Liberals signal interest in enshrining net neutrality in law

OTTAWA — The idea of of explicitly making net neutrality part of Canada’s laws has been floated in recent days by federal politicians, with a Liberal MP planning to introduce a motion on the subject in the House of Commons and the question popping up at the House ethics committee. Committee chairman Nathaniel Erskine-Smith asked CRTC representatives whether Parliament should consider putting net neutrality in law at a Tuesday morning appearance. “I think it’s definitely worth looking at,” Christopher Seidl, executive director of telecommunications at the CRTC, said in response to the question posed by the Liberal MP. However, he noted that the current legislation has already given the CRTC “the flexibility and the powers that are needed to introduce .” The CRTC has used provisions within the Telecommunications Act governing protection against unjust discrimination or preference to ground its decisions, which make up Canada’s net neutrality framework. The committee meeting follows a notice of motion put forth Friday by Oakville, Ont. Liberal MP John Oliver, who suggested the government further recognize the importance of net neutrality and cement it in law. The motion, which has already been filed, asks the House to “call on the government to include net neutrality as a guiding principle of the upcoming Telecommunications Act and Broadcasting Act reviews in order to explore opportunities to further enshrine in legislation the principles of neutrality in the provision and carriage of all telecommunications services.” The government announced its intentions to review the two pieces of legislation in the 2017 budget. A start date for that review has not yet been set. The government and both the Conservatives and the NDP have said they support net neutrality. Meanwhile, the United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in December to repeal net neutrality laws. “I would say Canada is a leader when it comes to net neutrality, but we can’t take it for granted,” Oliver said in a phone interview Tuesday, adding the issue has been big among his constituency and drove the push for a motion. “We did some pretty extensive consultations so I know there is broad support for it in caucus, other members from other parties have certainly in favour of net neutrality, and with government, spoken to various decision makers in the appropriate ministries to make sure that we’re on line with the directions” and that they would “be comfortable,” Oliver said. He noted there will need to be conversations with key stakeholders, such as internet service providers (ISPs), content providers and user groups, to move forward with the plan. Oliver said he expects the motion will be debated for two hours in the House in March. The motion only recommends the government take certain actions, but would not change the law itself if passed, as a bill would. The discussions surrounding net neutrality come just over a week after a cross-industry coalition filed an application to the CRTC to institute a system to block websites with pirated content. While Oliver said his motion is not intended to deal with pirated content — though he noted he does not support pirated content — he said the idea of blocking sites is “incredibly dangerous” and infringes on net neutrality principles. “This is why it’s so important that a conversation takes place between government and the key stakeholders,” he said, adding its intention is to avoid losing principles of net neutrality while simultaneously addressing pirated content. In the wake of the application, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains reiterated the government’s support for an open internet for ‘legal content.’ Seidl said during his opening remarks in front of the ethics committee Tuesday that he would not comment on the website-blocking application. But addressing whether to codify net neutrality in law, he said Parliament should be cautious about putting “anything hard” in the legislation that “might not fit with the flexibility you might want going forward.” That kind of flexibility could include exemptions for something as minor as accessing your bill online to those considered more substantial public goods, including where emergency services are involved, Seidl explained. “It’s very much a nuanced approach to those provisions, allowing us to look at the issues based on facts before us to understand where to draw the line because it’s not a black-and-white line — you don’t want to overregulate and overprovision that into legislation where you don’t have that flexibility to address specific cases,” Seidl added. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Liberals signal interest in enshrining net neutrality in law

News | 02/06/2018 7:24 pm EST

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