Last week, the ongoing Senate hearings into Bill C-11 featured an appearance from the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, who spelled out its expectations for Bill C-11, particularly the contributions from streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. While much of the Bill C-11 debate has focused on the regulation of user content, the bill’s supposed intent is to bring large streaming services into the Canadian broadcasting system. Fuelled by the government’s dubious claim that the bill could generated a billion dollars per year (even government officials now admit that the number is an estimate based not based on actual data), the Canadian sector came sporting demands wildly out of touch with international standards. Indeed, when compared to European regulation, which is often touted as the global leader, Canada would strongly discourage market entry for streaming services and likely result in reduced libraries of content in order to meet the government and CRTC’s regulatory requirements.
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When Government Investigates Its Critics: Why the Bill C-11 Witness Intimidation Issue is About Far More than a Strategically Timed Leak
The concerns over witness intimidation and bullying targeting Bill C-11’s critics continues to attract attention on Parliament Hill as Senators spent more than an hour debating the issue earlier this week. The issue stems from a Globe and Mail report that Canadian Heritage Parliamentary Secretary Chris Bittle – together with his colleague, Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner – sent a letter to the Lobbying Commissioner to seek an investigation into the funding of Digital First Canada, a group representing digital first creators. DFC’s Executive Director, Scott Benzie, appeared before the Heritage committee in the spring and Bittle used his time to focus on the organization’s funding. The Lobbyist Commissioner letter was apparently filed more than two months ago and Benzie had been assured that he was compliant with the law. The story was presumably leaked to coincide with Benzie’s appearance before the Senate committee, a tactic that smacked of witness intimidation and bullying with the government seeking to undermine a critic of the legislation. Soon after, Conservative MP John Nater filed a point of privilege in the House of Commons, arguing that Bittle had attempted to intimidate a Senate witness and the matter escalated further at the Senate committee, where multiple Senators raised the issue.
Bill C-11 Goes Off The Rails Amid Charges of Witness Intimidation and Bullying by Government MPs
The Senate Bill C-11 hearings have provided a model for the much-needed, engaged, non-partisan inquiry that was largely missing from the House committee’s theatrics in which the government cut off debate on over 150 amendments. But this week those hearings attracted attention for another reason: serious charges of witness intimidation and bullying by government MPs, most notably Canadian Heritage Parliamentary Secretary Chris Bittle (yes, the same Bittle who last month suggested I was a racist and a bully for raising concerns about Minister Pablo Rodriguez silence over Canadian Heritage funding of an anti-semite as part of its anti-hate program).
The Globe and Mail reported late on Tuesday night that Bittle – together with his colleague, Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner – had sent a letter to the Lobbying Commissioner to seek an investigation into the funding of Digital First Canada, a group representing digital first creators. The letter may have been shopped around to other MPs as Liberal MP Anthony Housefather has told the Globe he did not sign it. DFC’s Executive Director, Scott Benzie, had appeared before the Heritage committee months ago and Bittle used his time to focus on the organization’s funding. Leaving aside the fact that government MPs reserve these kinds of questions only for critics of Bill C-11 (there were no similar questions this week from Ms. Hepfner to the Director of Digital Content Next, whose organization supports Bill C-18 and counts Fox News among its members), the timing of Globe story was incredibly troubling. The Lobbyist Commissioner letter was apparently filed nearly two months ago and Benzie had been assured that he was compliant with the law. Yet the story was presumably leaked to coincide with Benzie’s appearance before the Senate committee last night.
The Bill C-11 Hearings Are Back, Part Four: The Risks of a Trade Challenge and Tariff Retaliation
The first three posts in this series on Bill C-11 have focused on the risks of regulating user content, the risks to Canadian creators, and the risks of increased consumer costs and less competition. Today’s post identifies another risk with the bill: the prospect of a trade challenge under the CUSMA that could lead to billions on tariff retaliation that target some of Canada’s most important economic sectors. The possibility of a U.S. trade battle over the bill is no idle speculation even if downplayed this week by an official from Global Affairs. This summer, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai raised the issue directly with Canadian Minister of International Trade Mary Ng. While the Canadian readout of the meeting notably excluded any reference to the issue, it was cited in the U.S. readout of the meeting:
The Bill C-11 Hearings Are Back, Part Three: The Risks of Higher Consumer Costs, Less Competition, and Little New Money for Film Production
The first two posts of this series on Bill C-11 focused on the risks to user content and Canadian creators. This post picks up on the implications of the bill for consumer costs and choice. In short, at a time when political parties are focused on affordability and inflation, the Bill C-11 effect is likely to increase consumer costs and decrease choice. There is no magic solution that results in hundreds of millions of new money entering the system without someone paying for it. It is fairly clear that that someone will be Canadian consumers as streaming services either hike Canadian fees to account for their new costs or shun the market altogether. It should be noted that it doesn’t need to be that way: a bill that establishes thresholds to exclude smaller services would limit the negative effects on competition and a sufficiently flexible approach to Canadian contributions would recognize that the large streaming services already invest billions in Canada.
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