Hon. Donna Dasko: Honourable senators, I am pleased to stand today to speak to Bill C-11, the online streaming act, at third reading.

Our chamber and our committee have been working on this bill and its predecessor for close to two years. Introduced into our chamber in the Forty-third Parliament as Bill C-10, it died on the Order Paper in the fall of 2021 and came back to us last spring as Bill C-11.

As our Senate Transport and Communications Committee began pre-study work last June, many of us, including me, were concerned that the government’s apparent desire to pass the bill urgently might result in a truncated study process. Thankfully, that did not happen. I am grateful to everyone involved for that — to committee members for pressing hard for a serious study, and to the government representative for carrying through on his promise of a fulsome review.

We certainly had a fulsome review. Our work on the bill was as thorough as anyone could hope for. The committee held 31 meetings, heard from 138 witnesses and received 67 briefs on Bill C-11. Our witnesses included experts, government officials from several ministries, current and former chairs of the CRTC and stakeholders from across the industry, including broadcasters, digital creators, platforms, arts and cultural representatives, unions and representatives from diverse communities.

Nine committee meetings were held to conduct clause-by-clause consideration. We are told that this is a record number of such meetings ever held in the Senate. A total of 73 amendments were presented at committee and 26 were adopted. Amendments were passed covering a wide range of topics, including community broadcasting, privacy protection, Black and racialized producers, Indigenous producers, disinformation, user‑generated content, independent producers, Canadian content, French-language programming, innovation, audience recognition and CRTC processes such as requirements for hearings and reporting.

The most prominent issues in Bill C-11 that received the most attention focused on the regulation of user content and the potential intrusion into viewer or listener choices if algorithms were altered for the purpose of Canadian content discoverability. But there was so much more in this bill. The challenge of Bill C-11 for me was that almost every time I studied it, I found new issues that I felt needed to be addressed.

Let me provide some examples. Rather late in the process, I came to the realization that nowhere in the bill was there a recognition of audience interests and preferences. What Canadians wanted to see and wanted to listen to was not considered to be an element of our broadcast system. As former CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein pointed out, audience interests and preferences were simply not recognized as part of Canadian broadcasting, and they were never recognized in our broadcasting acts since the beginning of broadcast legislation.

Our history of broadcast legislation in Canada is about cultural priorities, cultural protection and producers — who they are and what they should or can produce. But how could it be that we have built a broadcast system without considering viewers and listeners as one of the integral parts of our system? It’s like having a transportation system without thinking about passengers. How can we have such a system? Who is our system for? How can we not include these people in our system?

In the end, the committee voted to accept my amendment to Bill C-11 that says that the broadcasting system must, as one of its objectives, reflect and be responsive to audience preferences and interests. In a similar vein, I was pleased that the committee also voted to recognize that innovation, specifically promoting innovation, should be a guiding principle of our broadcasting system — I’m thinking especially of my colleague Senator Deacon. That, too, had never been recognized in broadcast legislation. Imagine that: We’re talking about an area where there is huge technological change, and yet we had not considered that innovation should be considered a principle of our system.

Another example of how the bill revealed issues involved the very short, innocuous-looking clause 7(7) in Bill C-11, which began with the phrase, “for greater certainty.” This clause was easily overlooked. However, witnesses came before us and sent briefings with comments that, in their view, this was the most consequential clause in the whole bill. In contrast to existing law, which gave cabinet the power to direct the CRTC in broad policy matters, it was argued that clause 7(7) would give cabinet the power to give very specific and detailed direction to the CRTC and possibly create a two-tiered system whereby those with sufficient resources would have special access to the government to make their case.

This clause proved especially vexing for us to analyze because government officials argued that the clause would have almost no impact. There was major impact on the one hand, versus no impact at all on the other, so you can see how challenging it was to actually analyze this clause. In the end, the committee voted to remove clause 7(7). I think my colleague Senator Simons is going to talk more about this.

Bill C-11 was filled with issues like these that were not always apparent and yet proved to be extremely important.

