Coming off a week in which the government engineered a major cabinet overhaul that saw Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez replaced by Pascale St-Onge, an escalation of the battle over digital services taxes, and which featured significant news on both the Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 fronts, this week’s Law Bytes podcast provides a mid-summer update on recent developments. Barring some urgent news, the podcast will be taking a break in August and return in September.
Archive for July, 2023
Culture Lobby Groups Call on Government to Open Door to CRTC Regulation of Video Games, User Content and Algorithms Under Bill C-11 Implementation
Bill C-11 may have receded into the background of CRTC consultations and government policy directions, but Canadians concerned with user content, video game and algorithmic regulation would do well to pay attention. Lobby groups that fought for the inclusion of user content regulation in the bill have now turned their attention to the regulatory process and are seeking to undo government assurances that each of those issues – user content, algorithms and even video games – would fall outside of the scope of the regulatory implementation of the bill. In fact, if the groups get their way, Canadians would face unprecedented regulations with the CRTC empowered to create a host of new obligations that could even include requirements for Youtubers and TikTokers to register with the Commission. With a new Heritage Minister in place, the submissions raise serious concerns about whether the government will maintain its commitments regarding scoping out users, video games, and algorithms.
The most troubling publicly available document comes from a coalition that calls itself ACCORD, representing songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The group has posted its submission to the government’s consultation on the draft policy direction to the CRTC on Bill C-11. All submissions are not yet posted, but I should note that I also submitted a brief document, calling on the government to fully honour its commitment to exclude user content and algorithms from regulation and to establish limits on discoverability regulation.
Same as It Ever Was: Cabinet Overhaul Signals Government Doubling Down on Digital Policy Mess
It should not come as a surprise, but those hoping that the government’s much-anticipated cabinet overhaul might signal a potential course-correction on its digital policy mess will be sorely disappointed. If anything, yesterday’s changes at Canadian Heritage and Justice suggest an acceleration of plans that will include continuing to head toward the Bill C-18 cliff of blocked news links as well as introducing controversial online harms legislation and perhaps even copyright reform. Pascale St-Onge, the new Heritage Minister, was a lobbyist in the culture sector before her election to the House of Commons and is likely to welcome the big tech battle, while removing David Lametti as Justice Minister and replacing him with Arif Virani means online harms loses an important voice for freedom of expression in favour of someone who has expressed impatience with delays in new regulations.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 175: Amy Salyzyn on the Benefits and Risks of AI to the Legal Profession
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm in recent months with the potential of generative AI – both positive and negative – top of mind in just about every sector. That is certainly true for the legal profession, where AI tools are becoming increasingly common and courts and regulators try to grapple with the implications. Amy Salyzyn is a colleague at the University of Ottawa who has written extensively in the area of legal ethics, lawyer regulation, the use of technology in the delivery of legal services and access to justice. In the coming academic year she’ll be teaching a course on AI and the legal profession and she joins me on the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the latest on AI technology for law and the legal, regulatory and ethical challenges it brings.
What If It Isn’t a Bluff?!: The Consequences of the Government’s Epic Bill C-18 Miscalculation Begin to Set In
As Bill C-18 made its way through the legislative process, the government and the media lobby groups supporting the bill insisted that Google and Meta were bluffing when they warned that legislation premised on mandated payments for links could lead the companies to stop Canadian news linking or sharing on their platforms. Proponents would point to the Australian experience or claim that links to Canadian news were simply too valuable for the platforms to walk away. Compromise amendments were ignored in favour of tough talk about not backing down, the platforms were investigated for daring to test link blocking, and MPs and Senators acted as stenographers for media lobby groups by introducing amendments that now leave the government with even less flexibility in the regulatory process.
Over the past week, the reality appears to have begun to seep in.
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 200: Colin Bennett on the EU’s Surprising Adequacy Finding on Canadian Privacy Law 
Debating the Online Harms Act: Insights from Two Recent Panels on Bill C-63 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 199: Boris Bytensky on the Criminal Code Reforms in the Online Harms Act 
AI Spending is Not an AI Strategy: Why the Government’s Artificial Intelligence Plan Avoids the Hard Governance Questions 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 198: Richard Moon on the Return of the Section 13 Hate Speech Provision in the Online Harms Act
