Evidence of meeting #128 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was copyright.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Andy Kaplan-Myrth  Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
Robert Malcolmson  Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
David Watt  Senior Vice-President, Regulatory, Rogers Communications Inc.
Cynthia Rathwell  Vice-President, Legislative and Policy Strategy, Shaw Communications Inc.
David de Burgh Graham  Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
Mark Graham  Senior Legal Counsel, BCE Inc.
Dan Albas  Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
Kristina Milbourn  Director, Copyright and Broadband, Rogers Communications Inc.
Michael Chong  Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC
Jay Kerr-Wilson  Legal Counsel, Fasken Martineau, Shaw Communications Inc.

4:20 p.m.

Vice-President, Legislative and Policy Strategy, Shaw Communications Inc.

Cynthia Rathwell

Yes.

I just wanted to clarify something Rob was saying. I think there are a lot of things to be explored about the role of over-the-top services per se within the system. I also agree with Andy that, to a large extent, in terms of pure copyright, it's a matter of the contractual relationships they're entering into.

I know that a lot of Canadian producers are very happy with their relationships with Netflix, and that's to the consternation of some of the Canadian media companies that are competing for rights. I want to clarify, just for the record, that Shaw isn't a vertically integrated company when it comes to having media holdings, so I say that quite objectively. We have an affiliated company that's a separate, public company, which is Corus. We are a connectivity company.

Getting back to your question about whether or not there's a role for the intermediaries in supporting the artists or—I don't want to veer too far away here—Canadian content, I think from Shaw's perspective, it's very important to look at the genesis of the current exemptions in the common carrier idea that underlay ISPs. That was established, originally, in the Railway Act. That should continue, because we're trying to build out advanced networks across this country. Saddling ISPs with those sorts of support mechanisms for artists, in the context of either copyright or broadcasting, is something that Shaw wouldn't support.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

I missed the last three words—would support or would not support?

4:20 p.m.

Vice-President, Legislative and Policy Strategy, Shaw Communications Inc.

Cynthia Rathwell

Would not support.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much.

We're going to run out of time.

Mr. Lloyd, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for coming today.

My first question will be for you, Mr. Kaplan-Myrth. In Rogers' submission, they stated that, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court case, they think there should be a scheduled rate of $100 per IP address. I just want to get your comment on the sense of scale of that. What would that be to a smaller provider like TekSavvy? What would be the cost of the $100 scheduled lookup per IP address?

4:20 p.m.

Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth

I don't know what went into deciding that particular rate for Rogers. That might be an appropriate rate for TekSavvy also. We may go back and look at it and see that it needs to be something else. We may be interested in exploring more the idea of a scheduled rate specifically for Norwich orders, which is what David was talking about, as opposed to passing on notice and notice.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

So you're saying that basically Rogers' recommendation of $100, which is the fee that they've estimated as their own personal fee for a Norwich order, is not something that you view as financially burdensome to a company like TekSavvy?

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth

Sorry, I think that the proposal, if I'm not mistaken, is that service providers would be able to charge a $100 rate in order to respond to a Norwich order, in order to disclose the identity of an end-user when that end-user is being sued by a content provider.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Okay, so it's just not costing—

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth

We would be charging that rate, and the question would be whether it's an appropriate rate.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

So you're basically saying you don't think that rate is too low, that it would be financially burdensome to your company to do all those things for that rate.

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth

We have not gone back and looked at what that would be. It strikes me as probably a reasonable rate, or in the right range.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Thank you.

I'm also glad there seems to be a lot of unanimity on this committee about standardizing notice and notice. Is there anything that you think would be going too far if we were to go in that direction to recommend standardization? Is there something that would be too far, that you think we should not consider, in terms of these recommendations on standardization?

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth

I'm not sure what you mean by going too far. I think the standard form that uses code that we can process automatically, and that includes the content that's required to be included, would satisfy all of the requirements.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

It seems as though there's agreement on that, which is something that we rarely get on this committee.

4:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.

Robert Malcolmson

Sorry, can I add to that, if you don't mind?

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Of course.

4:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.

Robert Malcolmson

You asked what might go too far. Certainly, we're a supporter of getting rid of settlement demands coming to consumers. That's not appropriate. It should be written out of notices. But if you find yourself in a situation where you're sending a notice to someone who is illegally consuming a piece of Canadian content, for example, I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing, from a public policy standpoint, for the notice to say, “(a) you're consuming this content illegally and (b) there's another source of legal consumption, and here it is.”

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Okay.

4:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.

Robert Malcolmson

That speaks to the questions you've been asking.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Yes. I'm glad that you spoke, because my next question is for you, Mr. Malcolmson.

In your statement, you said that you would like a technologically neutral model to go after Copyright Act infringements. Would you say that the act as it's written right now is too specific and that's why we haven't been able to deal with the problem of streaming?

4:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.

Robert Malcolmson

The short answer is yes. I think the current provision speaks to copying, and so—

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Right now they don't have the provision to deal with streaming.

4:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.

Robert Malcolmson

—streaming is arguably not caught.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Okay. So if we were to make it technologically neutral, you would recommend wording that makes it just cover everything?