With 31 committee meetings, 73 amendments presented and 26 accepted, it’s clear that committee members devoted much thought and effort to this work. Sober second thought was clearly achieved.

One of government’s most important roles is to respond appropriately to technological change. As radio and television technology developed as global technologies in the last century, Canadians understood that our closeness to the United States, our smaller population and the existence of two official languages would ultimately mean that Canadian voices would be lost unless we took special measures. Thus, a public broadcaster was created in 1932, and the first Canadian content regulations were legislated in 1958.

As consumer choice greatly expanded via private television networks in the 1960s, cable distribution in the 1970s and satellite in the 1980s, each of these new technologies came to be regulated under a regulatory framework, adjusted each time, while keeping fairly true to the original objectives.

The assumptions behind Bill C-11 are thus familiar. Canadian culture still needs protection, our broadcasting system is built on Canadian requirements and, therefore, the new online streaming services and technologies should also be brought under our regulatory framework. After rejecting regulation of internet broadcasting twice, in 1999 and 2009, with the rationale that tech innovation in broadcasting had to be encouraged, the government has now decided that regulation is needed.

Does Canadian culture still need to be protected from outside influences? That is a very difficult question to answer. I recently came upon an Environics Institute poll from last September, which shows that Canadians themselves are divided on that question, with 44% saying that Canadian culture needs more protection from outside influences and 47% saying we need to be more open to outside influences. However, the public is more supportive of creating a so-called level playing field, with two thirds of Canadians in a Nanos poll last May saying they support the idea that steaming services should financially contribute to creating Canadian content just like Canadian broadcasters do.

When it comes to regulating new technologies, however, we cannot assume that just because the technologies of the past were brought under this framework necessarily means that this effort will be a success. For me, that is the real conundrum of Bill C-11. Even though we have studied the thing to death, called superb witnesses and made many fine amendments, in the end, we don’t know whether this approach will work or work well. Will Canadian production increase and will diverse voices thrive, as we have heard from Senator Dawson and as has been promised, including the voices of digital creators who have expressed such concerns, or will innovation and the innovators, and new services and new technologies, be stifled by these rules?

The fact that these questions cannot be answered is not the fault of the legislation. These questions cannot be answered because we cannot predict the future. We here have done our work as best as we can and we have asked all the questions we can, but Bill C-11 represents a leap. We must take the leap or not. Each of us must judge for ourselves.

Thank you.

Senator Simons: Honourable senators, because I have spoken at some length and at several opportunities about this bill and its precursor, Bill C-10, I will not dwell on my philosophical concerns about the purpose and nature of internet regulation. Today, I instead want to home in very specifically on some of the critical amendments we made to this bill in committee.

As you have heard, we heard from more than 130 witnesses and had hours of often-impassioned debate. What we have before us today is not the original Bill C-11 first introduced in the other place and not the bill that was sent to us as amended by our other place colleagues. What we have before us today is a significantly improved bill as amended by our committee. It includes important amendments that make the bill clearer, that stress the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of audience choice, that celebrate and bolster Canada’s cultural diversity and ones that ensure that Canadians and Canadian artists who post user-generated content to social media are not captured by the legislation.

We heard from academic and legal experts; from media corporations, large and small, foreign and domestic; and from brilliant artists and creators who are using online platforms in bold and experimental ways to tell their unique stories and share their unique visions.

We heard and we responded.

Senator Dasko successfully championed amendments that underlined the vital importance of innovation, including technical innovation, to Canada’s broadcast system. This was a welcome amendment, because it signalled that we don’t want a broadcast system that is frozen in amber but one that is responsive to technological and social change.

[Translation]

Senator Miville-Dechêne successfully proposed an amendment based on the advice of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. This amendment seeks to protect the privacy of consumers and creators, ensuring that social media companies cannot exploit their personal information.

Senator Cormier defended amendments seeking to highlight the importance of protecting official language minority broadcasters and an essential amendment reaffirming the importance of independent producers in Canada.

Senator Clement also successfully pushed for an amendment to recognize the unique needs of Indigenous, Black and racialized groups.

