Digital policies did not play a prominent role in the last election given the intense focus on the Canada-U.S. relationship. Prime Minister Mark Carney started as a bit of a blank slate on the issue, but over the past few months a trend has emerged as he distances himself from the Justin Trudeau approach with important shifts on telecom, taxation, and the regulation of artificial intelligence. Further, recent hints of an openness to re-considering the Online News Act and heightened pressure from the U.S. on the Online Streaming Act suggests that a full overhaul may be a possibility.
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Let Competition Be the Guide: Why the Government and CRTC Got It Right on Wholesale Fibre Broadband Access
Late last night, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced that the government was leaving in place a CRTC decision that granted wholesale access to fibre networks. By sheer coincidence, today the Globe and Mail runs my opinion piece on the issue, in which I argued that maximizing competition regardless of provider should be the guiding principle for the government. I start by noting that the Canadian struggle to foster greater competition in telecom and Internet services dates back decades. As early in the 1970s, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) mandated that dominant companies such as Bell provide access to their key network infrastructure to open the door to new marketplace entrants. In recent years, the debates have shifted to granting wholesale access to wireless and Internet networks to inject competition into those services.
Government Seeks To Exempt Political Parties From Privacy Laws Even As CRTC Reports They Are Leading Source of Spam Complaints
I have previously written about Bill C-4, legislation framed as an affordability measures bill, but which also exempts political parties from the application of privacy protections on a retroactive basis dating back to 2000. The provisions give political parties virtually unlimited power to collect, use and disclose personal information with no ability for privacy commissioners to address violations. Minister François Philippe Champagne has avoided mentioning the privacy provisions when discussing the bill and not a single Liberal MP has discussed it during House of Commons debates.
Quebec’s Streaming Regulation Bill 109: Unconstitutional, Unnecessary, and Unworkable
The federal government’s plans to regulate internet streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify through the Online Streaming Act have been mired in regulatory battles and court cases for many months. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the government’s plans finally took a small step forward last month, as Canada’s broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, completed weeks of hearings into what counts as Canadian content, or “Cancon.”
Yet in the midst of the latest hearings, the Quebec government threw a monkey wrench into the entire process. Not content to wait for the CRTC process to play out, the provincial government introduced its own streaming regulation bill that is likely to spark a constitutional challenge. Quebec’s Bill 109 contemplates government intervention into how content is presented to subscribers, and would introduce unprecedented quota requirements that could lead to blocked services in Quebec or the removal of thousands of non-French titles from content libraries.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 234: “Solutions Aren’t Going to be Found Through Nostalgia”: Mark Musselman on the CRTC Hearings on Canadian Content Rules
The CRTC recently wrapped up a two-week hearing on the Online Streaming Act that featured most of the usual suspects, though notably not the large streaming services. The Commission grappled with foundational issues such as modernizing the definition of Canadian content, instituting IP requirements, and introducing new discoverability rules into Canada’s broadcasting regulatory framework.
Mark Musselman is a former entertainment lawyer, longtime Canadian movie producer, current PhD student focused on cultural and legal policy, and the author of the White Paper Black Coffee substack. Having appeared many times before the CRTC, he joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the recent Cancon hearing, breaking down the major issues of debate and identifying what was missing from the discussion.
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