Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2025

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

What implications does that have in terms of privacy and a person's autonomy?

[Rachel Curran]

Obviously, this is done in a privacy protecting way. We use suppliers, like Yoti, which do not store the information they take from users. My understanding is that the information is destroyed immediately.

We also don't want to be collecting personal ID from our users, which is why we have proposed what we call "app store legislation”. We have suggested that age verification should be done at the app store level. When users set up their phones, Google and Apple are getting reliable information about someone's age. To date, 20-plus states in the U.S. have introduced or passed app store legislation. We're saying, “Send us that signal about whether a user is under 18 or not, and we can ensure that they're placed in the right box and the right experience.”

We are advocating strongly for app store legislation as part of the government's online harms legislation.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's really interesting. Thank you.

Jumping back into the more creative side, I guess, AI Studio is used to enhance creativity on your platforms. Talk to me about how that's being used to reach new audiences and increase effectiveness or efficiency within the sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

You have five seconds.

[Kevin Chan]

I'd be happy to answer that question perhaps later.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Use AI.

[Kevin Chan]

That's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Maybe we can come back to that question in the next round, unless you can be quick.

[Rachel Curran]

I can answer in five seconds.

I think historically we have seen that new technology has always preceded a boom in creative industries. Following the printing press, we saw the growth of the novel, for instance. I think new avenues of creative expression that we have not even seen yet will come as a result of this new technology. I think the opportunities are enormous for Canadian artists.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Mr. Myles, you have the floor for six minutes.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Thank you very much.

It's great to have everybody here.

Before doing this, I was a Canadian artist for 20 years. I was a songwriter.

One part of this conversation that's really important is to distinguish the difference between when it is a tool and when it is the creator itself being the AI. It's really important that we think of artists as being entrepreneurs, as small businesses. They are very agile. They have moved through massive technological changes. I agree that they will use these new technologies as a tool.

That's not what people are resistant about. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about how we can empower artists as small businesses. When we empower artists as small businesses, one of the great assets is their copyright. We have a system in the market to license copyright. It's been developed over a long time. This is what we're trying to figure out. Can a similar model be put onto the new world of AI and generative AI where I can put in “write me a David Myles song” and it sounds like my other songs and uses my voice but I didn't have anything to do with it other than my previous songs? It's about transparency licensing.

The other question that needs to be brought up is opting out and this idea of, well, if you're not up for it.... Certainly, we respect the IP of other small businesses, such as pharmaceuticals. What does opting out look like in terms of giving people the option to say it isn't for them and they don't want to do it?

I'll start with you, Erin.

Do you have any thoughts on how to position ourselves in a place where we can empower? We don't want to stifle technology. We want it to be used as a tool. I don't think anybody's a Luddite here. Artists certainly move with the times. How do we protect their assets, and how do we embolden them as small businesses?

[Erin Finlay]

I agree with you wholeheartedly that, first, artists are using AI as tools in the creative process. I think there's no question about that. Some artists will use them more than others. Some artists will choose not to use AI tools. That's everyone's prerogative.

In terms of empowering artists as entrepreneurs or otherwise to, number one, keep the copyright intact, I mentioned a number of licensing initiatives that are already happening in the market. Artists make a living by licensing their copyrights. We need to make sure the copyrights remain protected and strong and there aren't exceptions introduced into the Copyright Act that undermine their rights, that undermine their ability to make a living and that undermine this burgeoning licensing market. We're already seeing licensing examples of big rights holders, for lack of a better term, with big platforms. They are happening in the market. They're coming together and negotiating fair licensing terms on what works for them.

There are also numerous examples of collective licensing, such as what Access Copyright does, happening around the world. I mentioned Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. Access Copyright is certainly looking into that as well. How might we collectively license the vast repertoire that we represent to platforms that need the reproduction rights or the communication rights in those copyrights of the affiliates we represent?

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

What about transparency on the side of what's been adjusted and what's in the output? Have you seen in any of these models that they're able to give a recipe for what's in the work that's being output? That's what I'm curious about. What's the capacity in terms of seeing transparency? Do we have a recipe that might involve many, many works?

[Erin Finlay]

Is that transparency in terms of ingestion into training a model?

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

In both directions.

[Erin Finlay]

In the output as well. There are examples popping up. We've seen legislative solutions in the EU. Some of them are better than others. Transparency in terms of the ingestion of works into the training of a system is critical for artists to actually know what's being used and what they're able to license. Without that information, artists are left completely in the cold: Should I license? Can I license? Is it being used? I don't know.

We do need some transparency obligations on the platforms so that artists are able to discern when their works are used and when they're not. That opens up a discussion for negotiation.

You had a question about opt-out as well. Opt-out flips copyright on its head. Copyright is an opt-in system. I choose to license my copyright. These are the rights that I own. Requiring creators or artists to opt out of a system using their works completely upends the copyright framework as we know it across the world and our international obligations as it applies to copyright as well.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

The idea is to keep copyright strong, and opting.... It has to be asked before; there shouldn't be an opt-out position.

[Erin Finlay]

It's authorization, remuneration, transparency.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

That's interesting.

John, do you have any thoughts?

I'm trying to figure out how possible this is. How far along are we in these other jurisdictions? Are we dreaming that these models can actually give us this information?

[John Illingworth]

Looking retroactively at what's been done, it's going to be a challenge that may be impossible in some instances, but I think, in turning over a leaf and moving forward, there needs to be a commitment to good faith negotiation, essentially.

I also wanted to get on the record that I think an enhanced level of transparency is actually to the great benefit of both the users and developers of AI. I recently gave a talk to a national group of library collections developers who wanted to hear from me. They're being approached by people in their communities who have written books with the assistance of AI and wanted to know how we make a choice between getting a book into our collection or not. What has value and what doesn't? What I had to say to them was, essentially, for anything that is non-fiction, based on the current state of AI, don't buy it because there's no citation. There's no traceability of that information. There's no understanding under the current state of the art of where the knowledge in that book came from and what it is that it represents.

Solving that problem would make those generative tools so much more authoritative. When you ask an LLM a question, knowing what informs the answer matters just as knowing what newspaper you're getting your news from sets context.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I begin, I would like to welcome all our witnesses and thank them for joining us. We don't often have such a large panel. We know this is a very interesting and relevant study, and that this topic matters to a lot of people.

Some witnesses might leave frustrated today, feeling they didn't have enough time to say what they wanted or answer questions. When there are a lot of witnesses, time is limited, so it happens. I would like to let all the witnesses know that, after the meeting, they can always send us notes or comments, or even briefs with recommendations that we could include in our report. I encourage the witnesses to do so if they run out of time to discuss certain things. Their comments are extremely relevant and informative. However, we will literally run out of time. I think my colleagues would agree with everything I just said.

First, I would like—

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

I would like for Mr. Champoux to have his full six minutes, because—