"I am Canadian", and I engage in "Nice Racism"

I've been reading "NICE RACISM: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm" by Robin DiAngelo.

As I read, I can't help but have that "I Am Canadian" Molson slogan and commercial from a few decades ago in my mind.

 

• I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader, but I support unrestricted resource extraction no matter what the harm
• I don't live in an igloo, or eat blubber, or own a dogsled, and I have no concerns about the genocidal policies by Canadian Governments against the people who do. (This ramped up in the 1950's, even after Europe started to grapple with the concept of genocide in the late 1940's)
• I live under a Constitutional Monarchy, not a self-determined responsible democracy
• I believe it is perfectly reasonable to require someone to "swear (or affirm), That I will be faithful, And bear true allegiance" to a White Supremacist institution as a condition of becoming a Canadian Citizen, or to hold a wide variety of positions of authority (member of parliament, senator, etc).
  
• I partly define my identity by thinking I, as a Canadian, am better than a citizen of the United States -- That Canada is better than the United States
  
• I believe Canadians are polite people
• I believe Racism is a US and not Canadian problem
  
• I believe Canada is a "just society" and respects human rights domestically and internationally, even thought I have never read the Canadian Constitution, Canadian Charter, or the reports of any Human Rights body discussing Canada
  
• I believe all Indigenous Nations on the northern part of this continent lost a war and ceded all their land to Britain and/or Canada in some distant past (that has nothing to do with today), even though nobody can name the wars, offer dates, or provide any documentation for these alleged events
  
• I believe "We are a multicultural society"
• I believe "We pay respect to Indigenous people"
• I believe "Canada never had slavery"
• My name is Russell, and I am Canadian!!!
  

The last three (before my name as the expected finale) were taken from page 98 of "Nice Racism", in a chapter discussing the moves to innocence of White progressives.

As a generalization, Canadians think of themselves as more "progressive" than citizens of the USA. Rather than this being a reason for Canadians to believe this book by a US author has nothing to do with them, it is actually part of what makes this book (as a percentage of the population) more about Canadians than US citizens.

US citizens tend to be more loud and proud patriotic people : Canadian identity includes the belief we are more "nice" and "polite".

I could go through each of the bullets I threw in above, but the ones from the book are a good start.

We are a multicultural society?

The Dominion of Canada is a bi-colonial (Britain, France) series of institutions.

During the P.E. Trudeau era, bi-colonialism was rebranded biculturalism (meaning English and French), and then dishonestly marketed as multiculturalism.

Even the notion that Canada is a "just society" was used as a rhetorical device by the Trudeau government as part of the marketing of what was essentially racist bi-colonial policies.

Culture is narrowly defined as food, clothing/fashion, and other more superficial things which people are allowed to maintain. When it comes to less superficial things it is made clear in the new so-called "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" passed as part of Canada Act 1982 that the official languages, worldviews and laws of Canada remain British and French.

Even though this continent has been a polyglot for tens of thousands of years, with many nations and worldviews, two foreign European worldviews are aggressively imposed by the Dominion of Canada governments.

While Canadian loyalists are quick to call Quebec's Bill 96 racist, they are generally unwilling to recognize that Canada's Charter and most of the core policies of the Trudeau government are far more racist. The Charter isn't a temporary provincial bill that can easily be changed, but part of the racist Canadian legal framework that other bills (including Bill 96) are judged by.


If you have done some of the work to learn about Racism and White Supremacy (systems, not about individuals), you will notice what qualifies as "Rights and Freedoms" has a clear White racial frame that is narrowly focused on the concerns of peoples that emerged from the unique history of Western Europe (a focus on Britain and France).

We pay respect to Indigenous people?

Also during the P.E. Trudeau Era, Trudeau's Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, tabled what ended up being called the "1969 White Paper". This was the then Liberal government's "final solution" to the so-called "Indian Problem". It would be a final "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" policy that wiped out any respect or recognition of Indigenous peoples.

The Trudeau Government tried this again in the 1980's during the so-called "patriation" of the Constitution, and required the Constitutional Express to ensure that the Trudeau's governments Racist/Genocidal ideology wasn't fully encoded in Canada Act 1982.

I mention P.E. Trudeau as many Canadians believe he was a "progressive" Prime Minister. His attitude towards Indigenous Peoples, who he regularly claimed were a conquered people and his support of many genocidal policies, is actually quite informative for understanding what qualifies as "progressive" by Canadians. The younger Trudeau uses more careful and "politically correct" language, but upholds the same general policy goals of his father's government.

I was born in 1968, the same year P.E. Trudeau first became Prime Minister. I believe that P.E. Trudeau was the most visibly racist Prime Minister during my lifetime, as the marketing of racist policies has radically changed over my lifetime even if the overall policy goals have not.


