Opponents of Online Streaming Act out in force at Senate hearing including YouTubers

The Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications continued its study of Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, on Tuesday morning. Most of the witnesses were opposed to the legislation, with only one of the six people appearing showing enthusiasm for the bill. Monica Auer, executive director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, said she supports the bill if it is amended by dropping sections 4.1 and 4.2, which deal with user generated content. “Unfortunately C-11 is also incoherent, makes errors and leaves gaps. Clear and coherent laws state Parliament’s intent and are readily understood by the public. C-11 is not coherent and not readily understood,” said Auer, echoing her testimony before the House Committee on Canadian Heritage last May. She resumed her attack on the CRTC, begun at the House hearings, saying it does not fulfill its mandate by ignoring some of its required duties. “It won’t matter if you change C-11 if the CRTC can still ignore the act,” Auer stated. “It now holds hearings without witnesses. It doesn’t hold hearings that it is required to for mandatory orders. It doesn’t publish all applications it receives and it keeps some decisions hidden from public view forever.” Asked by Senator Fabian Manning how the commission is likely to implement the provisions of the bill, she succinctly responded, “Any way it likes.” Much more bullish on the bill was Pierre Trudel, from the faculty of law at Université de Montréal. Trudel, who also testified last spring before the House committee, sees the legislation as critical to modern Canada. “Parliament is catching up with the current broadcasting environment which is increasingly dependent on the internet,” he told the Senate panel, according to a translation. “This update is essential, not only to ensure that Canada's broadcasting system continues to allow Canadians to truly choose programming that is the result of Canadian creativity, programming that reflects our diversity, programming that reflects our official and indigenous languages.” He added that concerns about freedom of expression “seem baseless” to him. That position placed him in direct opposition to another academic, Irene Berkowitz. The senior policy fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) recently wrote an op-ed essay for the Toronto Star decrying the bill. She congratulated one of the senators on the committee for her stand against C-11. “Public policy should solve problems the market cannot. Senator Simons, thank you for asking last week what problem is C-11 solving,” Berkowitz said. “Ironically others have suggested some of C-11’s text doesn't solve – it causes problems for streamers and producers.” Canadians do not want government interference in their online content, she noted, adding that user generated content provisions should be excluded from the bill. The legislation should be narrowed to gated platforms only, she maintained. The bill should not rely on antiquated ideas of regulation. “‘How we’ve always done it isn’t good governance.” The second part of the hearing featured three YouTubers, all of whom oppose the bill in its entirety. Montreal filmmaker Justin Tomchuk worries about how the legislation will affect him. “Section 4.2 (a) of Bill C-11 makes it clear that my business will fall under the call of the CRTC’s directives, as I derive direct and indirect income from my artistic efforts,” he asserted. “One of the goals of Bill C-11 is to prioritize Canadian content to Canadians through discoverability measures. There seems to be a misunderstanding at these hearings that algorithm talk is not a concern and takes up too much time.” Canadians may click away from suggested Canadian content on platforms or such material may be misdirected. He cited the example of tourism promotions only playing to people who live in the area being featured. There could be international ramifications as well, Tomchuk stated. Other countries could file objections under trade agreements or create similar legislation shutting out foreign content to the preference of local material. Tomchuk’s presentation came in for praise from the next witness, J.J. McCullough. “Content creators and consumers don’t merely consider Bill C-11 a badly written bill, though it certainly is, and I think Justin has made it clear why. Many people, however, consider the bill at its core badly motivated,” he told senators. Rather than force internet platforms to live up to broadcasters’ CanCon rules, those regulations should be lowered for the legacy companies, McCullough stated. He conceded that at this late stage of the bill’s journey through Parliament the most opponents can hope for is compromise, not victory. The final witness of the day was 13-year-old broadcaster Wyatt Sharpe, who admitted he was not the demographic of most Parliamentary witnesses. While denouncing the legislation, he conceded there were good qualities to it as well. “On Bill C-11 in particular I will say that it has obviously sparked a lot of debate and many opinions have been put forward as it relates to Bill C-11,” the teenager said. “There are many easily agreeable things that I have seen come up through me being a journalist and from speaking with various people.” Those agreeable items include respect for diverse minority languages, accessibility for the disabled and promotion of indigenous culture, he remarked. On Monday, Alicia Barin, Quebec commissioner on the CRTC and interim vice chair for broadcasting, spoke to the Canadian Communications Systems Alliance. She told the conference she was hopeful about passage of the bill. “We are closely following Parliament’s study of the Bill, which sets out to modernize the Broadcasting Act,” she said. “Bill C-11 proposes to clarify the CRTC’s jurisdiction regarding online broadcasters. If adopted, the bill intends to give us the ability to start leveling the playing field between traditional and online players, and to ensure that digital media players contribute to the broadcasting system. The bill also intends to provide a more robust and nimble enforcement regime to ensure that compliance actions by the CRTC are focused and measured.” –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca.

Opponents of Online Streaming Act out in force at Senate hearing including YouTubers

Broadcast | September 27, 2022

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us

Opponents of Online Streaming Act out in force at Senate hearing including YouTubers

Broadcast | September 27, 2022

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Related Stories

Social media platforms want total exclusion from new broadcasting regime

Change financial threshold for Online Streaming Act exemptions, CRTC told

CRTC seeking comment on C-11 consult deadline extension request

Public interest groups call for more time on C-11 consults

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us