Post Tagged with: "crtc"

'TEST' by Paul Downey https://flic.kr/p/8Zqja (CC BY 2.0)

CRTC Chair Vicky Eatrides Faces Her First Big Test: Is the Commission Serious About Public Participation on Bill C-11?

Earlier this month, the CRTC issued the first three of what may become at least nine public consultations on Bill C-11. As I lamented in a post on the consultations, “with short timelines, no resources or support mechanisms for new groups and entities interested in participating, and the absence of the policy direction, this is not a serious attempt to fully engage in Canadians.” A wide range of Canadian cultural, consumer, and independent groups have now escalated the issue by formally asking the CRTC to extend its submission period to late July rather than the current June deadlines. The request, which comes from groups that have both supported and criticized Bill C-11, should be a no-brainer given the absurdly short deadlines that severely limit the ability of many groups to effectively participate in the Bill C-11 consultation process. 

Read more ›

May 23, 2023 4 comments News
 2015 “Netflix – Generic Photo – Creative Commons” by Matthew Keys. (CC BY-ND 2.0). https://flic.kr/p/vsTUgA 

Ready, Fire, Aim: Eleven Thoughts on the CRTC’s Bill C-11 Consultations

The CRTC last week released the first three of at least nine planned consultations on the implementation of Bill C-11 (I was out of the country teaching an intensive course so playing catch-up right now). The consultations focus on the broad structure of the regulatory framework, registration requirements, and transitions from the current system of exemptions to one of regulations. The timeline to participate in this consultation is extremely tight with comments due as early as June 12th for two of the consultations and June 27th for the larger regulatory framework one.  As the title of this post suggests, the CRTC is adopting an approach of shoot first, aim later. The consultations suggest that there is little interest in hearing from anyone outside of the legacy groups that have long dominated CRTC hearings. Indeed, by moving forward with incredibly tight timelines, without the government’s promised policy directive, and without support for newer groups to back their participation, the documents leave the distinct impression that the Commission had surrendered its independence and already made up its mind on how to implement Bill C-11.

Read more ›

May 18, 2023 11 comments News
Compromised by Outsider.ne.kr https://flic.kr/p/21xGejr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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. 

Read more ›

April 27, 2023 22 comments News
Posters-Turin-Eurovision-2022 by acediscovery, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Read more ›

April 20, 2023 5 comments News
I Hear Future Voices / Nives Meloni (CH) and Julian Pixel Schmiederer (AT) by Ars Electronica https://flic.kr/p/2nCkTbt (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Why the Senate Should Restore the User Content Amendment and Send Bill C-11 Back to the House of Commons

Bill C-11 took a major step forward late last week as the government cut off debate yet again and forced a vote on an amended bill that rejected the Senate’s fix to concerns about user content regulation. The vote has sparked heated debates on social media, including mistaken insistence by some that the bill does not affect user content (it clearly does) or that it will censor what Canadians can say online (it will not). The reality is that Bill C-11 has important freedom of expression implications not because it will limit people’s ability to speak, but because government regulation may affect their ability to be heard. Given those implications – and the government’s inability to cite a credible justification for rejecting an amendment to address the problem by excluding user content from potential regulation – I believe the Senate should send the bill back to the House once more by restoring the amendment.

Read more ›

April 4, 2023 7 comments News