Vicky Eatrides, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
Check against delivery
Good morning, and thank you, Grant, for your warm welcome.
Before I begin my remarks, I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. Let's take a moment to thank the Anishnaabeg people and to pay respect to their Elders.
Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. I am pleased to be joined by some of my fellow Commissioners, including the Vice-Chair of Telecommunications, Adam Scott, the Vice-Chair of Broadcasting, Nathalie Théberge, and our regional Commissioners, Bram Abramson, Ellen Desmond and Nirmala Naidoo. It is also great to see so many other familiar faces.
When I first looked at the agenda for the conference, what stood out to me was how broad the topics of discussion were. And I quote, "major current issues in Canadian and international communications law and policy." There's a lot packed in there.
Fortunately for me, there are specific mentions of initiatives that fall squarely within the CRTC's mandate, like helping ensure access and affordability of telecommunications services, implementing the Online News Act, and supporting Canadian and Indigenous content. And these are some of the topics that I would like to touch on this morning.
So let me start by taking us back to last year's conference. In my remarks, I said that "the best way to predict the future is to create it." So the question is, what kind of future do we want to create?
I think the short answer is "the kind of future that meets the needs of Canadians."
But here's the longer answer.
If we look ahead five, ten, or even twenty years, we can make a few educated guesses about what Canadians will need. Some of this we already know.
We know that we will need continued access to reliable, affordable, and high-quality communications services. We know that we will need a broadcasting system that continues to tell Canadian stories and provide access to news and information. And we know that we will need confidence in our online world.
But there are also things that Canadians will need that we can't predict right now. Because technology -- and how we use that technology --continues to change.
To make this more tangible, let me share with you something I heard while I was in Montreal last month. I was at a broadcasting meeting and there was a panel on the future of radio. Three panelists were asked for their views on the impact of AI.
Not surprisingly, and consistent with the public discourse on AI, we heard completely divergent views.
The first panelist said that it was too early to tell what the impact of AI would be on radio -- that we need to wait and see how things unfold. The second was enthusiastic about the potential of using AI, including to better connect with audiences. And the third expressed great concern about AI replacing workers.
What I took away from this, as a regulator, is that while we need to keep a sharp focus on delivering on our mandate today, we also need to be thinking about what tomorrow could look like.
To quote the Canadian musician Robbie Robertson, "You never know what could be interesting tomorrow."
But maybe before we get to how we are preparing for the future, let me spend some time talking about the CRTC's role and priorities, and what we are doing to deliver on those priorities.
Role and priorities
As you know, the CRTC is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that regulates the Canadian communications sector in the public interest. We hold public consultations on telecommunications and broadcasting matters and make decisions based on the public record.
Like every other organization, the CRTC has limited resources. So we have focused our resources to deliver on priority areas.
This morning, we published our strategic plan, which sets out those priorities. Spoiler alert for those who have not had a chance to read it yet, at a high level, we are staying the course on our three overall areas of focus that we identified last year.
The overall goals remain the same, but how we are achieving them is shifting.
In telecommunications, we are focused on promoting competition and investment to deliver reliable, affordable, and high-quality Internet and cellphone services.
In broadcasting, we are focused on modernizing Canada's regulatory framework. We are also creating the bargaining framework for the Online News Act.
And to do all of this efficiently and effectively, we are continuing to invest in our organization to better serve Canadians.
Progress on priorities
So let's talk about some of the progress we have made in these areas over the past year, and let me give a preview of what's to come.
Let's start with telecommunications and our work to improve connectivity and affordability.
We know that Canadians depend on Internet and cellphone services for every aspect of our daily lives. We use these services constantly throughout the day - to find information, to access news, to watch programming, to work, to study, and to connect with others. I think that many of us take for granted that we have service. But the reality is that there are communities in Canada that do not.
Through our Broadband Fund, we are part of a broader effort by provincial, territorial and federal governments working to help connect underserved rural, remote and Indigenous communities.
Since the fund was created, the CRTC has committed over $700 million in funding to projects that will bring high-speed Internet to 270 communities.
This includes projects that will bring high-speed Internet to all communities in Nunavut for the first time.
Let's pause here for a moment. Because the significance of these projects and their impact on communities cannot be overstated.
Nunavut is only accessible by air or sea. There are no roads connecting its 25 remote communities. It is Canada's largest, northernmost territory, and one of the most challenging areas of Canada to build networks. The projects that we approved will connect essential public institutions, including schools, healthcare centres, and community learning centres. And the fibre connections in particular will support future projects to connect homes and businesses across Nunavut.
We are also supporting projects to improve cellphone service along more than 630 kilometers of major roads across Canada. This will make it safer for Canadians to travel along these roads, and will benefit nearby communities.
So we are working to improve connectivity. But being able to connect to a service is not the same as being able to afford a service.
We know that affordability is an issue for many Canadians. During our consultations and hearings, we have heard about tough financial choices that people are being forced to make between telecommunications services, groceries and other expenses.
