Senate votes against including financial, subscriber, thresholds in scope of Bill C-11

The Senate committee currently engaged in a clause-by-clause review of the Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11, opted not to include a financial or subscriber threshold in the act, Bill C-11, which many critics of the bill suggested in order to ease concerns that smaller players and individual content creators would be scoped into the bill. Tuesday morning, the Senate’s Transportation and Communications committee continued its review of the bill after Conservative Senator Denise Batters brought forward an amendment during the committee’s previous meeting stating that the bill would only apply to online undertakings whose revenues in Canada, generated from paid subscriptions and embedded advertising, exceed $150 million. Critics of the bill have suggested that the government include either a financial threshold, subscribers threshold, or both to clarify further which content creators and online undertakings are scoped out of the bill. Debate on the motion picked up Tuesday. Senator Marc Gold, who serves as the representative of the government in the Senate, told committee members that the government is opposed to such an amendment because corporations could fall through the cracks. He said corporations can structure themselves in a way to split their income and avoid regulation. Canadian Heritage associate assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs Thomas Owen Ripley “reminded” senators that there is no possibility of digital-first creators being considered an online undertaking in the bill regardless of how much money they earn because of the “exemption to the exemption” in the bill, which scopes in social media platforms but scopes out its individual users. Canadian Senators Group Senator Pamela Wallin argued that to guide a regulatory body, clarity was needed. Ripley noted that the government wants to ensure that the “big household names” contribute to Canadian culture and the challenge of a financial threshold would exclude “ a series of services that are very well placed” to contribute to Canada’s system, such as CBC/ Radio Canada’s Gem, APTN, Cable Public Affairs Channel Inc. (CPAC), TV5, who in the future may operate an online undertaking. “There’s a risk of excluding services here who fall below that revenue threshold but who, because of the nature of their service, are actually very well placed to contribute to the objectives of the broadcasting act,” Ripley said. Wallin raised concern that the CRTC chair, without a financial threshold in the act, would make arbitrary decisions as to who is scoped in and out. Ripley said that any service that would be regulated by the commission would have to be assessed through a regulatory proceeding not behind closed doors. Leader of the opposition in the Canadian Senate, Senator Donald Neil Plett, asked the department official if lowering the threshold would help ease those concerns. Ripley noted that the financial threshold would still have been “chosen at a moment in time” and it is difficult to determine which services might be affected by that threshold in the future. He also said the language around embedded advertising and paid subscriptions raises concern because business models are always shifting. “Being very specific about those sources of revenues could lead to challenges in terms of applications of that provision.” Conservative Senator Fabian Manning asked if there is any threshold that the government is comfortable with, to which Ripley responded that there is none. “A threshold risks the CRTC not being in a position to adequately assess which services are uniquely placed” to contribute to the objectives of the act,” he said. Senator Plett brought forward a motion to lower Batters’ proposed threshold to $100 million and to include a stipulation that an online undertaking must also have more than 100 million subscribers. The sub-amendment, along with Batters’ original amendment, both failed to pass in an 11-3 vote and 10-4 vote, respectively. – Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Senate votes against including financial, subscriber, thresholds in scope of Bill C-11

News | November 29, 2022

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Senate votes against including financial, subscriber, thresholds in scope of Bill C-11

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