Juno News - CRTC forces streaming platforms to register with government

00:00:00.000 so it is not actually fair to say that you can say whatever you want wherever you want

00:00:13.640 whenever you want in canada and again some people may agree with that you may say well

00:00:19.520 that's a reasonable restriction we're not debating reasonableness it is a restriction

00:00:24.240 on free speech anything after that is a matter of degrees which is why i do take things like what

00:00:32.300 the crtc is doing very seriously this is a body which has existed throughout its history to regulate

00:00:38.680 airwaves which are a public good there is only a finite amount of radio frequencies of television

00:00:46.280 frequencies and i get that you need a regulator a bureaucracy to start divvying that up and i get

00:00:51.300 that you need to have some compliance especially on technical issues the united kingdom is a great

00:00:57.020 example of what happens when you start adding a much more aggressive and content focused mandate

00:01:02.740 to their telecom regulator ofcom as it exists in the u.s does in fact regulate content the crtc does not

00:01:11.720 and that has not directly changed under c11 but we're seeing a creep in that direction when they

00:01:18.140 start talking about all of these qualitative things that we need more of beyond even simply

00:01:22.520 canadian content but specific forms showcasing diversity all of that there is a lot to take

00:01:28.880 issue with in this bill i want to welcome to the program here peter menzies he is a former vice chair

00:01:35.220 of the crtc peter it is always good to talk to you thanks for coming back on the show thanks for having

00:01:41.360 me always a pleasure let me just go back to that distinction between canada and the uk here has

00:01:48.000 there been an active push within the crtc to try to have a more expansive mandate on content historically

00:01:54.480 um i'm not quite sure what you mean by that expansive mandate on content they do regulate content the

00:02:01.320 the crtc does that it's through conditions of license and it's done you know transactionally as you

00:02:06.840 were saying as i caught the end of what you were saying you know that's fair it's a the spectrum

00:02:11.920 is a crown asset it's it's a limited resource uh the state has every right to decide how it's used

00:02:17.640 on behalf of canadians and when people apply for a license they accept certain terms and conditions

00:02:23.260 and one of those is that they will conduct themselves in a certain way on air and in you know

00:02:29.220 comply with things like the code of conduct for the canadian broadcast standards council which at the

00:02:34.840 end of the day can be appealed to the crtc so the crtc tries to keep has tried to keep a long arm

00:02:41.000 on that content regulation but it is there because the broadcasting act um compels it to make sure that

00:02:49.580 the uh system is uh to use its terms i believe it's high standard which is about as subjective as you

00:02:55.500 can get but yeah but but i mean that that right there is what i was referring to in in that you know in

00:03:00.320 in the uk they don't really have their equivalent with as much power as as the broadcast standards

00:03:05.800 council which i think has probably helped the crtc keep its nose clean on really getting into the

00:03:11.360 nitty-gritty where a lot of these large broadcasters and then you bring this into an internet context

00:03:16.380 and we're taking this regulatory authority and putting it over what has been a space that i it's

00:03:22.380 not completely unregulated you know laws that exist elsewhere in canada still exist on the internet

00:03:27.580 but you don't have that core requirement there of a limited public good that needs to be regulated as

00:03:34.560 such yeah and that's that was one of the big problems i found in the last week's decisions by

00:03:40.080 the crtc was that they were making decisions like about online news organizations online news

00:03:45.860 and the other one was that caught the eye was pornography or adult content right and then the

00:03:52.060 the reasoning was that well it wouldn't be fair to leave those guys unregulated when the guys within

00:04:01.980 the license system are regulated and that makes no sense at all to me because like i was saying if

00:04:09.340 you're inside the license system you it's a transaction you get the license and when you get the license

00:04:15.580 you also get you know you take on these responsibilities and you take on these conditions of license but you

00:04:20.940 also get protected you get you there's all kinds of benefits that come with a license in the

00:04:27.260 unlicensed area you're going to get the same regulation but where's your benefit 0.88

00:04:33.500 yeah i think that's a tremendously important question here and you know right now a lot of

00:04:39.020 the defenders of this are i think being very short-sighted they're talking about uh effectively

00:04:44.940 oh well all they're doing is asking for their name and phone number and address but it's like okay

00:04:49.340 to do what with it's basically to have the point of contact when they start expanding these

00:04:54.140 expectations and requirements i i think and it's not benign no it's not and and it's it's it's funny

00:05:01.340 how people can just shrug that off all they're asking for is your name and phone number and address

00:05:05.580 right if you were walking down the street and an officer of the law came up and asked you your name

00:05:09.900 and phone number and address right that's i mean i don't want to over exaggerate it but that's a papers