[English]

Senator Wallin won our support for an amendment that underlined the importance of freedom of expression and journalistic independence. Senator Batters successfully championed an amendment that helped clarify the definitions around “community broadcasting” and the way community broadcast boards are structured. I worked in tandem with Senator Dasko to push through an amendment that relieved community broadcasters of a unique responsibility to fight disinformation.

Senators Quinn and Cormier gave us amendments to require greater transparency from the CRTC and its reporting, and Senator Downe succeeded in having us adopt an amendment to prevent the CBC from running advertorial — what’s sometimes known in the industry as native advertising or sponsored content — advertising that creates the illusion of being journalistic content when it’s actually a cleverly disguised commercial.

These were among the amendments that I believe make Bill C-11 a better bill.

But there were also two other key amendments I wish to discuss at further length today. As mentioned by Senator Dasko, the first involves the change to subclause 7(7). Several expert witnesses, including Monica Auer, Executive Director of the Forum for Research Policy in Communications; Robert Armstrong, a broadcasting consultant, economist and former CRTC manager; and Ian Scott, who was, at the time, head of the CRTC, testified before our committee about their concerns that subclause 7(7) of the bill could give new and unprecedented powers to cabinet to intervene in independent CRTC decisions. As Dr. Armstrong put it in his testimony before us:

In this sense, Bill C-11 reduces enormously — potentially — the powers that the CRTC has and hands them over to the Government of Canada. . . .

He continued:

If you look in detail at what the government is giving itself through this particular clause, it’s giving itself a whole series of very detailed opportunities to, in my view, interfere with the normal functioning of the CRTC. . . .

In the face of those concerns, raised by multiple independent experts, we agreed as a committee to completely delete subclause 7(7) in its entirely and to maintain the CRTC’s independence from the potential for government micromanagement.

But I think the biggest and most critical amendment we made was to a vexing part of the bill, subclause 4.2(2), which I like to call the “exception to the exception” clause. In the wake of some of the controversy around Bill C-10, the Minister of Canadian Heritage promised that Bill C-11 would not pertain to nor capture users of social media but only big streamers who were analogous to traditional broadcasters. Indeed, that is what clause 4.1 (1) of the bill says — that the act does not apply to a program that is uploaded to a social media service by a user of that service.

Unfortunately, clause 4.2 (2) of the bill, as it came to our committee, undid that assurance by giving the CRTC the power to scope in a program uploaded to a social media service if it directly or indirectly generates revenues. That exception-to-the-exception clause rightly worried all kinds of small and not-so-small independent producers who use services such as YouTube and TikTok to distribute their programming, though they retain the copyright.

At the same time, the government insisted it couldn’t simply exempt all social media platforms from Bill C-11 because some large commercial broadcasters and large record labels were using services such as YouTube and Facebook to release or re-release commercial content. If we exempted social media entirely, we were told, it would give YouTube an unfair market advantage over a music streaming service such as Spotify or Amazon’s Prime Video when it came to the release of music by major record labels. It could also allow commercial broadcasters to do an end run around Canadian content, or CanCon, rules and regulations that they would potentially be subject to on other platforms.

So after extensive consultation with a wide variety of francophone and anglophone stakeholders and legal experts from music producers to digital creators to academics, Senator Miville-Dechêne and I, at our offices, came up with an amendment that we believe — and that the majority of our committee members believe — will help to address this knotty problem.

Our amendment to clause 4.2 (2) removes all mention of revenues, whether direct or indirect. Instead, it focuses on whether or not a piece of content has already been broadcast on a conventional commercial service and/or whether it has a unique identifier number that is assigned to commercial recordings. In other words, our amendment would mean that if a broadcaster such as Rogers or CBC reposted a baseball game or a news documentary to YouTube or Facebook, such a rebroadcast would still be captured by the provisions of Bill C-11.

Our amendment would also ensure that if a major record label such as Sony released a new single or album on YouTube, that posting would be treated in a way that was akin to the release of a song on Spotify, Amazon or TIDAL. At the same time, digital creators, including commercially successful ones, would be properly and clearly exempted from Bill C-11 even if they uploaded their comedy, music, animation, film or TV episodes to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or some other social media platform we cannot yet predict or imagine.

