Party campaign platforms underwhelming on digital issues

Following the release of the top five political parties’ campaign platforms for the 2011 election, Canadian voters and policy experts are weighing in on who’s out front on digital policy issues. But the results are a little underwhelming. “In a word: yawn,” Ottawa technology consultant Bill St. Arnaud said when asked to comment on the various digital platforms. “Considering what other countries are doing, or even what Quebec is doing, I would have thought there’d be something a little more visionary, a little more demonstration of leadership by any of the parties.” St. Arnaud said he thought the Conservative response to the recent usage-based billing uproar meant the issue would have featured more prominently on the campaign trail. “Clement was tweeting like crazy, almost making up policy by tweet,” he said of the former industry minister, Tony Clement. “I would have thought that all three parties then would respond to that. There’s clearly an undercurrent there of Canadians who are fed up with the choices they have and the high prices they’re paying.” Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said he’s disappointed in the level of detail in the party platforms. “There were some that were hoping this would be an opportunity for the Conservatives to outline in further detail what they envision when it comes to their digital economy strategy,” Geist said in an interview. The strategy was originally set to be released May 2, he said, which led him to believe the party would have included it in its platform. Instead, Geist said he didn’t find anything revealing. In the party platform, the Conservatives said they would “extend broadband coverage to 200,000 additional households in rural and remote regions,” but did not allocate new funding to the plan. The federal Conservative government previously allocated $225 million over three years toward extending broadband coverage to rural and remote areas. If re-elected, the party platform says, the Tories would announce and start implementing a digital economy strategy “later this spring” that would support businesses’ adoption of communications technologies, promote enrolment in post-secondary education, and support the Canada Media Fund (CMF) to create Canadian digital content—but no figures were given. The party would also reintroduce the Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act, and set aside spectrum from a 700 MHz spectrum auction in 2012 for emergency responders. “They used the same structure they used a year ago with the same principles that Tony Clement reiterated last November. There was practically nothing new,” Geist said. On Monday, former Liberal industry critic and party candidate Marc Garneau helped introduce the party’s “Digital Canada Plan” with a live, online discussion featuring Geist and OpenMedia.ca executive director Steve Anderson. The Liberal platform says the party would issue an “open Internet directive” to the CRTC. The policy directive would be intended to ensure that Canadians could access any lawful content anywhere online, using any lawful device, while prohibiting Internet traffic management practices that “stifle competition,” reduce consumer choice (or restrict access to lawful content), and that lack transparency. “A Liberal government will oppose anti-competitive usage-based billing, support net neutrality and foster an open, competitive and innovative internet environment,” the Liberal plan says. Liberals said they would spend $500 million on attaining universal “basic high-speed Internet access for all Canadian households within three years.” The party would address concerns about digital technologies’ impact on Canadian content by doubling the Canada Council for the Arts’ annual budget (from $180 million to $360 million) while providing the CBC/Radio-Canada with “stable and predictable funding in support of their unique and crucial roles.” Geist said the Liberals “at least provided a bit more detail” than the other parties on their broadband, copyright and open government policy proposals. St. Arnaud said the Liberals and NDP made open Internet and usage-based billing commitments but failed to address the “fundamental problem” of lack of competition. “Until you address that through a national broadband initiative, I think these other ones are just skirting the issue,” he said. During the online discussion Monday, Anderson asked Garneau whether the party supports “functional separation”—which he said is a policy in the United Kingdom that separates “the business of providing access to the customer via the last mile of the Internet (wholesale) … the business of providing access to the wires that connect the customers to the backbone of the Internet (retail).” Garneau said the party supports functional separation for telcos. The Liberal candidate for Westmount-Ville-Marie, Que., also said he supports setting aside spectrum at the next auction for new entrants and broadening the composition of the CRTC commissioners to have consumers represented. The NDP platform, released Sunday, says an NDP government would “enshrine ‘net neutrality’ in law, end price gouging and ‘net throttling,’ with clear rules for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), enforced by the CRTC.” It would also “prohibit all forms of usage-based billing.” The party said it would use proceeds from the upcoming spectrum auction to ensure universal broadband access. Although the NDP does not attach a price tag to the initiative, it would “expect the major internet carriers to contribute financially to this goal,” it says. The platform also calls for restricting foreign ownership in broadcasting and telecom sectors. It says the party will promote Canadian content through “sustained funding” to the CMF, Telefilm Canada and public broadcasters, and set broadcasters’ licence requirements “based on clear, binding and enforced performance standards for broadcasters, including increased Canadian drama.” Geist credited the party’s focus on Internet access but said he was disappointed by a lack of attention to the question of competition. “ a lot on increasing the level of regulation and the oversight of the CRTC, and I think there’s a role for that, but far less on the more fundamental question about how do you deal with competition,” he said. “Particularly, they rejected opening the foreign ownership rules for telecom.” Other parties have not staked out clear positions on the latter since the start of the campaign. The Liberal platform talks about making the Investment Canada Act more transparent but doesn’t specifically mention the telecom sector. The party has previously said it does not support allowing foreign ownership. The Conservative government had consulted on the issue but had not released a policy position before the election. The Bloc Quebecois, in its platform, calls for broadband expansion in Quebec and for the creation of a formula that obliges ISPs to pay into a fund to reimburse Quebec artists for the unlawful downloading of their works. The Green party platform states support for net neutrality, and “the idea that a maximally useful public information network treats all content, sites, and platforms equally, thus allowing the network to carry every form of information and support every kind of application.” mburgess@thewirereport.ca

Party campaign platforms underwhelming on digital issues

Broadcast | April 11, 2011

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