As the witness portion of the Canadian Heritage committee hearing into the Online News Act (Bill C-18) comes to a premature end later this week (a hearing is planned with Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and the CRTC, but remarkably Facebook, the CBC, and many experts will be blocked from appearing), new data from the Parliamentary Budget Office calls into question the claims of big benefits for Canadian newspapers. In fact, while the government has been anxious to cite the (questionable) PBO estimate that the bill will generate $329 million per year for Canadian news organizations, last week the PBO quietly released supplementary data that suggested it believes the vast majority of the money will actually go to the CBC, Bell, and other broadcasters. In fact, the supplementary data – posted with a link after the release of the PBO’s report – concludes that newspapers will receive less than 25% of the funding or about $81 million to split among hundreds of news outlets.
Telecom by yum9me (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/53jSy4
Telecom
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 138: John Lawford on the Legal, Regulatory and Policy Responses to the Rogers Outage
Rogers has provided some answers to the many questions about its massive outage last month that affected millions of Canadians. Yet there is still considerable uncertainty about what the government and CRTC are prepared to do to address ongoing concerns in the telecom sector. John Lawford is the Executive Director and General Counsel of PIAC, the Public Industry Advocacy Centre, which has been a leading consumer voice for decades in Canada. PIAC was the first to file a request with the CRTC seeking an inquiry into the outage. John and I were both participants at the Industry committee hearing into the outage and he joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss what we learned and what more can be done from a regulatory, legal, and policy perspective.
The Staffieri or Scott Quiz: Can You Tell the Difference Between the Rogers CEO and the CRTC Chair?
The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology hearing into the Rogers outage was notable for how similar Tony Staffieri, the Rogers CEO, and Ian Scott, the Chair of the CRTC, sounded on key issues related to the outage and the state of Canadian telecom regulation. In fact, Conservative MP Tracy Gray noted during the hearing that “listening to the answers from the executives at the CRTC, I felt like I was actually questioning senior telecom executives not the regulator.” Ms. Gray wasn’t wrong. While it is obviously the role of the CRTC to regulate the industry, the two were often indistinguishable, leading me to create this quiz with actual quotes from the hearing from Staffieri and Scott. Can you tell the difference?
The CRTC Shrugged: A Special Law Bytes Podcast on the Industry Committee Hearing Into the Rogers Outage
The Rogers outage came to Parliament Hill yesterday as the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology conducted four hours of hearings into the issue. The day started with Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, followed by Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri, CRTC Chair Ian Scott, and a panel of consumer and public interest voices. I was pleased to be part of the final panel and I’ve posted my opening remarks below and created a special Law Bytes podcast featuring my opening remarks and the question and answer session with MPs.
The Rogers Outage Aftermath: What Else Should Be On Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s Telecom To-Do List?
The massive Rogers outage took centre stage yesterday as CEOs of the leading telecom companies met with Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne to discuss next steps to reduce the likelihood of a similar event in the future. My initial post on the outage focused on three main issues: conducting hearings into the issue by both the CRTC and a House of Commons committee, competition policy, and consumer compensation. None of these issue were top of mind for the companies or Minister, who instead emphasized the need for agreements among the companies within 60 days on emergency roaming, mutual assistance during outages, and a communications protocol to better inform the public and authorities during telecommunications emergencies. The Minister also noted that there will also be a CRTC investigation.
While these are all useful steps largely modelled on similar developments in the United States, even Champagne acknowledged that this is “just a first step.” So what else should be on the government’s to-do list?
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