Canadian Heritage committee  Well, it's not true. I don't want to attribute everything to malice, because sometimes it's just ignorance and not understanding this. Our world is very complex. As the minister has said, 4.1 excludes social and digital content. In that bill, 4.2 brings it all back in. The framed “sandbox”, as he called it, that would give the CRTC jurisdiction over that bill is actually the Sahara Desert.

Canadian Heritage committee  My initial reaction is no. Are you suggesting that individual creators negotiate with their online platforms?

Canadian Heritage committee  Again, it's a really different and difficult question for people in our position. Digital creators cover everything from people making two dollars a month to people making a million dollars online. The ability for each individual creator to arbitrate with an online platform is impractical.

Canadian Heritage committee  Going back to the original stat that we both quoted, 90% of Canadian digital creators' audiences consume their content from outside of Canada. We're number one in the world. I think the COO of YouTube said there are other countries around 70 or 80%, which is great, but we're the only one at 90%.

Canadian Heritage committee  The truth is I don't have an answer. I posed that question to you guys to have that conversation. As the act is now, it would be silly for us to be in it. It doesn't even address any of our needs. I really think that question is something to consider when we're talking about legislation going forward in this country.

Canadian Heritage committee  There's no doubt about that. I'm careful not to use words like “new” and “emerging”. A lot of our creators have gone through.... My peers and colleagues here in traditional arts have found themselves distributing digitally. These people have been doing it for a very long time.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Waugh, for your question. The truth is that it's not that easy. I think trying to lump an industry like ours all into one act with a bunch of different creators and artists with different needs would be really difficult. Half of our world is technology. Half of our world is understanding very complex algorithms and very complex technical decisions that our artists have to make on a day-to-day basis.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Chair and committee members, for allowing me to speak today. My name is Scott Benzie. I am the lead coffee-getter of a new organization called Digital First Canada. Our main goal is to ensure that artists who choose digital platforms as a distribution model are heard and included in important discussions like these.