Clock runs out on C-10 debate, Conservative motion requiring CRTC legal opinions on regs fails

Time ran out on Bill C-10 debate -- after the Liberals and Bloc Québécois teamed up to pass a time allocation “gag order” in the House of Commons earlier this week -- as the Conservative Party used the final hours of debate to discuss more social media user protection. The Heritage Committee spent Wednesday night and Thursday finishing up its allotted five hours of debate, and will now go into clause-by-clause consideration of the remaining amendments without any further discussion. Wednesday night’s meeting picked up with an amendment brought forward by Conservative MP Alain Rayes on Monday that the Broadcasting Act “does not apply in respect of online undertakings that have fewer than 500,000 subscribers in Canada, or receive less than $80 million per year in advertising,” according to simultaneous translation. Currently, social media is included under the scope of the revised Broadcasting Act. The CRTC’s powers are limited to regulating those platforms to discoverability requirements and financial contributions to the cultural sector. Social media users are still exempt from regulation under a provision which remains in the bill. Rayes’ amendment also stipulated that every two years the CRTC must review the subscriber and revenue thresholds and may make regulations to increase them as required and that “the minister must prepare a report on the commission's review”. “This proposed amendment is following different discussions we've had at the committee regarding users who are not professional broadcasters or digital broadcasters. There's a big difference between the powers that we are giving to the CRTC to regulate not only users but also regulate the content of those users,” Rayes said at Monday’s meeting, according to simultaneous translation. “This is the lesser of evils, we could say, to give the CRTC guidelines within this bill.” Rayes said the 500,000 subscriber threshold was recommended by former CRTC officials as an appropriate cutoff to protect everyday users posting on social media, when asked by NDP MP Heather McPherson where those numbers came from. He also said the $80 million per year in revenue exclusion came from an analysis of Australia’s own proposed broadcasting practices. Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin spoke against the proposed compromise at committee, saying the point of including social media was to “carve out contributions towards our cultural production funds.” Dabrusin then went on to read a quote from Conservative MP Rachael Harder where she stated in her local paper that the cultural funds were going to a “niche group” of artists “stuck in the early 1990s, because they haven't managed to be competitive on new platforms.” Dabrusin said she no longer believed the Conservative’s opposition to the bill had to do with freedom of expression concerns. Wednesday’s outstanding discussion on the amendment was delayed after Chair Scott Simms expressed disappointment that the party whips organized a 4:30 p.m. meeting with less than an hour's notice. “For the benefit of my colleagues, staff, analysts, clerks, interpreters, technical staff, everyone involved, I ask you to please consider these people have families, that these people live in rural areas, like myself. We are not emergency workers, we are not paramedics, we are not fire fighters, we are not on call like that. These are planned meetings… Please consider that when we do this again, not just as a chair but as a human being” Simms said to the parties’ four representative whips Wednesday night. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, acting as her party’s representative whip, did not give unanimous consent for the meeting to proceed. It was delayed until 5:50 p.m. and Rayes' motion from Monday was ultimately voted down. In a final bid to gain support, Rayes told the committee -- according to simultaneous translation -- that the amendment’s threshold was “in no way seeking to prevent big players such as Netflix or Spotify, the major broadcasters,” from being regulated because “they have more money and they have more subscribers than what falls under this threshold, but it protects our artists who don’t fall into the conventional structure and who live off the social networks and want to continue to do so.” Conservative MP Pierre Poilivere, who is not an official member of the committee, also added that the bill “before us is a bill that would allow government bureaucrats to rig algorithms, technological algorithms, in order to favour certain kinds of pro-government content online while discouraging content government does not want us to see, in some cases taking that government off the internet altogether.” On Thursday afternoon, Poilievre went so far as to launch a petition on his Twitter account, calling “on the government to immediately withdraw the censorship bills and respect free speech.” Rayes then put forward another amendment Wednesday evening, which was passed Thursday afternoon, to include language in the bill that “an online undertaking that provides a social media service is deemed not to exercise programming control over programs uploaded by any user of social media service, who is not the provider of the service or the providers affiliate or the agent or mandatory of either of them.” Rayes then unsuccessfully brought forward another amendment that would require the CRTC to obtain "independent legal opinion" as to whether any of the provisions of the regulation or order the regulator creates in relation to online undertakings are inconsistent with the charter. His amendment also stipulated that the commission shall publish the independent legal opinion on its website within 10 days after obtaining it and for it to be published in the Canada Gazette. “All of this series of questioning regarding rights and freedoms and the Canadian Charter, and the whole issue of freedom of expression, we wish to be sure that the commission published an independent legal opinion whenever decisions are made or a new regulation is proposed regarding online content so we can be sure rights are protected,” Rayes said according to translation. Thomas Owen Ripley, the Heritage department’s director general of broadcasting, copyright and creative marketplace, noted to the committee that the CRTC is already bound to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is already subject to review for charter consistency through judicial review when stakeholders decide to contest decisions, and it is served by independent legal counsel (its lawyers are not Department of Justice lawyers). “The amendment… would be quite exceptional in the sense that we're not aware of any other regulatory body that is in the practice of publishing its legal opinions,” Ripley said, adding that it would be costly and numerous to review every regulation pertaining to online undertakings. Conservative MP Martin Shields said he supported his colleague’s motion because it “leads to more transparency” as the CRTC has been criticized for not having recorded notes or votes when making decisions. He added that the motion is also about respecting not just freedom of artists but also the freedoms of consumers who will “have to pay the price” for adding financial regulations on web giants. McPherson was the only non-Conservative to vote with the Conservatives on the proposal, stating that it provided “extra oversight.” Her comments were the last on Bill C-10 as the time allocation ran out. Now, no new amendments can be proposed. However, Simms, as chair, ruled that the amendments that had been proposed at the start of the committee’s work will be moved and voted on. Sub-amendments are not allowed. The bill will come before the House on Monday or Tuesday, according to the department officials, if the committee finishes its work by Friday. -- Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca with files from Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

Clock runs out on C-10 debate, Conservative motion requiring CRTC legal opinions on regs fails

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Clock runs out on C-10 debate, Conservative motion requiring CRTC legal opinions on regs fails

Broadcast | June 10, 2021

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