Thank you.
What we have here is something that appears to be about broadcasting because it derives from broadcasting law and its intense regulation, but through the way it has defined the word “program”, that which is regulated by the CRTC has escaped any previous technological boundaries, any particular way in which the communication is to be achieved so as to expand the range of regulated entities from Canadian broadcasters, as we've understood them—there are about 4,000 to 4,500 entities—to potentially millions of websites and users who generate content.
When you think about it, the idea of a user who generates content, the Internet and computers have empowered people to create. Look at Oorbee Roy. They have empowered people to create, and these creative people now have new tools at their disposal. They have sound and video, not just computers which crack out emails and perhaps download or upload a video. They have entirely new capacities and the freedom to communicate, and this, say the authors of this bill, is a problem that needs fixing. It needs to be made to conform to an obsolete artifact of the 20th century called broadcasting technology and broadcasting regulation.
It may have made sense when there were very few voices talking to very many voices who couldn't talk back. Broadcasting regulations made sense in the mid-20th century, but after the invention of the Internet, with millions talking to millions, it's just essentially quite crazy. I don't think we should mince words about it.
I hope I've answered your question. There we go.