Canadian Heritage committee  May I simply ask which of the two questions he wants me to answer.

Canadian Heritage committee  The quick answer is to say that I don't have detailed knowledge of the funds compensation that's being set up in Canada. It's not for me to comment. What I can say in terms of payments to publishers in Europe is that it was addressed through copyright reform that created an ancillary right, which was essentially about creating a market.

Canadian Heritage committee  In the end, it's a very unbalanced negotiation.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think it's very much a mix of that. The Internet came to us with the idea that Internet equals democracy. Let it happen and it will do all kinds of good for our society. Of course, the benefits have been amassed in a number of areas, but clearly there are also things that haven't been that good.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the headline reflection I have relating to advice is this: The idea that dealing with these issues has to be voluntary needs to be fought back against. I think this is very much the story of tech regulation since its inception, in a way. In the case of platforms, we have in fact been leaving it in as a regulatory anomaly.

Canadian Heritage committee  All right. I can try to explain it. If you send a letter through the post office, that is private. It's one-to-one communication. Nobody has the right to open it. You can write whatever you want. If you are broadcasting something on the radio, TV or Internet, then in principle, one should think, that's one-to-many communication.

Canadian Heritage committee  —just big tobacco. That involved public research programs and peer-reviewed journals and—

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. Those parallels you point to are absolutely correct. This is about doing business in darkness. Democracy hurts in darkness, as we heard before. First of all, I want to commend the House for doing this study. You are picking up a task where other parliaments have failed, notably, the European Parliament.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much. I think it's an excellent question. In reality, what you're pointing to is that, over the two decades during which we should have been regulating these platforms, the biggest corporates and the monopolies in particular, public action has consistently been too little and too late.

Canadian Heritage committee  Madam Chair and honourable members, thank you for the invitation. My name is Georg Riekeles. I worked at the European Commission for 11 years, notably on digital regulation and trade files. My current position is associate director of the European Policy Centre, one of Brussels' leading think tanks, but I emphasize that I am testifying entirely in a personal capacity.