The new Speaker of the House of Commons, Elizabeth May, and the CRTC's takeover of your favourite podcast host's podcast. Also, the government takes control of the internet, and you can no longer access it in Canada.
00:08:22.760They have to serve up a certain quota of Canadian content.
00:08:25.940It's going to be government-approved Canadian content, of course,
00:08:28.980and they want to include in that diverse voices and all of that.
00:08:32.540But you also have beyond that the question of what it's going to look like on podcasts.
00:08:38.600So right now, if you go on to Apple Podcasts,
00:08:41.340which perhaps you've done to get to this show,
00:08:43.660you'll see a whole laundry list of recommendations.
00:08:46.320Maybe for Black History Month, they say, here are black podcasts, or for Pride Month, they say, here are gay-themed podcasts, or in general, they say, well, you might like true crime, so here's a true crime series, or something else you might like.
00:09:00.240Okay, well, that's all fair and reasonable that they're trying to tailor their selections based on what they think people are going to like.
00:09:07.840Well, now government's coming in and saying, you have to serve up a certain amount of recommended content that we like.
00:09:15.260I joked yesterday about like the non-binary Franco-Indigenous quota or something, which
00:09:20.500you know some variation of is going to exist.
00:09:24.260But what's happening here is the reality of this.
00:09:28.240The reality of this is that government is going to be picking and choosing winners.
00:09:32.660So sure, maybe the government is not saying under C-11, the CRTC is directly regulating
00:15:15.440And that has not directly changed under C11,
00:15:18.280but we're seeing a creep in that direction.
00:15:20.820When they start talking about all of these qualitative things
00:15:23.320that we need more of, beyond even simply Canadian content,
00:15:26.640but specific forms, showcasing diversity, all of that,
00:15:30.460There is a lot to take issue with in this bill. I want to welcome to the program here,
00:15:36.440Peter Menzies. He is a former vice chair of the CRTC. Peter, it is always good to talk to you.
00:15:42.000Thanks for coming back on the show. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.
00:15:45.640Let me just go back to that distinction between Canada and the UK here. Has there been an active
00:15:52.180push within the CRTC to try to have a more expansive mandate on content historically?
00:15:57.460um i'm not quite sure what you mean by that expansive mandate on content they do regulate
00:16:03.380content the the crtc does that it's through conditions of license and it's done you know
00:16:08.720transactionally as you were saying as i caught the end of what you were saying you know that's
00:16:13.000fair it's a the spectrum is a crown asset it's it's a limited resource uh the state has every
00:16:19.240right to decide how it's used on behalf of canadians and when people apply for a license
00:16:24.120they accept certain terms and conditions and one of those is that they will conduct themselves in
00:16:29.300a certain way on air and in you know comply with things like the code of conduct for the Canadian
00:16:35.720Broadcast Standards Council which at the end of the day can be appealed to the CRTC. So the CRTC
00:16:41.780tries to keep has tried to keep a long arm on that content regulation but it is there because the
00:16:47.960Broadcasting Act compels it to make sure that the system is, to use its terms, I believe it's high
00:16:56.300standard, which is about as subjective as you can get. Yeah, but I mean, that right there is what I
00:17:01.560was referring to in that, you know, in the UK, they don't really have their equivalent with as
00:17:07.020much power as the Broadcast Standards Council, which I think has probably helped the CRTC keep
00:17:11.860its nose clean on really getting into the nitty gritty where a lot of these large broadcasters.
00:17:17.460And then you bring this into an internet context and we're taking this regulatory authority and putting it over what has been a space that is not completely unregulated.
00:17:26.960You know, laws that exist elsewhere in Canada still exist on the internet, but you don't have that core requirement there of a limited public good that needs to be regulated as such.
00:17:38.720Yeah, and that was one of the big problems I found in last week's decisions by the CRTC
00:17:43.860was that they were making decisions like about online news organizations, online news,
00:17:49.320and the other one that caught the eye was pornography or adult content, right?
