The option that was chosen in Bill C‑11, as I understand it, is to bring broadcasting and transmission activities that use the Internet medium under the Broadcasting Act. There may have been another option. For example, the Yale Report, entitled “Canada's communications future: Time to act”, recommended instead that an entirely new communications act be created, which could have considered these issues in a different way.
There is one constant between the Broadcasting Act of 1991 and the bill currently before you, and that is the concern that companies that benefit from the Canadian audience in the broadcast of their programs contribute to the financing of the production of Canadian programs. This is the basic philosophy of the 1991 Broadcasting Act, and this is what the current Bill C‑11 seems to want to carry forward.
Broadcasting in Canada is not viewed primarily as a market in which there are suppliers and consumers. It is a tool for societal cohesion, through which we want to ensure that everyone has a voice, that there are services in both official languages throughout the vast territory, and that indigenous peoples have a say and an opportunity to have a voice in the system.
So, it's not just consumers using the Internet to broadcast their programs, which is perfectly permissible and legitimate. Indeed, that is why the act provides that the CRTC has the authority to target only those activities that have a demonstrable impact relating to Canadian broadcasting policy objectives. That is the strength of the act, it seems to me.