Some individuals may have stopped openly calling for "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies, and some believe in "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" of Indigenous peoples into Canadian society.  They may not recognize that advocating for inclusion into colonial "Canadian" law/society is itself disrespectful, and is in fact the goal of most of Canada's "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies.


There are some individual Canadians who are advocating the recognition of the Right of Self-Determination of Indigenous peoples. This is a right recognized in the UN Charter that Canada has aggressively opposed starting before the (Eurocentric) League of Nations became the United Nations. Canada was one of the 4 offensive nations that voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which also recognizes the Right of Self-Determination.

As punishment for sending a representative to the League of Nations in 1923 to have their Right of Self-Determination recognized, Canada sent in the RCMP in 1924 to forcibly depose the Haudenosaunee Confederacy -- the oldest Participatory Democracy on the Planet. Canada still refuses to recognize the right of self-determination, or allow any responsible government to be seen to represent Indigenous nations to the Canadian government under Section 35 of Canada's own constitution. Opposing democracy and responsible governments, Canada still relies on the fundamentally racist section 91(24) of Canada's Constitution to determine who to limit "consultation" of Indigenous individuals to.

Imagine for a second if Germany had a section of their constitution that granted Power to a specific level of government for "Jews, and Lands reserved for the Jews". Once you do, you can begin to understand how Racist Canada's Constitution and laws derived from it are.


Note the "s" in peoples: This isn't related to individuals or Canada's alleged multiculturalism. This involves many different nations/peoples and not some pan-Indigenous concept. Canada was one of the Eurocentric "nations" that opposed the rights of "peoples" being protected in the so-called "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", which itself constituted a rejection of the notion that UN UDHR is universal. Rights recognized in that declaration are focused on individuals.

These are basic Human Right of peoples that Canada actively denies: Canada is not respectful of Indigenous peoples or their rights, and many genocidal policies are ongoing.

Some individual Canadian genocidal policies like Residential Schools have recently (within my lifetime) ended, but the overall genocidal policy goals simply moved to the child welfare and other systems.

Most Canadians, however, believe the myth that Canada (the system, the governments, etc) are a force for good and justice in the world, and do not feel any personal responsibility for ongoing genocidal policies that these governments do in their name (and thus they DO have responsibilities, even if they are unaware of the harm from their individual action or inaction).

Canada never had slavery?

I have heard this my entire life, and even when growing up the dates never matched up in my head. I assumed, because of what I now recognize as Autism, that I was somehow wrong and didn't understand.

In 1833 Britain started on a gradual project to abolish slavery. It was not made immediately illegal in the entire of the British Empire, and Britain even compensated so-called "owners" for this gradual policy change.

The USA claims they abolished slavery in 1865, at the end of what they called the "American Civil War", the second of such civil wars where British colonies on this continent fought each other to separate from each other.

Britain unilaterally created the Dominion of Canada in 1867: without the permission or even awareness of the vast majority of inhabitants of the lands that were alleged to be governed by "Canada" at the time. There was then the massive violent colonial expansion of Canada on this continent that happened after that date. (The gc.ca map shows the dates, but the explanations are pretty much propaganda.  Canada never legally acquired "Rupert's Land and the North Western Territory", etc).


A component of the belief Canada never had slavery is that anything that these individuals or their colonial governments did prior to the passage of the first of 11 BNA Acts doesn't count. Somehow what people in these colonies thought and did magically changed between that bill receiving Royal Assent on 29th March 1867 and going into effect 1st July 1867.


The Underground Railroad went both ways across the imaginary line drawn between colonies who remained loyal to Britain and the 13 British colonies that launched the first civil war between British colonies on this continent to separate (what the USA labels a War of Independence 1775-1783).

The primary differences between the United States, Canada, and the Confederate States was not morality, but economic: The economies of the most southern British colonies on this continent were more dependent on cheap labor (slavery is primarily an economic policy), while the more northern regions were moving into other industries.  Where the south relied on cheap labor, the north relied on cheap resources (and thus more aggressive dispossession of Indigenous jurisdiction over land from which these resources would be extracted without concern for any future consequences).

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As I discuss each of these aspects of Canadian Culture, I am including myself. I have been part of and indoctrinated by Canadian Culture. It is only recently that I have become aware of and capable of questioning some of those myths.

One of the book chapters is titled "Let's talk about shame".

DiAngelo included a quote from an article by Joseph Burgo Ph.D..

Although many people use the two words "guilt" and "shame" interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others.

DiAngelo discusses how White people are often more comfortable expressing shame than guilt as guilt suggests we are personally responsible and that they need to do something (do better, be better). Shame doesn't suggest there is anything to do -- you are what you are, and that's it.