00:05:15.820 please please society right i mean it really is i mean it can sound benign and it can be benign but it

00:05:23.500 can it it uh can also be you know a bridge that you don't want to cross right particularly when you're

00:05:31.660 it's unclear to me as to what the benefit is to society of it occurring and what

00:05:37.900 and just to go back to the the limited public good aspect because not only is there you know

00:05:45.740 there are only so many radio stations that you could have conceivably because of the laws of

00:05:50.860 frequencies but but even within radio programming and television program you have programming you

00:05:56.540 have 24 hours in a day so i i can understand and i would question whether canadian content

00:06:02.220 regulations are are relevant today but i could understand okay we have this many hours a day you need to

00:06:07.180 devote a certain aspect of it to canadian content the internet is finite or is infinite

00:06:13.340 as we were talking about and by that uh if you want to access you know canadian content you have it

00:06:18.300 available to you if you want to access american content if you're an immigrant that wants to access

00:06:22.940 content from your home country or in a foreign language you you have all of that right and i i'm

00:06:28.860 i've yet to hear from the government a compelling reason for how canadian content is being underserved by

00:06:36.140 the internet there isn't really a compelling reason i mean we've been we went through this discussion a

00:06:42.140 bit with bill c11 in terms of that when especially when people were talking about all we're trying to

00:06:46.700 do is make sure that canadian content is discoverable on the internet well there's something called a

00:06:52.620 search tool right and all you have to do is open up your netflix app go into the search tool and type

00:07:00.300 canadian or type canada and all kinds of stuff comes up right so they're not really talking about

00:07:06.860 giving people the ability to discover that what they're talking about is forcing the discoverability

00:07:13.500 on people and that means suppressing the discover this discoverability of other people so you end up with

00:07:19.020 a a favored group getting you know uh getting bumped up on your on your on your feed uh online and the

00:07:28.300 less favored groups um getting less exposure so you know you'll still be able to be free to do what

00:07:35.660 you want to do but your ability to find an audience for what you're doing will be impaired

00:07:41.980 because of the government's preference for different types of content over others

00:07:47.020 yeah i think that's a tremendously important point you raise because one of the big challenges here

00:07:52.380 is that it is like one's gain has to be at another's loss if you assume that there's only so much

00:07:59.260 space on the netflix home page on the youtube home page uh certain content has to be downgraded

00:08:04.620 and these tech companies whatever criticisms you may wish to level at them of which many have come from

00:08:09.980 me they are pretty attuned to their viewers as businesses they've invested millions of dollars

00:08:16.780 in in fine-tuning the algorithms and what people want and what they're going to respond to and and

00:08:21.980 this bill by design is a manipulation of that and i i can't remember i think it was pablo rodriguez a

00:08:27.740 while back when he was still the minister was saying that you know this isn't going to manipulate uh any

00:08:32.860 algorithms no but it's government forcing these companies to manipulate their algorithms yeah ian

00:08:38.060 scott the the the past chair of the crtc said that exactly senator pamela wallen asked him said

00:08:44.300 sort of said well you're not exactly regulating but you're you're you're regulating rating through

00:08:50.380 the platforms right and he said yep that's exactly right we're not we're not going to tell you what

00:08:56.220 to do with your algorithm we're just going to tell you the outcome we want and then we'll talk about

00:09:00.380 how you do that in terms of your licensing so that's exactly what happened the sad part about that too

00:09:06.140 is that because because you know youtube and these other products are sort of are global products

00:09:12.300 if you if you monkey with those algorithms here and people don't get the sort of visibility they they

00:09:19.580 they want within canada that has an impact on their opportunity to have visibility in global markets

00:09:26.300 and the the best way for canadian producers of any kind to make money like serious money is to have

00:09:33.500 access to global markets i mean there's there's a there's 120 million anglophones in india

00:09:39.580 right um there's there's i mean there's 350 million of them just next door like you can take

00:09:47.340 your you can get an audience of 30 million people in canada or you can expand and have access to an

00:09:52.780 audience of 350 million next door all you know speaking english and you know and and we're choosing to

00:09:59.980 build a wall between that to make it more difficult i mean i i get the idea that you want to promote

00:10:06.460 canadian content but there's ways to do that without hurting canadian content as a and its global

00:10:12.700 opportunities as an outcome well i was chatting about this a little yesterday with chris sims i mean the

00:10:18.220 the the amusing part of this i mean it's not really amusing i guess if you think about it is that

00:10:23.100 the government would i think vehemently reject other countries blocking off the import of canadian

00:10:29.980 content because i i think you know the canadian government would love nothing more than for more

