After two and a half years of debate and controversy, senators passed Bill C-11 on Thursday, which seeks to bind online broadcasters to rules similar to those incumbent on traditional broadcasters. However, several steps separate us from its full entry into force.
“With this Act, we are ensuring that the incredible talent of Canada shines and that it occupies a greater place on the stage of the online world”, reacted the Minister of Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, in a statement sent to the Duty.
The government has gone to great lengths to reform the Broadcasting Act to impose certain rules on online broadcasters like Netflix or Disney+. Initially tabled in November 2020, a first version of the text caused controversy after it was amended in parliamentary committee to include social media, such as YouTube.
Censorship charges
This theme was one of the electoral issues put forward by the Conservative Party of Canada in 2021, which perceives it as an attack on freedom of expression. Opponents of the bill rally behind the idea that the government should have no say in the content platforms suggest to internet users.
After the death on the soap opera of the first version during the 2021 election campaign, the text was tabled for a second time by Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Now renamed C-11, it has two main objectives: to force platforms to finance Canadian content and to compel them to suggest this content to make it visible to the general public.
This second aspect is regularly presented as “censorship” by the Conservative Party of Canada (CCP) of Pierre Poilievre. “Trudeau’s censorship bill is about to become law,” read an email from the CCP soliciting donations from supporters just last Sunday.
The Senate did try to add its grain of salt this winter by proposing a “compromise” to reassure opponents of C-11. The proposed amendment would limit the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), on social networks like Youtube, only to professional music. The elected officials refused the modification, and the senators, unsurprisingly, accepted their will by adopting the text on Thursday. 52 senators voted in favour, 16 against and one abstained.
C-11 will officially become Canadian law after receiving Royal Assent from the Governor General, a formality that is expected to be completed Thursday evening. However, this does not herald any immediate changes for the platforms or their subscribers. Rather, it is the beginning of a long bureaucratic process punctuated by consultations.
Unknown Instructions
It is not clear what kind of online content will or will not be subject to this law. C-11 must impose “conditions of service” on sites that offer commercial programming, said the minister, i.e. professional productions that appear on several platforms, such as music, television series or films .
In general, it will be up to the CRTC to decide which platform will end up with new legal obligations in Canada. This is a new mandate for this organization. The wording of the law, for example, suggests that its experts will have the task of determining whether Internet pornography is sufficiently part of “Canadian culture” to be subject to the new rules.
The CRTC will have to base all its decisions on directives that the minister must send to it, the details of which are still unknown. A draft of these instructions should be published in the Canada Gazette in about a month, announcing public consultations which must for their part be spread over at least another month.
After analyzing the responses, the department will send its final version of the instructions to the CRTC, at an undetermined date, but at the earliest this summer. The regulatory body will then do its own consultations to implement the law, according to an agenda that is not yet known.
On the sidelines of this laborious process, Minister Pablo Rodriguez also promised to modernize the operation of the Canada Media Fund and to revise the definition of what constitutes “Canadian content”.