(The Canadian Press)

By Derek Craddock

BILL C-11

Journalism professor applauds the passing of Canada’s online streaming bill

May 12, 2023 | 5:00 PM

A controversial bill to regulate streaming services recently passed the Senate and one Saskatchewan professor said she’s grateful for it.

Patricia Elliott teaches journalism at First Nations University in Regina and has been following the progress of Bill C-11 for months now.

She said, as a big supporter of Indigenous and non-profit media, she’s pleased the government is recognizing those broadcasters.

“With that, it means local enterprises will finally be able to leverage the support they need to provide content that’s relevant to their communities.”

The bill updates the Broadcasting Act to bring online streaming platforms under the regulatory authority of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

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It also sets steep penalties for digital platforms that don’t make Canadian content available to their users in Canada.

The Bill, however, has come under fire from content producers, the federal Conservatives as well as YouTube and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

All parties believe the Bill will affect what users are allowed to upload, with the Tories claiming it is a censorship bill, directly attacking the rights of free speech.

Elliot doesn’t agree with those claims and believes much of the criticism is not warranted.

“I think there’s a tremendous amount of dis-information about the bill and what it’s meant to do. If you have a YouTube Channel and you’re uploading your videos to YouTube, you’re not a broadcaster, this Bill does not apply to you.”

Now this isn’t the only online content Bill Parliament is working through. Last summer, the Liberals introduced Bill C-18 that would require deals in place for tech giants like Google and Meta to pay Canadian media companies to use their content.

Elliott said this would be another boost for the local media industry as community media partners would be eligible for this compensation.

Now that the bill is passed, Elliott said she’ll be keeping an eye on the media landscape and what happens with the CRTC and enforcing the law.

“We are going to be watching to see what happens with the CRTC and what kind of direction or instructions are going to come from Canadian Heritage towards CRTC,” she said.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done on the ground before we start seeing how this is going to impact our media landscape.”

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @princealbertnow