00:10:33.580 canadian cultural exports more shits creeks of the world that will achieve popularity overseas but if

00:10:40.460 other countries were to do what canada has done that would never happen and and you basically become

00:10:45.820 very siloed where denmark will have danish content predominantly and canada will have canadian content

00:10:51.500 predominantly and that really is the very opposite of what the internet has ushered in that is good

00:10:57.340 it is it is exactly the opposite i mean and that that's the big difference that doesn't seem to have

00:11:02.140 sunk in with the department of heritage at all on it i really worry that they don't seem to understand

00:11:07.100 the internet and the opportunity of it right it's like with the online streaming act i get that there

00:11:12.700 might have been concerns in you know in quebec about francophone funding and that sort of stuff in

00:11:17.660 the long run okay but if they need more money just give them more money but you know the canadian

00:11:23.180 film and television industry its last 10 years have been out has been it's been just flourishing

00:11:29.660 they've had great years they've had the best years in their history and even the production of canadian

00:11:34.780 content is at record high levels but they still wanted to bring in this regulation because they were

00:11:40.780 worried about canadian content they're you know the problem is is mystical at this stage right and and

00:11:49.020 you are now risking bringing to an end this decade of incredible prosperity all because of some

00:11:57.900 political manipulation like i said i think the core issue was probably you know francophone content that

00:12:04.380 they they were they weren't getting as much funding as as was coming through the private sector to

00:12:09.500 anglophone i get that but if they need a leg up and the government wants to help them just give them

00:12:14.220 more money right you don't need to redo the whole internet um and and and create all these problems

00:12:21.740 and all this regulation to fix that problem we've seen with bill c18 the online news act what happens

00:12:28.380 when these big tech companies decide it's not worth their while to comply with legislation as a result

00:12:33.820 true north and countless other media outlets in canada cannot share their content on facebook

00:12:39.020 we've heard this week that uh google and the government have not really been able to reach

00:12:43.500 any resolution on this so i i don't know whether we're going to see a response like that from any

00:12:48.940 of the players when it comes to streaming i'm curious if you think any will respond that way i mean

00:12:55.340 surely for a netflix there's enough of a canadian market that is worth complying in some way with

00:13:00.540 this especially if it doesn't really cost them anything but do you see some c18 style response from

00:13:06.140 any of the big players yeah i think that's certainly possible um not so much necessarily from

00:13:11.580 the big players although it is possible from say at disney plus um and you know for reasons in addition

00:13:17.980 to this this legislation in terms of how they're positioning themselves but at a certain point you

00:13:24.540 know this is interesting for the crtc because in all of its hearings in the past it's everybody in

00:13:30.620 the room pretty much everybody in the room has a crtc license or wants a crtc license they're all

00:13:36.460 dependent on the crtc so all that really is happening in the room is you're negotiating the

00:13:41.580 terms of that relationship but the relationship is locked in you are married to the crtc when it comes to

00:13:49.900 now with the this next hearing there's going to be a whole bunch of people in the room who have the

00:13:54.700 option just to leave and that creates an entirely new dynamic and i'm really really curious to see

00:14:01.260 how the crtc is going to like respond to that because there will be people there who can say

00:14:07.020 well sure if you do that well then we'll have to you'll have to look at it from a business point of

00:14:11.820 view and some of the smaller streamers particularly could look at it and say you know you know what i

00:14:17.420 mean all this regulation and all this sort of stuff and if we have to make a contribution into this fund and

00:14:22.460 that sort of stuff you know there's a there's an anglophone market of just over 30 million people

00:14:28.300 it's not that big it's just not worth it right and they'll just leave and they'll take their most

00:14:33.340 popular shows and they will sell them most likely to crave so this will work very well for bell if if

00:14:40.780 that works because then they'll become an aggregator of all these smaller channels britbox like i mentioned

00:14:47.340 is is is one so i'm not saying nobody can say what will happen because you don't know but it's

00:14:53.100 certainly possible and and they'll just do a business analysis on it and say okay we'll just

00:14:58.060 sell some stuff into canada but we don't need to stream in canada and so canadians will have

00:15:03.420 us be living in a smaller world well it's an interesting dilemma you bring up i mean one that i've

00:15:08.940 been trying to sort of goad into this debate is daily wire in the u.s which operates its own

00:15:15.660 streaming service for content behind a paywall they've got ben shapiro and jordan peterson it's a

00:15:20.700 more conservative aligned network obviously so i don't think it's particularly keen to

00:15:25.660 uh do justin trudeau's bidding but beyond that it's a mark it's a an outlet that would have very little