00:17:54.500And the reasoning was that, well, it wouldn't be fair to leave those guys unregulated
00:18:01.680when the guys within the license system are regulated.
00:18:06.960and that makes no sense at all to me because like i was saying if you're inside the license system
00:18:14.060you it's a transaction you get the license and when you get the license you also get you know
00:18:19.800you take on these responsibilities and you take on these conditions of license but you also get
00:18:24.540protected you get you there's all kinds of benefits that come with a license in the
00:18:30.400unlicensed area you're going to get the same regulation but where's your benefit
00:18:34.520yeah i think that's a tremendously important question here and you know right now a lot of
00:18:42.160the defenders of this are i think being very short-sighted they're talking about effectively
00:18:47.760oh well all they're doing is asking for their name and phone number and address but it's like okay
00:18:52.200to do what with it's basically to have the point of contact when they start expanding these
00:18:57.000expectations and requirements i i think and it's not benign no it's not and and it's it's it's
00:19:04.240funny how people can just shrug that off. All they're asking for is your name and phone number
00:19:08.100and address, right? If you were walking down the street and an officer of the law came up and asked
00:19:12.560you your name and phone number and address, right? That's, I mean, I don't want to over-exaggerate it,
00:19:17.940but that's a papers, please society, right? I mean, it really is. I mean, it can sound benign
00:19:24.440and it can be benign, but it can also be, you know, a bridge that you don't want to cross,
00:19:32.460Right. Particularly when you're it's unclear to me as to what the benefit is of it occurring and what.
00:19:43.500And just to go back to the limited public good aspect, because not only is there, you know, there are only so many radio stations that you could have conceivably because of the laws of frequencies.
00:19:54.500But but even within radio programming and television program, you have programming, you have 24 hours in a day.
00:20:01.000So I can understand and I would question whether Canadian content regulations are relevant today, but I could understand, OK, we have this many hours a day.
00:20:10.020You need to devote a certain aspect of it to Canadian content.
00:20:12.980The Internet is finite or is infinite, as we were talking about.
00:20:17.600And by that, if you want to access Canadian content, you have it available to you.
00:20:22.160If you want to access American content, if you're an immigrant that wants to access content from your home country or in a foreign language, you have all of that right.
00:20:30.960And I've yet to hear from the government a compelling reason for how Canadian content is being underserved by the Internet.
00:20:40.620There isn't really a compelling reason.
00:20:42.820I mean, we went through this discussion a bit with Bill C-11 in terms of that, especially when people were talking about all we're trying to do is make sure that Canadian content is discoverable on the Internet.
00:20:54.400Well, there's something called a search tool, right?
00:20:57.300And all you have to do is open up your Netflix app, go into the search tool and type Canadian or type Canada and all kinds of stuff comes up, right?
00:21:07.580So they're not really talking about giving people the ability to discover that.
00:21:12.840What they're talking about is forcing the discoverability on people.
00:21:17.380And that means suppressing the discoverability of other people.
00:21:21.320So you end up with a favored group getting, you know, getting bumped up on your feed online and the less favored groups getting less exposure.
00:21:36.100So, you know, you'll still be able to be free to do what you want to do, but your ability to find an audience for what you're doing will be impaired because of the government's preference for different types of content over others.
00:21:49.820Yeah, I think that's a tremendously important point you raise, because one of the big challenges here is that it is like one's gain has to be at another's loss. If you assume that there's only so much space on the Netflix homepage, on the YouTube homepage, certain content has to be downgraded. And these tech companies, whatever criticisms you may wish to level at them, of which many have come from me, they are pretty attuned to their viewers as businesses.
00:22:18.060They've invested millions of dollars in fine-tuning the algorithms and what people want and what they're going to respond to.
00:22:24.940And this bill, by design, is a manipulation of that.
00:22:28.680And I can't remember, I think it was Pablo Rodriguez a while back when he was still, the minister was saying that, you know, this isn't going to manipulate any algorithms.
00:22:36.600No, but it's government forcing these companies to manipulate their algorithms.
