Industry committee questions CRTC on Online News Act, decision timelines

As three of the CRTC’s top brass appeared before the federal Standing Committee on Industry and Technology earlier this week, they were asked to run MPs through how it operates and why it does what it does. Conservative MP Michael Guglielmin (Vaughan—Woodbridge) asked CRTC chairperson Vicky Eatrides, vice president of broadcasting Scott Shortliffe, and vice president of consumer analytics and strategy Scott Hutton during their appearance Wednesday, Sept. 24 to comment on problems caused for local news outlets by the Online News Act. While it was built to benefit Canadian news businesses, Guglielmin noted that “we’ve already heard from local outlets … that their audience essentially disappeared overnight when pulled out.” He offered up the example of the River Valley Sun in New Brunswick, which he said relied heavily on Facebook for sharing its news content, seeing “around half a million engagements in a typical month before the news ban saw the audience abruptly cut off.” “Given what we’ve seen so far, do you think you can confidently say that independent rural and start-up publishers are benefitting from this legislation, or do you feel that they’re being further marginalized?”, Guglielmin asked. In response, Shortliffe reminded the committee that the CRTC is an arms-length tribunal. “As the tribunal, we were not responsible for the legislation. We were asked to administer it. So I have to be very careful, because it’s not our role to either criticize or applaud legislation, it’s our role to administer it,” he said. “What I can say is we do see that $100 million is flowing into the news system, and it is going to a wide variety of news outlets across Canada. That is not to say that that means there are not news outlets that are being negatively affected,” Shortliffe added. “It’s not to say that there is not more that can be done for news in Canada. But what we can say is that our part of it, which is to assure that that money flows to both print outlets and broadcasting outlets, is happening.” He added that there will “shortly” be a public report on what the CRTC has seen to date. The CRTC speakers were also asked to discuss the amount of time it takes for them to reach decisions, as some decisions can sometimes take years. The reps were asked if the CRTC hopes to accelerate the process. Eatrides said in French the CRTC has a lot of internal processes, “but the issue is that we are also a tribunal. We have to do public hearings as well as consultations. Our operating methods are a little different.” news@thewirereport.ca

Industry committee questions CRTC on Online News Act, decision timelines

Regulatory |
By Wire Report Staff
|September 25, 2025

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Industry committee questions CRTC on Online News Act, decision timelines

Regulatory | By Wire Report Staff |September 25, 2025

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