Canadian Regulation of the Internet

One of our devotees pointed us to this story about the Canadian Radio-Television and Communications Commission (CRTC) hearings into regulation on the Internet. Basically they are looking to levy a tax on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Canada, and then use that money to help encourage Canadian Content online.

Canadian content is a tricky thing to explain to a Canadian, let alone someone who is not. What it boils down to is that to encourage Canadian cultural identity, the government passed laws saying that radio and television broadcasters in Canada had to carry a certain percentage of content that was generated by Canadians. Tax breaks and incentives were issued to encourage the industry. The problem is that defining what was was Canadian content became a slippery slope: Bryan Adams is technically not considered Canadian, but for the longest time the highest grossing Canadian movie of all time was Porky's. (Sidebar: A Christmas Story is also a Canadian film. True story.)

The biggest bone of contention for this was in music. A lot of Canadian bands became "big" in Canada, and nowhere else because their songs had to be played here. (We're looking at you, Parachute Club) The funny thing is that those same laws helped other bands become genuinely big; Blue Rodeo, Cowboy Junkies, even The Payola$ which featured a young Bob Rock, today one of music's hottest producers.

Many people fear that these hearings will lead to similar rules for the Internet. We at The Times
are not so worried about that: it's going to be nigh impossible to maintain that without opening the whole net neutrality box. In fact, the CRTC has said as much: there's no way they can do this, so it's not even on the table.

This is closer to is the plan to levy a tax on recordable media, such as CDs, tapes, and iPods that the government attempted in the early 2000s to compensate artists that were losing royalties via online piracy. This failed miserably for pretty much the same reason the current proposal will have trouble getting off the ground: the canvas of the Internet and digital media is so large that it can't just be pinned down to a couple of media forms, to say nothing of the people that use the medium for reasons that have nothing to do with the promotion of culture or ideas. (Eds note: Like this blog Ba-dum-dump).

If anything is preventing Canadian media from having a larger footprint, its copyright law. The reason that we in Canada can't enjoy Hulu or other such online entertainment vectors is because of American copyright law and the royalties that need to be paid for international broadcast. If these were opened up for Canadian (and international) viewing as well as allowing Canadians (and internationals) to provide content for those vectors, eventually the country of origin won't matter anymore. (If the Internet has proved anything, which it hasn't, it's that quality of production does not matter. It's the content of the production that matters)

Canadians often take a dim view of CanCon legislation, saying that it led to years of mediocrity. But it also helped produce a quintessential Canadian band like The Tragically Hip. And who's to say that even the much maligned Parachute Club didn't inspire some of the people today in Canada who are taking dance and electronic music in many different directions? The problem is that you cannot prove a negative, and culture cannot exist in its own generation: it echoes down from one to the other: The Guess Who begat The Tragically Hip, who begat Nickleback...maybe the quality has declined (Ed note: OOOOOOHHHHH BURN) but the exposure has grown.

We at The Times are big government people. The bigger the government, the better. We know this is not a popular view. We also recognize that the first stage of CanCon has produced some results in Canadian popular entertainment. Now it's time for countries to work together to promote the free exchange of that culture, and the Internet is where that is going to happen.