The story of the government engaging an anti-racism consultant with a history of “disturbing comments” has been chronicled here for more than a year (see: July 2021: Funding Hate; April 2022: Purveying hate on the public dime; and, Government funded hate speech). Thanks to amplification from Jonathan Kay’s twitter feed, the story has made its way into the mainstream media, leading (at last) to a government response.

As I wrote last week, the government (and even some opposition members) knew about the problem much earlier, but did not act until the matter became a more public priority. The reasons for this inaction can be the subject of further investigation by the Parliamentary Heritage Committee, or others.

While the focus these past couple weeks has been on the Anti-racism Action Program funding, some may want to explore the ease by which “public interest” groups, such as the one under the microscope, can feed at various troughs of cash in Ottawa.

I raised questions in July of 2021 about a CRTC award of $16,815.10 to CMAC in May of that year. The CRTC awarded an additional $15,332.48 a few months later (October 2021), paring back CMAC’s original request by $2000 “in order to be considered reasonable and necessarily incurred”. In each case, all but $2069.55 (paid to another CMAC consultant) was claimed by Laith Marouf.

In addition, the Broadcast Participation Fund (BPF) represents a pot of cash available to groups since its establishment by the CRTC in 2012. According to the CRTC, the mandate of the BPF is:

• provide costs support to public interest groups and consumer groups representing non-commercial user interests and the public interest before the CRTC in broadcasting matters under the Broadcasting Act;
• support research, analysis and advocacy in both official languages directly related to ongoing CRTC broadcasting proceedings under the Broadcasting Act;
• retain an independent costing officer who shall be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the BPF subject to the overriding authority of the Board; and
• do all things which are in furtherance of the foregoing.

The BPF hands out a lot of cash to public interest groups, totalling just under $900,000 in 2021 alone. Of that total, CMAC received $144,480.44 or more than 15% of the 2021 allocations. There was another $57K granted in 2020; $89K in 2019; $41K in 2018; $88K in 2017; and, $98K in 2016.

That is more than half a million dollars to CMAC over the last 6 years, just from one Ottawa-based fund doling out your money.

The same groups show up on the lists year after year, similar to names of organizations receiving cost awards directly from the CRTC in telecom proceedings.

Who qualifies for funding?

In Telecom and Broadcasting Notice of Consultation 2020-124-2, the Commission stated the following:

15. […] Eligibility for a share of these funds will be evaluated according to the criteria set out in section 68 of the Rules of Procedure, namely

• whether the applicant had, or was the representative of a group or a class of subscribers that had, an interest in the outcome of the proceeding;
• the extent to which the applicant assisted the Commission in developing a better understanding of the matters that were considered; and
• whether the applicant participated in the proceeding in a responsible way.

Should the third criteria, “participating in a responsible way”, include an examination of the character and behaviour of the people involved in the applicant? Is the credibility of the applicant impacted by their character and does that impact the ability to participate in a responsible way?

To whom do these public interest groups answer? Who do these groups actually represent? What due diligence is performed by the guardians of the public funds?

As I highlighted last year, in one set of cost awards, the CRTC didn’t even allow people to provide comments about the cost applications, comments that might have helped inform the Commission of concerns about the recipients of these funds; “the Commission considered that such responses were unnecessary.”

It turns out, that was a bad call.

These various programs and funds have been established with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, there are often unintended consequences that arise from opportunities to access “other people’s money”.

Are the people distributing public funds exercising sufficient checks before disbursing money from these troughs of cash?

Is re-imagined competition law the answer to concerns about Big Tech getting to be just too big?

That is the subject of an upcoming webinar hosted by the International Telecommunications Society (ITS). In a recent LinkedIn post, Stephen Schmidt, Vice-President Telecom Policy & Chief Regulatory Legal Counsel at TELUS, and Chair of ITS, writes:

Over the past decade, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have become the most valuable companies on the planet. These platforms have transformed our economic and social lives, enabling e-commerce, teleworking, video streaming, virtual healthcare, and more. Notwithstanding these benefits, this meteoric rise has raised concerns that Big Tech has become too big.

He asks if competition law, applied to Big Tech, might be a way to protect consumer privacy, enforce data protection, and ensure freedom of expression.

To that end, on September 15 now rescheduled to take place on October 20 at 10am (Eastern), ITS will host Big Digital Tech and the International Application of Competition Law. Registration is free.

Dr. Robert Picard, a senior fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, will consider the potential and trade-offs for applying competition law to control big tech. Professor Picard is considered to be a world-leading specialist on media economics and government media policies. Drawing on global experience and international variations in the application of competition law, the webinar will consider mechanisms for intervention, overlaps with other areas of regulations, and possible obstacles to a more ambitious use of competition law to promote and protect digital rights.

As I have highlighted before, I have taken advantage of continuing education opportunities from the International Telecommunications Society, and I have promoted many of these webinars on these pages. ITS serves as “a global platform for industry, policy makers and regulators to create a 360-degree view of an issue from the perspective of different regions and jurisdictions.”

I hope to see you at the September 15 session.

