By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – A Conservative amendment that would place monetary thresholds on which companies qualify for CRTC regulation under new legislation would allow those companies to skirt the rules, according to a Liberal MP Tuesday during a House Heritage committee hearing.
In its current form, Bill C-18, the Online News Act, would give the CRTC the ability to determine which companies must compensate news publishers to host on their platforms links to news articles.
But the Conservatives are proposing an amendment that would place limits on the application of this law by the size of the company.
“I guess it’s not surprising, it seems like this reasonable amendment, but this is creating a loophole big enough for Facebook and Google to drive a truck through, which again is unsurprising given what the Conservatives have been doing throughout this entire process which is to be the PR reps for big foreign tech companies,” said the Parliamentary Secretary of Canadian Heritage Chris Bittle during the hearing.
Bittle was alluding to the possibility that companies could skirt the threshold by artificially lowering their value, thus bypassing the law altogether.
Bittle and the NDP MP Peter Julian accused the Conservatives of wasting time on the debate, effectively filibustering the bill before the Christmas break by taking on positions friendly to the online giants.
“Oh, Madame Chair, I never give up an opportunity to speak,” said Julian, “but I won’t speak for 16 hours, which is what I did to one of the amendments in the softwood lumber sellout,” alluding to the alleged delay tactics.
There are only eight days left until the end of this session. If the government intends to send it to Senate before Christmas, it may be forced to impose measures to fasten the pace of debate.