In other words, my friends, the bill now says, “platforms in, users out.”

I’m sorry that not everybody is here to hear me say those words, but it says, “platforms in, users out.” Is it sexy? Well, my idea of what’s sexy may not be your idea of what’s sexy, but I think Senator Miville-Dechêne and I have given a very nice workaround to a problem.

Is it a perfect solution? Well, no, it probably isn’t. Public policy perfection is hard to come by at the best of times and even more so when you have so many competing cultural, social, economic and political interests at play. But I believe — and I think our committee, in balance, believes — that this is a workable compromise — one that the government should not just accept but embrace.

As you will doubtless recall, I have been quite critical of Bill C-11 since its inception and somewhat dubious of any government’s capacity or obligation to curate what Canadians can see and hear. There are still things in this bill that I believe to be philosophically wrong-headed, but to compare this bill to the draconian regimes of Hitler and Stalin is a grievous insult to the memories of all who suffered and died at their hands, including members of my family. However, I believe that our committee’s amendments have made substantive and substantial improvements to the legislation and address several of its deepest flaws.

Thus today, colleagues, I commend our revised version of Bill C-11 to you. I invite you to accept it as amended and, in so doing, to send to the government the clear message that it is this bill — as amended — that has earned your support. Thank you. Hiy hiy.

Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, I rise today — with substantial trepidation, given the speakers that I’m following — to speak on Bill C-11, the online streaming act. I would first like to commend our colleagues on the Senate Transport and Communications Committee, who navigated through often competing amendments to meaningfully improve the bill that arrived in the chamber. The diligence that they demonstrated really reinforced the role of the Senate as the chamber of sober second thought.

I have thought a little bit about the fact that maybe we could consider a thorough review process in future and learn some lessons from this process as to how not to have it be quite so arduous, long and drawn-out. Nonetheless, I think our chamber has done tremendous work on this bill.

I want to focus my remarks on two points as these resulting amendments are considered both here and in the other place, as regulations are developed to implement the final legislation, and on the drafting of future legislation intended to improve the prosperity of Canadians as we rapidly evolve in this global digital economy.

First, let’s ensure that we are enabling both incumbents and new entrants, be they individual creators or companies, to earn increasing amounts of recurring revenue for the purposes of creating sustained wealth and prosperity for Canadians. The principle needs to be that we are focusing on Canadian intellectual property and exploiting that globally.

Second, let’s begin to develop some regulatory agility as we enable Canadian companies and innovators — in this case, those in the audiovisual and creative sectors. Let’s make sure that they can become increasingly globally competitive as technologies and business models continue to evolve from today.

I do not have a magic bullet that will offer instant, simplistic solutions — like a great little line I heard a few times a moment ago. But I am absolutely certain that focusing on these two priorities will help to ultimately uncover important and actionable opportunities that will benefit Canadians over time.

Let me speak to my first point, and that is the need to intensely focus on creating the conditions necessary to generate recurring revenue from Canadian-owned intellectual property. One of the objectives of this bill is to “serve the needs and interests of all Canadians . . .” through “its programming and the employment opportunities . . . .”

In my second reading speech on the previous iteration of this bill — Bill C-10 in the last Parliament — I asked the Transport Committee to consider how we can ensure that our regulatory frameworks and other policy tools ultimately incentivize the creation of content and assets that generate recurring revenue for Canadians. Colleagues, you’ve heard me speak in this chamber about the importance of commercializing intellectual property here in Canada. If we want to turn our knowledge and creativity into jobs, opportunities and prosperity, a top priority must be to own in Canada and globally commercialize from Canada the highly creative assets that are globally competitive. If we do not succeed, we risk becoming a branch-plant economy where we just rent Canadian talent to foreign entities. As a result, our talent is paid only once to create high-value assets that generate recurring revenues for others instead of paying Canadian talent to create Canadian-owned assets that generate recurring income for Canadians into the future.

