Evidence of meeting #34 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 crtc.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chair, Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel
Right now, on a global basis, they are whatever they want them to be.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
In the event that the CRTC were to have the limited ability to direct the platforms to favour Canadian discoverability of Canadian creators, it wouldn't have the ability to take Canadian creators off the platform based on this amendment. It wouldn't have the ability to tell Canadian creators what to create. It may have to find a way to allow people to search for Canadian artists. That would be.... In the event the CRTC adopted such guidelines, they would have to be in conformity with the charter. Is that correct, Ms. Yale?
Liberal
Chair, Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel
We'll leave it at yes. I agree with you.
Liberal
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Geist, I fully understand that you do not want us to regulate the platforms by imposing requirements on the content they have to provide for us. I feel that your vision overlooks our reality in Quebec. We need to protect francophone culture. This is not only Quebec culture, it is also the culture of francophones outside Quebec. Could you quickly talk about that?
Do you think that we can succeed in protecting Quebec and francophone culture at the same time as we protect Canadian content, which deserves to be valued and to be easily discoverable on the platforms?
Earlier, you said that it's easy to find Canadian content. Yes, it may be easy to find some Canadian content, but it is not necessarily valued. That is what we are seeking to do, in the same way that Canadian broadcasting enterprises have to do.
Are you completely opposed to our imposing those requirements on online platforms?
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Sure, I can say a couple of things.
First off, when it comes to some.... We need to distinguish between the streaming services, again, and user-generated content.
When we're talking about user-generated content, I think the answer, quite frankly, is no. I don't think that we should be requiring, in a user-generated-content world, the CRTC to get involved in making some of those choices through discoverability. In a bit of a response to Mr. Housefather's comments, if you are prioritizing some speech, you are deprioritizing other speech. There was a reason, in his Facebook example, that other content wouldn't be seen. That would be true as well with the CRTC choices for content that is, again, deprioritized.
On other kinds of services, on the streaming services, it's a different argument. That's not really what we're talking about here. I do think that there is some of that content available. Netflix, for example, has the film Jusqu'au déclin, which it funded, and it doesn't even count as Canadian content. That's part of the problem with the system itself.
I think there are things that can be done, but when we are focused—as we have been—on issues like net neutrality and freedom of expression, what happens is that this bill has slid away from the goals that you've just articulated into, now, the regulation of individual speech. You can say that it's being done through a platform and you can say that it's indirect, but it ultimately is the case.
To be clear, from the start of the premise of your question, I repeat I am not against regulating the tech platforms. The issues, especially in the discussions we've been having around algorithms, point to the need for greater transparency so that we know how these choices are made specifically around regulating these platforms. We need better protections around the data they collect. That too is regulating the platforms. We need the Competition Bureau to be more effective in terms of anti-competitive effects. That too is regulation.
It is a myth to suggest that this is about whether or not we regulate the tech platforms. This bill, at the end of the day, with these changes, is about whether or not we regulate individuals' speech.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, Dr. Geist. My apologies.
Folks, we're going to run over time just a little. We have time to finish this off. I have Ms. McPherson, and then Mr. Waugh and Ms. Dabrusin, after which we'll have to call it quits, because that would officially be the end of a third round.
Go ahead, Ms. McPherson.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This has been such a fascinating conversation, and I thank all the experts for bringing their perspectives. I know you don't agree on things, but as I said earlier, our goal here is to get good legislation for Canadians.
I just have to follow up on something that Mr. Champoux asked.
Mr. Geist, do you agree with the principle of supporting CanCon? Do you believe in CanCon?
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes, I absolutely believe in CanCon. I actually think part of the problem that we have faced is that our rules as currently structured do a really inadequate job of ensuring that they reflect Canadian stories. There is a problem when you get, let's say, a production based on a Margaret Atwood book or a Yann Martel book and the fact that they wrote that book doesn't count for the purposes of Canadian content. There's a problem with film co-productions when films that have virtually no connection to Canada at all are treated as Canadian content. I wish that the government would take a closer look at what it means to tell Canadian stories and support genuine Canadian content.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Then it's the definition, but you're supportive of the idea of making Canadian content, making it more available, promoting it, ensuring that our stories are being told or whatnot.
When these web giants do not pay their fiscal fair share, I feel like it is a gift from the government to these web giants at the expense of our cultural sector, at the expense of our cultural enterprises and our cultural sovereignty.
How would we fix this so that we're not giving the web giants the gift and instead are giving our cultural sectors these gifts?
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It's tax. The obvious way that we ensure that these companies contribute into the Canadian economy if they are as successful as we've been seeing is by ensuring that we tax them appropriately and have the revenues coming out of that taxation to use as we see fit. That's obvious.
