'My priority here is to try to protect all the parties that will have to deal with this act, be it audiences, but also content creators, smaller players as well as large ones'
OTTAWA — Senators have added stronger privacy protections to the Liberal government’s controversial online streaming bill, although other amendments to exclude smaller platforms and add a reference to consumer choice were voted down by Liberal-appointed senators.
The Senate transport and communications committee is in the clause-by-clause process of amending Bill C-11, which sets up the CRTC to regulate platforms like Netflix and YouTube. The committee hasn’t yet reached the most contentious section of the legislation that deals with exemptions for user-generated content from CRTC regulation.
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Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne put forward an amendment she noted was first suggested by Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne.
When Dufresne appeared at the committee in September, he said privacy issues could emerge around the discoverability provisions in the bill — the parts of the legislation that would allow the CRTC to mandate platforms promote Canadian content. Dufresne said the bill could “potentially require the adaptation of existing algorithms that rely on personal information or the analysis of personal information to determine whether user-generated content is Canadian.”
Miville-Dechêne said her amendment would require the protection of privacy to be interpreted through the entire bill. While a Canadian Heritage Department official told senators the CRTC is already obligated to abide by the Privacy Act, Miville-Dechêne said her amendment would be broader.
“This doesn’t deal only with the CRTC, it deals with a lot of private companies, platforms, foreign ones as well,” she explained in French, according to simultaneous translation. “My priority here is to try to protect all the parties that will have to deal with this act, be it audiences, but also content creators, smaller players as well as large ones.”
The amendment passed, with the government abstaining. Sen. Marc Gold, the government representative in the Senate, has been speaking on behalf of the Liberal government on the bill in committee during the clause-by-clause process.
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A crucial question around what will happen with the bill rests with where senators appointed by the Liberal government, but who sit as independents and make up the majority of the committee, will land on amending the most controversial aspects of the bill. The committee could begin tackling those clauses as soon as Wednesday evening.
On Tuesday, the Liberal-appointed senators voted against an amendment that would have added revenue thresholds to bill, exempting digital platforms with revenues of less than $150 million.
A number of experts and critics of the bill, including former CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein and former vice-chair Peter Menzies, as well as “multiple online creators,” recommended putting in some kind of thresholds, noted Sen. Pamela Wallin.
Gold responded the government opposes thresholds on “online undertakings,” the entities subject to regulation under the bill. He said creating such “bright line” rules would allow businesses to use accounting practices and structure themselves to ensure they fall below the threshold.
Thomas Ripley, associate assistant deputy minister of cultural affairs at Canadian Heritage, said such revenue thresholds would likely exempt services like CBC’s Gem streaming service from the legislation. He also noted companies that create content, but use third-party platforms like YouTube to distribute it, would not qualify as “online undertakings” no matter their revenue.
Conservative Sen. Don Plett argued in favour of the amendment, quoting von Finckenstein as saying that “the legislation should target only large streamers, who can meaningfully compete with established broadcasters. Small innovative internet players should be able to give their innovative drives full rein to contribute to the overall productivity of the Canadian economy.”
Conservative Sen. Fabian Manning proposed an amendment that he said would have enshrined the principle of consumer choice in the bill, so Canadians can, as much as possible, watch what they want and not be limited by the CRTC’s efforts to force companies to promote Cancon in algorithms. The Liberal-appointed senators voted it down.