00:22:40.320Yeah, Ian Scott, the past chair of the CRTC, said that exactly.
00:22:45.340senator pamela wallen asked him said sort of said well you're not exactly regulating but you're
00:22:50.460you're re-regulating through the platforms right and he said yep that's exactly right we're not
00:22:58.300we're not going to tell you what to do with your algorithm we're just going to tell you the outcome
00:23:01.740we want and then we'll talk about how you do that in terms of your licensing so that's exactly what
00:23:06.940happened the sad part about that too is that because because you know youtube and these other
00:23:12.780products or sort of are global products if you if you monkey with those algorithms here and people
00:23:19.980don't get the sort of visibility they they they want within canada that has an impact on their
00:23:26.060opportunity to have visibility in global markets and the the best way for canadian producers of
00:23:32.460any kind to make money like serious money is to have access to global markets i mean there's
00:23:38.380There's 120 million Anglophones in India, right?
00:23:44.420I mean, there's 350 million of them just next door.
00:23:49.620Like you can get an audience of 30 million people in Canada,
00:23:53.340or you can expand and have access to an audience of 350 million next door,
00:24:07.020I mean, I get the idea that you want to promote Canadian content, but there's ways to do that without hurting Canadian content and its global opportunities as an outcome.
00:24:17.100Well, I was chatting about this a little yesterday with Chris Sims. I mean, the amusing part of this, I mean, it's not really amusing, I guess, if you think about it, is that the government would, I think, vehemently reject other countries blocking off the import of Canadian content.
00:24:33.460Because I think, you know, the Canadian government would love nothing more than for more Canadian cultural exports, more shits creeks of the world that will achieve popularity overseas.
00:24:42.440but if other countries were to do what canada has done that would never happen and you basically
00:24:47.700become uh very siloed where denmark will have danish content predominantly and canada will
00:24:53.640have canadian content predominantly and that really is the very opposite of what the internet
00:24:58.340has ushered in that is good it is it is exactly the opposite i mean and that that's the big
00:25:04.160difference that doesn't seem to have sunk in with the department of heritage at all on it
00:25:07.420i really worry that they don't seem to understand the internet and the opportunity of it right
00:25:12.420It's like with the Online Streaming Act, I get that there might have been concerns in, you know, in Quebec about francophone funding and that sort of stuff in the long run.
00:25:21.480OK, but if they need more money, just give them more money.
00:25:24.760But, you know, the Canadian film and television industry, its last 10 years have been has been it's been just flourishing.
00:30:47.520how are you going to tell if i mean let's let's just assume that it's 10 million dollars in
00:30:51.280revenue that you draw from canada that you are because it it sort of says you are active in
00:30:55.360canada and you have revenues so it it probably needs to be clarified but let's let's assume
00:31:00.640it's 10 million dollars and how do you find out right like um and and who wants to find out who
00:31:06.880wants to sort of when you don't register does that mean everybody knows how much money you're not
00:31:11.920making um you know you know that sort of stuff so i think the 10 million was a real mistake i think
00:31:19.040they should have had a much bigger number in part to make life easier for everybody at least starting
00:31:24.480down this path of internet regulation but secondly the whole purpose of this act was sold to
00:31:29.920everybody is this is just about my getting money from web giants so go get my coat so what now you
00:31:35.120make 11 million bucks that makes you a web giant like i don't i don't i don't get that at all so
00:31:41.120Anyway, I don't know yet how they would find out, like if you don't register, how they would find out about you.
00:31:47.960If they do find out, they have fairly limited powers at this point, but they would have to go to federal court and get a court order forcing your compliance.
00:32:01.520They've done that in the past with other groups that are supposed to register that have refused to register, but they don't have a big hammer they can bring down on you.
00:32:10.340So this could, you know, that gets immediate action.
00:32:13.640So this is something that could drag on for years.
00:32:16.460Well, and also, I mean, if we are talking about a player that's completely non-compliant
00:32:21.300for whatever reason, you know, inevitably you have one tool in the toolkit, which is