Finance Committee on Feb. 9th, 2026

[Vicky Eatrides]

We do.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

But the vast majority of cases are not even reported. Most victims don't even report, and prosecutions are, I think, rare. Do you know the success rate of prosecutions for the referrals that you make?

[Vicky Eatrides]

Again, I think this would be a better question for law enforcement, because our regime is civil. We do not—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

I'm asking about the referrals that you make. You said that you're in partnership with law enforcement. How many referrals have you made for prosecution in any year you might be able to track?

[Vicky Eatrides]

It's complaint-based. We should be able to get the information about how many complaints we would pass along to law enforcement, but if there's—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Okay, please table that.

[Vicky Eatrides]

Okay.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

If there is a success, are you able to give sufficient evidence for law enforcement and then prosecutions to make the case?

[Scott Hutton]

The regime, through the spam reporting centre and arrangements we have, shares complaints received. We are not involved in the prosecution, so we would not have data in that regard.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

We'll continue with Mr. MacDonald now, for five minutes.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, witnesses.

We've been talking about fraud, so I'm going to branch out a little from that.

On the CRTC's role in controlling sextortion of our youth in Canada.... Do you have a role to play, and can you speak to that?

[Vicky Eatrides]

My short answer would be no. I don't know if our legal counsel has anything to add.

[Rachelle Frenette]

Madam Chair, we are a statutory creature. We are bound by the statute and we implement the statutes that Parliament in its wisdom has chosen to provide us the mandate with.

Certainly, while that is an extraordinarily pressing issue for all Canadians, it is not within the realm of the CRTC to regulate in that space.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You would have to take direction from statutes to put regulations in place that would make online platforms accountable. What happens is that we can't punish the bad actors who are from outside of our country under regular law. We would need to have regulations that would make the platform providers accountable.

[Rachelle Frenette]

When we're talking about issues like sextortion, those are criminal matters, which would probably be more appropriately dealt with by law enforcement agencies.

As the communications regulator, we have to be bound by the statute with which we have been entrusted by Parliament, and that is regulating the communications space, ensuring a sustainable Canadian broadcasting system and ensuring a robust telecommunications system across Canada.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Is it reasonable to think that you could, if you were given the direction, regulate online platform providers so they would have to deal with the issue of sextortion online?

[Scott Shortliffe]

We'd be very cautious about speculating about anything we haven't received. I'll also note that with what Parliament has given us to date, we have a very limited role in online services. We deal with online broadcasters when they act as broadcasters, but, for example, the act is very clear that we don't deal with social media and we don't deal with the open Internet, so we have a very restricted role under our legislation currently.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Okay.

I'll pivot to something a little more upbeat.

In budget 2025, Canada has included funding for the Canada music fund, the Canada periodical fund and the building communities through arts and heritage program. I think that's sending out a signal to strengthen Canadian storytelling and the creative industries. I'm from Atlantic Canada. We depend tremendously on regional broadcasters and small digital platforms to promote culture in our communities.

Can you speak to how the CRTC will be encouraging the creation and distribution of culture through its programs?

[Vicky Eatrides]

We've been given the mandate by Parliament to put in place and implement the Online Streaming Act, which is all about ensuring that there is support for Canadian stories, Canadian content and indigenous content. All of the work we are doing right now and have been doing is to ensure that those Canadian stories and that Canadian content are available.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

We will now continue with five minutes from Mr. Lawton, please.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to go back to the Online Streaming Act and what's captured by this.

When we are looking at a streaming platform's offerings that would be subject to this, podcasts would be included in that. Is that correct?

[Vicky Eatrides]

The policy direction that was given to us by government specifically said that podcasts are not included, and as part of our decision on base contributions, we said that we would not regulate podcasts.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

How do you define podcasts? Again, this would be less germane when you're talking about Netflix, but when you're looking at YouTube, there are a lot of shows that still have production values, production companies. They are our visual entities. How are they excluded? How is that line drawn in a way that a scripted fictional show is captured, but a commentary show or a chat show that isn't news programming wouldn't be?