The Trudeau government persists and signs: there is no question of specifying that only professional music found on YouTube is covered by its broadcasting bill (C-11), a compromise found by the Senate to calm critics.
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez had a message for the Senate added to the order paper on Tuesday evening: there is no question of limiting the power of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) too strictly in law over social networks.
The Minister “respectfully rejects Amendment 3 because it would affect the Governor in Council’s ability to hold public consultations and issue policy directions to the CRTC to determine the appropriate scope of the regulation of social media services with respect to their distribution of commercial programming, and would prevent the broadcasting system from adapting to technological changes over time,” reads the government response.
That music, according to the Senate
The government thus rejects one of the main amendments of the Upper House on C-11, and insists on adopting the original version of section 4.2 of the text. This article aims to also subject to the law the content uploaded by users on social networks, such as YouTube, in the same way as the professional content of Netflix, Disney +, or Spotify.
According to the law, these platforms must in particular contribute financially to Canadian culture and promote Canadian content, in order to make it more easily accessible, or “discoverable”. Although the Minister assured the Duty that the government’s law only targets films, television series and music, and not youtubers and other amateur videographers, this clarification must be sent to the CRTC by regulation later.
The Conservative Party of Canada, along with big corporations like Google, the owner of YouTube, have publicly opposed Bill C-11. While the Conservatives have gone so far as to accuse the government of wanting to censor their Twitter page, multinational platforms have said they are already doing enough for Quebec culture.
In order to find a compromise between the government and the many critics of the bill, senators Julie Miville-Dechêne and Paula Simons proposed to modify the text of the law to reduce the scope of the content to be regulated by the CRTC, limiting it to professional music. Essentially, the change would have meant that only songs that can be played on the radio and are on platforms like YouTube would be affected by the law.
Other rejected amendments
Minister Rodriguez also announced that he did not accept an amendment that would add to the law an obligation for websites to verify the age of Internet users before presenting pornographic material. “The amendment seeks to legislate matters relating to the broadcasting system that go beyond the policy intent of the bill,” it reads.
Likewise, the government rejects with equal respect the idea of prohibiting Radio-Canada from broadcasting commercials “designed to resemble journalistic programming”, a full-blown attack by the Senate on the controversial advertising service Tandem of the state corporation.
The Minister had already admitted to the Duty that he found this amendment irrelevant, in December. He had in the same breath promised that a government response to the amendments would be provided quickly, after discussions with the other parties. This response did not come until three months later.
Meanwhile, the Government of Quebec sent a letter in February complaining about certain aspects of Bill C-11. The Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, wants to ensure that Quebec is consulted when establishing the rules of the CRTC, which is a normal practice but not enshrined in law. Quebec also wants its status of the artist laws to apply to targeted online businesses.
It is midnight minus one, since the text of C-11 must now be voted on at third reading in the Commons on Wednesday, which normally constitutes the final stage where the text can theoretically be modified by elected officials. The government says it is too late to respond to Quebec’s demands, and nothing about this is included in the response to the Senate.
The Liberals accept other amendments proposed by the senators. Accepted additions change the original intent of the legislation less significantly. In order to become a law of Canada, a bill must be passed identically by the House of Commons and the Senate. This means that the Senate can insist on keeping its changes, and send yet another version of the text back to the House.