With regard to the comments by the Minister of Canadian Heritage on CTV’s Question Period on Sunday, February 2, 2020, that “if you’re a distributor of content in Canada […] we would ask that they have a licence”: (a) are individuals who post their opinions on social media considered to be distributors of content; (b) what is the government’s criteria for who is considered to be a distributor of content; (c) is there a threshold in terms of social media audience or followers which an individual must meet before being considered a distributor of content, and, if so, what is the threshold; (d) has the government received any legal opinions concerning whether or not its plan to require a licence would survive a charter challenge, and, if so, what are the details of any such legal opinions, including (i) who provided it, (ii) what the opinion is; (e) what are the planned consequences for distributors who do not acquire or maintain a licence; and (f) what is the projected number of distributors who would be required to obtain a licence under the plan?
In the House of Commons on April 11th, 2020. See this statement in context.