Bill C-11 enacts the Online Streaming Act. It aims to update the legislation so that online platforms that make programming available to Canadians are subject to similar obligations as other companies that generate significant income from broadcasting programming on Canadian territory.

Last Wednesday on these pages, University of Ottawa professors recalled the importance of this bill in ensuring the viability of our cultural industries. It is sad that senators are abusing their prerogatives by prolonging the study of this bill. Such an attitude is contemptuous of Canadian creators.

Opponents mobilized influencers and individuals active on YouTube who tried to believe that the law would force them through myriad paperwork to comply with Canadian content rules. Others claimed that the bill would allow the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to “manipulate” the algorithms used by major platforms to recommend shows to their subscribers and promote them to viewers. As if the algorithms used by these companies were inherently “neutral”. Some have gone so far pretending the bill would allow the government to “censor” the internet!

This misinformation conceals a refusal to recognize the need to apply rules to online platforms that guarantee the availability of content that reflects Canadian diversity, and linguistic duality in particular. Historically, there have been groups in Canada that have opposed the implementation of policies to promote cultural diversity. In some quarters, Anglocentrism and subservience to American visions lead to resistance to measures designed to ensure what distinguishes Canada from the United States.

An irregular CRTC

Admittedly, the CRTC’s errors helped fuel concerns about Bill C-11. The Council has taken decisions that cast doubt on its ability to apply adequately the legislation it is tasked with implementing. For example, he recently removed from the rules with the aim of guaranteeing a minimum level of French-language production.

His ability to understand free speech issues was questioned when he a libertarian decision in which he failed to take into account the French meaning of the words condemn the broadcast of a radio report mentioning the title of a book by Pierre Vallières. On the part of an organization that has for decades tolerated the worst excesses on the airwaves, such a lack of rigor undermines the
public trust.

But if you make the effort to read it, you will find it Invoice C-11, like the law that amends it, expressly asks the CRTC to respect freedom of expression and to take into account the context of francophone communities. Likewise, the legislation does not target people doing business online. It applies to companies whose activities have a demonstrable impact on the achievement of the broadcasting policy objectives set out in the law.

This policy is designed to ensure that Canadians have access to a variety of content, including content created by the creators here and written in French or Indigenous languages. Applied by a CRTC capable of understanding the issues of online services as well as the realities of Francophone and minority communities, the law introduced by C-11 should allow for genuine diversity in Canada’s connected space.

Unnecessary Changes

Several changes were made to Bill C-11 to address opponents’ objections. Unfortunately, some of these changes only selectively limit the CRTC’s capacity to take effective action to ensure the achievement of the goals of broadcasting policy enhanced by Bill C-11. For example, the Commission’s ability to require the use of software tools for regulatory effectiveness has been removed. The CRTC confines itself to old ways of regulating state-of-the-art situations. And then we break sugar on the regulatory processes of another age!

Although the investigation into the C-11 law is dragging on, its passage seems assured as long as the three political parties that support it raise their voices. But the implementation of this law will only be the beginning. This will initiate an extensive project to introduce rules to ensure the availability, promotion and discoverability of programs from French-speaking creators, but also from diversity and indigenous peoples.

The CRTC will be very busy. It must stop confining itself to the visions of the majority circles. Above all, it must equip itself with the means to understand the problems of francophone and minority communities.

To see in the video