Bill C-11, Online Streaming Act

However, the Bill grants the CRTC discretion to set the financial and potential other obligations of “online undertaking” registrants, no matter their size or type, provided they distribute any ‘programs’ which the CRTC decides to regulate, which could be overbroad and involve even small users/creators. [...] 3(1)(r), which states: “online undertakings shall clearly promote and recommend Canadian programming, in both official languages as well as in Indigenous languages, and ensure that any means of control of the programming generates results allowing its discovery.” Clearly discoverability is key to the drafters and must stay in some form. [...] Digital first creators are rightly concerned that the Bill’s requirement to use dynamic discoverability will backfire and actually demote the importance of, and likely user engagement with, their content, as Canadian users who are involuntarily exposed to these ‘discoverability links’ avoid or react negatively– thereby signaling to the AI, globally and in Canada, to demote their content. [...] The solution is to require only static discoverability tools and to require any exempted creator of Canadian content who wishes to have their content promoted, even by static discoverability, to apply to a new CanCon authorization authority (likely part of the CRTC). [...] The Consumer and Public Interest in Broadcasting Online Undertakings Should Support CanCon – Within Reason Discoverability in Two Kinds Static Discoverability – A Reasonable CanCon Obligation Dynamic Discoverability – An Unwarranted CanCon Interference.