The reality is that some of these companies are major investors in the country. Former heritage minister Mélanie Joly went out and got a $500-million commitment over five years to ensure that there was investment in production in Canada. It's not as if they produce nothing. Jusqu'au déclin is a good example, and Trailer Park Boys or others for Netflix. We can cite many of these kinds of examples.
I don't think it's correct to say that they don't contribute anything or that they aren't producing in Canada. They quite clearly are, but it is fair to ask whether they're paying their fair share from a tax perspective. There's evidence to suggest that because of the way the system has been structured, they have not been, and we need to fix that. With that tax revenue, we can do all of this without blowing up the Broadcasting Act in this manner and directly implicating the free expression of users.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
You would see taxation instead of broadcasting legislation.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Absolutely not. I would like us to update our broadcasting law to be a forward-looking law, not one that seeks to have a false equivalency and say that the only way we can do this is to look backwards and treat Internet companies the same as conventional broadcasters, which is what we are seeking to do, and we are increasingly finding a myriad of problems when that's the regulatory approach you take.
Let's get the Broadcasting Act right, for now and for the future, and let's at the same time ensure that there are revenues there through taxation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, Dr. Geist.
Mr. Waugh, we'll go to you for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Okay. I'll share my time with Mr. Aitchison.
To me, the elephant in the room is the CRTC and the lack of confidence that Canadians have in the CRTC. Many of us right now Zooming in here are former broadcasters, but there is little or no confidence in the CRTC. When we see a former chair and vice-chair and others speaking out to this bill, that in itself is the white flag that I think we are all concerned about and must address as we go forward in this bill.
Mr. Geist, I'll give this question to you, because I'm a former broadcaster and we had very little confidence in the CRTC at all.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Well, I think there has been ongoing frustration for many years with the CRTC. I must admit I find it almost astonishing now that people say we can just leave almost all these issues to the CRTC and they can figure it out.
As I think, frankly, that many of the members from all parties will recognize that this bill is woefully lacking in detail. It was supposed to be in a policy directive. That policy directive didn't contain much information either. On issue after issue, it left it to the CRTC solve it.
You've had the CRTC chair acknowledge that there isn't great expertise necessarily now on these issues either, and anyone who has ever followed the CRTC process will think of some of the telecom issues that have been going on for years. We are talking about very lengthy processes.
When I hear Mr. Cash, for example, talk about the urgency of getting some of these issues right, that urgency strikes me as wholly incompatible with this legislative strategy. It is going to take years to ensure that there is actual money on the ground. We are handing these issues over to a commission that groups from across the spectrum have really struggled with, feeling sometimes either that they have been excluded or that the decisions haven't been correct and that the decisions have taken a long period of time. There's a reason that there's that lack of confidence.
Conservative
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Thank you very much.
My question might actually be for Ms. Yale or Mr. Trudel.
It feels in some ways as though we're trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm wondering if we haven't looked to other jurisdictions. I'm thinking specifically about Australia, where they have come up with a threshold for revenue and the number of subscribers before they get regulated. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Why wouldn't we follow the same kind of model that Australia has used, as opposed to what feels like, as I think Dr. Geist just said, punting authority to the CRTC to come up with specific regulations and just casting a very wide net? This strikes me as sloppy and maybe even a bit dangerous. Why wouldn't we follow Australia's lead, specifically?
Chair, Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel
Let me start.
First of all, this is looking-forward regulation, not looking-back regulation. If you look at the way in which streaming services and sharing platforms would be brought into the act, you see that it's not a licensing model but a registration model, which already is substantially less onerous. It doesn't involve interfering with business models or the kind of content you produce or how you offer it. It is really a very simple mechanism.
I would say this is—
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Sorry, it is my time, and it feels like you're answering something that Dr. Geist was talking about. I'm specifically asking about.... Sorry, I didn't mean to—
Chair, Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel
Right.
What I was going to say is that the fundamental issue that the regulator always grapples with is whether or not the service in question is going to make a material contribution to the objectives of the Canadian broadcasting policy. In our report, and as practised by the CRTC, they do create exemption thresholds.
Whether or not you put those in legislation or in regulation, at the end of the day, you're absolutely correct that there will be thresholds below which these rules wouldn't apply—revenue thresholds, subscriber thresholds. That is the job of the CRTC, in my view, and we certainly talked about that in our report, because of course, over time, what those thresholds should be would change.
I don't think it's a problem to leave that to the regulator and to focus on the big players. To come up with a reasonable threshold, as you've suggested, has been done in other jurisdictions, below which there would be no regulation.