In response to the editorial by Alexandre Sirois, I would like to take the time to clarify certain facts about Bill C-11 and the opposition of the Conservatives in the Senate, which stems from the improvisation of the government, the excessive discretion granted to the CRTC and, above all, the real threat to the freedom of expression of Canadians and the ability of our independent artists and creators to earn a living.
I will first note that our party has always supported what was supposed to be the basic principle of the old Bill C-10, that is to say to modernize the Broadcasting Act, including forcing web giants like Netflix and Amazon to invest more of their revenue in Canadian content. The government was entitled to our cooperation until it chose to modify its own bill in committee in order to regulate the content of users of social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Spotify.
With Bill C-11, the government and the CRTC will now be able to intervene in the algorithms of social networks to decide which videos, uploaded by their users, will be seen more or less often according to the principle of “discoverability”. A government that can intervene to ensure that almost no one can see a video uploaded by a user, or that another video is preferred to them, could easily fall into the abuse of power. It would be able to restructure political and social debates in the same way that it seeks to restructure the consumption habits of millions of Canadians.
This measure therefore represents a real risk for freedom of expression, as pointed out by several experts, such as law professors Michael Geist and Emily Laidlaw and former CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein. Even Heritage Canada officials concluded that an exception for user content was necessary, in a memo sent to their minister in December 2020. The Liberals who accuse us of grandstanding on this file have never managed to justify their decision. ignore their own experts and change their own bill.
If passed, the regime in Bill C-11 will be unique in the world. No other democratic country regulates the discoverability of content by social media users. Many have chosen to demand a greater financial contribution from web giants to local content, but always protecting users and small digital businesses. The European Union had adopted a much more precise definition of what a digital broadcaster is in its legislation, while Australia has set a minimum income threshold necessary to be subject to regulation. C-11 proposes to regulate a category of “online businesses” defined so broadly that it could include any individual with a website and producing video capsules.
The most overlooked aspect of the debate surrounding Bill C-11 is its effects on independent creators and artists.
Social networks are not television channels. The video suggestions that will appear on each individual user’s YouTube page are decided based on their previous choices, and the most popular programs on the platform with similar content. Consequently, a Quebec film lover risks seeing a lot of extracts from Quebec films appear on his page, just as a cooking lover risks seeing more recipes. It is therefore useless to compare the programming of social networks to that of the radio stations of the 1950s, as Mr. Sirois does, and this comparison demonstrates the extent to which the cultural and media elite is disconnected from the reality of new technologies.
There is a whole generation of new Canadian creators and artists who make their living primarily by producing content that is broadcast on social media to an international market that includes millions of users. Several of them have come to testify before the committee that I chair in the Senate. They told us about their concerns about Bill C-11. Some suggested that the accreditation process to be designated as more “discoverable” “Canadian content,” designed for major studios, would be too onerous for them and put them at a disadvantage against their competitors. Others feared being singled out. If the algorithms imposed by the CRTC push their content to Canadian users simply because they are Canadian, regardless of their level of interest in the field or the style of the artist, the perverse effect could be to increase the negative or indifferent reactions to their content, which would therefore become less popular and less visible to all users of the network.
Conservative senators will continue to defend the interests of these artists, and the freedom of expression of all Canadians.