CRTC not twiddling thumbs as industry changes: Blais

OTTAWA — On the same day that a new report was released arguing the CRTC’s role and authority should be reduced in response to technological change, CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais defended the relevance of the commission in the digital age in front of a Parliamentary committee. “The Internet and its wide range of applications and opportunities has changed the landscape and yet Ottawa’s digital policy and legal framework has failed to keep up,” the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) report said. “Regulating how much Canadian content is shown on traditional over-the-air television when Canadians are spending roughly one-third of a day per week watching Internet-based content, for instance, seems like a losing battle.” The report, written by former CRTC commissioner Len Katz and Sean Speer, said Canadian content objectives and rules should only apply to CBC/Radio-Canada, not to private broadcasters and the Competition Bureau should take “primary responsibility” for competition issues in broadcasting and telecom. The CRTC should instead be refocused on “overseeing sector-specific issues such as interoperability, the transfer of spectrum, wholesale rules where necessary, broadcasting licences, and pricing transparency; social policy objectives such as official languages, digital access for persons with disabilities, and privacy; and sector-related data collection and reporting such as its Communications Monitoring Report.” Speaking at the standing committee on Canadian heritage Thursday, Blais was asked about how changing technological habits are affecting the commission, and responded that the CRTC’s mandate extends beyond broadcasting. “We’re still quite active to make sure we have more connectivity, fairer prices for Canadians on the telecommunications side, that includes on the wireless side, not just on the wireline side,” he said. Radio frequencies are limited and someone has to manage those, he added. Blais said the CRTC also has a role in what he termed the “protect pillar,” which includes unsolicited communications like telemarketers calling people who are on the do-not-call list and unsolicited spam. Robocalling during elections also falls under the CRTC’s mandate, he said. “So our mandate, there’s plenty of work to do and we’re certainly not twiddling our thumbs as the industry changes. In fact there’s more work for us because of dealing with that change,” Blais added. The authors of the MLI report also said the government should consider making the Radiocommunication Act, the Broadcasting Act, and the Telecommunications Act into one piece of legislation and that it should “establish a new digital policy and legal framework that recognizes the broader importance of the digital economy and how highly competitive and dynamic the market is.” The CRTC’s mission is still largely to defend the Canadian broadcast and telecom sectors “from foreign competition and to pursue defensive cultural goals even though these are increasingly ill-fated tasks in the face of ubiquitous” online competition, the report argued. The first priority should be to “end the asymmetrical treatment” between Canadian companies and foreign over-the-top (OTT) services when it comes to Canadian content rules and contributions and the simplest way to do so would be to lift those requirements from Canadian companies, it said.

CRTC not twiddling thumbs as industry changes: Blais

Brief | October 20, 2016

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CRTC not twiddling thumbs as industry changes: Blais

Brief | October 20, 2016

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