This challenge was echoed by several witnesses in the committee during the study of the bill. Michael MacMillan, co‑founder and CEO of Blue Ant Media, said:

My firm view is that an “eligible Canadian program” is a program produced by Canadians. . . . where the copyright and the use right are owned by Canadians?

Mr. Justin Rebelo, Director at the Canadian Association of Film Distributors & Exporters, also added that, “It is important that Canada does not become a solely service production industry and our system protects ownership . . . .”

Similarly, Howard Law, former director of local media unions at Unifor, wrote in a blog post that:

. . . unless independent Canadian producers retain full rights to exploit and profit from their best creations . . . they will become CanCon sub-contractors in their own land . . . .

This is a daunting risk and a crucial priority. That’s why I’m pleased to see an amendment in the bill that directs the CRTC to consider, in the regulatory development process, whether Canadians would benefit fairly from the use of Canadian programs, including copyright and other rights. This provision could provide regulators with an opportunity to apply a pro-competitive lens in the development of regulations to ensure that anti-competitive practices are considered and managed, including in licensing and distribution deals.

As a related point, it is very promising that the new CRTC chair has a strong background in competition law and policy and in fighting for pro-competitive markets. Ms. Vicky Eatrides has committed to growing the CRTC’s capacity to manage its responsibilities in an increasingly dynamic digital landscape and to applying her pro-competitive background at the CRTC. I’m hopeful that her presence also signals that there will be increased coordination between the CRTC, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Competition Bureau, something that is already delivering benefits in other jurisdictions.

I won’t lament the fact that these changes are long overdue. I will just offer that any further delays will hand this new chair even greater challenges than she faces today. I wish Ms. Eatrides success as she strives to unlock the tremendous social and economic opportunities that reside in this sector for Canadians.

Now to my second point: We must be willing to iterate if we are to compete in a rapidly evolving global digital economy.

When the bill was reintroduced in revised form this session, the policy objective seemed clear. The government sought to continue its intentional strategy to protect Canadian cultural sovereignty within our broadcasting system, but now including the online sphere.

As the bill progressed, however, this objective was challenged. Many concerns were raised about this legislation by different stakeholders in the creative and audiovisual sectors, including online content creators. Many of these concerns look to have been addressed through amendments. Only time will tell their fate once they get sent back to the other place.

Industries globally must constantly innovate if they are to compete in an increasingly digitally porous world. In this global context, government needs to be a catalyst, empowering the innovation that will drive long-term competitiveness. While some progress has been made, Canada is well behind her peers in legislative and regulatory modernization and in the development of pro-competitive policies. Sadly, we have an abundance of 30-year-old legislation that requires updating.

Given this context, it is ironic that this legislation aims to incorporate new online innovations into a regulatory system that is burdened by a broadcast legacy. For example, the rapid shift towards direct-to-consumer content delivery models has revolutionized business models and forced traditional broadcasters to adapt in order to stay competitive.

Consequently, this bill is attempting to bring the disruptors into a legacy regulatory system full of those who were disrupted. This was an odd choice when compared to building an agile system that is fit for the digital era.

In fact, leading experts such as Michael Geist, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, shares the view that using policy instruments like broadcasting regulations for online streaming and undertakings should be the exception, not the rule.

Nevertheless, I am glad to see an amendment that will require the CRTC to ensure that our broadcasting system will promote innovation and adapt to technological changes. In this regard, it is my hope that officials can look to best-in-class global standards as models to strengthen the agility of new regulations in our broadcasting system so that we keep up and, perhaps, at some point, start to lead in the world.

Even so, creating a modern broadcasting system that will “serve the needs and interests of . . . Canadians” — a primary objective of this bill — and does so in this rapidly evolving digital era requires swift action not only in modernizing our regulatory system but also in incentivizing market-based approaches that enable Canadian incumbents and new entrants to thrive in both domestic and global creative markets.

