The Department of Heritage Canada announced today that it intends to provide policy guidance to the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to determine the scope of the recently passed Bill C-11.

The bill, which will require streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, YouTube and Disney Plus to pay to support Canadian media content like movies, music and TV shows, is the subject of in-depth three-year deliberations.

However, critics have warned that the text of the bill, including the powers delegated to the CRTC, remains vague and overstated, which the proposed policy guidance seeks to clarify.

Specifically, the instructions would direct the council to do the following:

1. Support production, audience access, and owned and controlled programming by First Nations, Inuit and Métis. In addition, the CRTC would be responsible for supporting narrative sovereignty, which emphasizes the importance of indigenous storytelling by indigenous peoples.
2. Excludes content created by social media creators, podcasters using platforms that have no control over content broadcast, video games, or social media content not made available for distribution via non-social media.
3. Ensure spending requirements support program creation by Black and other racialized communities, Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) and other equal-opportunity groups, while considering the challenges they face, including systemic racism and the minority context of French in Canada.
4. Develop a clear methodology for financial contributions and commitments to support and promote Canadian programs. It would also be responsible for supporting the training and development of Canadian creators.
5. Implement discoverability in a way that respects and, where possible, extends the range of uses while minimizing the need to change broadcasters’ algorithms. Interference with programs and businesses not covered by Bill C-11 should be avoided.
6. Review the Canadian program definition and ensure it is diverse and consistent with evolving Canadian content guidelines
7. Ensure that any financial or non-financial requirements made of broadcasting platforms are fair in relation to their size and nature. Foreign and Canadian companies should be treated fairly and the CRTC should consider incentive and outcomes-based tools to minimize regulatory burdens, promote competition and avoid unintended impacts on technological innovation.

These guidelines would bind the CRTC in its discussions with Canadians and interested parties about the implementation of the new regulatory framework.

The public consultation starts on Saturday June 10th and will last for 45 days. The government will then present the final policy direction.

The original article is available at IT world Canadaa sister publication of computer science direction.

French adaptation and translation by Renaud Larue-Langlois.