By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – On Tuesday, the Senate transportation and communications committee heard pointed opposition to a bill that would give the CRTC the ability to further regulate the online realm to support Canadian content.
The committee is currently in a pre-study phase in its examination of Bill C-11, the highly contentious legislation that drew strict rebuke from witnesses Tuesday.
The first hour was devoted to former CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist. The first formally proposed specific amendments to various sections to narrow the scope of the bill.
“(…) I certainly do not agree with the way it was done and the concept behind it,” said von Finckenstein. “I think more targeted legislation dealing with the specific problem of streamers would have been preferable versus potentially encompassing any transmission of music or video, or both, over the Internet.
“This approach results in giving the CRTC vast new powers to impose conditions or exempt online undertakings based on the vague concept of whether they ‘ … contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy,’ he added.
Geist also criticized the legislation, noting it gives too much deference to the CRTC, which could lead to encroachments in the realm of the Internet. Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez had said at a House committee hearing that the CRTC would exercise its powers in a limited way: “The minister has described this as a sandbox; others have called this it a Sahara Desert,” Geist said.
“The Act is, by intention, very broad, and any audiovisual content located anywhere in the world that touches on Canada is conceivably included as a program,” Geist added.
Others have argued that an Act written with too specific language would require changes in short order, and seeing how easy it is to modify the Broadcasting Act, it might be better to leave it vague and trust the CRTC to adapt to change.
But during the second hour, the discussion veered toward discoverability and algorithms with Michèle Rioux, professor in the political science department at the University du Québec à Montréal and director of its study center on integration and globalization.
She created a laboratory of analysis of transformations of cultural industries in the electronic commerce era. Their first project was to create measurement indicators of discoverability.
One area they explored was the barriers to discoverability and the conclusion of co-responsibility between the consumer and the enterprise in coming up with an adequate model of discoverability.
“I have been interested in the world of data governance for the last three or four years because I have been studying the discoverability problems and the barriers, and part of it is the functioning of the algorithms. Those algorithms promise to be very neutral and very powerful and market-oriented and neutral in that way, but, actually, there is a large literature about the fact that algorithms are biased and that we should look into the workings of algorithms and their results and their consequences.”
When talking about discoverability, Rioux insisted that with proper tools it is measurable, and to the practicality of it, she offered, “If you can measure, the CRTC can say, ‘Hey, on Spotify, we have this instrument that can calculate the streaming of this and the permanence, the visibility, the recommendation, and you have to answer to that. Make sure that you have the target.’”
Alain Saulnier, author and retired professor of communication at the Université de Montréal, was more worried by the “invasion” of the online streamers, as he indicated in his book, The Digital Barbarians.
“They acted like invaders,” he said. “They defied our boundaries, our regulations, the state authority, our fiscal system and brought collateral damages like disinformation, speech radicalization on online platforms, weakened the business case of our media while others like Amazon threatened the mere existence our small business,” he quoted from his book.
He believes Bill C-11 is necessary to resist to that invasion.
The same Committee will hear from representatives from the Heritage Department and the CRTC tonight.
Photo of Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, from the Liberal Party website
