By Howard Law
UNTIL LAST WEEK, PARLIAMENT’S Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage was plodding through the clause-by-clause review of Bill C-10 with no tasty headlines. Perhaps the bill’s revamp of the Broadcasting Act, which would sweep in Netflix, isn’t controversial anymore.
Of course, federal political partisanship is inevitable, as Canadian as bad weather.
And so, we now have the Conservatives’ faux controversy over free expression on social media platforms. In an e-mail blast from CPC MPs across the country, they made their case:
“Recently, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-10 – a bill that would regulate social media websites like Facebook, YouTube, and…
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By Denis Carmel
AT THE START OF THE first Heritage Committee meeting to consider amendments to Bill C-10, the chair of the Committee, Liberal MP Scott Simms, said: “Buckle up, folks. This is the fundamental core of parliamentary democracy at its best. It’s going to be an exciting time—so exciting that we’ll probably sell the story rights to Netflix.”
He was joking but the hearing had a discoverability problem: they were held at lunch time on Mondays and in the afternoons on Fridays.
So, on Thursday evening, after going a little viral this past week, the committee will convene from 6:30…
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TORONTO — Asian Television Network International (ATN) appears to have high hopes the federal government’s Copyright Act review, launched April 14, will put an end to the piracy of television and movie content in Canada.
ATN, Canada’s largest South Asian broadcaster, has long blamed content piracy for its declining revenues (which we’ve reported on numerous times, including here, here, here and here).
Last Thursday, in a press release titled “Purging the Piracy Parasite – ATN Applauds Government Initiative”, the broadcaster says it is “encouraged” by the copyright legislation review and public consultation process announced jointly…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – After a week of complaints that Bill C-10, the bill to update the Broadcasting Act, would instead cause all Canadians’ YouTube videos and Instagram posts and so on to fall under CRTC jurisdiction, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said late Monday a new amendment is coming to try and fix the fuss.
On April 23, when Julie Dabrusin, Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, proposed to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that Section 4.1 of Bill C-10 should be removed because it “has created some confusion for people on whether or not social media…
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TORONTO – The Banff World Media Festival announced this morning Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage, will speak on Thursday, June 17, participating in a virtual keynote conversation during the festival’s Marketplace Week.
With delegates from more than 50 countries, Banff attracts the world’s top creators, producers, showrunners, talent, networks, studios, streamers, press and media companies – and attendees from all countries will be sure to tune in to hear what Minister Guilbeault has to say about Bill C-10 (the bill to modernize the Broadcasting Act which, if passed, will surely have an effect on foreign content providers in a…
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By Len St-Aubin
THINK ABOUT HOW MANY millions of audio and video clips get posted to social media every day. Now contemplate, for a moment, the human and other resources that would be needed to supervise, regulate and control it all.
That is what the Liberal government has just proposed to do with an amendment to Bill C-10 that it pushed through Parliament’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meeting Friday. That will be your tax dollars at work: wasteful, ineffective jobs for regulators, and freedom of expression be damned.
With the deletion of one clause (4.1) in Bill C-10, the bill to…
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Clause by clause process inches along
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – At the outset of the clause by-clause revisions of Bill C-10 on April 19, Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage chair Liberal MP, Scott Simms set the tone: “Buckle up, folks. This is the fundamental core of parliamentary democracy at its best. It’s going to be an exciting time—so exciting that we’ll probably sell the story rights to Netflix.”
Of course, we’re not sure the big streamer largely at the heart of some of these amendments wants to buy that option…
The very first amendment to the Bill was introduced by the Green…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Monday’s federal budget, the first in two years, but the first ever delivered by a female Finance Minister in Chrystia Freeland, promises to deliver more money for rural broadband, but will find the government collecting less tax from foreign digital services as compared to their domestic counterparts.
Jay Thomson, CEO of the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance, which represents more than 100 independent TV, phone and internet providers serving mainly rural communities, was “pleasantly surprised” that the budget allocated an additional $1 billion over six years toward the $1.75-billion (now $2.75 billion) Universal Broadband Fund (UBF) unveiled…
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OTTAWA – On Monday afternoon, the federal government kicked off a national consultation effort with the goal of modernizing the Copyright Act in part so that the “revenues of web giants are shared fairly with Canadian creators,” reads the press release.
This new consultation will build on the 2019 Parliamentary Review of the Copyright Act, which did not result in Act amendments. This review will involve both the departments of Canadian Heritage and Innovation, Science and Industry as both want to ensure the copyright framework “reflects the evolving digital world” when it comes to online entities.
“As the distribution and…
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Merger presents a great opportunity for Minister Champagne
By Konrad von Finckenstein
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS ANNOUNCED on March 15th its intention to buy Shaw Communications for $26 billion, and of course the transaction must be approved by the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Minister of Industry, Science, and Innovation.
The three entities will undoubtedly consult with each other and co-operate. Logically the Competition Bureau would go first, the CRTC second and the Minister last.
The CRTC approval should be relatively routine. Shaw is a BDU but has no broadcasting assets, having divested them to Corus. Thus, there are no benefits payable under CRTC…
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