I think people have a right to be offensive. I have said that before. I get very concerned about this government’s plans to introduce legislation to deal with hurtful speech on the internet.

As I have written before, support for concepts like “Freedom of Expression” and “Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” is easy when you agree with what is being said. But how do we deal with dissent and with controversial points of view? How do we distinguish between language that is offensive but hasn’t crossed the line to be illegal?

However, there can be consequences that might arise from speech that is offensive yet legal.

Those consequences can vary depending on the speaker’s role or public status. We hold different people to different standards. We have heightened expectations of politicians and celebrities.

Over the past few days, questions have been raised about a hateful and hurtful language used by a consultant engaged by Canada’s Anti-Racism Action Program. I have been writing about my concerns with his association with this government-funding program since last April (See: “Purveying hate on the public dime” and “Government funded hate speech”)..

As a result of extensive amplification of my concerns by Jonathan Kay, this issue has finally attracted such sufficient public attention that the Minister who awarded the funding could no longer ignore calls for a review.

Let’s be clear: The government had been aware of this issue for months and made no acknowledgment of the problem, as if it hoped the matter would just go away.

If this individual was just a garden-variety antisemite, he might have been able to continue to spew vile comments about Jews and French Canadians in the obscurity that he so richly deserves. But he was a beneficiary of the largesse of Canadian taxpayers, and as a result, is subjected to certain behavioural expectations. Most Canadians wouldn’t expect antisemitic rants to regularly appear from government-funded anti-racism consultants working on an anti-racism program.

I suspect most Canadians would expect consequences to arise for a government-funded purveyor of hateful and hurtful online commentary.

Will this impact the overall credibility of the government’s Anti-Racism Action Program?

There are indeed consequences associated with testing the limits of speech freedoms.

The latest Bank of America Global Wireless Matrix (July 15, 2022) provides more evidence that Canada’s mobile market is among the least concentrated in the developed world.

Recall that just a few weeks ago I wrote that the Inclusive Internet Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Canada’s wireless market as the 90th of 100 countries in concentration, measured using the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI). According to Bank of America Global Research, Canada’s wireless HHI ranks 3rd lowest among the 20 developed economies.

These 2 recent authoritative reports from BofA and The Economist should make people challenge populist claims that “Canada’s mobile wireless markets feature persistently high levels of concentration”.

“Persistently high levels” compared to what? It is misleading to say that Canadian wireless markets feature high level of concentration without providing context. Many capital intensive industries, including telecom, are highly concentrated. It should be important to examine Canada’s wireless HHI relative to the HHI found in other countries.

Quite simply, those who imply that Canadian wireless is more concentrated than other countries are misrepresenting the facts. The data clearly shows that Canadian telecom ranks among the least concentrated in the world.

From the outset, I have had concerns about plans to create new legislation addressing online hate.

Some may find my position surprising, given my involvement in the first CRTC application to request blocking of a website, back in August 2006.

That was a very different case from trying to establish a regime that attempts to define what constitutes online harms and enforces limits on our freedom of expression.

As I wrote last year:

we need to be able to distinguish between language that is insightful and words that are inciteful. Which words lead to constructive engagement and which words are those that are destructive? What facts are being omitted because they inconveniently don’t fit the narrative being set forward? Which authors are consistently reliable and which ones seem to prefer sensationalism over substance?

In 1964, ruling on a case considering “hard-core pornography”, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote of the term that “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it”.

How will we define what material online should be considered illegal, versus that material which is merely offensive? Will we know it when we see it?

This could be the challenge for the Heritage Minister in introducing online harms legislation. Indeed, the expert advisory group appointed by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez earlier this year concluded its work 2 months ago, recognizing “The issue of harmful content found online is both a critical and complex issue that calls for an approach that balances freedom of expression, protection of privacy, and online safety.”

That said, let’s examine a very current situation: a Montreal-based consultant who refers to Jews as “loud mouthed bags of human feces”, and threatens “Jews with a bullet to the head” (as highlighted in a Twitter stream last Friday by journalist Jonathan Kay).

Hateful or merely offensive? To me, it’s pretty clear that this kind of commentary crossed the line.

But we don’t actually need to consider whether or not Laith Marouf’s comments would survive Canadian Heritage’s prospective Online Harms legislation. Legal or not, it seems pretty inexcusable that this same department of the Canadian government has been providing funding to him.

And to add insult, the funding falls under the Department’s “Anti-Racism Action Program”. Was there any due diligence performed by those responsible for vetting applications? Did anyone use Google before handing out cash to this guy?

I highlighted this problem back in April shortly after the news was released, quoting Canada’s Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion. Before providing a Ministerial statement for the CMAC press release, did anyone check references for the other guy being quoted?

Four months after I started asking questions, I have still seen no action by the government to distance itself from this online purveyor of antisemitism.

The Minister has said Canada is seeking to create “a legislative and regulatory framework to … help create a safe space online that protects all Canadians”.

How can we expect the Minister of Canadian Heritage to establish legislation creating safe spaces online, when the same department is funding those creating the kinds of material against which the legislation is intended to target.

There can be no credibility for online harms legislation being proposed by a department that funds those who generate online hate.