Post Tagged with: "broadcasting act"

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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
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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
Good intentions, bad execution. by Tom Woodward https://flic.kr/p/tcFbmd (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Why The Government’s “Policy Intentions” For Bill C-11 Don’t Trump the Actual Text

Parliament may be on a summer recess, but the debate over Bill C-11, which is now in the Senate, continues. Yesterday, I engaged in a Twitter debate with Matthew Gray, an official in the office of Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez that ultimately focused on the relative importance of the government’s “policy intention” vs. the actual text of the bill. While officials and Minister Rodriguez regularly point to what they intend the bill to do, experts note that the text does not reflect those intentions.

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July 19, 2022 9 comments News
Pablo Rodriguez at Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 6, 2022, https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20220606/-1/37277

Why Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s Bill C-11 Content Regulation Denials Ring Hollow

Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage yesterday, using the opportunity to defend Bill C-11 with assurances that concerns about the inclusion of user content within the bill were “unfounded.” As this post unpacks, the denials of content regulation ring hollow as his defence falls apart on close examination of the bill. Numerous witnesses, including digital creators, Internet platforms, and industry associations, have all expressed concerns about the issue. Rather than respond to them, Rodriguez and the government implausibly deny that the issue exists at all.

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June 7, 2022 7 comments News
Justin Trudeau: “Canada, the EU, and our partners are facing a defining moment” CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2022 – Source: EP". (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) https://flic.kr/p/2namPQG

Keeping the Bill C-11 Implementation Secret, Regulating User Content, and Citing Non-Existent Benefits: Some Reflections on the House of Commons Online Streaming Act Debate

The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) was the subject of hours of debate yesterday in the House of Commons as the government presses to get the bill out of second reading and onto committee for hearings and further study. Setting aside the claims of “censorship” on one side and “you don’t care about creators” on the other, there were some notable takeaways from the debate, including the government digging in on keeping the policy direction to the CRTC secret, acknowledging (perhaps inadvertently) that the bill does regulate user generated content, and several comments from MPs that promise outcomes that are simply not part of the bill.

Leading off during Question Period was a direct question to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about releasing the planned policy directive to the CRTC before the bill receives royal assent so that Canadians can see the details of how the bill is intended to be implemented.

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May 12, 2022 6 comments News