OTTAWA – The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications today heard from academics who argued the bill is overly broad and needs to be fixed.
Vivek Krishnamurthy (above), director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa told the committee in his view, “we shouldn’t be enacting laws that seek to sweep so much content into a regulatory scheme.”
He took issue particularly with how the act deals with user-generated content, stating he is concerned about the broadness of what the government is including in the bill as well as the “narrow exclusions that are not very strong.”
Asked about the possibility of the government issuing directions to the CRTC, Krishnamurthy said “the bill should be the regulatory direction – so, instead of issuing self-standing regulatory directions to the CRTC we should fix the bill and make sure it’s fit for purpose.”
He emphasized to the committee there are international stakes at play.
“Canada is the chair of the global Freedom Online Coalition, a free and open Internet are central to Canadian values and to Canadian foreign policy and we have taken that leadership role in the world,” he said. “So, I think when we are regulating the online sphere, we need to be very clear about what we’re doing and what we’re not doing and to send the signal to say… we think broadcasting is different.”
Krishnamurthy suggested as a solution section 4.2 of the bill could be framed in terms of editorial control.
“So, when a service like Apple TV+ decides what to put on its service, the act could apply. When YouTube has its own created content that it uploads to its service, the act could apply. However, when I upload the video of my very cute cat to YouTube, the act would not apply – it would not apply to things that the platform does not have editorial control over.”
Gregory Taylor, an associate professor at the University of Calgary, told the committee he believes the bill as it is written “will need to be accompanied by a major overhaul of the CRTC itself.” He made the case for having one regulator in charge of communications, pointing to Ofcom as an example.
Taylor further argued, like others have before him, that the bill “places too much responsibility in the hands of the CRTC by leaving some things kind of to be determined” – meaning “we’ll let the CRTC figure it out,” he said.
On the question of the government issuing mandates to the CRTC, Taylor said he is hesitant, noting it could compromise the CRTC’s position as an arm’s length institution. “I do have some difficulties with the leaving it to the government to tell the CRTC what to do. I think this bill, because it’s going to be around for a long time as well, needs to be clarified,” he said, adding that while that is perhaps not something that will happen at this point, it is something to be considered.
