Evidence of meeting #40 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.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Seeing no further conversation and no further debate, we will now go to a vote.
Once more this is CPC—
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I do believe though that raises a valid question. Perhaps I could ask the department whether there is any analysis as to what the impact of this amendment on cultural production funds would be. It might assist in the argument, given what Mr. Shields has raised.
12:40 p.m.
Director General, Broadcasting, Copyright and Creative Marketplace Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the question, Ms. Dabrusin.
I'm not able to give a definitive amount to that on the spot. It would take us going back and looking at some of the analyses the department has done underpinning that $830-million number to look at how it might intersect with some of the thresholds that are being put forward.
Bill C-10 put down the marker about material manner, but left it a little bit at the CRTC's discretion because not all services are comparable. For example, I would point the committee towards CBC Gem or TOU.TV, which are our national public broadcaster's online undertakings. The department's assessment was that right now those undertakings have about 200,000 subscribers and earn maybe somewhere in the $20-million to $30-million range in revenue each year.
The government's perspective would be that, obviously, our national public broadcaster and its online undertakings have a powerful role to play in contributing to the cultural policy objectives of the Broadcasting Act, yet the intersection with this amendment is that even those online undertakings launched by our national public broadcaster could be excluded if they don't meet the revenue threshold.
Ms. Dabrusin, we'd have to do some further analysis to actually look at the intersection with all the services and assess how that might change our analysis.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Chair, I'm going to go back to a point I previously raised. This time I'm going to ask Mr. Ripley.
I am still at a bit of a loss here to understand why, if we were to exclude various online undertakings, we would say that they could be excluded if they fall below either x number of subscribers or x amount of revenues per year, thus leaving an online undertaking that could earn $2 billion excluded because there were fewer than 500,000 subscribers.
While I did listen to Mr. Rayes and his mathematical skills, I could simply see that you could charge a lot of money, for example, for a certain service and you could be up at a threshold. If you're charging $250 a year and you have 490,000 subscribers, you could be earning $2 billion a year from Canadians, yet be excluded.
I would like to ask Mr. Ripley this: If the department was considering at any time such a limitation—meaning that smaller online undertakings would be excluded from the application of the act—what formulation would the department suggest the committee consider in the event we are going to go in that direction? Should it be the way it is formulated here or should it be that you would have to be both below one and below the other to be excluded?
12:45 p.m.
Director General, Broadcasting, Copyright and Creative Marketplace Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the question, Mr. Housefather.
Perhaps I will begin by reiterating that the government's position, when it tabled Bill C-10, was acknowledging that there will be many smaller services that are not scoped into the act because of that requirement for there to be a material contribution. The goal was not to scope all those smaller services in.
I think the challenge is that there is a wide variety of business models in the online undertaking space. You have subscription-based services that we all know well, like Netflix or Crave. You pick your favourite subscription services. More and more we are seeing the launch of advertising-supported business models. You can stream your television content or your music content and not actually pay a subscription fee; rather, the service is selling advertising—
June 7th, 2021 / 12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Marci Ien Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I'm so sorry to interrupt, but the bells are ringing in the House. We have to vote.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Yes, I was going to address it.
I wanted Mr. Ripley to finish his sentence. That's the only thing.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
That's all right.
Mr. Ripley, do you have anything to sum up, very quickly?
12:45 p.m.
Director General, Broadcasting, Copyright and Creative Marketplace Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Mr. Chair, to wrap up, I would suggest to Mr. Housefather that the department's perspective is to perhaps express a bit of caution when picking numbers without a full regulatory proceeding to get some evidence and basis on the table. Whether a service has a low number of subscribers or a high number of subscribers, they can still potentially make different contributions, again depending on that revenue level or that subscriber level. It's difficult to state it categorically.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, Mr. Ripley.
Folks, the bells are ringing, as Ms. Ien pointed out. We have 10 minutes left in this meeting, which, between the bell time and the voting time, will be surpassed.
I have two options. I have a speakers list that has Mr. Louis next. We can proceed with that, but I will need unanimous consent in order to do so. Otherwise, we have to shut down. Given the fact that we have 10 minutes left in the meeting, and I can see by the clock that we have around 26 or 27 minutes to the vote, I will put forward the question on finishing off the meeting.
Would you like to continue?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I am on call today at the House and I am currently in another building, so I have to move. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to continue the meeting. I don't even think the 10 minutes that are left will be enough, given all the requests that have been made to get explanations.
Unfortunately, I cannot support the unanimous consent request you are making. I would like to be able to go to the House of Commons to perform my duties.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Okay.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Hearing “no”, I will suspend this meeting until the next time.
Happy voting, everybody. We will see you on Friday at the regular time and regular place.
One moment, please. Aimée just texted me and said “adjourn” six times, so I guess I have to say we're adjourned.
The meeting is adjourned.
