QUESTION PERIOD — Canadian Heritage
Broadcasting Act
October 4, 2023
Senator Gold, your government repeatedly said that user-generated content would not be regulated by Bill C-11. You explicitly ruled out the regulation of podcasts.
On May 12 of this year, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, released a myths and facts communiqué stating that concerns over the regulation of podcasts were a myth, and that anyone who creates a podcast isn’t a broadcaster under this law.
Quietly, last Friday, the very same regulator announced that podcasts must be registered with your government. Senator Gold, for a government supposedly consumed with misinformation and disinformation, this government continues to engage in it. Why were Canadians lied to in this manner by the Trudeau government and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC?
Canadians were not lied to by the government or the CRTC. My understanding is that this is the first stage within the regulatory process, and the criteria that will ultimately develop, as I understand it, will include — as colleagues would recall from our debates — the extent or degree to which initiatives on platforms can be considered properly broadcasters, and that also includes the extent of their reach and of their revenues. Therefore, it is simply not correct to attribute this stage of the regulatory process as a lie.
Senator Gold, your government continues to say — as does the CRTC — that digital creators are not being regulated but that the platforms are. The reality of the matter is that’s the equivalent of saying books aren’t being regulated, but bookstores are. This is insanity, Senator Gold. It has to stop.
At the end of the day, if the CRTC doesn’t clearly understand what the government’s intention is with this bill, will you give clear directive? Or is this just another mess that Pierre Poilievre will have to clean up when he becomes prime minister?
Well, I certainly won’t comment on what mess Pierre Poilievre will clean up, create or otherwise if and when he becomes prime minister.
Again, Bill C-11 was the subject of rigorous study and debate in this chamber. We did our job well. We studied it. We improved it with our amendments. The other house considered them, and the bill was passed into law. There are now further processes under way, and I have confidence in them.