Some of these incentives are already in place. For example, federal and provincial tax credits have made Canada an attractive destination for film and TV production. As a result, some Canadian creators — including BIPOC filmmakers — have benefitted from these program supports. However, these supply-side incentives also need to be coupled with actions to stimulate increased demand for Canadian content in these sectors, both domestically and globally. Slow action on this means we risk losing more innovative production companies like Tangent Animation, a Canadian-owned animation studio based in Toronto and Winnipeg that unexpectedly shut down in 2021, leaving about 400 people out of jobs.

Colleagues, our country is at a critical juncture. We must find ways to become the disruptors, not the disrupted. The CRTC has a lot of work to do so we have the conditions for creators to earn recurring revenues and to build a culture that is agile enough to take advantage of changes globally and not be disrupted by them.

We all want an independent, thriving, competitive audiovisual and creative industry that helps to secure our collective prosperity for future generations to come. I support this amended bill as a step in that journey down this all-important road.

Thank you, colleagues.

Senator Manning: A principal issue related to this bill is the question of to whom this legislation would apply.

The government has repeatedly stated that there is no intent to apply this legislation to small players. Yet, there are no boundaries in the legislation to ensure that that intention is respected and this does not happen.

The Senate Transport and Communications Committee heard from numerous witnesses who clearly stated that the bill had to incorporate a revenue threshold in order to ensure that the legislation focuses on services that are truly of consequence in the digital marketplace, rather than capturing user-generated content.

Tim Denton, Chair of the Internet Society Canada Chapter, said that any online service that earns less than $150 million in Canada annually should be excluded from the act and “. . . from any regulation or obligation to contribute to Canadian content production . . . .”

As it stands now, it may surprise many of you to learn that neither charities nor religious organizations are exempt from regulation under this legislation, and proposed subclause 2(2.3) does not shelter the online activities of individuals, whether professional or amateur.

I know that some colleagues believe and will argue that social media is now exempt based on the amendment from our colleague Senator Miville-Dechene adopted at committee. However, I, and many stakeholders, are still of the mind that this amendment doesn’t go far enough because of the wide discretionary power it still affords the CRTC in deciding what is or isn’t scoped into this legislation.

As Mr. Denton said, social media platforms are far from the only places on the internet where entities and individuals may transmit audio or audiovisual content. Individual and community websites abound with such content. Neither subclause 2(2.3) nor clause 4.1 addresses the much broader regulatory reach of Bill C-11.

Konrad von Finckenstein, former chair of the CRTC, addressed another aspect of this. He noted that vesting in the commission such large powers with such vague parameters will prove extremely onerous for the CRTC. Every single stakeholder will come forward with specific requests for exemptions of conditions and argue they fall within the vast powers given to the CRTC.

Mr. von Finckenstein said that one cannot forget that the CRTC is a court of record that identifies issues, either on its own or via petitions; seeks input from affected parties and stakeholders; holds hearings, live or on paper; and then issues a decision.

All that has to be done in accordance with due process and can be judicially appealed.

Consequently, narrowing the powers will allow the CRTC to make good, timely and targeted decisions. The goal, of course, is to protect and strengthen Canadian broadcasting and foster Canadian production. Hence, the legislation should target only large streamers who can meaningfully compete with established broadcasters.

Isn’t that what the government keeps telling us is the point of this legislation? To target streamers who behave like 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.

Professor Michael Geist also told our committee:

I believe there is a clear need for thresholds and limitations in the legislation itself. Without it, services may regard the regulatory uncertainty — which the House committee heard will take years to sort out — to block Canada, leading to less choice and higher consumer costs.

This aspect is key. The full ramifications of this bill will take years to sort out as the CRTC goes through its regulatory processes. That means years of uncertainty for smaller players. It is that uncertainty they cannot afford.

Here I would like to quote Matthew Hatfield, the Campaigns Director of OpenMedia, who said, “It’s nonsensical for Bill C-11 to place obligations on platforms with a few thousand Canadian subscribers . . . .”

He also said:

It would be a very cruel consequence of this bill for diasporic Canadian communities to be cut off from the invaluable cultural lifeline provided by foreign streaming services.

