By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Last week, the Canadian Government published the mandate letters the prime minister gives to cabinet ministers.
Mandate letters have existed in many shapes and forms for a long time but in 2015, the Liberal Government made them public for the first time. They have now become part of the government’s ritual after each election. It starts with the electoral platform, followed by the appointment of ministers, the Speech from the Throne that flows right into the mandate each minister is given.
Lobbyists and corporations work diligently to ensure their issues are mentioned. Considering the breadth of these letters, one realizes that if your issue is not in the mandate letters, it might be difficult to advance it.
This year, the letters were made public later than in 2015 and 2019 – 86 days after the election rather than 24 and 53 days respectively, which created some questions about the government’s commitment.
Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry
Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne’s portfolio is vast and demanding and therefore the focus on what interests us is limited.
For example, in 2015, the portfolio was limited to “Increase high-speed broadband coverage (…)”. In 2021 it is a little more extensive: Establish a digital policy task force, introduce legislation to advance the Digital Charter, review of the current legislative and structural elements that may restrict or hinder competition, including in telecommunications, and work with the Minister of Canadian Heritage to amend the Copyright Act.
The one we found a little surprising because it goes deeper than usual into the details is: “Accelerate broadband delivery by implementing a “use it or lose it” approach to require those that have purchased rights to build broadband to meet broadband access milestones or risk losing their spectrum rights.”
Even if this approach is not new, it seems to indicate the firm intention of the government to implement it not only for those who tended to deploy in urban areas and lag in the rural areas, but it could go as far as to allowing resale of spectrum, like, among others Québecor has done a few times.
When asked about the new approach, a department official, in an email, told Cartt.ca: “To make sure that service providers put their spectrum to use in a timely manner, most multi-year licenses include deployment requirements that reflect the minimum population coverage that licensees are required to meet within a service area within specific milestones (e.g., at 5, 10, and 20 years). The recent 3500 MHz auction used ISED’s most ambitious requirements to date, including in rural areas.”
“The Mandate Letter is a further commitment from the government that spectrum should be used for deployment and connection and will serve to help guide policy making around future spectrum-related decisions on auctions and transfers, among other things,” the email concluded.
On another note, interestingly, in 2019, one of the objectives was to “work with the Minister of Canadian Heritage to modernize the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act,” which leads us to believe the modernization of the Telecom Act is not a priority anymore.
Minister of Canadian Heritage
Pablo Rodriguez, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, on the other hand, has a more focused portfolio and the to-do list on the issues we cover is more exhaustive and will require some additional funding.
His mandate includes modernizing the CBC and updating its mandate, while providing it with “additional funding to make it less reliant on private advertising, with a goal of eliminating advertising during news and other public affairs shows.” Oh, and also strengthening Radio Canada International.
The mandate for Canadian Heritage also includes increasing annual contributions to the Canada Music Fund as well as to Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund while also increasing the proportion of funding for French audiovisual content at Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund from 33% to 40%.
The letter to the minister also says: “To ensure Canada’s laws reflect our evolving digital world, you will work to introduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act, ask web giants to pay their fair share and combat serious forms of harmful online content.”
The mandate letter further calls on the minister to introduce “legislation to require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to share a portion of their revenues with Canadian news outlets.” And finally, to work with ISED to amend the Copyright Act.
Rural Economic Development
This one is pretty straightforward: “Continue to lead the Universal Broadband Fund and accelerate the delivery of broadband service across Canada (…).”
