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We Need More Canada in the Training Data: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on AI and the Creative Sector
The government, led by AI Minister Evan Solomon, is currently conducting a short consultation on AI regulation that has attracted criticism for its short time frame. At the same time however, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage has been working through a study on AI and the creative sector that may be more limited in scope, but has featured a broader range of perspectives. I had the opportunity to appear before the committee yesterday where I lamented that too often debates on new technology is framed “as a threat, emphasizes cross-industry subsidies, and misses the opportunities new technology presents. We therefore need risk analysis that rejects entrenching the status quo and instead assesses the risks of both the technology and the policy response. I’ll post the full discussion (which ventured into AI transparency, copyright, the news sector, and much more) in a future Law Bytes podcast episode. In the meantime, my opening statement is embedded and posted below.
Privacy Lost: How the Government Deleted Bill C-11’s Key Privacy Principle Just Two Months After Passing it Into Law
The Online Streaming Act, the government controversial reform to the Broadcasting Act, continues to attract attention given an ongoing court challenge and backlash from the U.S. government. But there is another element of Bill C-11 that is deserving of attention. Due to what is likely a legislative error, the government deleted privacy safeguards that were included in the bill only two months after they were enacted. As a result, a provision stating that the Broadcasting Act “shall be construed and applied in a manner that is consistent with the right to privacy of individuals” was removed from the bill, leaving in its place two-near identical provisions related to official languages. The net effect is that with little notice (Monica Auer of FRPC spotted it), the Broadcasting Act has for the past two years included an interpretation clause that makes no sense and efforts to include privacy within in it are gone.
TIFF Removes October 7th Documentary Film From Schedule Citing Implausible Copyright Clearance Concerns From Hamas Terror Footage
The Toronto International Film Festival has removed from its 2025 schedule a documentary film by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich that tells the story of Noam Tibon’s mission to save his family during the October 7th attacks by Hamas in Israel. The film is based on the excellent book by Amir Tibon, the Gates of Gaza, which recounts both the rescue effort and the longstanding fraught relationship between Israel and Gaza. According to Deadline, the film, titled The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, was scheduled to be included in the program announced last week. But TIFF asked that the source of Hamas body-cam footage included in the film be identified and to provide copyright clearances for the video. You read that correctly: TIFF wanted the filmmakers to obtain copyright licences from Hamas terrorists.
Canada’s DST Debacle a Case Study of Digital Strategy Trouble
My Globe and Mail op-ed opens by noting that after years of dismissing the warnings of likely retaliation, the Canadian government caved to U.S. pressure earlier this week as it cancelled the digital services tax. Faced with the U.S. suspension of trade negotiations, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that the government would rescind the legislation that created it.
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.
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