As the telecommunications regulator, we want Canadians to have access to affordable telecommunications services. And we know that the best way to achieve that is through competition.
So that is why, in the cellphone services market, we established new rules last year that allow regional providers to compete across Canada using the networks of large companies. Regional providers have used this access to expand their reach and compete in new areas of the country. And we are seeing results for Canadians, who can go online today and find deals that were not there a year ago.
We are hoping to see similar results in the Internet services market, with the release of a major decision just two months ago that gives competitors a workable way to sell Internet services using the fibre-to-the-home networks of large providers nationwide.
Our frameworks for both cellphone and Internet services include important measures to balance competition with continued incentives to invest in high-quality networks. We know that it is expensive to maintain and expand networks, and we know that Canadians need high-quality services.
For instance, regional providers that are using the networks of large cellphone companies must build their own cellphone networks within seven years. And large Internet service providers will not have to share their new fibre networks for five years, so that they can continue connecting more Canadians to fibre sooner.
So that is what we are doing on connectivity and affordability.
We are also advancing other work on the telecommunications front to help provide consumers with more options and clearer information.
For example, you may have seen a CRTC announcement a couple of weeks ago on international roaming fees.
The CRTC conducted a review to examine these fees. We analyzed confidential information from Canadian cellphone companies and considered a number of studies and public information on roaming.
So what did we find? We found that roaming fees for Canadian travelers are often inflexible, causing consumers to pay a flat fee of $10 to $16 per day regardless of how much they use their cellphone.
And we know that these flat fees can add up quickly. Just last week, we read about a retired Canadian who came home from a trip abroad to a $287 roaming charge.
The CRTC wants to ensure that when Canadians are booking their travel and packing their bags, they have the flexibility to choose an affordable plan that best meets their needs.
So we have called on large cellphone companies to take immediate action to provide affordable roaming options. Companies have until two weeks from today to inform the CRTC of the concrete steps they are taking to respond to these concerns. If the CRTC finds that sufficient progress is not made, we will launch a formal public proceeding.
In the weeks ahead, we will also be launching public consultations to ensure that Canadians have the information and flexibility they need when choosing or switching cellphone and Internet plans.
We will be seeking views on requiring service providers to give Canadians the option of cancelling a contract or modifying a plan without having to speak to a customer service representative.
We will also be consulting on labels for Internet services. And what do I mean by "labels"? I mean the types of nutrition labels that we see on food products -- we would like to see something similar for Internet service. But instead of information on serving size and calories, these labels would show information like price and download speeds, to help consumers easily compare plans.
So that's an overview of some of our work in telecommunications.
Moving on to broadcasting, as many of you know, Parliament gave us new responsibilities when it adopted the Online Streaming Act last year.
The Online Streaming Act requires the CRTC to modernize the Canadian broadcasting framework and ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.
We have said this previously, but it bears repeating: the changes that are needed to implement the Online Streaming Act are substantial and complex. There are many interconnected issues to be addressed.
This means that we cannot change these frameworks overnight. But what we can do and what we are doing is consulting widely and moving quickly.
An example of our broad consultation and quick action is our proceeding on base contributions, which included over 360 submissions and a three-week public hearing. We heard from a wide range of interveners with diverse views.
I could not possibly cover even a fraction of what we heard during that proceeding, but what I can say is that we heard from many Canadians that online streaming services should start making meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content as soon as possible. We also heard that the new funding should be directed to areas of immediate need, such as local news on radio and television, French-language content, Indigenous content, and content from diversity groups.
As you know, we moved quickly to get an estimated $200 million flowing into the Canadian broadcasting system, and we directed it to these areas of immediate need.
That base contributions proceeding is one of nine that we have launched over the past year. We have also issued four decisions and hosted 27 engagement sessions across the country. And we are not letting up.
In the coming weeks, we will be launching four more public consultations to advance the modernization of the regulatory framework.
The first will look at providing more flexibility to traditional radio broadcasters by updating regulatory requirements. Our intention is to help level the playing field so that all players remain competitive in a changing environment.
The second will update the definition of Canadian content for the audiovisual sector, so that Canadian stories continue to be told by Canadians, and can find audiences at home and abroad.
The third will consider the relationships between small, medium and large players in the traditional broadcasting system and online streaming.
And the fourth consultation will look at radio and audio streaming in Canada, including how to define audio content and how to support Canadian music.
We know that these proceedings are of great interest to Canadians, which is why we will be holding public hearings in the spring as part of the Canadian content, relationship, and radio and audio streaming consultations.
More details will be provided in our updated regulatory plan, which we plan to release in the coming weeks. So stay tuned.
Now, as you know, this is not the only new piece of legislation that we are busy implementing. We are also working quickly to implement the Online News Act, which is intended to help Canadian news organizations reach fair commercial agreements with the largest online platforms.
