Juno News - May 28, 2021


Bill C-10 Explained


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

139.8502

Word Count

722

Sentence Count

27


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 In November 2020, Liberal Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau introduced Bill C-10,
00:00:12.160 an act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other acts.
00:00:18.860 Look, it's no secret that more Canadians are turning to streaming services such as Disney, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix,
00:00:26.720 even TikTok and Instagram to consume their music, entertainment, movies, shows, podcasts, and other forms of entertainment
00:00:35.780 rather than relying on traditional radio and television broadcasting.
00:00:40.560 Well, in Canada, the Broadcasting Act was last reformed in 1991.
00:00:46.000 So, Bill C-10 is ostensibly a way of making the act more relevant in a digital age.
00:00:52.680 According to the Department of Heritage Canada, the revenues of online streaming services are growing by about 90% per year,
00:01:00.560 while traditional broadcasters have been losing about 10% of their audience each year over the last five years.
00:01:06.860 Heritage Canada claims it is unfair for services like Netflix who don't have to pay into the Canadian Content Programming Fund,
00:01:15.020 but cable and radio broadcasters do. Fair enough, right?
00:01:19.240 The Canadian Radio, Television, and Telecommunications Commission, also known as the CRTC,
00:01:26.460 would thus be given the power to regulate internet content just as they regulate traditional broadcasting.
00:01:33.800 But as always, the devil is in the detail.
00:01:37.040 Should Bill C-10 pass, we would be giving the CRTC power to meddle in the discoverability of Canadian content
00:01:45.300 and online platforms and services like YouTube and Netflix would be forced to pay into Canadian content production.
00:01:54.220 Well, if they're meddling in the discoverability, what else are they meddling in?
00:01:58.700 Do you really trust moralistic bureaucrats reverse zealous partisan hacks in the Prime Minister's office to determine what you see online?
00:02:07.380 Many Canadians don't, hence why Bill C-10 has now become a free speech issue rather than just a communications policy discussion.
00:02:16.660 In April 2021, the Heritage Committee, which was studying this act,
00:02:21.360 decided to remove an exemption in the bill for user-generated content,
00:02:27.140 making Canadians wonder,
00:02:28.600 will some individual YouTube channels be hidden away while others receive special treatment?
00:02:33.560 Will they be subject to financial rules and penalties?
00:02:38.440 This is how popular Canadian YouTuber JJ McCullough describes what could happen.
00:02:44.100 What is probably most likely is that if this bill passes,
00:02:47.720 YouTube will soon be legally forced to rig Canadians home, explore, and subscription feeds
00:02:53.500 in a way that will push good, patriotic Canadian YouTube creators and videos to the top
00:02:58.840 while burying foreigners or bad Canadians.
00:03:02.420 At first, the minister in charge of this bill, Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbeau,
00:03:07.280 said this in regards to the bill.
00:03:09.460 What we want to do, this law should apply to people who are broadcasters or who act like broadcasters.
00:03:18.000 So if you have YouTube channels with millions of viewers and you're deriving revenues from that,
00:03:25.300 then at some point the CRTC will be asked to put a threshold.
00:03:28.760 But we're talking about broadcasters here.
00:03:31.820 We're not talking about everyday citizens posting stuff on their YouTube channel.
00:03:37.260 Well, that didn't go over well.
00:03:38.980 So Gilbeau walked it back and said this,
00:03:41.820 that an individual, a person who uses social media,
00:03:45.500 will never be considered as broadcasters and will not be subject to the obligations or regulations
00:03:51.320 within the Broadcasting Act.
00:03:53.380 And while Gilbeau is on the record saying that pretty much anyone who criticizes this bill is an extremist
00:03:59.640 and that free speech concerns are simply fake news,
00:04:04.320 the reality is that criticism for this bill has come from across the political spectrum,
00:04:09.620 with opposition MPs, civil liberty advocates, lawyers, professors, and former civil servants
00:04:16.420 all speaking out against this bill.
00:04:19.660 University of Ottawa Professor Michael Geist has been incredibly outspoken about Bill C-10.
00:04:25.040 He called it an unworkable, dangerous bill driven by lobbyist demands rather than the interests of Canadians.
00:04:31.920 Likewise, the former CRTC vice chair, Peter Menzies, said that the bill is an outrageous abuse of government authority
00:04:41.180 and a national embarrassment.
00:04:44.400 Well, at this point, it's not even clear that the Trudeau government understands their own bill
00:04:49.120 or the implications of it.
00:04:51.400 That's why it's so important that we Canadians pay attention to what's going on
00:04:55.480 and ensure that the government will not be telling us what we can and cannot watch online.
00:05:00.980 True North has been covering the Bill C-10 controversy in depth from the very beginning.
00:05:06.760 Subscribe to learn the truth and stay informed.