00:15:31.580 interest in the canadian market and it's probably not worth their time to focus on compliance with

00:15:36.620 canadian regulation so you take the daily wire as one example and there are probably others that you

00:15:41.580 could point to in australia or the uk or europe that just do not invest in canadian government

00:15:48.060 relations or compliance because it's so minuscule to them and i i'm wondering what will happen because

00:15:52.860 a lot of these organizations may not even think to register if and if they do they may think that it's

00:15:57.980 not worth their while does the crtc even have the capacity right now to start going after any outlet

00:16:05.900 around the world that doesn't register that uh under the letter of what they're doing operates

00:16:10.620 in canada by virtue of being accessible here yeah i'm still trying to figure that one out because i

00:16:15.420 was i was asking a couple colleagues this morning in anticipation of being asked that question uh how

00:16:21.340 can they find out who makes 10 million dollars in canada and who doesn't right so like i mean and

00:16:27.500 does it does it have to be 10 million from canada or can it be just 10 million because the way i read it

00:16:32.140 just said if they have revenues exceeding 10 million i wasn't even sure if it was geographically limited

00:16:37.260 i think that maybe stands to be clarified as well okay um but i mean but even so how are you know

00:16:44.540 how are you going to tell if i mean let's let's just assume that it's 10 million dollars in revenue

00:16:48.620 that you draw from canada that you are because it sort of says you are active in canada and you have

00:16:53.740 revenues so it it probably needs to be clarified but let's let's assume it's 10 million dollars and how

00:16:59.100 do you find out right like um and and who wants to find out who wants to sort of when you don't

00:17:05.660 register does that mean everybody knows how much money you're not making right um you know you know

00:17:11.420 and that sort of stuff so i think the 10 million was a real mistake i think they should have had a

00:17:16.700 much bigger number in part to make life easier for everybody at least starting down this path of

00:17:22.380 internet regulation but secondly the whole purpose of this act was sold to everybody is this is just

00:17:28.060 about getting money from web giants so go get my coat so what now you make 11 million bucks that

00:17:33.340 makes you a web giant like i don't i don't i don't get that at all so anyway i don't know i don't know

00:17:39.500 yet how they would find out like if you don't register how they would find out about you um if they

00:17:45.500 do find out they they have fairly limited powers um at this point but they would have to go to federal

00:17:54.540 court and get a court order forcing your compliance um they've done that they've done that in the past

00:18:00.460 with other groups that are supposed to register that have refused to register but they don't have

00:18:05.260 a big hammer they can bring down on you so this could you know that gets immediate action so this is

00:18:11.260 something that could drag on for years well and also i mean if we are talking about a player that's

00:18:16.540 completely non-compliant for whatever reason you know inevitably you have one tool in the toolkit

00:18:23.260 which is block canadians from accessing this uh you know the government would have to and that's a

00:18:28.540 road that i would hope no government wants to go down yeah you'd have to you'd end up going to court

00:18:34.700 to get a federal court to to issue a blocking order to isps yeah that says that you you may no longer show

00:18:41.980 andrew lawton's show uh you have to don't give them any ideas peter you have to i promise you

00:18:49.740 no you have to you have to block that right because they are non-compliant and that sort of stuff and

00:18:54.060 that gets you know that is really really draconian when you when you have to get into that right so

00:19:01.020 i think people's willingness to register i mean there will be a number of people who will do so very

00:19:06.140 nervously um and everybody says well right now you're just being asked to register and that sort of

00:19:11.740 stuff but no you're not you're being asked you're being asked to walk through a door and you don't

00:19:17.900 really know what's on the other side and that makes people nervous and it'll it'll have a negative impact

00:19:23.900 on investment it'll have a negative impact on growth just as it has just as the facebook ban has had a

00:19:30.780 on news has uh you know had people put uh expansion plans and growth plans on hold because everybody's

00:19:37.980 right now it's two months we're two months in and everybody's trying to get in the calculator out

00:19:42.380 and trying to figure out how much this has cost them so far and you know where are we at where you

00:19:46.300 know how does this impact our budget for this year do we have to where do we have to cut back do we have

00:19:51.260 to cut back can we make it up someplace else you know that's what you create when you do this and

00:19:56.220 it can go on for years and it does real harm especially at a time when we need a lot of creativity

00:20:01.500 we need a lot of investment we need to adapt to a new world yeah very very well said peter menzies

00:20:08.300 always a pleasure keep up the fantastic work on this really appreciate your time thanks very much

00:20:12.940 for your interest always happy to help thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the

00:20:17.420 program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - October 08, 2023

CRTC forces streaming platforms to register with government

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