Good afternoon and thank you for having us.
I would also like to begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people
My name is Laura Tribe. I am the executive director of OpenMedia. We are a community-based organization of more than 500,000 supporters working to keep the Internet open, affordable and surveillance-free. I am joined today by my colleague Marie Aspiazu.
Let me be clear in stating that Canada has a strong and balanced copyright system. But the recent NAFTA renegotiations have struck a significant blow to this balance and to Canada's position as a leader on copyright. We hope that through this review process we can amend the Copyright Act to improve access to content and restore balance to this system.
By allowing an international trade agreement to set a significant portion of Canada's copyright agenda, the government not only accepted troubling amendments, including extending copyright terms by 20 years, but actively undermined this ongoing consultation.
Over the past year, a number of extremely problematic levies, or taxes, have been put forward as a means to help compensate Canadian creators. We simply cannot afford the following proposals that would increase the costs of digital connectivity:
First is an iPod tax. This recycled idea would tax all smart phone devices sold in Canada to compensate for alleged music copying. This idea ignores the decrease in private music copying with the rise of subscription-based services, and the fact that people use smart phones for a wide variety of reasons far beyond music consumption—let alone illegal music consumption.
Next is the Netflix tax. This proposal would reverse the CRTC's digital media exemption order and see over-the-top, or OTT, providers required to comply with the same Canadian content regulations as broadcasters. This fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the Internet and would actually target all OTT services of all sizes, not just Netflix.
Then there's the Internet tax, a requirement for Internet service providers to pay into CanCon funding as Canadian broadcasters do. Unfortunately, we know these prices will be passed on to customers. Canadians already pay some of the highest Internet prices in the world for subpar service. This idea has been rejected by nearly 40,000 Internet users in OpenMedia's community.
Now there's a copyright tax. Recently, we heard a proposal for all Internet use over 15 gigabytes per month, per household to be taxed. This is based on the misguided claim that any Internet usage over 15 gigabytes must be due to streaming content, and that streaming content, even if users pay for it legally, means users should pay more to compensate creators.
Creators should be adequately compensated, but these are not the solutions to make this happen.
As OpenMedia community member Bill put it, “I'm a small business owner and use a lot of bandwidth for online meetings and other related activities. An internet tax would kill my business, putting six people out of work.”
We cannot afford to further increase our digital divide and the price of the Internet in Canada. A fast, affordable Internet connection is essential.
Separately, let's talk about sales tax. Charging federal sales tax to online content providers is often conflated with the above proposals, but is critically distinct. Should the federal government choose to apply HST to international online services, those taxes should rightly be charged and remitted to the government, then allocated into the general budget as the government sees fit, including as funding for arts, culture and creators.