Lobby groups push Internet policy, foreign ownership, Canadian broadcasting as campaign issues

Internet policy is expected to be in the foreground in the 2011 election campaign as lobby groups push candidates and parties to put their issues onto the political agenda. Advocacy group OpenMedia.ca says it plans to build on the success of its “Stop the Meter” petition with another online campaign to raise the profile of Internet policy issues. “We’re advocating that the Internet be a central issue in the election itself,” Steve Anderson, executive director OpenMedia, said in an interview. “We want to force the parties to answer to the public and admit to where they stand on broadband access.” The advocacy group plans to launch a website, “Vote For the Internet,” that will seek to encourage Canadians to consider digital policy in their voting choices. Through the website, OpenMedia will ask Canadians to make demands, ask questions, and bring issues to the attention of their local candidates. Candidates who support policies for an “open Internet” will be invited to register on the site as “pro-Internet,” Anderson said. “We’re also reactivating the Stop the Meter petition. But now we’re asking for an aggressive stand on the Internet,” Anderson said. “Any time someone signs the petition now, the party leaders will get an email.” The idea behind the site is to collect a significant amount of on-the-record commitments from candidates about their digital policies. OpenMedia used the same system in its lobbying efforts to encourage Industry Minister Tony Clement to take a stand against the CRTC’s decision on wholesale usage-based billing. At the height of the controversy, when Clement said he sought a review of the decision, the minister was receiving about 20,000 emails per day from those who signed the petition, OpenMedia has said. Since its launch in November of 2010, more than 470,000 Canadians have signed the Stop the Meter petition, which declares opposition to the CRTC’s existing wholesale usage-based billing policy. The commission is now reviewing the decision. The Internet appears to be shaping up as an election issue. On Sunday the Liberals announced that they would invest $500 million from the proceeds of spectrum auctions into the delivery of 1.5 Mbps-or-higher broadband to all Canadians. Law professor Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce technology at the University of Ottawa, said the Internet should be a policy priority in the election, predicting that an earlier focus on usage-based billing will move into a broader debate about the nation’s telecom networks. “Of broader concern is the competitiveness of Canada’s telecom networks, as both wireless and broadband Internet services remain a significant issue,” Geist said in an interview. “I think candidates will hear about that from certain Canadians and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some of the parties talk about their digital economy strategies.” The Conservative government had said it intended to release its digital economy strategy this spring, but a federal election has derailed that plan. Liberal candidate Marc Garneau, who served as the party’s industry critic in the last Parliament, said the party stands by the position it took against the CRTC’s wholesale usage-based billing policy. “The reason we, the Liberal party, objected to the UBB decision taken by the CRTC is we felt that it was anti-competitive, and we are committed to net neutrality,” he said. “We want to make sure that the net is available as much as possible.” OpenMedia’s campaign for a more open Internet is one among several digital policy issues getting wrapped into lobbying efforts during the election campaign. The debate about foreign ownership in telecom is also expected to be subject to lobbying. While some cultural groups argue that allowing foreign ownership of the networks could threaten the nation’s content and by extension its culture, others have called upon the government to loosen the restrictions. But the federal political parties and lobbying groups remain divided on the issue. The Liberal party says that, for now, Canadian ownership of telecom and broadcasting networks should be maintained, but the Conservatives have not released a policy position on foreign ownership in the telecom sector. “We want Canadian broadcasting maintained as Canadian ownership,” former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, now a candidate, said in an interview. “I think that there will be consultations, but our government was always clear in respect to maintaining 100 per cent ownership of Canadian broadcasting.” The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) says that, during the campaign, it intends to push the parties for their positions on ownership of telecom and broadcasting assets. “We want to ask the parties that Canadian content continue to be created and seen by Canadians,” said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director and the union’s chief negotiator. ACTRA will put candidates’ answers on its website, which is viewed by the union’s 21,000 members, he said. The union also plans to send information packages to its members to enable them to do some “reverse canvassing,” he added. “Instead of just having the politician stand on the doorstep and talk, we want our members to be able to question the politicians about important policies,” Waddell said. Waddell said that the organization also intends to make sure that the CRTC’s Canadian content broadcasting requirements remain in place at the same level. Waddell said ACTRA will also lobby for stable funding for the CBC and more investment in the Canada Media Fund (CMF) and Telefilm Canada. Waddell added that the union intends to call on political parties to increase the value of tax credits for freelancers and Canadian film and television productions. Communications expert and Stikeman Elliott counsel David Elder predicted in an interview that copyright will also emerge during the campaign. “I don’t think it’s any secret that the most recent Copyright Bill, which died when the government fell, had its strong proponents and its detractors. And even within the supporters of the bill, I think there are some who would’ve liked to see some changes,” he said. Even after months of hearings at the committee stage, the omnibus copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32, did not pass before the dissolution of Parliament, with much of the debate focused on compensation for artists and provisions for fair dealing and legal protection for digital locks. Elder said he expects the bill or a version of it to be reintroduced by the next government. But he said that a change in power could significantly alter the content of the bill. “I’m so disappointed that we lost the copyright bill,” Del Mastro said. “If we had been allowed to continue working without being forced into an election, we would have been a few weeks away from reporting the bill back to the House of Commons.” Although many pieces of legislation failed to pass before Parliament fell, such as the government’s lawful access bills, Elder said some important legislative ground was covered. For example, Bill C-22, the Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, passed. The act will impose reporting obligations on Internet service providers (ISPs) related to the discovery of child pornography. The Conservative government’s anti-spam legislation, Bill C-28, received all-party support and also passed. dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

Lobby groups push Internet policy, foreign ownership, Canadian broadcasting as campaign issues

Broadcast | April 6, 2011

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