Post Tagged with: "broadcasting act"

CRTC at Senate TRMC Committee, November 16, 2022, https://senparlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20221116/-1/11512

Oops, He Did It Again: CRTC Chair Ian Scott Tries to Walk Back Bill C-11 Comments, But Officials Confirm Power to Regulate User Content is in the Bill

CRTC Chair Ian Scott returned to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications last night, presumably hoping that his fourth House and Senate committee appearance involving Bill C-11 might allow him to say what the government clearly would like, namely that the bill will not lead to the regulation of user content. Yet Scott has failed each time, because the bill plainly does contain that power. In this instance, Scott embarrassed himself, the CRTC, and the entire legislative process as he demonstrably failed to defend the independence of the CRTC and zig-zagged between actively promoting the bill, claiming that was not his role, and even bizarrely offering to draft potential amendments.

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November 17, 2022 15 comments News
USTR Ambassador Tai gives keynote in Geneva on the future role of the WTO by US Mission Geneva https://flic.kr/p/2mB2yiF (CC BY-ND 2.0)

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:

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September 16, 2022 5 comments News
Inflation by atramos (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/pgZttg

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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September 15, 2022 2 comments News
~500 HD video streams by ChrisDag https://flic.kr/p/7gUdzZ (CC BY 2.0)

The Bill C-11 Hearings Are Back, Part Two: The Risks to Canadian Creators

The first post in my series on Bill C-11 focused on the risks associated with regulating user content. But it isn’t just ordinary users posting on services such as TikTok or Youtube that could find their content subject to regulation. The bill is ostensibly designed to support Canadian creators, yet many fear it will do the opposite. For the independent production sector, there was a late change to the bill as part of the government’s rush to pass it without committee debate that could undermine an essential policy that supports the film and television sector. And for digital creators, there are justifiable fears the bill will result in less revenue, less global exposure, and lost opportunities for one of Canada’s fastest growing cultural sectors.

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September 13, 2022 4 comments News
YouTube Generation by jonsson (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/KaeZT

The Bill C-11 Hearings Are Back, Part One: The Risks of Regulating User Content

The Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications resumes its hearings into Bill C-11 this week with plans for four sessions that will hear from a wide range of witnesses. Given the shortcomings of the House committee hearings – numerous important stakeholders were not given the opportunity to appear – the Senate review this fall provides a critical opportunity to re-examine the bill and to address some of its obvious flaws. With that in mind, this post is the first of a series that highlights some of Bill C-11’s major risks and concerns.

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September 12, 2022 24 comments News