Post Tagged with: "crtc"

Konrad Von Finckenstein - CRTC Chairman @ Banff World Media Festival 2011 by Kempton (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/9Ticaw

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 152: Konrad von Finckenstein on the Challenges That Lie Ahead for the CRTC

The start of a new year often means a fresh start and for the CRTC, it meant welcoming a new chair, as Vicky Eatrides officially took over as chair a few days into 2023. Eatrides comes to the Commission at a particularly busy time with wireless competition concerns top of mind for many Canadians and the government set to ask the Commission to play a pivotal role in implementing Bills C-11 and C-18.

Konrad von Finckenstein is someone who knows quite a bit about the challenges faced by new CRTC chairs, having served in the role from 2007 to 2012. He was recently appointed to the Order of Canada for his many contributions to public life and he joins me on the Law Bytes podcast to reflect on those experiences in the context of the CRTC. Our conversation reflects on what is involved in launching entirely new programs, ensuring public engagement, and developing policies that enjoy both public support and can withstand potential legal challenges.

January 16, 2023 — 6 comments — Podcasts

Human rights protest, USA - unknown date, (CC0 1.0) https://www.rawpixel.com/image/6111479/human-rights-protest-usa-unknown-date

Shakedown Complete: The Story Behind Bill C-18’s Shameful Legislative Review Process and the Race to Mandate Payment for Links

Later today, the House of Commons will vote to approve Bill C-18, the Online News Act, sending it to the Senate just prior to breaking for the holidays. While Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and media lobbyists will no doubt celebrate the milestone, it should not go unremarked that the legislative process for this bill has been an utter embarrassment with an already bad bill made far worse. The government cut off debate at second reading, actively excluded dozens of potential witnesses, expanded the bill to hundreds of broadcasters that may not even produce news, denigrated online news services as “not real news”, and shrugged off violations of international copyright law. All the while, it acknowledged that mandated payments for links are the foundation of the bill with officials stating that individual Facebook posts accompanied by a link to a news story would be caught by the law. As for the purported financial benefits, the government’s own estimates are less than half those of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who also concluded that more than 75% of the revenues will go to broadcasters such as Bell, Rogers, and the CBC. The end result is a bill that will undermine competition and pose a threat to freedom of expression, while potentially leading Facebook to block news sharing in Canada and Google to cancel dozens of existing agreements with Canadian news outlets.

December 14, 2022 — 12 comments — News

so what now? by Andrew Fleming https://flic.kr/p/a5iYtc (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Senate Committee Completes Its Review of Bill C-11: What Comes Next?

The Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications completed its extensive review of Bill C-11 last week. After a review for grammatical, editorial, and translation issues, the committee is expected to finalize its report back to the Senate later today. While the next steps for Bill C-11 remain somewhat uncertain, the committee should be congratulated for providing a model for legislative review. Indeed, the Senate committee was everything the House committee was not: policy focused, open to hearing from a wide range of witnesses, and willing to engage in meaningful debate on potential amendments. Politics occasionally arose during the clause-by-clause review, but political considerations were never going to be entirely stripped from a highly politicized piece of legislation.

I may have missed the odd change, but the following amendments were approved by the committee:

December 13, 2022 — 5 comments — News

Radio local, Dawson City, Yukón, Canadá, 2017-08-27, DD 64.jpg by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Money for Nothing: Government Quietly Expands Bill C-18 Eligibility to Broadcasters That May Not Even Produce News Content

Later today, the Canadian Heritage committee will continue its clause-by-clause review of Bill C-18, the Online News Act. The committee is virtually certain to expand the eligibility of news outlets, responding to concerns that the current criteria may exclude smaller, independent outlets from benefiting from the bill’s mandatory payment/arbitration system. However, earlier this week, just as the committee was hearing that the bill covers quotes with links to news content by users in Facebook posts, it quietly expanded the scope of the definition of “eligible news business” in a manner that opened the eligibility door to some organizations that may not even produce news content. As a result, the bill faces another potential trade challenge as it evolves into a straight subsidy model in which the bulk of the payments go from Internet companies to Canadian broadcasters with little regard for value or any notion of actually use of news content.

December 2, 2022 — 7 comments — News

CRTC at Senate TRMC Committee, November 16, 2022, https://senparlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20221116/-1/11512

Oops, He Did It Again: CRTC Chair Ian Scott Tries to Walk Back Bill C-11 Comments, But Officials Confirm Power to Regulate User Content is in the Bill

CRTC Chair Ian Scott returned to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications last night, presumably hoping that his fourth House and Senate committee appearance involving Bill C-11 might allow him to say what the government clearly would like, namely that the bill will not lead to the regulation of user content. Yet Scott has failed each time, because the bill plainly does contain that power. In this instance, Scott embarrassed himself, the CRTC, and the entire legislative process as he demonstrably failed to defend the independence of the CRTC and zig-zagged between actively promoting the bill, claiming that was not his role, and even bizarrely offering to draft potential amendments.

November 17, 2022 — 15 comments — News