Juno News - The Trudeau government is already regulating the media

00:00:00.000 Canadians from all walks of life were rightly outraged to learn that the Canadian government

00:00:10.120 was considering potentially getting media organizations, even online news outlets,

00:00:16.400 groups like True North, to get a license from the government if they wanted to operate,

00:00:21.660 to register with the government. Where on earth did all this come from? Well, it in part came

00:00:26.600 from an interview that Heritage Minister Stephen Guilbeau gave to a weekend talk show on Sunday,

00:00:32.360 talking about, yes, we will support these measures, because they were proposed in this sweeping review

00:00:37.720 panel that was put forward, a broadcasting review panel that the government convened that put forward

00:00:43.240 97 recommendations to do a whole variety of things to deal with the changing landscape of broadcasting

00:00:50.600 and the media and the digital realm, things that included forcing Netflix to include more

00:00:56.400 Canadian content and to change the mandate of the CBC and even increase CBC's funding. All these

00:01:02.480 sorts of ideas, sort of like CRTC regulations, revising them, developing them for the new and

00:01:09.480 changing landscape. Part of that, one of those 97 recommendations, it involved, yes, licensing and

00:01:15.780 regulating the media. Why? Where did this idea even come from? You know, I think part of the problem

00:01:21.160 is that there's this general sense of inertia in government, that they should have their fingers

00:01:26.080 in every single pie, that there's stuff happening, businesses are doing things, industries are

00:01:31.560 changing. Well, we want to be involved, we want to tell them how to change, we want to grant them

00:01:36.040 permission, we want to have a say in all of this. What happened to people just doing their thing

00:01:40.780 and the government getting out of the way? It's rather sad that politicians' natural mindsets,

00:01:47.540 this is why it's kind of hard to blame Stephen Guilbeau, I do blame him, he said it, he did it,

00:01:52.040 but he's also just in this feeder system now where politicians go, okay, here I am, I'm elected,

00:01:57.120 I govern all, I'm in charge of all aspects of your life. No, that's not how it works. And I think

00:02:03.760 Stephen Guilbeau was caught off guard a little bit when there's outrage from everybody, from different

00:02:09.200 political corners, from people all across the media saying, we are unhappy with this. So he took

00:02:15.640 to the airwaves, he convened an emergency press conference on Monday to say, let's make it clear,

00:02:21.140 we are not planning to do this. And he turned around and said, so let's wait and see what our

00:02:26.920 proposed legislation actually says. What? So you're still doing some sort of legislation because you

00:02:33.480 must deal with this issue. Oh no, there's emerging online streaming services and there's

00:02:38.840 new ways to access the internet and changing wi-fi and stuff. We can't let this happen, or at least

00:02:44.180 we can't let it happen without us controlling it and us having our say. Let's really be on guard about

00:02:50.080 what this legislation says. Let's keep a keen eye on it and hold him to his idea that no, we're not

00:02:55.500 going to require the media to regulate, to register and to be licensed. Because here's the thing, and a lot

00:03:02.920 of people didn't catch this point. We already do require the media to register to some degree. 0.87

00:03:10.340 Last year I appeared before the House of Commons Finance Committee. People wanted to have an

00:03:14.480 independent media person speak who wasn't a representative of any sort of union or consortium

00:03:19.220 and so forth to give the individual perspective on all this. And this was about the media bailout.

00:03:24.280 And I didn't so much present my ideas on whether I support it or I don't support it. Quite frankly,

00:03:29.160 I don't think government and media should be touching each other with a 10-foot pole, so I don't think

00:03:32.900 that the government should be doing this stuff. But I wanted to offer my ideas on how they were

00:03:37.140 trying to implement it. And one thing that really concerned me is that they weren't giving out this

00:03:42.120 $600 million as if it was a sort of tax credit. You know how we have transit tax credits? They say,

00:03:47.960 okay, well, if you've paid the transit fee, if you bought the bus pass, show it to your accountant,

00:03:52.640 and you get the tax credit. It was that simple. No, they were looking at doing something very

00:03:56.900 different with media, where they would determine who is this sort of tier of media. The actual term

00:04:02.080 that they use, reading from the government websites that are still up, is whether or not one is a

00:04:06.860 qualified Canadian journalism organization. Yes, they were registering people, basically

00:04:13.220 accrediting them as being qualified journalism organizations. And maybe you would fit the bill,

00:04:19.760 or maybe you wouldn't. A status, a necessary condition for each of the proposed measures that they

00:04:25.720 have that they are still planning to do within the media bailout. So how are they going to decide

00:04:30.560 who is this QCJO, as the literature describes it as? Well, they are creating a panel. Yes, there will be

00:04:39.000 people assigned in the federal government to determine what is and what isn't, in their view,

00:04:44.780 a valid media organization. So this is probably why it wasn't too difficult for Stephen Guilbeault

00:04:50.720 to talk about licensing all outlets, because they're already trying to accredit and determine

00:04:56.420 who is legit and who isn't out of the ones that are taking the media bailout money. So it's not that

00:05:01.900 difficult for them to just stretch it a little further and say, well, let's do this to all of

00:05:05.820 them. So let's be concerned about this. And it's good news that Stephen Guilbeault was pushed into a

00:05:10.100 corner. He had to convene that press conference, and he had to say, no, we're not doing this. But in some

00:05:14.920 ways, they already are. And let's talk about whether or not we think that's acceptable, in what ways we'd

00:05:20.480 like to see it changed, and in what ways what's already happening can inform us being on guard

00:05:25.640 against the things that may come next.

Juno News - February 05, 2020

The Trudeau government is already regulating the media

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