On the telecom side of things, the CRTC’s long-standing focus on the fundamental issues of access and affordability is far more tangible than the ethereal cultural ambitions that have swamped the broadcasting boat
Canada’s communications policy playing field is more uncertain today than it has been in decades.
The cause is primarily the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), which attempts to “modernize” the Broadcasting Act by defining all internet-based audio and visual content as “broadcasting.” Promoted by a series of heritage ministers as a simple matter of ensuring that streaming companies support Canadian content, the act has alarmed a thriving community of unregulated online creators while causing targeted offshore operators to question how they can continue operating in Canada.
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) chair Vicky Eatrides, appointed last January, is clearly feeling pressure to implement Bill C-11 as quickly as possible. Following a series of rushed preliminary processes that made it challenging for many companies in the regulatory “rookie” category to participate, the CRTC’s first public hearing is scheduled for Nov. 20.
It involves 127 intervenors, is scheduled to last three weeks, and Eatrides hopes to have initial decisions made by the end of 2024.
With all her staff’s hands to the pumps on that file, Eatrides has shut down dealing with new licensing matters in the traditional broadcasting fields of television and radio for at least two years. All TV licences up for renewal this year were administratively renewed until 2025 (Bell has filed a court appeal). All of those expiring next year were renewed as is until 2026, and the radio industry was informed the CRTC won’t accept applications in that genre for at least two years, putting it in a regulatory cryo-chamber.
Meanwhile, active broadcasting files have been triaged to the extent that they are backed up, in some cases for years, leaving those involved without the decisions they need. The renewal of the CBC’s licence, for instance, remains incomplete 33 months after the CRTC’s public hearing into the matter.
On the telecommunications side, life is much more steady as she goes. Early in July, the CRTC laid out what it described as a more streamlined and flexible manner for determining wholesale access rates with the goal of fostering competition. But these matters are rarely dealt with swiftly, and incumbent companies affected by this new—and, to many, refreshing—approach have a long track record of being able to drag things out.
Competitor access rates is a matter that has preoccupied the CRTC for a decade; the rates have wavered back and forth since at least 2016, and the lack of regulatory certainty has had a debilitating impact on smaller service providers. The largest of those—TekSavvy—threw in the towel early this summer and put itself up for sale.
The management of so-called mobile virtual network operator rates, particularly relevant in the shadow of Quebecor’s purchase of Freedom Mobile, has moved along efficiently. This is another positive sign involving an area in which the CRTC is attempting to foster competition with increased regulatory certainty. When it comes to the telecom side of things, the regulator’s long-standing focus on the fundamental issues of access and affordability is, while complicated in terms of implementation, far more tangible than the ethereal cultural ambitions that have swamped the broadcasting boat.
Two other matters are worth watching.
The first—the CRTC’s role in overseeing negotiations as foreseen in the Online News Act—may evaporate. Meta has moved out of the business of carrying news in Canada, with disastrous consequences for those in the business of creating it. News Media Canada, the industry’s lobbying arm, is now asking the government to bow to Google’s demands before it does the same.
That could mean significant legislative amendments which could eliminate the CRTC’s role entirely. Seeing as the commission has already delayed decisions on which news organizations would qualify until late 2024, this would be a welcome relief.
The second will be whether the CRTC, when dealing with the likes of Disney and Netflix next month, realizes what’s at stake. The United States-based companies aren’t interested in contributing solely through official funds while all the commission appears to want to talk about is how much they should pay and to which funds.
Neither has threatened, as Meta and Google did with Bill C-18, to disconnect Canada if they don’t get the outcomes they need.
Not yet, anyway.
Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former newspaper executive, and past vice-chair of the CRTC.
Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.
Parents should take precaution this holiday season when it comes to artificial intelligence toys after researchers for the new Trouble in Toyland report found safety concerns.
Illinois Public Interest Research Group Campaign Associate Ellen Hengesbach said some of the toys armed with AI raised red flags ranging from toys that talk in-depth about sexually explicit topics to acting dismayed when the child disengages.
“What they look like are basically stuffed animals or toy robots that have a chatbot like Chat GPT embedded in them and can have conversations with children,” Hengesbach told The Center Square.
The U.S. PIRG Education Fund report also points out that at least three toys have limited to no parental controls and have the capacity to record your child’s voice and collect other sensitive data via facial recognition.
“All three were willing to tell us where to find potentially dangerous objects in the house, such as plastic bags, matches, or knives,” she said. “It seems like dystopian science fiction decades ago is now reality.”
In the face of all the changing landscape and rising concerns, Hengesbach is calling for immediate action.
“The two main things that we’d like to see are more oversight in general and more research so we can see exactly how these toys interact with kids, really just identify what the harms might be and have a lot more transparency from companies around how are these toys designed,” she said. “What are they capable of and what the potential risks or harms might be. I just really want us to take this opportunity to really think through what we’re doing instead of rushing a toy to market.”
As for the here and now, Hengesbach stressed parents would be wise to be thoughtful about their purchases.
