Michael Geist:
This is LawBytes a podcast with Michael Geist.
Ian Scott:
This organization has a long tradition of being at the forefront of regulatory change. The many hundreds of men and women who have worked here since 1968 have adopted thoughtful creative, made in Canada approaches to deal with a vast array of complex regulatory challenges.
Michael Geist:
Many Canadians follow telecommunications and broadcast issues at the CRTC from a distance – the cost of wireless services the speed of their Internet access, the availability of broadcasting choice. Others engage more closely on issues such as net neutrality, Cancon regulation or Netflix taxes. But there’s one Canadian who doesn’t just follow the CRTC. She watches it through the use of Access to Information laws that present an insider perspective on the commission that would otherwise remain hidden from view. Monica Auer is the executive director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications. She’s been an analyst at the CRTC worked, for what was then Industry Canada obtained two law degrees worked at a major law firm and now heads up an organization that may not be widely known but has had a big impact on our understanding of what takes place behind the scenes at Canada’s telecom and broadcast regulator. This Law Bytes podcast episode features a recent conversation with Monica about insider access, slow reimbursement of costs for public interest groups,the number of CRTC meetings and the commission’s seeming indifference to commissioning original research. The interview is interspersed with comments from current CRTC chair Ian Scott, taken from one of his first public speeches after being named chair in 2017.
Michael Geist:
Not a lot of people are necessarily familiar with the forum. Maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself and the forum.
Monica Auer:
The forum is a non-profit non soliciting federally incorporated organization which was established in late 2013 to undertake primarily empirical research and policy analysis with respect to broadcasting and telecommunications. Although there are other organizations out there that have also done this a number of them are are focused on a little bit more on the law and we’re trying to bring in more of the empirical evidence.
Michael Geist:
So who’s behind the forum.
Monica Auer:
I have a board of directors who are a wonderful theory are very experienced primarily in broadcasting but also some telecom. We have somebody who was formerly with the auditor general’s office so they’re very interested always in our budgets and the board decides whether or not we should participate in specific proceedings whether they’re before Parliament or the CRTC.
Michael Geist:
You’ve assumed this position as being the CRTC watcher. OK. You are the person, the forum is the place that surely launches a significant number of the access to information requests and is one of the few groups and you’re one of the few people I think that have the depth of knowledge of both the CRTC and the field to be able to take a look at some of the results. When you’re looking at what’s actually coming out of the CRTC and be able to understand and interpret them that’s I think he gets a really rare thing and it’s it’s a pretty amazing contribution because when you when you take a look at what’s on your site and the myriad of requests that you’ve launched over and over now many years it tells some pretty interesting stories that don’t typically capture people’s attention and but they think they should because they tell a really interesting story about the CRTC. So I was hoping to drill down a little bit on some of those. Starting I think with fair play.
FairPlay:
FairPlay Canada wants the CRTC to modernize the tools we use to protect Canada’s economy from online piracy we are proposing a tool similar to that used in dozens of other countries which empowers the CRTC to identify illegal piracy sites and disable them in Canada.
Michael Geist:
This was for those that aren’t familiar an issue that I was actively involved with as well Web site. A web web site blocking proposal led by coalition of groups. But it was particularly Bell it was was very active on it. You submitted on it I submitted on it. Thousands of Canadians actually submitted on it but the aspect that I thought we could focus on was an access to information request