The CRTC has a more administrative role to play here, including setting up the framework for mandatory bargaining between Canadian news organizations and online platforms.
As many of you know, online platforms that reach agreements with news organizations may request an exemption from the requirement to bargain with individual news businesses. This is the case for Google, who filed an application in June after agreeing to contribute $100 million per year through a news collective.
We are moving quickly on this front as well. We held a public consultation over the summer and will be issuing our decision on Google's application in the coming weeks.
This brings us to the third area that we are focusing on - investing in our organization to better serve Canadians.
This may seem like more behind the scenes work, but it is fundamental.
The CRTC is a public institution that works in the public interest. Canadians need to have trust in their public institutions. So how do we build that trust? We deliver.
At this conference last year, I told you about our commitment to moving more quickly and transparently. And that is what we are doing across all areas of our work.
In telecommunications, for example, we are making Broadband Fund decisions -- like the one I spoke about earlier that brought high-speed Internet to Nunavut for the first time -- 30% faster than we did in the two previous rounds of applications. We are also now being more transparent and are informing applicants of the status of their application after a decision has been made.
Another example on the telecommunications side is the speed with which we are making decisions on final offer arbitrations, or "FOAs." We use FOAs to set the rates regional cellphone providers pay large companies when they use their networks. As I mentioned earlier, this has been a driver of competition and affordability for cellphone services. Without our FOA process, these benefits could be delayed for years. We recognize the urgency in bringing them to Canadians, and that is why we have acted quickly to work through these important decisions.
We are also moving faster and being more transparent in broadcasting. When I spoke at this conference last year, we had just published our regulatory plan to implement the Online Streaming Act. As I mentioned earlier this morning, we have since launched nine consultations and issued four decisions, including the decision on base contributions that will ensure that new funding flows into the system this broadcast year.
And more generally, we have continued to deal with "Part 1" applications quickly and transparently. As many of you know, these are applications filed by parties that are not the subject of notices of consultation.
We are now publishing applications as they come in, and are dealing with them more expeditiously while continuing to clear out a significant backlog from previous years.
So those are some of the ways that we are moving quickly and being more transparent.
We are also continuing to engage broadly with Canadians from across the country and with specific communities.
Last month, we met with members of official language minority communities (or OLMCs). As part of our ongoing dialogue, we discussed the unique needs and views of OLMCs. These discussions help us better understand what is important to OLMCs and how our work impacts these communities.
And earlier this year, we established an Indigenous Relations Team to better support Indigenous participation in our proceedings.
That gives an overview of some of the actions we are taking to be a quick and transparent organization.
Preparing for the future
Before I wrap up, let me share some insight into how, while delivering on our mandate today, we are preparing for the future.
We are keeping our finger on the pulse of our changing environment.
Earlier, I talked about the diverging views on the impact of AI on the broadcasting sector.
Well, let me share a tangible example of what we are seeing.
Some of you may have heard of AI Ashley, an AI radio host based on a human. The AI version of Ashley was created using human Ashley's voice and by having the AI prompt her with questions to analyze her natural way of speaking.
For the CRTC, the AI Ashley example highlights how emerging technologies are impacting the broadcasting industry.
On one hand, we have heard about the benefits of using this type of technology. With AI Ashley, it is being used to complement human Ashley by co-hosting and interacting with listeners. We have also heard about AI supporting accessibility through advancements in closed captioning and dubbing.
At the same time, we have heard concerns about radio hosts and writers being replaced by AI.
This is just one example of an emerging technology that is affecting the broadcasting industry. We need to make sure that we understand how these technologies are changing the industry so that we can ask the right questions during our public consultations.
For example, in the upcoming consultation on the definition of Canadian content, we will need to review a definition that has not been reviewed in decades while making sure that we are thinking about evolving technologies such as AI. So we need to ask: "what does AI mean for Canadian content? If AI is used in the creation of content, do we consider it to be merely a tool that was used to create that content or is AI the creator of the content?" We look forward to hearing views on all of these issues.
Because we need to understand the trends that will influence the future of Canadian communications in five, ten, twenty - or more - years. I am sure that the policy makers and business leaders of twenty years ago could not have anticipated AI Ashley or online streaming as we know them today.
Conclusion
So with that, let me leave you with one final thought: Time has proven Robbie Robertson right. The future always surprises.
Preparing for those surprises is what we are discussing together at this conference. As we listen to the speakers and panels over the next two days, let's keep in mind how we are adapting for the future.
How will our existing frameworks be challenged? What can we start doing today to prepare for that change? What tools and frameworks can we build to ensure that Canadians have access to reliable, affordable, and high-quality communications services, and that the broadcasting system tells Canadian stories and provides access to news and information for generations to come?
I hope that these discussions continue long after we leave. Because the success of all of the work I have spoken about today hinges on your insights and those of our fellow Canadians. I look forward to seeing where the conversation takes us.
Thank you.
