Senate committee completes work on Bill C-11

The Senate committee studying the Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11, officially completed its work after spending a total of 65 hours in clause-by-clause review and passing 25 amendments. The Senate Committee of Transport and Communications spent Wednesday and Thursday in meetings finalizing the bill. In a pair of Wednesday meeting the committee passed an amendment brought forward by Senator René Cormier of the Independent Senators Group to force the CRTC to hold public hearings with respect to the amendment or renewal of a licence and other regulatory or order making powers, unless the commission deems it is not in the public interest. Conservative Senator Fabian Manning was worried that the commission would alone be able to determine whether a decision was in the public interest, and noted that several witnesses have already complained that decisions were made behind closed doors. Cormier said the amendment would actually add accountability because the CRTC would have to be accountable for its decision if it is deemed something was not in the public interest. Government representative in the Senate, Senator Marc Gold, said the government could not support the motion because the effect of the amendment would be very labor intensive for the CRTC over its current digital consultation process. He also argued that the amendment would scope in “many granular matters” which again he noted would be labor intensive. Associate assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs Thomas Owen Ripley said the government did not impose a public hearing on the CRTC because it is moving from a licence-based system to regulatory-based system – the former involves a renewal process every five to seven years whereas the latter system likely requires more frequent decisions to be made. The amendment passed 10 to four. During the pair of Thursday meetings the committee also voted to require the CRTC to table its reports on the progress of the Online Streaming Act's implementation with Parliament, while rejecting a subsequent move to shorten the length of the CRTC's mandatory reporting period from seven to five years. The seven year period, according to Ripley, fits with the "natural policy cycle" at the CRTC, as that is the usual length of broadcasting licenses issued by the regulator. The committee also considered a number of amendments on the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada. While the broadcaster's mandate and functioning is not implicated in Bill C-11, Senator Percy Downe of the Canadian Senators Group maintained that under Senate rules, senators can propose amendments aimed at addressing the underlying act a bill seeks to change, an argument that the senators on the committee accepted. Downe sought to ban sponsored content from the CBC, specifically referencing the controversial Tandem initiative. He said that the organization has a "mandate that goes beyond the bottom line," and that a number of CBC journalists had reached out to him asking for the amendment. The amendment passed 10 to three, with one abstention. Other amendments relating to the public broadcaster failed. Downe asked senators on the committee to impose a $2 million per day administrative monetary penalty on CBC when it engages what Downe called a violation of its mandate by cutting local news broadcasts. Downe explained that in the early days of the pandemic, when CBC leadership based in Toronto decided to cut local news television broadcasts in favor of a central broadcast, PEI residents were left without any locally produced television news in the province. "They left us on our own when we most needed them," Downe said. The motion failed eight to six. Manning unsuccessfully moved an amendment to constitute a regulatory regime for the maintenance of Radio Canada International, CBC's international service, in language that Manning said was almost entirely based in executive orders-in-council from 2003 and 2012. "My goal here is to entrench these objectives in the Broadcasting Act, rather than leave the directives in orders-in-council that can easily be changed," Manning said. Other failed amendments included a motion from Senator Paula Simons of the Independent Senators Group during the Wednesday meetings which she said would ensure that mandatory carriage services, such as APTN or CPAC, are placed on equal footing with broadcasters should the commission need to intervene in their disputes. Simons requested that “the commission may, in furtherance of its objects, make regulations for resolving by way of mediation or otherwise any disputes arising between broadcasting undertaking concerning the carriage of programming services.” Gold said the government opposed the amendment because the dispute resolution powers of the CRTC “were derived from a time where they were limited to channels who distribute content.” He argued that given there are a number of ways to now share content, the amendment might encroach on provincial responsibilities and trade agreements. “There had been some concerns raised that because this involves private organizations contracts, that can be provincial jurisdiction. But I would argue that because broadcasting is federally regulated, and in the federal gambit, that there is no constitutional question. Believe me, I'm from Alberta, we are extremely sensitive on the subject of federal trespass into provincial jurisdiction,” Simons argued back. Ripley added that the decision was made not to extend that power to the online undertakings, but instead provide an opportunity in the bill for the CRTC to put in place a complaint process if they believe that there has been unjust discrimination against those services. Simons also brought forward an amendment which would have forced aggregation services such as Amazon Prime and Apple, as well as new linear services, including Roku, Samsung and Pluto TV, to be subject to a negotiation protocol with those services. The amendment failed. In the pair of Thursday sessions Senators on the committee rejected an effort from Saskatchewan Senator Pamela Wallin that would have included language in the bill stating that the government has "no intention of requiring online undertakings to manipulate algorithms of source code for the purposes of enforcing discoverability." Montreal Senator Leo Housakos said that Bill C-11 and the possibility of discoverability enforcement contained within it was an instance of Parliament going into a "flourishing" industry, in this case streaming and digital content creation, to tamper with it for the benefit of a failing sector – traditional broadcasting. Despite support from a number of senators who cited creator concerns, the motion failed nine votes to five. – Reporting and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca .

Senate committee completes work on Bill C-11

News | December 9, 2022

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Senate committee completes work on Bill C-11

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