Freedom of expression regulation concerns on C-11 are “silly”: CRTC’s Scott

CRTC chair Ian Scott told conference attendees that his agency has the knowledge base to be able to regulate the streaming giants, after concern was raised that it would be too much for the commission to handle. The debate around the government's update to the broadcasting act, known as the Online Streaming Act or Bill C-11, continued Monday at the opening session of the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications' annual conference. "We're talking about broadcasting. The commission has been regulating broadcasting for over 50 years," Scott said in response to a question from National Post reporter (and former Wire Report editor) Anja Karadeglija. "Whether you received it over air from a transmitter, through a fibre or cable through a broadcast distribution player, or whether you picked it up off the internet makes no difference: what we are focused on and will be focused on is broadcasting. So to say we have no expertise is, on its face, silly," Scott said, adding that the CRTC does need more resources for the new responsibilities, some of which have been made available through the 2022 budget. Scott granted that regulating Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.'s Facebook will naturally be different than regulating BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., but the Canadian incumbents themselves are also different than small internet service providers (ISPs) and small telecoms. Scott also pushed back on the notion that the bill would give the CRTC authority over the regulation of user-generated content (UGC) and freedom of expression. "The fact of the matter is that the Broadcasting Act gives us jurisdiction over these things today," Scott said. He pointed out that the CRTC has applied a digital media exemption order which has exempted large streamers from regulation up until this point. He again termed the criticism "silly" to suggest that the CRTC was interested in regulating a home video of a child's baseball game. "If it's a Blue Jays baseball game, that we might have an interest in." "Individual user-generated content is not the focus of the legislation, and most importantly, it is not the focus of the CRTC. Regulating it would not be in the public interest, it would not contribute to the system, we have no interest in doing so. We have lots of things to do," Scott said, adding that regulating user-generated content does not help to serve the objectives of the Broadcasting Act. Later in the day, however, YouTube's head of government affairs and public policy Jeanette Patell told conference attendees that the so-called "exception to the exception" aimed at carving out user-generated content from regulation was so broad as to include virtually any content posted to the platform. "We are concerned about that because we think it puts creator livelihoods at risk," Patell said. The bill, she continued, delegates authority to the CRTC to determine the character and time devoted to advertising on YouTube channels. Second, she argued the bill's language on discoverability allows the CRTC to pick "winners and losers" among creators. Third, she said the bill creates a global precedent which would restrict creators from small markets to access global audiences. The bill also received support on the same panel from the Canadian Media Producers Association vice-president of industry and business affairs Marcia Douglas and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' president Kevin Desjardins. Both, however, said they have concerns about what can be deemed Canadian content and what can not under the bill. Section 10 of the bill, Douglas said, is too vaguely written and must have stricter definitions for CanCon focused on ownership of a given production. The section outlines what types of content must be carried by broadcasters to be in compliance with the act. – Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca.

Freedom of expression regulation concerns on C-11 are “silly”: CRTC’s Scott

Broadcast | May 16, 2022

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Freedom of expression regulation concerns on C-11 are “silly”: CRTC’s Scott

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