Evidence of meeting #155 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Scott Hutton  Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Sheehan Carter  Director, Television Programming, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin

I'm sorry. I'm just going to jump in to make sure that we get back on topic, because we are talking about the Harnessing Change report. I let us go down that road a bit when you were talking about Canadian content, but now with anti-spam legislation, we're going out—

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Well, anti-spam does work into the formula here, because that is a problem.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin

It just doesn't fit in any part of that report, from my reading of it.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

In my mind, it really works. Anyway, I'll ask something different.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin

Thank you.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Moving forward, what tools do we need to be relevant, in the sense of responding to any contraventions? Do we have enough resources to enforce rules that are established or are we lacking on the enforcement side of things?

4:40 p.m.

Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

Scott Hutton

We are lacking enforcement mechanisms. Our current mechanism is related to licences, involving suspending licences, removing licences or imposing new conditions on licences.

Licences are valuable because there has been a closed system. As the closed system is changing, new players are coming in and the Internet is delivering new forms of services that Canadians are clearly enjoying, enforcing our mechanisms and our regulations through licensing is no longer practical. We need new tools, such as administrative monetary penalties, to be able to help with the enforcement of our rules.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin

Thank you very much.

Thank you to both of our witnesses, Mr. Hutton and Mr. Carter, for being here and helping us to understand more of your report.

We are going to suspend briefly so that we can clear the room, because we are moving in camera for our study on the copyright review.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]