The CRTC’s Bill C-11 consultations are off to a rocky start with mounting concern over short deadlines that may limit public participation and reduce the quality of the submissions. A dozen groups have asked the Commission to extend the deadlines with more groups joining in the call. The deadline for comment on the extension ended yesterday and I navigated an exceptionally difficult consultation process (more on that shortly) to submit the comments posted below. I support the extension but argue that a better approach would be to wait until the government’s policy direction process is final and there is certainty on support for public interest group participation.
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Fixing Bill C-18: My Appearance Before the Senate Standing Committee on Transportation and Communication
I was pleased to appear yesterday before the Senate Standing Committee on Transportation and Communication on Bill C-18. The discussion focused on a wide range of issues, including the risks of mandating payments for links, the non-compliance with international copyright obligations, why the CBC should not be included in the payment for links system, and how a fund would be a better approach. My opening statement, which tried to identify some fixes to the bill, is posted below as text and as a Youtube video.
The Bill C-11 Compromise That Never Came
The long legislative road of Bill C-11 comes to an end later today as nearly 2 1/2 years after the original Bill C-10 was first tabled in the House of Commons by then-Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, the Senate will vote to approve the bill. I’ve been asked repeatedly this week about what now lies ahead, but I think it is worth one more look back. I have long believed that politics invariably involves compromise as governments look to maximize the political benefit and limit the political risk from any given policy. The emphasis on compromise is why stakeholders rarely walk away entirely happy on most issues that feature a diversity of views, whether it is copyright, privacy, or Internet regulation. Yet with Bill C-11, compromise from the government never came.
Government Gets the Law Wrong as it Finally Makes the Case Why it is Rejecting the Bill C-11 User Content Regulation Fix
With Bill C-11 in the final stretch – Senate approval could come this week – the government finally provided a more detailed explanation for rejecting the Senate’s user content regulation fix. Indeed, after weeks of false or empty justifications for the rejection, Senator Marc Gold, the government’s representative in the Senate, at long last tried to make the case for rejecting the amendment. Leaving aside the fact that if there were problems with the amendment, it was open to the government – and is still open to the Senate – to fix any perceived problems by amending the amendment, the reality is that Senator Gold’s explanation gets the law wrong. It is sad that as the bill nears passage, the government doesn’t seem to understand or misleads on the impact of its own legislation. I realize that another long post isn’t going to change that, but the thousands of Canadian creators who spoke out on their concerns deserve better.