Freedom of expression safe from CRTC, says majority of C-10 expert panel

The majority of the broadcasting experts invited before the House of Commons Heritage Committee Monday say they endorse the government’s move to include social media in the revised Broadcasting Act for the sake of the Canadian cultural sector to “thrive in the global market.” “Many artists and musicians lived below the poverty line before the pandemic... And the pandemic is also underlying the systemic inequities in the market that have led to diminish compensation for creators. This imbalance has put the promise of a stable middle-class sector of artists and arts and cultural workers, further and further out of reach for this country. The sector is in crisis,” Andrew Cash, president and CEO of the Canadian Independent Music Association, invited by the NDP caucus, told the committee. The committee heard from four industry experts Monday -- a week after it moved to suspend its review on Bill C-10 while it got a revised charter statement and clarity on the freedom of speech implications from both the Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault and Justice Minister David Lametti. Chair of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel (BTLR) Janet Yale -- invited by the Liberal caucus to Monday’s meeting -- said the inclusion of social media platforms, such as Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube which make revenue from Canadian audiences but do not currently contribute financially to the broadcasting system, under the Broadcasting Act “recognizes the realities of a borderless online world in which Canadians will seek to access media content based on personal interest, irrespective of platform or technology.” “To imagine that in 2021 we would permit these platforms to make money from Canadian audiences, Canadian consumers, and Canadian creativity, without any corresponding contribution, it defies logic, particularly when our system imposes obligations on now much smaller, less powerful and less prosperous, traditional broadcasters,” Yale told the committee. Cash noted to the committee that studies found that during the first nine months of the pandemic the independent music sector saw a drop in revenue of $233 million, live music saw a drop in income of 79 per cent and independent sound recording and publishing companies saw a 41 per cent decline in revenue. He said the sector’s activity is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2024. “But as we move towards recovery, we must address the elephant in the room that digital giants doing business in Canada make lots of money off Canadians but pay fractions of a cent to content creators, and they operate here without any accountability or regulatory obligations,” he said. Yale said Bill C-10, as amended to date, is in line with the BTLR panel’s report which recommended putting regulatory burdens and the obligation to contribute to Canadian production on platforms and not on individual users or content creators. She further reiterated Liberal talking points that users remain protected under the bill and said thinking otherwise “is just wrong” and that critics of the move “intentionally seek to mislead people for some other purpose.” However, Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa -- the lone voice on the panel siding with the Conservative Party against the inclusion of social media -- said at the committee hearing that including social media is a risk to net neutrality, also noting that no other country uses its broadcast regulation to regulate user-generated content. “It's not about whether we regulate algorithms, it's about whether the CRTC and the government uses those algorithms to determine or prioritize or deprioritize what we can see,” he said, adding that he supports the Canadian cultural sector but thinks there are more creative ways to boost the industry. Professor at the Public Law Research Centre at the Université de Montréal Pierre Trudel, invited by the Bloc Québécois, said (according to simultaneous translation) that Bill C-10 “strengthens the fundamental rights of all Canadians” by empowering the CRTC to require online undertakings to provide information regarding its use of algorithms or artificial intelligence. However, Geist turned to Bill C-11, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, which in his view, “would move towards modernizing Canada's privacy rules to help address concerns about how these companies collect and use our data” and would “also mandate algorithmic transparency, which is much needed and are different from government-mandated algorithmic outcomes,” he said, stating that he was “puzzled and discouraged by the lack of interest” in the bill. Geist also said that the updated C-10 charter statement was weak, saying it “simply does not contain analysis or discussion about how the regulation of user-generated content as a program intersects with the charter,” adding that it also lacked discussion on the “implications of deprioritizing speech, the use of terms such as social media service that aren't even defined in the bill, and of the implementation issues that could require Canadians to disclose personal location-based information in order to comply with new ill-defined requirements.” Lametti has agreed to appear before the Heritage committee on Tuesday, after declining an invitation to testify at last Friday’s meeting. Guilbeault will also appear before the committee for the second time in the last week. -- Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca

Freedom of expression safe from CRTC, says majority of C-10 expert panel

News | 05/17/2021 6:16 pm EDT

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