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The CRTC said it would leave podcasts alone. Turns out that was a myth

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From the MacDonald-Laurier Institute

This article originally appeared in the Hub.

By Peter Menzies, October 4, 2023

It’s clear the regulator is about to draw podcasts into its warm embrace.

The CRTC has backtracked on its promise to leave podcasts alone.

On May 12, the federal regulator stated in its “Myths and Facts” release that concerns it would regulate content such as podcasts were a “myth” and the “fact” of the matter was that “a person who creates audio or video content or creates a podcast, is not a broadcaster under” the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11).

That “fact” didn’t live long. It expired September 29 when, in its first decisions since being granted authority over the internet, the CRTC changed lanes.

While it was careful to state that podcasters themselves don’t have to register with the Commission, the web-based platforms that make podcasts available must do so. Indeed, podcasters may not be broadcasters, but very much as predicted by the legislation’s critics, the CRTC has found ways to bring them into scope anyway.

It decided that podcasts constitute “programs under the Broadcasting Act, given that they are comprised of sounds intended to inform, enlighten or entertain.”

The regulator’s decision further explains that while podcasters may not be broadcasters, the transmission of podcasts over the internet most definitely “constitutes broadcasting” which makes those entities that platform podcasts into cable companies.

So while the CRTC concedes that while “the Broadcasting Act does not give the Commission a mandate to regulate creators of programs” it nevertheless makes clear that its powers do cover “those services that are involved in the broadcasting of programs, which are referred to as broadcasting undertakings.”

Is your head spinning yet?

The legal contortions continue throughout the decision, but the clear takeaway, the bottom line, is that, while it keeps insisting it doesn’t intend to regulate the content of podcasts, it is very concerned about the content of podcasts and if it can’t legally regulate them, it’ll make sure someone else does it for them.

Paragraph 223 of its decision makes it clear the CRTC is about to draw podcasts into its warm embrace.

Without information about online undertakings that transmit or retransmit podcasts, it would be more difficult for the Commission to ensure the achievement of the objectives of … the Broadcasting Act, which relate to, among other things, providing a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern, and (that) the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should be varied and comprehensive, providing a balance of information, enlightenment and entertainment for people of all ages, interests and tastes.

In other words, what the CRTC denounced as “myth” in the spring has become a “fact” in the fall. It has kicked open the door to the regulation of online content, if not directly then by proxy through the platforms that deliver the work of podcasters to their audiences.

It is a bureaucratic master stroke.

Here’s what will follow.

The list of intervenors presenting at the CRTC’s public hearing coming up in late November indicates the panel of commissioners will hear from a number of groups that will explain the extent to which they are under-represented and funded. So, a possible outcome of this will be that services that carry podcasts will have to fund podcasters who, on their own, haven’t been able to find an audience.

Just as likely is that platforms will be regulated to ensure podcasts designated by the CRTC are given priority visibility/discoverability online over undesignated podcasts through the manipulation of algorithms. These are likely to be podcasts by Indigenous, BIPOC and LGBTQ2S creators.

As erstwhile CRTC Chair Ian Scott told the Senate committee studying Bill C-11 in 2022:

Instead of saying, and the Act precludes this, we will make changes to your algorithms as many European countries are contemplating doing, instead, we will say this is the outcome we want. We want Canadians to find Canadian music. How best to do it? How will you do it? I don’t want to manipulate your algorithm. I want you to manipulate it to produce a particular outcome. And then we will have hearings to decide what are the best ways and explore it.

This was reinforced in an exchange Scott had with Senator Pamela Wallin, who suggested proponents of the bill were parsing their words and that:

You won’t manipulate the algorithms; you will make the platforms do it. That is regulation by another name. You’re regulating either directly and explicitly or indirectly, but you are regulating content.

To which Mr. Scott replied: “you’re right.”

The CRTC has now confirmed what it denied mere months ago when it was parroting then-Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s talking points.

It will make sure podcasts and any other internet content it can capture is regulated.

Peter Menzies is a Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former newspaper executive, and past vice chair of the CRTC.

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Massive government child-care plan wreaking havoc across Ontario

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

It’s now more than four years since the federal Liberal government pledged $30 billion in spending over five years for $10-per-day national child care, and more than three years since Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government signed a $13.2 billion deal with the federal government to deliver this child-care plan.

Not surprisingly, with massive government funding came massive government control. While demand for child care has increased due to the government subsidies and lower out-of-pocket costs for parents, the plan significantly restricts how child-care centres operate (including what items participating centres may purchase), and crucially, caps the proportion of government funds available to private for-profit providers.

What have families and taxpayers got for this enormous government effort? Widespread child-care shortages across Ontario.

