Evidence of meeting #23 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.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much.
I now go to the Liberals for five minutes.
We have Chris Bittle.
St. Catharines, Lib.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Dr. Berkowitz, in a study in 2020, you indicated, “Canadian creators are rocking it on YouTube.” In the study, you say, “70% of channels eligible for monetization (minimally requiring 1,000 subscribers) reported earning some form of revenue. From this group of eligible YouTubers who earn revenue, 60% generate $10,000 or less.” Is that correct?
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
I think you are quoting from the Watchtime Canada 2019 study.
St. Catharines, Lib.
Perhaps. I could be. That's why I'm asking. It's from 2019, not 2020.
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
Yes.
St. Catharines, Lib.
When you say 60% of 70%, does that mean 30% of eligible channels earn $0? How are we dividing up this number if that's not correct?
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
We updated that during the pandemic, so you may be quoting from a CMF article that I co-wrote.
We found that there were 160,000 Canadian entrepreneurs on YouTube. Only 25% of those, or 40,000, are part of the partner program and eligible, as you mentioned, for monetization. We only measured the monetization of those channels, so it would be the per cent of the per cent.
I'm not sure if I'm clarifying—
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
Yes.
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
A lot of them are struggling and it's interesting. We found that in the Canadian YouTube revenue picture—there is also a chart in the study about that—most Canadian YouTubers have a revenue mix of brand deals, pan-media, other books, etc. Fascinatingly, a number of channels that aren't even eligible for the partner program report revenue based on these alternate sources of revenue. They are—
St. Catharines, Lib.
I'm sorry. If I can interrupt.... I have a limited amount of time.
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
Yes, sure.
St. Catharines, Lib.
If a very small portion of Canadians are earning revenue on YouTube, most of them in that small percentage are making less than $10,000. How can we say that they are “rocking it”, when they're making less than the median income of a traditional artist?
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
We also have 15% earning.... Let me get these numbers for you.
St. Catharines, Lib.
It's 15% earning more than $50,000, but that's 15% of 25%. That is what you're telling us.
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
Yes. I also think that this is a very new platform. We're only talking about 15 years of this amount of economic activity. I think that Canadians are rocking it on YouTube. They are the number one exporters of 91 countries, and there is an exuberance to keep growing this new world way of earning money.
Remember, this only relates to YouTube, not TikTok, Instagram or the other platforms.
St. Catharines, Lib.
TikTok doesn't pay its Canadian artists.
Moving on, there was a study from the United States, “Time to Face the Influencer Pay Gap”, which showed a substantial gap between by BIPOC creators and white creators. There's a 29% difference. Again, this is in the United States. If you focus on just white and Black influencers, it winds up to a 35% difference.
Have you encountered in your study at all the substantial difference between Black, indigenous and persons of colour versus white creators, and how that works? That's all under the scope of YouTube earning about $29 billion in ad revenue last year.
Senior Policy Fellow, Audience Lab, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual
I'll say that YouTube has no information about the off-platform revenue, so we wouldn't know that, but we love the diversity picture on YouTube and that is obviously something that needs more study. That is very concerning, but we have Notorious Cree, Evan Fong and Lilly Singh, who's gorgeous.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you. We're out of time.
I'm going now to the Bloc Québécois and Martin Champoux for two and a half minutes.
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Guay, we've heard a lot about trust in the CRTC and its oversight of online broadcasting. You, yourself, said it was necessary to strengthen that trust.
Last week, Ian Scott said it was important to distinguish between regulating the Internet and regulating online broadcasting or distribution activities.
Do you think the CRTC has the tools to make that distinction?
How can we convince the public to trust the CRTC in this situation?
Executive Director, Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
Thank you for your question.
The CRTC has been regulating broadcasting activities for decades, and I am sure that it will find a way to do the same online. It's a matter of time.
A number of experts have made suggestions on how to do that, including Pierre Trudel. I think we should look to the future with confidence on that front because it's certainly not an insurmountable challenge. I think the CRTC can do it.
The issue of trust has come up repeatedly, and of course, numerous challenges will have to be met. We have a suggestion. The current legislation lays out an appeal mechanism, a meaningful counterbalance that could help reassure people who do not trust the CRTC or people like us, who want to ensure that the ability to petition the Governor in Council remains intact—
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Last year, I actually proposed an amendment to extend that to the orders, but it was rejected.
How can we convince the Liberals and Conservatives who rejected the amendment last year to be more amenable to the idea this year?