By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA — This evening, the Transport and Communications Committee of the Senate (TRCM) heard from CRTC chairman Ian Scott (above) who took the opportunity to clarify some concepts and asked to remove amendments passed by the House of Commons Heritage Committee to Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act.
The chair started by stating again that the Commission has no intention of regulating the user-generated content (UGC). “Bill C-11 draws a distinction between the users of social media on one hand, and the platforms themselves on the other. Its intent is to exclude individual users from regulation. I want to assure you – and Canadians – that the CRTC has no intention of regulating individual YouTubers, TikTokers and other digital content creators,” he said.
But some senators still have strong reservations about whether the CRTC could regulate them. Although the chair said it was up to the minister to defend the bill but he explained later the Commission has the power to regulate it, but it would not be because it was not in the public interest.
He then moved on say he understands the committee has also heard a great deal about discoverability and algorithms, and how Bill C-11 would provide the CRTC with the power to impose conditions to enhance the discoverability of Canadian content.
“Unfortunately, my previous remarks have been taken out of context by some of the witnesses that have appeared before you. To be clear, the CRTC’s objective is to ensure that Canadians are made aware of Canadian content and that they can find it,” he said in his opening remarks.
Senator Pamela Wallin read back what he had said when he had said if the platforms were not achieving the objectives of the policy, i.e., to render Canadian content more readily available, the Commission would ‘make’ them.
He clarified that he would not mandate tweaking with algorithms or codes but rather having discussions with the said platforms on how they would meet the objectives of the policy. His assumption seems to be that the platform would want to be in compliance. The senators may or may not have been convinced. “However, Bill C-11 will not allow the CRTC to mandate the use of specific algorithms or source code to achieve the objective of promotion and discoverability. The CRTC has no issue with this limitation,” Scott said.
Interestingly enough, Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, reading the same statement as Senator Wallin seemed to suggest it may mean the CRTC could and even should act to achieve greater discoverability, especially for francophone music on the audio platforms where they are submerged by English content.
Finally, in his opening statement, the chairman proposed that Section 5.2.2 and Section 34.01 and the unintended consequences of having this in the act.
Section 5.2.2 outlines the seven strict and specific tasks the CRTC must undertake to “consult with official language minority communities in Canada when making decisions that could adversely affect them.”
“Bill C-11, however, sets out far-reaching and rigid consultation requirements in subsection 5.2(2), which in our view are legally problematic and would have unintended consequences,” he said.
“There is another aspect of Bill C-11 that would have similar unintended consequences, and that is Section 34.01. This section would require that the CRTC conduct a review of all orders and regulations made every seven years. It’s important to understand that the CRTC issues hundreds of decisions annually, amounting to well over a thousand decisions every seven years,“ he added.
He cited the load it would put on CRTC staff and the delays it would create.
Another issue senators raised was with Section 7.7, which would give Cabinet more powers by extending the Orders it could impose to the Commission.
To which Scott responded: “We would prefer to maintain the independence of the Commission.” He said they were an arms-length agency is this reduces the length of the arm.
The meeting ended with a spat between the Senator Dennis Dawson, the bill’s sponsor and the chair of the committee about the length of the meeting, since the last half hour was supposed to be about committee business dealing with next steps and only five minutes were left for that portion, which was held in camera.
Senator Dawson wants the bill to proceed but Senator Leo Housakos, the committee chair, is in no hurry to proceed.
We will soon find out when the clause-by-clause portion of the bill will start.
