Evidence of meeting #26 for Canadian Heritage in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
April 23rd, 2021 / 2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Marci Ien Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Yes, it's a new clause, and that is because we live in a new world and it is a digital one. This clause is adding apps. Right now, the CRTC can regulate conventional channels. This would make sure that apps are regulated as well—things like Crave and other apps, for instance.
This clause is also about discoverability, and I'd like to go to the department for further clarification on why that's important.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
2:35 p.m.
Director General, Broadcasting, Copyright and Creative Marketplace, Department of Canadian Heritage
You have my apologies, Mr. Chair, but could we have a little bit of clarity about what motion is under discussion currently?
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Right now, we're discussing G-7, which is on page 63 of the package. I don't know if you have that or not.
2:40 p.m.
Director General, Broadcasting, Copyright and Creative Marketplace, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I believe there may be a bit of a disconnect then in terms of Ms. Ien's statements and G-7.
G-7 is intended to clarify that policy direction that can be issued by the Governor in Council to the CRTC. It would include giving direction of general application with respect to orders issued under 9.1 or regulations issued under 11.1.
There seems to be some confusion among stakeholders following the tabling of Bill C-10, whether it would be appropriate for the government to give an indication about the way that those powers should be used. G-7, Mr. Chair, is intended to clarify the scope, as long as it still remains at a level of general application. We're not talking about interfering in specific decisions. Rather, the expectation is that the CRTC would ensure certain kinds of discoverability or certain kinds of contributions from certain types of players, and that would be appropriate.
I apologize if I've missed something, Mr. Chair, but that is my understanding of what's intended by G-7.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Marci Ien Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Thank you to Mr. Ripley for clarifying. I skipped to G-8. I waxed poetic on G-8 and not G-7. That was my mistake.
Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Ripley.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
All right.
Is everybody clear on that? We're still on G-7.
Seeing no further conversation....
Ms. Dabrusin, go ahead.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you for that.
I think we need to subamend this to put it into the past tense. I have to pull up the wording to see exactly how that looks, but that would be the proposed subamendment.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
All right. Do you want to take some time with that wording right now? I can give you a minute, but I'm going to be pretty strict though.
I may have a typo here in my annotated notes, so I may have to call Philippe to clarify something anyway.
Nevertheless, Mr. Housefather, do you want to go ahead?
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'd just move to amend the amendment, to change the words “making of orders” to “orders made”. Basically, under proposed section 7.1, at the end of the second sentence, it says, “making of orders”, and we'd propose to change that to “orders made”.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
All right. I think that's quite straightforward, everyone. Don't you think? That would be G-7. Instead of “making of orders” on the second line to the third line, we're going to say “orders made” in 7.1.
Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we will now go to a vote. This is a vote on the subamendment from Mr. Housefather that you have just heard.
(Subamendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Now we'll go back to the main motion, G-7 as amended.
Is there any further conversation or debate?
Mr. Housefather.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Chair, when previously making the other subamendment, I realized that I was inconsistent in not making the same amendment to the words “or the making of regulations”. It really should be “or regulations made” and I erred in now creating an inconsistency in the clause. My request would be a subamendment of “the making of regulations” to say “regulations made”, in the past tense. Again, I apologize for not doing this at once in one subamendment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
That's quite all right, sir.
Before we go to the vote, we now have a further subamendment. I don't think we need to do anything formal. I can repeat it from here.
As Mr. Housefather pointed out, given the last subamendment that was accepted, this is another subamendment to say “regulations made”, on the second last line, instead of “making of regulations”. Does everyone understand that?
Seeing full comprehension, is there any conversation or debate? No.
We will now go to a vote on the subamendment from Mr. Housefather regarding G-7.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Chair, can we say it's carried on division?
(Subamendment agreed to on division)
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Now we will return to G-7, as amended, from Ms. Dabrusin. Again, I will just remind you that's on page 63 of your package, G-7.
Is there any further discussion? There being none, we will now go to a vote.
(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Folks, I beg your patience. If you could just give me 30 seconds to contact Philippe, I will be back with you in very short order.
Thank for your patience. You've been so kind to me.
Let us move on from amendment G-7, which we've just adopted and by which we carried new clause 4.1. We now move on to clause 5, for which there are no amendments.
(Clause 5 agreed to)
(On clause 6)
We will deal with PV-18. If PV-18 is adopted, then BQ-15(N) cannot be moved due to a line conflict.
I hope you've all received the newer version of BQ-15. It is now titled as BQ-15(N).
On PV-18, we'll go to Mr. Manly.
2:50 p.m.
Green
Paul Manly Green Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Mr. Chair, the bill replaces seven-year licence terms with terms that are indefinite or fixed by the CRTC. This amendment maintains the current seven-year maximum licence term. It enables the CRTC to amend the licence on its own initiative without needing application from the licensee. A term setting the duration of a licence is necessary to ensure predictability of conditions for all players in the system.
The amendment has been supported by the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma and Forum for Research and Policy in Communications.
I hope the committee members will support this amendment.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Mr. Chair, I was hoping I could get some clarification from the department. My understanding is that this amendment would actually return to the seven-year licensing system that we were trying to get away from. As mentioned before, more and more of these companies are online undertakings.
Can the department comment on that?
Mr. Ripley has his hand up already.
2:50 p.m.
Director General, Broadcasting, Copyright and Creative Marketplace, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
What Bill C-10 seeks to do is a shift. As the committee is aware, right now the majority of services are subject to licences where there are conditions baked into those licences. As part of permission to operate a TVA channel or a CTV channel, those services are required to contribute to the cultural policy objectives of the act.
What Bill C-10 does is it moves away from those cultural policy contributions being part of the actual licence fee, the technical permission to operate and use a spectrum or to operate your cable or satellite service. What it does is it equips the CRTC to issue orders and regulations that will prescribe those contributions.
The intention there is so that online undertakings and conventional services are being treated in the same way, in the sense that they're subject to the same kind of instrument in terms of the things that outline those obligations.
What that means in practice is that the licence moving forward would simply be nothing more than the authorization to run that service over a particular band of spectrum or whatnot. It's for that reason that Bill C-10 proposes moving away from the seven-year term. The seven-year term used to be important because it was an opportunity for the CRTC to revisit the contributions that a service might have to make supporting Canadian program or French-language programming or showcasing Canadian content, but that's no longer the case. The government's view is that it doesn't make sense to force the CRTC to revisit a licence every seven years because it's not going to be in question whether CTV Toronto can continue to operate and use that band of spectrum. If ever there does need to be changes in terms of spectrum allocation and the authorization to operate, the CRTC has the ability to revoke a licence or look at a licence or amend a licence if it needs to.
I hope that helps clarify.
2:55 p.m.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
I'd like briefly to discuss the following amendment, amendment BQ-15, under which licences would be issued for terms not exceeding seven years and a registration system would be established for online undertakings. I don't want to debate amendment BQ-15 immediately, but, given Mr. Ripley's previous answer, I'd like to ask how the CRTC can ensure that conditions are met if there are no registration or licensing categories for all broadcasting undertakings.
How can it ensure that conditions are met? How can conditions be set based on the categories and the nature of the broadcasting undertakings?