OTTAWA – A group of organizations is requesting the CRTC extend the deadline to comment on a trio of proceedings for the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, which will force online streamers to contribute to Canadian content.
When it launched the three proceedings to implement bill C-11 last week, the regulator set comment deadlines of June 27 on a proposal to create a flexible contribution framework that includes a base amount and two other ways to contribute to Canadian content. It also set a deadline of June 12 on questions of which online services should register with the regulator and what it should do about the digital media exemption order that has previously allowed online outfits to avoid Canadian content obligations.
But a dozen organizations, including a labour union, a legal clinic and public interest groups, have filed a joint request Friday to extend both of those deadlines to July 28. They are also asking to move the reply period from June 27 (for the latter two consultations) and July 12 (for the former consultation) to September 1 and final replies from June 27 to September 15.
The reasons, they say in the application, are because the time currently set for submissions is not enough to “consult and to undertake necessary research, thereby weakening the record of these proceedings” and that Cabinet has yet to provide a policy direction to the CRTC that would help guide the submitting parties on reasonable recommendations.
“A concern is that if the Direction is issued – say – mid-way through the current intervention period, parties may be required to significantly revise their thinking, analysis and comments with little time to do so, as they may also require time to submit comments to the Minister as now provided by subsection 8(2) of the Broadcasting Act,” the organizations say.
“The applications respectfully submit that an extension of the deadlines as proposed above would provide all parties with more certainty throughout this proceeding, along with the time and capacity needed to consider and address any new proposals from Cabinet in their submissions to the Commission.”
The applicants also note that the deadlines currently set overlap with 11 other CRTC proceedings, eight of which are on broadcasting matters.
The groups said these extensions can be made without moving the date of the public hearing, which is set for November 20 in Gatineau.
The organizations said having the same intervention and reply deadlines, as they are proposing, makes it “far easier for parties to understand the state of each proceeding at any point in time and also to develop…a coherent framework to submit to the Commission.”
The organizations requesting the extensions are: The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, Open Media, Unifor, Quebec English-language Production Council, Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century, Digital First Canada, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, National Campus and Community Radio Association, Conseil provinciale du secteur des communications du syndicat canadien de la fonction publique, and the Canadian Broadcast Museum Foundation.
