day in telecom. We will be forced to develop a more fulsome position on it.
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
No, partially because it is a very full timetable as it is. As well, I think it's more response to demands rather than planning ahead on this one.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I'd like to deal with administrative monetary penalties. That issue came up in the context of Bill C-327, which was Mr. Bigras' bill. This committee didn't support his bill, but it certainly did support a call to provide you with the power to levy administrative penalties where they're required as an intermediary remedy.
Are there other contexts in which you could see these being very helpful in addressing the issues you deal with at the commission?
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
There is no question.
My colleague here, who's in charge of broadcasting, can probably give you some instances in which they would be useful.
Scott Hutton Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They can be useful in all our areas of operations, because essentially, as the chairman indicated in his opening remarks, we have three methods, some of which are very light and some of which are far too heavy, depending on the situation.
We can certainly use it, hopefully as a deterrent; just the basic issue of an administrative monetary penalty existing can serve as a deterrent, as with our others. It's not our first choice to jump on that, as a rule. Certainly we've had issues of building access, situations in which you want a competitor to enter into a building where the incumbent company is providing roadblocks. That would certainly be one that would allow the consumers greater choice. I think you were talking about violence as the last issue, but any issue related to content and whether it's inappropriate content certainly can be helped with monetary penalties.
Quite frankly, it could help in all of our areas. It could be making sure you file and are up to date on your Canadian content and you're up to date and capable of respecting your conditions of licence with respect to Canadian content development. There are funds or levers you use to promote Canadian content.
You can use it in all the areas where people fail to comply. It's a very small minority of companies and broadcasters, and that's where we'd like to be more precise in dealing with those who do not comply, as opposed to setting regulations and having large hearings that apply to everybody.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
From your experience in the past, are there situations in which you haven't been able to obtain the kind of compliance you wanted because of an absence of AMPs?
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
It's hard to say whether individual cases....
We can walk through our process. Essentially, if we do receive a complaint--let's say it's a complaints-based process--where someone is offside on a particular subject, you're in the middle of a licence term. The licence term is seven years. Basically if somebody is offside, once you resolve the issue of the complaint, your ability to coerce or reprimand is a number of years into the future. You come up and have those discussions three or four years later.
If there continues to be failure in compliance, then what do you do? You have a shorter-term licence renewal. That's another three or four years, another couple of years of process. It becomes rather heavy and burdensome to step yourself through, whereas in our view, if you had been able to draw a line in the sand earlier, you would have avoided all of that extra procedure and cost and non-compliance.
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
In any of the cases in which we give a very short, limited licence renewal--let's say for two or three years--it would be much more preferable to have an administrative penalty and say, “Look, you went too far. First correct yourself, then pay up, and don't do it again”, rather than basically giving it to them and hoping that over the next two years a shorter term will incent them to be more law-abiding.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Thank you.
Mr. Siksay will be next. After him, I will give one complete round again for the first four. It would be shared time. Then it would be Ms. Mourani and then Mr. Siksay again.
You're going to have two more times to question, Mr. Siksay. I'm very generous.
Yes?
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Is one NDP member going to get ten minutes and four Liberals five minutes?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
No. Mr. Siksay is the last one in this particular round, and he is ready to speak now.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Mr. Angus already went, I believe, from the NDP.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Yes. I'm following the list.
We have a set list. I know you're new to this committee—
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I'm just trying to understand, Mr. Chairman. I want to fit in.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
We wouldn't want to hear too much from the NDP around here. That would be a terrible thing.
Mr. Fast asked a number of the questions that I had on my list, and he did a good job of it, too. He did better than I would have, I think.
Mr. Hutton, you listed a couple of areas in which you thought these administrative monetary penalties would be helpful to the CRTC. Is there any one of those areas that crops up more often than another? Is there a particular area where these penalties would be most helpful, or where the flaw in the system has cropped up most often for the CRTC?
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I cannot say, and quite frankly, where we've exercised shorter licence terms it has been over a number of different areas; there is not one specific area. Certainly, if you were to look at tempering your response to a non-compliant, often what we would see, and where an administrative monetary penalty would help, is that once you've gone through the motions of calling somebody offside, nine times out of ten after the first call people comply. The one out of ten who did not comply will continue in non-compliance, and I think that's where you would want to have something more—not the death penalty of no licence, but something heavier than simply a short-term renewal.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
So you see some gradations in moving to this kind of system, whereby they wouldn't always be applied, but there would be a warning system in place, or a lesser sentence for a first offence, or something like that?
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Mr. Siksay, I think just having the power would be a great constraint. You don't necessarily have to use it, but the mere effect of people knowing that at the end of the day we might use the AMP power will induce them to comply with our orders.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
When this issue first came up, we were looking at Mr. Bigras' bill about violence on television. In that context, we heard about the system of voluntary codes and standards—codes of ethics, broadcast standards, and codes of conduct—that have been developed by the broadcasting industry. Is there a problem in applying an administrative monetary penalty when it's a voluntary code that's being enforced?
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
No, not at all. I'm a firm believer in the voluntary codes and Canadian broadcast standards that you're talking about. If it works, that's wonderful. The industry itself administers their standards, and we have approved them. We know that if the administrative party comes into place and somebody either refuses to become a member of this voluntary association and therefore we have to deal with them, or deliberately flouts it or goes against the grain, we would have to make an example.
Take the standards council; nearly all broadcasters are members, and they deal with this. We will deal with the few who aren't, and we would then, in the appropriate case, have the ability to use the AMPs. Hopefully we wouldn't have to use them; the mere fact that we have them would induce compliance.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I think when people talk about AMPs, they talk about their purpose being to compensate the state where harm has been done, or they see them as punitive, to punish for wrongdoing. In what sense do you see the kinds of proposal you're making with respect to the Broadcasting Act?