By Etan Vlessing
OTTAWA – Janet Yale, chair of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Review (BTLR), on Monday argued the federal government’s proposed Bill C-10 is “future forward” legislation for the digital age as it seeks to embed increasingly dominant foreign online players in Canada’s TV regulatory system as content curators.
“It’s a simple, effective way to bring online undertakings into the legislative framework and support cultural policy on a like-for-like basis,” said Yale (right) on Monday during a virtual debate with University of Ottawa professor and Bill C-10 critic Michael Geist (left) during the Canadian Media Producers Association annual Prime Time event.
Geist countered saying Bill C-10, by forcing foreign digital players into a Canadian regulatory straitjacket, threatened to undermine local broadcasters and producers. “What we are doing is consigning our broadcasters and our Canadian broadcast system to be second class citizens in their own country.”
Bill C-10 of course is the proposed federal legislation to modernize the Broadcasting Act and the longstanding CRTC-written Canadian broadcast policies informed by that legislation.
Their differences came down to Yale looking to Ottawa to regulate online streaming players and have them contribute to Canadian content production, while Geist called on the federal government to properly and normally tax foreign digital platforms, rather than upend the Canadian industry and hope the CRTC gets the details right.
“It strikes me as odd that there’s this willingness to literally blow up the system and say the entire world is now subject to the Canadian jurisdiction and put all this faith in the CRTC and in secret policy directives, but somehow it’s not touchable to even examine that fundamental question of whether or not the underlying purpose of what’s Canadian is being served,” Geist argued at one point.
Yale’s Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel report, entitled Canada’s Communication Future: Time to Act, is what informed Bill C-10, which would have foreign digital platforms become online broadcasters contributing to independent TV production domestically.
“The future of Canadian sovereignty is at risk,” Yale added in her opening remarks as she pointed to global and unregulated digital platforms increasingly taking market share in Canada.
But during an exchange moderated by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien (middle), Geist questioned whether Bill C-10 can bring about the policy reforms its proponents seek – namely, supporting Canadian content creators and getting foreign streamers to help do so. “There is no free lunch. What appears to be free money comes at enormous cost, and not just to consumers in the form of higher bills, but the loss of fundamental principles such as Canadian ownership and control of the broadcasting system,” Geist said during his own opening statement.
While Yale insisted Bill C-10 aimed to put Canadian broadcasters and foreign streaming platforms on a level playing field in an increasingly global business, Geist countered the Internet was an entirely different beast than traditional TV and its historical distribution via cable.
Geist rejected the idea the Internet is simply a newer and more technological form of cable, and so should be regulated like old media.
“The bill is trying to treat this as part of one system, because the content being viewed is the same… but in doing so has to tear down much of the current system along the way,” he argued as he pointed to simultaneous substitution and other key pillars of traditional Canadian broadcasting not applying to foreign digital platforms.
Geist also added big streamers like Netflix may choose to register and participate in the Canadian regulatory system, or draw back from the market and license its content to Crave. He predicted some global streamers might skip the Canadian market altogether when faced with regulations that would claim a percentage of revenues.
“The big players are using their argument as a way to try and diminish the political will of the government to take the steps that are necessary to stop them getting a free ride on the Canadian market.” – Janet Yale
Yale, accusing Geist of “fear-mongering,” countered any business model was subject to risk and uncertainty, and Ottawa needed time to get the legislation behind Bill C-10 right. “The big players are using their argument as a way to try and diminish the political will of the government to take the steps that are necessary to stop them getting a free ride on the Canadian market,” Yale added.
But Geist insisted Canadian cultural policy would be better served through taxation than by over-reaching and regulating streaming services like broadcasters by reaching into their deep pockets. “This isn’t about controlling those large companies. This is about trying to squeeze them out and treat them as effectively an ATM,” he said.
As to what was not in Bill C-10, Yale said the role of indie producers in creating local content and intellectual property needed to be respected and supported by foreign streamers. “We need to ensure there’s regulatory terms of trade,” she argued, in order to allow the CRTC to intervene and preserve the bargaining power of local producers when doing business with foreign digital platforms.
Geist countered the Canadian-content protections that Yale called for was more about who was creating the content, and should own it, than the content itself. He pointed to Amazon Prime and Kids in the Hall and Netflix and Trailer Park Boys and questioned whether ordinary Canadian fans worried about the progeny of those series.
“We know there’s a myriad of programs that are Canadian when they don’t really reflect Canadian stories,” Geist argued of the elastic nature of traditional “Canadian-content” definitions.
The debate, feisty at times (and which can be viewed here), came down to whether foreign streamers should support indie producers as do domestic broadcasters, and whether it was feasible to demand U.S. digital platforms be compelled to invest in Canadian content over which they will have no control or ownership.
“They’re spending the money anyways, the issue is whether they’re doing it in a way that furthers Canadian cultural policy,” Yale contended.
“The notion that Canada will step in and require payments of hundreds of millions of dollars and at the same time tell these organizations you don’t get to own any of that, a regulator in Gatineau gets to decide and set those terms, there’s clearly going to be all sorts of retaliation.” – Michael Geist
But Geist countered: “The notion that Canada will step in and require payments of hundreds of millions of dollars and at the same time tell these organizations you don’t get to own any of that, a regulator in Gatineau gets to decide and set those terms, there’s clearly going to be all sorts of retaliation” from trading partners.
The debate also had Geist arguing for the market to determine what local content Netflix and Amazon should offer their Canadian subscribers, and Yale countering that algorithms used by streaming platforms pushed the most popular content and that discoverability measures were required for Canadian content.
“I find it hard to understand how you think these streaming services are innocuously providing the choices that are based exclusively on consumer preferences. We know they push the content that they want to push that month,” Yale said.
But Geist pushed back on the argument that regulating foreign streamers would increase programming choice.
“This is truly the first time I’ve heard that putting up more walls and more limitations and more regulations will somehow increase consumer choice,” he said.
