Bill C-10 has passed the House of Commons. For those unaware, the bill nominally involves “compelling companies like Netflix Inc and TikTok Inc to finance and promote Canadian content.” Experts, like the University of Ottawa’s Michael Geist, are concerned about the far-reaching impacts of this law. The concerns mostly revolve around the idea that the government’s law may reach content produced on user-driven sites, targeting individual content creators rather than the “tech giants” that are the nominal targets of the law.
I agree with Professor Geist. I share deep worries about the chilling effect this, and other measures the government is introducing, will have on free expression. But that isn’t my area of interest or expertise, for the purposes of today. Instead, whatever the content of the law, no one can gainsay Professor Geist’s conclusion, upon the tabling of the bill, that it “hands massive new powers to Canada’s telecom and broadcast regulator (the CRTC) to regulate online streaming services, opening the door to mandated Cancon payments, discoverability requirements, and confidential information disclosures, all backed by new fining powers.” The wide-reaching delegation of power will, as is common in administrative settings, be used by the CRTC to the hilt. We should expect nothing different, and we should therefore be disappointed that Canada’s government did all it can to prevent the legislature from taking a hard look at this bill.
In Canada, most of our discussions of administrative law are synonymous with discussions of judicial review. That is, we tend to view the law of judicial review as the same as administrative law. The focus of most Canadian administrative law academics (myself included) is on the stuff of judicial doctrine; standards of review, procedural fairness, etc etc. But, in other jurisdictions, like the United States, legislatures and courts have indicated an interest in controlling administrative power themselves. The United States’ Administrative Procedure Act, despite its flaws, is at least a legislative indication that the administrative state can and should be controlled by the legislative standards regarding adjudication and rule-making.
No such interest evidently exists in Canada, as the Bill C-10 debacle shows. Put aside, for the moment, the rather emaciated Statutory Instruments Act (see Neudorf, here for problems with this statute at 562 et seq, and my paper, here, for more). The efforts by the government (and other abettors) to do anything—whatever the optics—to limit debate and amendment of the bill are unfortunate:
- The Minister of Heritage introduced a “gag order” to cut off debate on Bill C-10, with a rather bizarre statement.
- The Heritage Committee, dominated by government members, overruled the committee chair “to allow for dozens of undisclosed amendments to be voted on without any debate or discussion.”
- Despite the fact that some of these amendments were voided by the Speaker, the government re-inserted these amendments in the final bill.
All bills, no matter their consequences, should be subject to robust debate, in both Parliament and the public forum more generally. But this law, in particular, is troubling from an administrative law perspective. Parliament’s inability to even fully debate—let alone control—the mass discretion passed to the CRTC should worry all Canadians.
I accept the legitimacy of the administrative state, parasitic as it is on delegated power. But that’s the rub—the power is delegated, and amenable to control by the delegator. The legitimacy question is quite aside from the need for the formal, constitutional actors in our system (the legislatures, specifically) to fully and frankly debate the policy and legal implications of broad delegated power. In fact, legislatures may be the only ones with the power to do this in our constitutional order. Despite strong arguments to the contrary (see Justice Côté’s opinion in the GHG Reference and Alyn Johnson’s excellent paper here), I am not convinced that courts can pass on the constitutionality (let alone the policy implications) of the scope of broad delegated power. While courts are the only “independent” guardians of the Constitution (see Ell, at paras 3, 23), that does not mean that legislatures should bar themselves from considering the legalities and policy implications of their delegations.
It gives me no comfort that judges of the Supreme Court and commentators has referred to the CRTC as the “archetype” of an expert tribunal (see the opinion of Abella and Karakatsanis JJ in Bell Canada, at para 64; see also B. Kain, “Developments in Communications Law: The 2012-2013 Term—The Broadcasting Reference, the Supreme Court and the Limits of the CRTC” (2014) 64 SCLR (2d) 63). While it is certainly true that “we simply do not know what the typical bureaucratic objective function looks like” (see Gersen, here, at 335), there is clearly a risk that “[d]elegation can create iron triangles of policymakers insulated from public control…” (Gersen, at 345). This is even more apposite where the mandates that are implemented by administrative actors are vague and general, as they often are. While expertise may be a valid reason for delegation, there is an inevitable trade-off involved in delegating power to experts—there is always a risk of bureaucratic drift, or expansion of delegated mandates. The worry is multiplied when the legislature indicates little interest in debating the merits of delegated power. Indeed, perhaps the legislature has no incentive to control delegated power, except for the incentives provided by constitutional principles.
And here, the CRTC has been given delegated power a country mile wide. As Geist noted on the tabling of the bill, many of the specifics of the bill’s new concept of “online undertakings” will be left to the regulator. For example, the third reading of the bill does not unambiguously say that it does not apply to users. Much will be left in the hands of the CRTC through its regulation-making powers. We will not know the extent to which the market and users will be affected until the CRTC begins using its new-found powers.
Now, because of the parliamentary calendar, it does not appear that the Senate will be able to pass the bill in time. This is good news, but it seems more fortuitous than anything. More of this vast delegated power appears on the horizon for other agencies, like the Canadian Human Rights Commission. A rigorous public will need to step in where the government has made it impossible for the legislature to fully examine the proposed law.
Double Aspect 