For example, according to the City of Ottawa, the number of children (aged 0 to 5 years) on child-care waitlists has ballooned by more than 300 per cent since 2019, there are significant disparities in affordable child-care access “with nearly half of neighbourhoods underserved, and limited access in suburban and rural areas,” and families face “significantly higher” costs for before-and-after-school care for school-age children.

In addition, Ottawa families find the system “complex and difficult to navigate” and “fewer child care options exist for children with special needs.” And while 42 per cent of surveyed parents need flexible child care (weekends, evenings, part-time care), only one per cent of child-care centres offer these flexible options. These are clearly not encouraging statistics, and show that a government-knows-best approach does not properly anticipate the diverse needs of diverse families.

Moreover, according to the Peel Region’s 2025 pre-budget submission to the federal government (essentially, a list of asks and recommendations), it “has maximized its for-profit allocation, leaving 1,460 for-profit spaces on a waitlist.” In other words, families can’t access $10-per-day child care—the central promise of the plan—because the government has capped the number of for-profit centres.

Similarly, according to Halton Region’s pre-budget submission to the provincial government, “no additional families can be supported with affordable child care” because, under current provincial rules, government funding can only be used to reduce child-care fees for families already in the program.

And according to a March 2025 Oxford County report, the municipality is experiencing a shortage of child-care staff and access challenges for low-income families and children with special needs. The report includes a grim bureaucratic predication that “provincial expansion targets do not reflect anticipated child care demand.”

Child-care access is also a problem provincewide. In Stratford, which has a population of roughly 33,000, the municipal government reports that more than 1,000 children are on a child-care waitlist. Similarly in Port Colborne (population 20,000), the city’s chief administrative officer told city council in April 2025 there were almost 500 children on daycare waitlists at the beginning of the school term. As of the end of last year, Guelph and Wellington County reportedly had a total of 2,569 full-day child-care spaces for children up to age four, versus a waitlist of 4,559 children—in other words, nearly two times as many children on a waitlist compared to the number of child-care spaces.

More examples. In Prince Edward County, population around 26,000, there are more than 400 children waitlisted for licensed daycare. In Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton County, the child-care waitlist is about 1,500 children long and the average wait time is four years. And in St. Mary’s, there are more than 600 children waitlisted for child care, but in recent years town staff have only been able to move 25 to 30 children off the wait list annually.

The numbers speak for themselves. Massive government spending and control over child care has created havoc for Ontario families and made child-care access worse. This cannot be a surprise. Quebec’s child-care system has been largely government controlled for decades, with poor results. Why would Ontario be any different? And how long will Premier Ford allow this debacle to continue before he asks the new prime minister to rethink the child-care policy of his predecessor?

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute
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Canada Caves: Carney ditches digital services tax after criticism from Trump

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From The Center Square

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Canada caved to President Donald Trump demands by pulling its digital services tax hours before it was to go into effect on Monday.

Trump said Friday that he was ending all trade talks with Canada over the digital services tax, which he called a direct attack on the U.S. and American tech firms. The DST required foreign and domestic businesses to pay taxes on some revenue earned from engaging with online users in Canada.

“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” the president said. “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

By Sunday, Canada relented in an effort to resume trade talks with the U.S., it’s largest trading partner.

“To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” according to a statement from Canada’s Department of Finance.

Canada’s Department of Finance said that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump agreed to resume negotiations, aiming to reach a deal by July 21.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Monday that the digital services tax would hurt the U.S.

“Thank you Canada for removing your Digital Services Tax which was intended to stifle American innovation and would have been a deal breaker for any trade deal with America,” he wrote on X.

Earlier this month, the two nations seemed close to striking a deal.

Trump said he and Carney had different concepts for trade between the two neighboring countries during a meeting at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, in the Canadian Rockies.

Asked what was holding up a trade deal between the two nations at that time, Trump said they had different concepts for what that would look like.

“It’s not so much holding up, I think we have different concepts, I have a tariff concept, Mark has a different concept, which is something that some people like, but we’re going to see if we can get to the bottom of it today.”

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump hit Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs for allowing fentanyl and migrants to cross their borders into the U.S. Trump later applied those 25% tariffs only to goods that fall outside the free-trade agreement between the three nations, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Trump put a 10% tariff on non-USMCA compliant potash and energy products. A 50% tariff on aluminum and steel imports from all countries into the U.S. has been in effect since June 4. Trump also put a 25% tariff on all cars and trucks not built in the U.S.

Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.

Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods paid by the person or company that imports them. The importer can absorb the cost of the tariffs or try to pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices.

Trump’s tariffs give U.S.-produced goods a price advantage over imported goods, generating revenue for the federal government.

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