OPINION | If Canada can’t regulate basic telecoms and streaming, good luck with AI and online harms

If Canada wants to sincerely and seriously attempt to be a “leader in the responsible adoption of AI,” it will take immense political will to ensure human dignity is not erased by powerful economic incentives and interests. This will also take deep institutional capacity. The same goes for addressing ongoing social harms from leviathanic so-called “social” media platforms. This matters because it appears today that when it comes to regulating basic communications services (telecommunications and broadcasting) in the public interest, we are floundering. If Canada cannot regulate communications, regulating AI and online harms is going to be far more challenging, with far worse outcomes for Canadians. Canada’s official policy when it comes to internet and wireless services is to “promote competition, affordability, consumer interests and innovation,” and its policy for streaming and traditional TV is about “supporting Canadian programming” and ensuring foreign streamers (e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime) equitably contribute in a way that “strongly supports a wide range of Canadian programming and Canadian creators” and supports the “discoverability and showcasing to promote a wide range of Canadian content.” But three recent CRTC proceedings suggest that the CRTC is struggling to execute. First, there was a hearing into modernizing the approach to supporting the creation and exhibition of Canadian content, which, beyond revisiting the definition of “Canadian content,” was basically about how to make sure giant foreign streamers pay into Canada’s cultural sector and contribute to our cultural industrial policy. Not surprisingly, some major streamers pulled out of the hearing at the last minute, conveying an unbecoming aloofness. Second, there was a recent hearing about how to implement Parliament’s legislated fiat to mandate broadband speed and quality information, under the auspices of “making it easier for consumers to shop for Internet services.” At that hearing there was the normally unusual inquiry into what the U.S. has done in this regard. Such an inquiry is normally unusual because one often looks to Canada’s ‘peer’ countries when identifying policy options and outcomes, such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and indeed the United States of America. Regrettably, the panel of CRTC Commissioners, and essentially all of the companies who appeared at the hearing, did not take notice of the dire moment in the United States. Canadian companies urged the CRTC to look at the U.S. experience with broadband labels and how the CRTC’s U.S. counterpart the Federal Communications Commission is looking to “delete” regulations including mandatory broadband information disclosure. The FCC even launched a new docket titled “In re: delete, delete, delete,” a “massive deregulation initiative” focused on the interests of businesses, not consumers. As I told the commission, aside from the fact that the rule of law in the U.S. is on its deathbed, it’s time for Canada to dare to be different. (I also made the same appeal during the recent hearing about CanCon.) Third, there was yet another decision in the long story about how to improve competition in the home internet service market. It is specifically about whether the so-called “Big Three” of Rogers, Bell and Telus should have to share their networks with other players, and more controversially whether the Big Three would be able to share each others’ networks. Too long a story, in too short a description: yes, even the Big Three are entitled to use each others’ networks even though a primary goal of the regime is to put competitive pressure on the Big Three’s oligopoly. Since as long as I have been involved in the telecom industry (starting out at what was once MTS Allstream) perpetual uncertainty and litigation has been the norm. The wait continues. Even with Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s backing of the CRTC on Wednesday, uncertainty lingers with the possibility of more appellate litigation. Perhaps the wholesale framework would benefit from being clearly defined in legislation, not regulatory policies that are subject to ongoing challenges. Whatever the regime is, it should be implemented so that consumers can see for themselves if it works to deliver, on a long-term basis, consumer benefits. Why does this matter? If the CRTC cannot (i) require ISPs to offer Canadians standard information about their service and backstop it with a minimum guaranteed speed (as opposed to meaningless “up to” speeds), (ii) require foreign streamers to play ball, and/or (iii) stand up a predictable, stable wholesale access framework that honours government policy, then it simply is not up to the task of tackling bigger issues. If our telecom regulator struggles to regulate telecoms, and our broadcast/content regulator struggles to regulate foreign streamers, it suggests a potentially broader impotence of Canadian institutions to deal with the biggest issues of the day: online safety and artificial intelligence. Kids still can too easily fall prey to eating disorder training videos and sexually explicit and/or sexually violent content, to take an obvious example. Now imagine AI-fuelled discrimination that will be impossible to detect unless standards (not best practices and voluntary codes) and reporting requirements are imposed. To be blunt: at the moment there is little hope in ever putting needed consumer protections onto the major online services. Meanwhile, U.S.-based platforms can breathe easy, knowing Canada is not, at this moment, anywhere close to being able to regulate them. The recent, sudden death of the Digital Services Tax in response to President Donald Trump’s latest threat sadly illustrates this. A few years ago, I was seconded from my post at the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel’s Secretariat, to help advise on the expert panel’s recommendations for legislative reform . Many Wire Report readers were likely involved in extensive work on submissions to the BTLR, and the final report contained numerous ways to improve the CRTC as an institution in terms of its ability to get things done. What was even the point of running that process if today the same issues dog the Commission? Geoff White, JD, MBA, BCL(Oxf), ICD.D, is executive director and general counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), a not-for-profit advocacy group that for decades has fought for better outcomes for all Canadians and in particular vulnerable Canadians in sectors such as communications, privacy, energy, transportation, and financial services. The Wire Report welcomes submissions of opinion pieces from outside contributors who are knowledgeable on the subject matter discussed. For more information on what should be included with opinion piece submissions, click here: hilltimes.com/submit-an-article. Submissions can be sent to editor Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca. To see previous opinion piece submissions, click here: thewirereport.ca/tag/opinion/.

OPINION | If Canada can’t regulate basic telecoms and streaming, good luck with AI and online harms

Opinion |
By Geoff White
| August 8, 2025

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OPINION | If Canada can’t regulate basic telecoms and streaming, good luck with AI and online harms

Opinion | By Geoff White | August 8, 2025

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