Thank you, Chair.
“Discoverability” is referred to in this legislation as wanting to create greater awareness around so-called CanCon or Canadian programs. We've heard testimony at this committee with regard to the CRTC putting in a framework that would create “discoverability” of Canadian content—or generate greater discoverability, I guess—and we know that when it comes to digital platforms and the ability to discover “Canadian content”, algorithms would be used. They would be required.
I think the goal here is to put a bit of a framework around what the CRTC will and will not do. Rather than giving the CRTC wide-reaching or broad scope in terms of what it gets to do with regard to determining how a company such as Spotify or YouTube makes content discoverable, instead we are wanting to provide at least a base definition of what this concept might look like.
I believe it is the responsibility of legislators to do that, rather than to just hand it off to the CRTC and allow it to make broad, sweeping changes or impose its definition or desire around this. This is a very simple definition with regard to the word “discoverability” that we are proposing to the committee here today.
It should also be noted for the committee that we are currently having this discussion around clause-by-clause and this specific discussion around the definition of discoverability without actually having heard from an adequate number of witnesses. I recognize that some of my colleagues in this committee would have preferred not to hear from any witnesses at all. They would have liked to ram this legislation through, but it is important to note and to have it on the record that there were many, many witnesses who expressed an interest in coming here and having their voices heard with regard to this legislation as a whole, but in particular with regard to discoverability.
If this isn't clearly defined and is left in the hands of the CRTC and it takes a broad, sweeping approach and dictates to what extent something should be able to be found on the Internet, it will indeed change the ability of users to be able to find the content they wish to find, and it will hinder the success of any Canadian new media creators or digital-first creators, because they are used to functioning within an ecosystem that allows for freedom. Within that freedom, they have worked incredibly hard. They have taken risks. They have been strategic, and they have garnered an audience for themselves. Now, with the threat of discoverability, we are looking at the government, through the CRTC, dictating what can be found and what cannot be found, whether something is bumped up in the queue or bumped down in the queue, and to what extent it can be located.
Instead of viewers finding content that they wish to find based on their personal preferences, what will likely happen instead is that CanCon, or Canadian programs, will be put in front of their eyeballs whether they want to see that or not. If they don't like that content, then it will hurt those artists, because this will downgrade it. That's very unfortunate, because this will actually hurt those individuals, then, that the government is claiming to help.
At the same time, there are other artists who will be forced to page 553 of the search engine. Theirs might be the exact content that a particular viewer is looking for, but they will not be discovered because the government doesn't think that content is worth promoting and so it's been pushed back into some black hole.
The concept of discoverability is one that is incredibly dictatorial in nature, and it is one that likens Canada to places like North Korea or China where, there too, content is forced in front of the eyeballs of citizens who use the Internet. It's unfortunate.