Sure, I'd be happy to.
I find it quite remarkable that we get some witnesses saying that it doesn't mean anything at all and we get others saying that it should be removed. Presumably, then, there was a problem with it.
Here's the bottom-line reality as I see it, as many other experts see it and as the department saw it, including in comments made directly to this committee and in memos written to the heritage minister that are now available under the Access to Information Act.
First, proposed new section 2.1 speaks, as we've heard, directly to regulating online undertakings. It is true that we are not going to treat a million TikTok users as equivalent to CTV or other broadcasters. They won't have to appear before the CRTC, which makes a whole lot of sense, because they are not broadcasters.
However, there's been some concern even around that. Of course we had the heritage minister mention the number of viewers or followers you have might pull you into that scope, and some creator groups have suggested that this ought to be the standard that is used. It doesn't appear to me, however, that this is what proposed new section 2.1 would do.
What proposed new section 4.1 sought to do was ensure that the programs themselves, the content, would not be treated as something potentially subject to regulation by the CRTC.
There was not significant confusion. There were, to be sure, any number of different online services that would have to go before the CRTC to determine whether the content on their service was captured by this measure. These would include some of the YouTube services. It certainly was within the realm of possibility that those would be captured.
If we are such big fans of the CRTC's getting it right, I would have thought we would have confidence that we could both safeguard and protect user-generated content and that critical form of expression and also have confidence in the CRTC to get it right in determining where the application of the law might lie.