Commentary
The CRTC is best known as the Canadian content regulator. For the last half-century or so it has seen to it that Canadian productions, like “Anne of Green Gables,” and Canadian music artists were featured with sufficient regularity. (Those of us of a certain age would joke about having Anne Murray’s “Snowbird” seared into our skulls, it was played so often.)
The CRTC performs many other functions, but until very recently it was a creaky relic far removed from the everyday lives of Canadians.
But not anymore. Bill C-11 dusts off the CRTC and drags it onto centre stage. The federal government will use its nine government appointed members to take control of the internet, and virtually everything Canadians do online—which is a lot. The CRTC will even decide who can even qualify as a “credible news organization”—in close cooperation with the minister in charge, of course….