“We just have a big open question of what are the long-term impacts of these products on young kids, especially when it comes to their social development,” she said. “The fact is that we just really won’t know what the long-term impacts of AI friends and companion toys might be until the first generation playing with them grows up. For now, I think it’s just really important that parents understand that these AI toys are out there; they’re very new and they’re basically unregulated.”
Since the release of the report, Hengesbach said one AI toymaker temporarily suspended sales of all their products to conduct a safety audit.
This year’s 40th Trouble in Toyland report also focuses on toys that contain toxins, counterfeit toys that haven’t been tested for safety, recalled toys and toys that contain button cell batteries or high-powered magnets, both of which can be deadly if swallowed.
Generous social programs come with trade-offs. Pretending otherwise is political fiction
Nordic societies fund their own benefits through taxes and cost-sharing. Canadians expect someone to foot the bill
Like Donald Trump, one of my favourite words starts with the letter “T.” But where Trump likes the word “tariff,” my choice is “trade-off.” Virtually everything in life is a trade-off, and we’d all be much better off if we instinctively understood that.
Think about it.
If you yield to the immediate pleasure of spending all your money on whatever catches your fancy, you’ll wind up broke. If you regularly enjoy drinking to excess, be prepared to pay the unpleasant price of hangovers and maybe worse. If you don’t bother to acquire some marketable skill or credential, don’t be surprised if your employment prospects are limited. If you succumb to the allure of fooling around, you may well lose your marriage. And so on.
Failing to understand trade-offs also extends into political life. Take, for instance, the current fashion for anti-capitalist democratic socialism. Pushed to explain their vision, proponents will often make reference to the Nordic countries. But they exhibit little or no understanding of how these societies actually work.
As American economist Deirdre Nansen McCloskey notes, “Sweden is pretty much as ‘capitalistic’ as is the United States. If ‘socialism’ means government ownership of the means of production, which is the classic definition, Sweden never qualified.” The central planning/government ownership model isn’t the Swedish way.
What the Nordics do have, however, is a robust social safety net. And it’s useful to look at how they pay for it.
J.P. Morgan’s Michael Cembalest is a man who knows his way around data. He puts it this way: “Copy the Nordic model if you like, but understand that it entails a lot of capitalism and pro-business policies, a lot of taxation on middle-class spending and wages, minimal reliance on corporate taxation and plenty of co-pays and deductibles in its health care system.”
For instance, take the kind of taxes that are often derided as undesirably regressive—sales taxes, social security taxes and payroll taxes. In Sweden, they account for a whopping 27 per cent of gross domestic product. And some 15 per cent of health expenditures are out of pocket.
Charles Lane—formerly with the Washington Post, now with The Free Press—is another who pulls no punches: “Nordic countries are generous, but they are not stupid. They understand there is no such thing as ‘free’ health care, and that requiring patients to have at least some skin in the game, in the form of cost-sharing, helps contain costs.”
In effect, Nordic societies have made an internal bargain. Ordinary people are prepared to fork over large chunks of their own money in return for a comprehensive social safety net. They’re not expecting the good stuff to come to them without a personal cost.
Scandinavians obviously understand the concept of trade-offs, a dimension that seems to be absent from much of the North American discussion. Instead of Nordic-style pragmatism, spending ideas on this side of the Atlantic are floated on the premise of having someone else pay. And the electorally prized middle class is to be protected at all costs.
In the aftermath of Zohran Mamdami’s New York City win, journalist Kevin Williamson had a sobering reality check: “Class warfare isn’t how they roll in Scandinavia. Oslo is a terrific place to be a billionaire—Copenhagen and Stockholm, too … what’s radically different about the Scandinavians is not how they tax the very high-income but how they tax the middle.”
Taxation propensities aside, Nordic societies are different from the United States and Canada.
Denmark, for instance, is very much a “high-trust” society, defined as a place “where interpersonal trust is relatively high and ethical values are strongly shared.” It’s often been said that it works the way it does because it’s full of Danes, which is broadly true—albeit less so than it was 40 years ago.
Denmark, though, has no interest in multiculturalism as we’ve come to know it. Although governed from the centre-left, there’s no state-sponsored focus on systemic discrimination or diversity representation. Instead, the emphasis is on social cohesion and conformity. If you want to create a society like Denmark, it helps to understand the dynamics that make it work.
Reality intrudes on all sorts of other issues. For example, there’s the way in which public discourse is disfigured on the question of climate change and the need to pursue aggressive net-zero policies.
Asked in the abstract, people are generally favourable, which is then touted as evidence of strong public support. But when subsequently asked how much they’re personally prepared to pay to accomplish these ambitious goals, the answer is often little or nothing.
If there’s one maxim we should be taught from childhood, it’s this: there are no panaceas, only trade-offs.
Troy Media columnist Pat Murphy casts a history buff’s eye at the goings-on in our world. Never cynical – well, perhaps a little bit.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.
