Online Streaming Act

The Online Streaming Act (French: Loi sur la diffusion continue en ligne), commonly known as Bill C-11, is a bill introduced in the 44th Canadian Parliament. It was first introduced on November 3, 2020, by Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault during the second session of the 43rd Canadian Parliament. Commonly known as Bill C-10, the bill was passed in the House of Commons on June 22, 2021, but failed to pass the Senate before Parliament was dissolved for a federal election. It was reintroduced with amendments as the Online Streaming Act during the first session of the 44th Canadian Parliament in February 2022, passed in the House of Commons on June 21, 2022, and passed in the Senate on February 2, 2023. It received royal assent on April 27, 2023, after the consideration of amendments by the House.

The bill amends the Broadcasting Act to account for the increased prominence of internet video and digital media, and to prioritize the "needs and interests" of Canadians, and the inclusion and involvement of Canadians of diverse backgrounds in broadcast programming. It adds undertakings that conduct "broadcasting" over the internet to the regulatory scope of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), giving it the power to impose "conditions" on their operation. These can include compelling them to make use of Canadian talent, mandating that they make expenditures in support of the production of Canadian content, and being ordered to improve the discoverability of Canadian content on their platforms.

Alongside this, the bill also removes the seven-year term limit for CRTC-issued broadcast licences (a regulatory process which will not apply to internet broadcasters), adds a mechanism of imposing "conditions" on broadcasters without them being bound to a licence term, and introduces monetary fines for violating orders and regulations issued by the CRTC.

Supporters of the bill state that it allows the CRTC to compel foreign streaming services to follow similar regulatory obligations to conventional radio and television broadcasters, and government officials projected that mandating participation in the Canada Media Fund by online broadcasters would result in at least $830 million in additional funding by 2023. The opposition has directed criticism at the bill for granting a large amount of power to the CRTC, who are unelected regulators and receive very little guidance from Parliament or the government. Its unclear applicability to user-generated content on social media services has also faced concerns that it infringes freedom of expression, and that the bill would extraterritorially subject any form of audiovisual content distributed online via platforms accessible within Canada to regulation by the CRTC. The bill has also faced criticism over the lack of transparency in its legislative process, with both instances of the bill having faced arbitrarily limited time periods for their clause-by-clause review, thus limiting the amount of debate and discussion of individual amendments.^[12][13][14]

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