Helen Saulnier 
Very good intentions, lousy execution. by Tom Woodward https://flic.kr/p/tcFbmd (CC BY-SA 2.)
Parliament might be on a summer time recess, but the discussion more than Bill C-11, which is now in the Senate, carries on. Yesterday, I engaged in a Twitter discussion with Matthew Grey, an official in the office environment of Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez that eventually focused on the relative relevance of the government’s “policy intention” vs. the genuine textual content of the invoice. While officers and Minister Rodriguez frequently point to what they intend the monthly bill to do, experts note that the text does not mirror those intentions.
On Sunday, Grey experienced jumped into an additional Twitter debate involving Rodriguez’s Main of Staff John Matheson, who posted numerous tweets which designed the case that the bill does not contain Canadian information quotas or material expectations (I responded to those people tweets by noting that the invoice does open up the doorway to Canadian content material display quotas and the CRTC’s the latest Radio-Canada final decision confirms the chance of written content regulation). Grey claimed that “only the largest providers that are family names with hundreds of thousands of subscribers will be regulated” by Bill C-11. I responded that is plainly untrue beneath the monthly bill as it is at the moment penned since there are no thresholds and the govt rejected a number of proposed amendments that would have set up them. Gray did not locate that persuasive, even so, responding that his former comment mirrored the government’s “expectation and coverage intent”, later on introducing that “it is challenging to interact in ahead plan if when we talk our intent the reply is ‘it’s untrue you have not finished it yet.’”
My tweet thread response notes that the disconnect among the government’s professed intent and the precise textual content in Invoice C-11 has been a persistent problem:
- governing administration statements intent is not to control user content material (contradicted by the CRTC chair),
- federal government claims intent isn’t to contain algorithmic manipulation (contradicted by the CRTC chair)
- federal government statements intent is to support electronic creators (contradicted by the creators them selves),
- govt claims intent is to prevent written content regulation (undermined by the CRTC partaking in articles regulation in the Radio Canada scenario)
- government promises intent is no Cancon quotas (undermined by the likelihood of display quotas)
- federal government promises intent is to exclude online video games and other very similar information (presently incorporated in the invoice and will demand policy course the authorities won’t release to exclude)
- federal government promises intent is to go away laws to an impartial CRTC (yet it on a regular basis seems to have pre-identified what the end result will be)
- federal government statements intent is to guarantee Monthly bill C-11 is constant with its trade obligations (the U.S. has now raised problems with the monthly bill and possible CUSMA violations)
- federal government claims intent is to enable impartial creation sector (experts now anxious the bill will undermine decades-old coverage that assistance the sector)
All of this raises the dilemma of whether the government’s intent matters if the bill itself does not reflect all those intentions. I would argue that it does not. Courts frequently look at legislative background, but what matters aren’t tweets from officials or most effective intentions, but instead the real report. When a court docket examines the genuine record of Monthly bill C-11, they will discover CRTC chairs, authorities, and many creators identifying what the monthly bill actually is made up of rather than what the authorities mentioned it desires to complete. In simple fact, teams these as Songs Canada and Digital 1st Canada specially talked over the government’s stated intent and urged it to amend the invoice to guarantee all those intentions ended up reflected in the legislation.
The governing administration experienced the prospect to do just that all through the clause-by-clause evaluation, still it slash off discussion and rushed through voting on about 100 amendments with no discussion or even community disclosure. Even further, the government had the possibility to launch its prepared plan direction to the CRTC in progress of the monthly bill getting royal assent (as it did with Invoice C-10), but it refused to do so. In other words, there have been significant alternatives to make sure that the invoice does what the govt suggests it intends. The truth that the govt has declined to do so is deeply troubling. As the stating goes, the road to hell is paved with very good intentions. It will be up to the Senate to assure that Invoice C-11 usually takes a distinctive highway.
