The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked international condemnation and a race to levy sanctions and undo longstanding connections to the country. Responses have included demands that Russia Today, a television network backed by the Russian government, be removed from cable and satellite systems. Companies such as Bell, Rogers, Telus and Shaw have dropped the service, but the desire for a longer-term regulatory solution has brought the issue to the CRTC. Working with a strict two week deadline, last week the CRTC ruled that RT and RT France can no longer be distributed by Canadian television service providers. Monica Song is a partner with the law firm Dentons and one of Canada’s leading telecom and broadcast lawyers. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to unpack the case before the Commission and assess the broader implications around due process and content regulation.
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The Conservative Election Platform: Freedom of Expression Commitment Tainted By Support for Payments for Links, Restrictions on Fair Dealing
The Conservative Party released its election platform yesterday, providing a lengthy document that covers a myriad of policy issues. From a digital policy perspective, there are positions sprinkled throughout the document, covering everything from a new innovation policy (an issue that the Liberals de-emphasized over the past two years and the Conservatives are right to target) to labour rights for gig workers.
On many issues, the reality is the policy platform isn’t all that different from the Liberal government’s approach.
Speaking Out on Bill C-10 and the Regulation of User Generated Content
The past week has seen a groundswell of public concern over Bill C-10 and the government’s plan to regulate user generated content. I have given numerous interviews, many of which do a nice job of distilling the key issues in an accessible manner. These include:
The Cancon Conundrum: Why Policies to Promote “Canadian Stories” Need an Overhaul
Cultural policy in Canada can be contentious, but there is one issue – support for Canadian content or Cancon – that unsurprisingly enjoys near unanimous backing. Given the economic benefits, federal and provincial policies encourage both domestic and foreign film and television production in Canada, but there is a special place for certified Canadian content, which is typically defended on the basis of the need to support cultural sovereignty by promoting “Canadian stories.”
The Full “Culture Exception” That Isn’t: Why Canada Caved on Independent Cultural Policy in the USMCA
In the final weeks of the USMCA negotiations, Canada signalled that a full cultural exception was a non-negotiable issue with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wading in to emphasize the importance of the issue. While the resulting deal has garnered applause from many culture lobby groups (music, magazines, publishers, ACTRA), the reality is that the government did not obtain a full cultural exception. In fact, after criticizing the Conservatives for accepting exceptions to the cultural exception in the TPP (and making it a key issue in the CPTPP once the U.S. exited the agreement), the Liberal government similarly included two exceptions and agreed to an extension in the term of copyright that will have a far more damaging impact on access to Canadian culture than any proposed USMCA provision.
Recent Posts
Meta to Test Blocking News Sharing on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in Response to Bill C-18’s Mandated Payments for Links 
Globe Publisher Calls Bill C-18 a “Threat to the Independence of Media” As Government Senate Representative Smears Bill Critics 
Extend the Deadline: My Submission to the CRTC on its Deeply Flawed Bill C-11 Consultations 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 168: Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne on How to Fix Bill C-27 
CRTC Chair Vicky Eatrides Faces Her First Big Test: Is the Commission Serious About Public Participation on Bill C-11?
