New legislation in Canada will require video platforms such as TikTok and YouTube to feature Canadian content.
The bill, known as Bill C-11, was approved by the Canadian House of Commons on Wednesday and needs only a mostly ceremonial vote in the Senate to pass. It will apply a series of regulations regularly used for broadcast media to require video streaming platforms to show Canadians a certain ‘quota’ of Canadian-created content.
“We made a decision a long, long time ago to be different from our neighbors to the south. We love them, but we’re not them. We’re different,” Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez told the Wall Street Journal. Rodriguez emphasized that these policies would help create cultural jobs in Canada, make Canadian content more accessible, and help citizens find “homegrown Canadian music and stories.”
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The legislation would also require streaming and video sharing companies to make annual payments to fund Canadian artists.
Tech companies are not fond of the legislation. “Canada would start the process of erecting international trade barriers to the current free exchange of cultural exports on open digital platforms that Canadian creators depend on,” YouTube said in a brief submitted to Parliament.
Others have argued that the legislation is a gateway to government censorship and would set a concerning precedent for future social media regulations. “No other democratic nation regulates user-generated content through broadcasting rules in this manner. Canada would be unique among allies in doing so, and not in a good way,” wrote professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa in a report published with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Other analysts suggested the bill would give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission indirect control over what Canadians see daily. “Expressive content like podcasts and video clips, which currently enjoy full freedom of expression, could fall under the CRTC’s authority and suffer the consequences of CRTC orders targeting the platforms that host them,” said Samuel Bachand, external counsel at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, in a statement. “There is reason to worry about the potentially harmful consequences of imposing a burdensome government mechanism in an area where freedom and the almost total lack of regulation have worked wonders so far.”
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The legislation was previously considered in 2021 but failed to pass due to a snap election that year.
Canada appears to be following in the steps of Europe, which has taken additional steps in recent weeks to regulate social media content available in the EU. The European Union now requires tech companies to be more active in removing illegal content, bans advertising targeted at children, and requires companies to conduct regular risk assessments. Failing to do so may result in fines.
