By Howard Law
IF JOURNALISTS IN politics are the friends of news media, perhaps it needs new friends.
At the Commons Heritage Committee, former CTV reporter and Conservative MP Kevin Waugh continues to thunder that major TV networks Bell CTV, Rogers City-TV and CBC should be excluded from the “FaceGoogle” Bill C-18.
This Monday at the Senate committee studying the Online Streaming Act Bill C-11, former Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons and former CBC TV correspondent Julie Miville-Dechêne suggested Unifor’s recommendation for better cable and streamer funding of local news was unnecessary because TV companies are set to cash in under…
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OTTAWA – During another meeting of the heritage committee yesterday on Bill C-18, the Online News Act, witnesses indicated there are better ways to address the country’s journalism crisis and argued the bill will not help small news organizations.
Philip Palmer, president of the Internet Society Canada chapter told the committee a broader levy applied to social media platforms and search engines and an independent body to allocate funding would be a better approach to the problems facing Canadian news organizations than Bill C-18, which he said, “threatens the efficiency of news retrieval on the Internet and the ability of…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – This morning, the Transport and Communications Senate Committee (TRCM) met again to hear testimonies from Unifor, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Screen Composers Guild of Canada and the Provincial Council of the Communications Sector of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
Except for the latter, all support the bill but brought up issues regarding employment, intellectual property, and the Status of the Artist.
Contributions from the online broadcasters should be provided to produce local news, said Unifor and CUPE, which are unions representing workers in that sector.
“We need an amendment in Bill C-11 to ensure…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – On Oct. 29, the heritage committee of the House of Commons (CHPC) held a meeting to study Bill C-18, the Online News Act.
Before this, on Oct. 21, Facebook (owned by Meta) published a blog post about not having been invited to speak in front of the committee. The committee “appears to have concluded calling witnesses for its study of the Online News Act (Bill C-18),” the post reads.
“But faced with adverse legislation that is based on false assumptions that defy the logic of how Facebook works, we feel it is important to be transparent about the…
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By Len St-Aubin
RICHARD STURSBERG’S OP-ED in Monday Oct. 24’s Globe and Mail put forward the British system of defining domestic content as a model for redefining TV CanCon when the CRTC starts regulating global streaming services as broadcasters under Bill C-11. He makes a good point, but vastly understates how contentious this will be in C-11’s brave new world.
Stursberg has previously recommended the British model. He’s right that adopting their approach would address two issues. First is the often unrecognizably ‘Canadian’ outcomes of current CanCon criteria. Second is foreign streamers’ reasonable expectation that they can own the rights…
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OTTAWA – Last Friday, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage heard from CRTC chair Ian Scott and the heritage minister, Pablo Rodriguez on Bill C-18, the Online News Act, but representatives from Meta, Facebook’s parent company were still notably absent.
The CRTC chair appeared to reassure the committee the Commission can handle implementing the bill. As with C-11, the Online Streaming Act, one of the questions that has been asked again and again is whether the CRTC will be able to handle its new responsibilities should the bill pass.
While many have doubts about the Commission, Scott told…
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By Howard Law
I KEEP THINKING I have written my last post on the Bill C-11 debate over regulation of user generated content and discoverability, but I am always wrong.
The issue continues to consume almost all the Parliamentary oxygen available. The Conservatives have made it a big part of their branding and fundraising. Now there is speculation that the Poilievre leadership is thinking about a third filibuster, this time in the Senate which had previously agreed to return the bill to the House by Nov. 18.
C-11 has given us our own Canadian culture wars, divisive on the basis of ideology,…
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Minister Rodriguez to appear at CHPC on C-18
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Earlier today, the House of Commons heritage committee held its third meeting on Bill C-18, the Online News Act.
Canadian Association of Broadcasters
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) reminded us during the meeting that “… foreign digital platforms take more than half of those ad revenues out of Canada’s economy. They are offshored to entities with little connection to Canadians’ values or public interest, and profoundly undermine Canadian news organizations’ ability to support and maintain a robust newsgathering infrastructure.”
Pleasant prelude to future negotiations.
“Search and social platforms may help to…
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Survey also shows few Canadians are following C-18
CANADIANS ARE NOT very familiar with the Bill C-18, the Online News Act, but after hearing about Google’s concerns, most still want government to amend it, according to data from an Abacus Data survey commissioned by Google Canada that was released last week.
“The results clearly indicate that while few Canadians are paying close attention to what is happening with the Online News Act, the issues with Bill C-18 raised by Google resonate with Canadians and cause them to want legislators to amend the bill to address concerns they have with it –…
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BPF reviewing whether it will continue awarding funding to CMAC moving forward
OTTAWA – A month and a half after the federal government announced it was cutting funding it awarded to the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is trying to figure out why the organization received the funding – to develop an anti-racism strategy – in the first place.
Funding was cut to CMAC’s project after numerous concerns were expressed about antisemitic and other racist tweets posted by Laith Marouf, a senior consultant with the organization.
At a meeting last Friday, committee members, who argued CMAC…
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