C-18 different task than C-11: CRTC officials

The chair of the Senate's Transport and Communications committee Tuesday expressed annoyance that as the Senate continued its review of Bill C-18, new CRTC chair Vicky Eatrides was not on hand to answer for the regulator at the committee's meeting. "I do have to express on my behalf and I know on behalf of the deputy chair of this committee our displeasure of the fact that she didn't come to the committee to address some important questions," Senator Leo Housakos said. "We hope that that will be addressed in the near future, as well." The bill, also known as the Online News Act, will create a mandated system of collective bargaining where news organizations can negotiate for compensation with large internet platforms, subject to final offer arbitration from the CRTC. In their remarks before the Senators, CRTC officials sought to distinguish the commission's role under C-18 from its role under C-11, the Online Streaming Act. With the Online News Act, CRTC executive director of broadcasting Scott Shortliffe told the committee, the CRTC is merely tasked with administering a process, rather than enacting a policy. " Frankly, the more concrete measures we have in the bill – the less we want to interpret, or we're required to interpret – the better, from our perspective. Because this is not a bill that is designed to ask us to administer a policy it's asking us to administer a process," Shortliffe said. "In Bill C-18, unlike the Broadcasting Act, and unlike the Telecom Act, there is no policy direction power for the government," Shortliffe said later. When it comes to the topic of algorithmic manipulation, and whether or not platforms are unduly suppressing some news content as a type of punishment in the course of negotiations, CRTC legal counsel Adam Balkovec said that the process enumerated in the bill would require the news organization to argue its case in a complaint, which the platform – like Alphabet Inc.’s Google or Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook – would then have to respond to. "That would allow that sort of analysis to take place, rather than the commission sort of attempting to tinker with an algorithm, so to speak," Balkovec said. "It would really be on the platform to demonstrate in the context of a public proceeding that what they're doing is not retaliatory as part of the normal course of business, et cetera." Such a framework for undue preference will have to be put in place through the process of public consultation, the officials said, and explained that the CRTC had established a regulatory framework for telecommunications with regards to "throttling", or the manipulation of internet traffic. Shortliffe also told senators that Bill C-18 provides for "much greater transparency" than the model of news compensation that has been rolled out in Australia. "The commission will have a much greater understanding of what is happening than our colleagues in Australia. I think that will be useful especially when we get to questions like undue preference, which are inherently complicated," Shortliffe said, referencing provisions in the bill that require independent auditing. The CRTC official added that because the deals between news organizations and platforms are allowed to remain private under the Australian statute, the regulator there does not have a sense of how much money the bill has generated for the Australian news industry. He also said that the CRTC is "quite comfortable" that the organization has enough resources to handle the bill. The CRTC's director of news remuneration Daniel Pye said that there is a team in place, and that once it receives royal assent, it will continue to expand. "The capacity is not an issue at this point," Pye said. – Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

C-18 different task than C-11: CRTC officials

News | May 2, 2023

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C-18 different task than C-11: CRTC officials

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