Evidence of meeting #22 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I am not going to comment on the minister's terms, but my term was always to end in September of this year. To my knowledge, no chair has ever been reappointed in the history of the CRTC, and it is the government and the minister's right to begin the process to find a new—
Lethbridge, CPC
Mr. Scott, I'm just going to continue here.
Bill C-11 does, in fact, leave user-generated content open to being regulated by the CRTC. I recognize that there have been arguments against this. However, Dr. Michael Geist has said, “The indisputable reality is that the net result of those provisions is that user generated content is covered by the bill.”
Jeanette Patell from YouTube Canada has said, per The Canadian Press, “the draft law's wording gives the broadcast regulator”—in other words, you—“scope to oversee everyday videos posted for other users to watch.”
Scott Benzie from Digital First Canada has said, per the National Post, “while the government says the legislation will not cover digital first creators, ‘the bill clearly captures them.’”
All these individuals are individual users generating content. It would appear that the bill does or could, in fact, capture them. Is that correct?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
As constructed, there is a provision that would allow us to do it as required, but if I could just quickly respond to the general tenor of those comments, that's all true today. We could do any of those things today under the Broadcasting Act.
Lethbridge, CPC
My question for you, then, is this. Isn't the point to modernize it? Why would we keep that so broad by keeping proposed section 4.2 in the current bill? Why wouldn't we remove that?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
With respect, it's not our place to make recommendations about the definitions in the legislation. What I would answer is that there should be a higher degree of trust in relation to the commission's future actions. It's demonstrated, as I said, by 50 years of broadcast regulation. We have never interfered in individual content.
Lethbridge, CPC
However, I guess what we're faced with today—and you discussed this earlier—is that the CRTC traditionally exists to—
Lethbridge, CPC
—or, the Broadcasting Act looks to oversee a very scarce resource, namely radio and television. With the Internet, there's no problem with scarcity. There's an endless number of websites available to an individual. Any Canadian who wants to set one up can do so.
In my estimation, then, why would we need the CRTC to make sure that certain content gets forced in front of Canadians versus other content? You said earlier that part of the CRTC's role is to make sure that Canadian culture is celebrated or that content is put in front of Canadians—
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
So that it can be found.
Lethbridge, CPC
However, that's if TV stations and radio stations are limited, so you have to give a certain percentage to French or indigenous etc., but we don't have that problem with the Internet, so how is this a modernization?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The modernization is that it will allow us to deal with broadcasting, whatever form it takes and in whatever form it's delivered. It is, as you've just pointed out, a very significant portion of the broadcasting system today.
Lethbridge, CPC
Do you feel that people don't have adequate access to different resources on the Internet right now and that it's up to you and the CRTC to determine what they watch?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Not at all. Again, I would take issue with the premise. We're not regulating the Internet. We're talking about regulating broadcasting, whatever platform it comes on, in order to achieve the objectives of broadcasting.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
We're back to your first question, as defined in the Broadcasting Act.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Well, the objectives are set out in section 3, and they are—
Lethbridge, CPC
Are you telling me that, as the chair of the CRTC who has a renewed term, you cannot define the very basic thing that is your job?
What is broadcasting?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
The time is up. I'm sorry.
We have to go to the next witness, Ms. Thomas.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Badgering the witness is not a necessary part of questioning. Let's be respectful to each other.
The next person up for the Liberals is Lisa Hepfner for five minutes, please.
Lisa Hepfner Hamilton Mountain, Lib.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really want to thank the witnesses for being here and putting up with our questions.
I would like to take you back. You've touched on this a little bit already, but the CRTC has seen massive changes in broadcasting over the past decade or so. I'm wondering how the CRTC was able to pivot with any of those changes, if at all. As more and more broadcasting went online, what was the CRTC able to do to deal with those changes and still fulfill its mandate?