Archive for February, 2017

22 NAFTA Style by Steven Taylor (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/CSNKez

Canadian Senate Report Emphasizes Need for Consultation, Transparency in Trade Talks

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets U.S. President Donald Trump today with trade issues sure to be a key part of the agenda. With the TPP now dead and NAFTA headed to renegotiation, the arrival of a Trump administration has had a dramatic impact on Canadian trade policy. Last November, I wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail arguing that Canada’s trade negotiation strategy needed to focus more on the how of trade negotiations than the who:

the how of negotiation may be more important than the who. The public backlash against trade deals points to a process that leaves many feeling excluded and to terms that are presented publicly for the first time as final. The real opportunity for Ottawa is not just to explore new trade partners but to challenge some of the long-standing assumptions about such deals in order to foster greater public confidence in the outcome.

The column continued by suggesting that the government “ensure that the same emphasis on transparency and public consultation that is emblematic of domestic policy development is mirrored in the trade file.”

Last week, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade issued a report on free trade agreements, which it described as “a tool for economic prosperity.”

February 13, 2017 — 2 comments — News

Trump International Beach Resort by Leigh Caldwell (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/8LiWWV

Canadian Privacy in the Age of Trump

Last night I appeared on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin to discuss privacy issues in light of the Trump Executive Order that eliminates Privacy Act protections for non-U.S. citizens or permanent residents. A video of the discussion is embedded below.

February 9, 2017 — 10 comments — News

Super Bowl LIVE LI by Texas.713 (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/QwnUco

The Future of Simsub Post-Super Bowl: Why Canadian Viewership Data Vindicated the CRTC

The release of the television ratings for the Super Bowl unsurprisingly sparked a wave of reports yesterday blaming the CRTC for a decline of viewers at CTV. The Hollywood Reporter claimed there was a ratings collapse, the National Post talked about a 39 percent drop, and Cartt.ca argued that the CRTC had failed Cancon with its decision. While CTV’s numbers may have dropped by 39 percent from the 2016 Super Bowl, that number on its own means as much as saying that Tom Brady’s quarterback rating dropped from his last Super Bowl appearance (it did).

When assessing the impact of the CRTC’s simultaneous substitution decision that opened the door to competing U.S. and Canadian feeds for the game (but not for the pre and post-game broadcasts), the far more important number is the Canadian audience for the U.S. feed. It tells the story of how many switched away from CTV to the newly available alternative. Although Bell indicated that this data is not available, that does not appear to be accurate. The Globe and Mail reports today that some Fox stations are measured in Canada, but that Numeris did not provide it with the numbers.

However, Richard Deitsch, the lead media reporter for Sports Illustrated, tweeted on Monday that the CTV feed drew 4.5 million viewers, while the U.S. Fox viewed garnered 803,000 in Canada. Deitsch’s source for the report was Sportnet’s John Shannon, a longstanding sports television producer, who discussed the issue on the Prime Time Sports program on Monday afternoon. The Fox number may involve some guesswork given that Numeris does not track all Fox affiliates in Canada, but I am reliably advised that its data showed low numbers for some U.S. affiliates, including the Buffalo Fox affiliate feed [update 2/9: new reports indicate that the Buffalo number may be in error, suggesting a higher number of Fox viewers in Canada that reported by Shannon/Deitsch. CTV still retained a majority of the Canadian audience].

February 8, 2017 — 13 comments — News

Did a Canadian Court Just Establish a New Right to be Forgotten?

The European Union shook up the privacy world in 2014 with the creation of “the right to be forgotten“, creating a system that allows people to seek the removal of search results from Google that are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.” The system does not result in the removal of the actual content, but rather makes it more difficult to find in light of the near-universal reliance on search engines to locate information online.

Since the European decision, Google has received nearly 700,000 requests for the removal of links from its search database resulting in the evaluation of 1.8 million URLs. Moreover, privacy authorities in Europe – led by France’s national regulator – have adopted an aggressive approach on the right to be forgotten, ruling that the link removal should be applied on a global basis.

My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that while the Canadian courts have grappled with the question of removing links from the Google search database (a key case on the issue is awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court of Canada), there has been little sense that Canada would establish its own right to be forgotten. That may have changed last week as the Federal Court of Canada issued a landmark ruling that paves the way for a Canadian version of the right to be forgotten that would allow courts to issue orders with the removal of Google search results on a global basis very much in mind.

February 7, 2017 — 6 comments — Columns

Final Result by Graham Ballantyne (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ixNpk

The Shattered Mirror, Part Two: The Underwhelming Recommendation for Open Licensing at the CBC

My review of the The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age, the Public Policy Forum’s report on the future of media continues with a comment on long-overdue recommendation that unfortunately falls short of the mark (my first post on copyright reform recommendation is here). The report tackles the future of the CBC with three recommendations: increasing the emphasis of the CBC’s mandate on news, moving to an ad-free approach online, and adopting a Creative Commons licence for news content to help broaden distribution.

The recommendation of increased emphasis on news is a good one as is the call for an ad-free CBC online. I wrote in support of the CBC becoming an ad-free digital news competitor last year and while Ken Whyte offered up arguments against it (noting that the Canadian market needs more ad choices, not less), the online advertising competition has been a longstanding source of frustration for online media competitors who resent public support for CBC’s online presence.

The recommendation that I would like to like is the adoption of a Creative Commons licence for CBC news content. I have similarly argued for open licensing of CBC content for many years as part of its role as a public broadcaster. In 2014, I noted:

February 2, 2017 — 4 comments — News