Colleagues, I cannot stress enough how vital it is that we recognize the uncertainty this is creating for ordinary players. As Monica Auer, Executive Director of Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, told our committee, “. . . Bill C-11 is not coherent and not readily understood.”

The bill leaves creators guessing, and we should not be putting them in that position.

I would also like to reference what smaller creators told our committee, specifically Justin Tomchuk, an independent filmmaker who told our committee on September 27 that Bill C-11, as currently drafted:

. . . makes it clear that my business will fall under the call of the CRTC’s directives, as I derive direct and indirect income through my artistic efforts.

Scott Benzie, Managing Director or Digital First Canada, told the committee on September 28:

Our ask is simple: [The bill] needs clarity into what is in and what is out, because it currently includes the entire internet. Something this critical cannot be left to the CRTC to wade through.

Morghan Fortier, Co-Owner and Chief Executive Officer of Skyship Entertainment, said:

What keeps me up at night about this bill is the potential to gate content that is deemed not Canadian, either entering into the country or within the country. With retaliation from other countries, should this type of a law pass through, we’re done. I don’t mean my company. I mean we don’t need to talk about this bill anymore because it’s over. That will affect regionalized content creators, small content creators and larger content creators.

Frédéric Bastien Forrest, animator and content creator, told our committee on October 4:

My take on this is that it is scary. We have the feeling that the politicians behind this law are well intentioned and they want to promote our culture, which is great, but the side effects of the law could break stuff.

Oorbee Roy, content creator and skateboarder, also expressed her fears about how a small undertaking like hers could be impacted by CRTC regulation. She noted the arduous process that she and other creators face in registering their material as Canadian content.

I know that some senators will say that the Canadian content provisions were amended in committee. However, colleagues, there is no guarantee that that particular amendment will be accepted by the government. I submit that we need this very modest amendment I am proposing, and that the government will have difficulty saying “no” to it.

At committee, the government majority rejected the threshold of $150 million proposed by Mr. Denton. We were told by government officials that with a $150 million threshold some platforms, such as CBC Gem, might be excluded from regulation. But the committee then went on to reject the $100 million threshold proposed by Mr. von Finkenstein, and then it inexplicably rejected even lower thresholds of $50 million and $25 million.

So, colleagues, what I am proposing today is a threshold that would truly only exempt the very smallest of players. This threshold of $10 million is one fifteenth the amount recommended by Mr. Denton and the Internet Society, and one tenth the amount recommended by Mr. von Finkenstein.

Colleagues, I believe we have an obligation to respond to what an overwhelming number of witnesses have told us. The “just trust us” approach is bringing little comfort to the Canadians whose livelihoods depend on whether they will be subject to regulation as a result of this bill.

I hope you will support this amendment to establish greater certainty for ordinary Canadians.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Senator Miville-Dechêne: I am a bit surprised by your proposal because the reason Bill C-11 is so vague on some very specific issues is that the internet is constantly changing. The $10-million threshold is not particularly low, but we have no way of knowing how the internet will change in the future and who will become a major broadcaster in the Canadian context.

How did you come up with this $10-million threshold? Is it really a good idea to include this factor in the bill rather than allow the market to determine it? Again, you will say this is a matter for the CRTC, which already has a lot to rule on.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Dawson’s time has expired. Senator Dawson, are you asking for five more minutes?

Senator Dawson: It has already been 45 minutes, but I will ask for another 5, yes.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Housakos, he has three-and-a-half minutes.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Richards, are you asking for five more minutes?

The Hon. the Speaker: I’m sorry, Senator Richards’ time has expired. Do you want to ask a question, Senator Omidvar?

The Hon. the Speaker: All those opposed will please say “nay.”

The Hon. the Speaker: Are senators ready for the question?

The Hon. the Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”

The Hon. the Speaker: In my opinion, the “nays” have it.

And two honourable senators having risen:

The Hon. the Speaker: I see two senators rising. Do we have agreement on a bell?

The Hon. the Speaker: The vote will take place at 6:02 p.m. Call in the senators.

Motion in amendment of the Honourable Senator Manning negatived on the following division: