Finance Committee on Feb. 9th, 2026

[Vicky Eatrides]

We are focused on putting in place the measures Parliament has asked us to, and—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

A moment ago, you also said that you're focused on making things more affordable for Canadians and being on the side of the consumer.

[Vicky Eatrides]

That's correct. There are a lot of examples of the work we've been doing to ensure more affordability, which is having more choice—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm just curious about how Bill C-11 falls into that example of creating greater affordability.

[Vicky Eatrides]

When I was talking about creating better affordability, that was in the context of our telecommunications work in terms of Internet and cellphone pricing.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. It's probably more reasonable to expect that Bill C-11 would actually cause the prices to go up.

[Vicky Eatrides]

I can't speak to what private companies do. We don't regulate the price on the broadcasting side.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

There will be a greater regulatory burden they will have to carry. Is that correct?

[Vicky Eatrides]

They have to comply with regulations.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay.

Will they be expected to change their algorithms?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas. That concludes the time for this round.

We will continue with Mr. Sawatzky for six minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Hello. Thank you for coming here today.

I want to bring our topic over to scam calls and unsolicited calls. I'm sure we all get them. I certainly get quite a few—not only calls but also texts.

At a previous meeting, we had RCMP Chief Superintendent Michael Saghbini here, and I asked him this question as well. He said that the RCMP has worked with telcos to try to minimize this. For context, these calls not only are a problem but also pose consumer protection risks for seniors and those in vulnerable populations who might be targeted through phishing and fraud schemes.

Could you speak about what enforcement actions the CRTC is currently undertaking to investigate and prevent such calls or texts, including spoofs and abandoned robocalls? Maybe note how effective those measures have been in reducing scam calls for Canadians.

[Vicky Eatrides]

Perhaps I can start off. I might turn things over to my colleague Scott to provide more detail.

Certainly, we hear a lot about scam calls. They are absolutely a nuisance at best and, sometimes, fraudulent at worst. There is a government-wide effort to tackle these issues. We work with the Privacy Commissioner and the Competition Bureau to promote compliance with CASL, Canada's anti-spam law. We do that. We work within a civil regime. We have a small but mighty team that works on that. The main thing we do on that front is promote compliance and, again, work with law enforcement; it has a criminal aspect as well.

I don't know whether you want to add some details, Scott.

[Scott Hutton, Vice-President, Consumer, Analytics and Strategy, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission]

We've also found that what very much helps in the work.... As Vicky mentioned, and as our chair mentioned, we're very much in a civil regime, and we end up collaborating with the civil partners mentioned and with those who look at cybercrime with respect to fraud on that front. In light of our role, certainly, we're able to participate, gain knowledge and share our knowledge with those parties.

It's very much about working collaboratively to provide prevention and advise Canadians on what the most recent scams are—things we're hearing through the spam reporting centre and from actual complaints filed with us and those we are investigating. We can't quite share the investigations with you, in light of the very nature of them being investigations, but we are continuing on that front.

What is very helpful is to arm Canadians with the information needed to make sure they can protect themselves.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'll switch the topic to local media.

Of course, there has been a profound transformation over the past decade. Traditional revenue models that once funded Canadian programming, like cable and television subscriptions, are declining. Then, of course, streaming platforms have grown.

The CRTC's new digital broadcasting regulatory framework requires online streaming services to financially contribute to the creation, production and promotion of Canadian content. Can the CRTC provide an estimate of the projected annual financial contributions that online streaming platforms will now be required to make under the new regulatory framework, and how much reinvestment this is expected to generate for Canada's cultural production ecosystem?

[Vicky Eatrides]

As part of the Online Streaming Act given to us by Parliament, we were directed to bring online streamers into the regime. We fairly quickly held a proceeding and a public hearing on base contributions to start to get that money flowing fairly quickly. We certainly heard about a need, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of local news, the importance of news and some of the challenges that are being faced, so we issued a decision on base contributions that is expected to bring in an estimated $200 million per year. That is the base contributions, and the work continues in terms of the actual expenditures for each of the companies. We're continuing to work on that.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, how long do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

I was reading about next-generation 911, which would represent a critical modernization of Canada's emergency communications infrastructure. Unlike legacy 911 systems, NG911 enables Canadians to access emergency services through voice, text, real-time video and data transmission, which improves response capabilities, especially for persons with disabilities in crisis situations.

Implementing NG911 requires substantial investment into telecom network upgrades, cybersecurity protections, data management systems and public safety answering point modernization. Given the scale of these infrastructure and operational costs, it would be great if you could explain how the CRTC is overseeing the national rollout of next-generation 911. What's the total estimated cost of the implementation, and what safeguards are in place to ensure that the public safety upgrades don't disproportionately increase costs for consumers?

[Vicky Eatrides]

Perhaps I can start. I don't know if I'll have time to go over it in any detail—perhaps not.

Obviously, I think we all know how important and critical 911 is to Canadian safety. This is an issue that we've been looking at for some time and consulting on very broadly. We have been hearing from—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I apologize. I'm going to have to end it there.

Thank you, Mr. Sawatzky.

Mr. Garon, you have six minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Eatrides, I'd like to return to the bill before us. We're still talking about Bill C‑15, even though that isn't always apparent from our discussions.

If I understand correctly—and I may not—section 24 of this bill is intended to correct an error that crept in during the last Parliament, when the modernized Official Languages Act was passed. I know this is technical, but I'd like you to explain the error that was made, particularly with regard to privacy, and how it can be corrected. Perhaps you could give us some concrete examples.

Was the privacy of Canadian citizens compromised here? I'd like you to explain that to us, because that's essentially the work we have to do together today.

[Vicky Eatrides]

First, privacy is a key consideration in our work. Every time we make a decision, we take Canadians' privacy into account. I know there may have been a mistake, but I can assure you that we always give privacy careful consideration.

I can ask our legal counsel, Ms. Frenette, to explain what happened.

[Rachelle Frenette, General Counsel and Executive Director, Legal Services, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission]

With pleasure.

I will explain the context surrounding the provision that is the subject of the committee's study today. As we understand it, this is a legal provision of an interpretive nature. In carrying out its work, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is required to examine privacy issues related to the subjects it addresses. In the course of certain legislative amendments made by Parliament, this provision was inadvertently removed from the interpretive legal text.

However, I can assure you that, in the course of its work, the commission has always taken these privacy issues into consideration, for example when initiating public processes. We're also subject to the Privacy Act, like any other federal institution, so we comply with all the obligations under that act, especially since there are other legal provisions included in the Broadcasting Act that address Canadians' privacy.

So we undertook our regulatory work with full knowledge of the facts and with privacy issues in mind.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I think that's clear. I understand that an amendment will be proposed to essentially put a band-aid on a minor but very real risk. Thank you very much for explaining that.

I'd like to come back to the minister's testimony earlier. We were talking about the role of the government in television broadcasting. He replied that it was the government's role to fund CBC/Radio-Canada because only CBC/Radio-Canada is regulated by the CRTC. I'm not an expert on broadcasting, and I was under the impression that the CRTC regulated traditional television and all stations.

Could it be that the minister was mistaken?