I have realized that I don't feel shame or guilt when it comes to my Whiteness. It is possible that the way that I think might help fellow White people move away from trying to protect their personal comfort/feelings/reputation/etc and move on to helping fix structural problems.

I look at Racism and other systems/policies like I do technology.

What I am, my phenotype including my lack of melanin in my skin, is hardware. Biology is hardware.

Isms, like Capitalism, Socialism, Colonialism, Racism, Androcentrism, Anthropocentrism are software.

I personally categorize some of these systems as malware, and societies with these systems are in need of anti-virus and other anti-malware work.



I know for a FACT I'm deeply personally infected with Racism. This malware causes me to have harmed and continue to harm other people, and I have further infected other people because Racism is contagious.

I am publicly admitting I have engaged in Racist activities. For most of my life I have actively upheld Racist policies because I had not yet recognized this set of software/policies as malware.

It will take a long time, if it is even possible in my time remaining alive, to entirely rid myself of the impacts from the malware infection of Racism. That is not an excuse to do nothing, but a recognition that I must put considerable time into anti-malware work.



These systemic/software problems are not about biology/hardware, and they are not something that we are. This is all software which can (an in the case of malware, must) change.

We should not feel shame, and we should never feel like there is nothing we can do.

I am quite angry with "Canada" (A set of policies, not a place or a group of people) which not only actively spreads and enforces malware, but seeks to make it illegal to work on anti-malware strategies. There is so much funding to spread Canadian malware, including entire Canadian Federal government departments.





I Am Canadian, but not a loyal, patriotic or proud Canadian.

"Music Theory", "Canadian Values" and the Department of Canadian Heritage

I am recommending a video discussing music theory, but I feel it should have a bit more Canadian context.

Remember the controversy when Kellie Leitch suggested having a screening of new immigrants for "Canadian Values"?  Some provinces and the federal government have related screening, so the suggestion being controversial is subjective.

While conceived of during the Brian Mulroney government, and formalized during the short Kim Campbell government, the Department of Canadian Heritage was fully formed during the Jean Chrétien government. The department's first Minister was Sheila Copps (1996-2003).

The following is an excerpt from the Department of Canadian Heritage Act.

4 (1) The powers, duties and functions of the Minister extend to and include all matters over which Parliament has jurisdiction, not by law assigned to any other department, board or agency of the Government of Canada, relating to Canadian identity and values, cultural development and heritage. (emphasis added)

While it shouldn't need saying, this continent isn't part of Europe. And yet it is two European languages and cultures (English and French) that are the primary focus of the Heritage Act, department, and parliamentary committee. That bi-colonialism is also core to the so-called "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms", imposed during the P.E. Trudeau era.


Let's think about "Music Theory".

What Bill C-10 is really about.

The letter to the editor I sent to the Hill times was too long, so Kate Malloy (Editor) did her magic and published:

• We need to move ‘broadcasting’ and ‘copyright’ from Canadian Heritage, to Innovation, Science and Economic Development: McOrmond

 

The following is the unedited version with hyperlinks added.

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I've been active in related areas of policy since the 1990's, so have watched the damage caused by the Department of Canadian Heritage (created in 1993 and given royal assent in 1995). This is a department whose Minister was granted jurisdiction over "Canadian identity and values, cultural development, heritage and areas of natural or historical significance to the nation" (from 4(1) of An Act to establish the Department of Canadian Heritage).

• Department of Canadian Heritage Act (S.C. 1995, c. 11)
  

The departmental mandate includes Official Colonial Languages. Given what I have finally learned since the start of 2020 about what the Governments of Canada continue to do to the Indigenous peoples of this homeland, this mandate has a very different meaning for me than it did previously.

• Brief to The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, for the study of the Subject Matter of Bill C-15
  

Two areas of technology law where that mandate is in conflict are Copyright and Broadcasting, but these were incorrectly included in 4(2) of the Act. These are areas of policy that should always have been the jurisdiction of the department currently called Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), as transferred from the previous Department of Communications.

Sheila Copps set the tone as the first Minister of Canadian Heritage from 1996 through 2003. I met (and debated with her) in the context of Copyright law several times.


Ms. Copps saw intermediaries, such as broadcasters and collective societies, as proxies for creators. When discussing the 1996 WIPO treaties, and technological protection measures, she saw technology companies as one of those proxies. She believed that what was good for Apple, Amazon, Sony, Microsoft and Google would somehow be good for Canadian creators. It shouldn't be lost that the same Heritage thinkers claim to be so concerned with "Big Tech" given it was their flawed thinking which helped create that problem in the first place.

Ms. Copps and her Department of Canadian Heritage helped create a situation between Canadian creators and technology intermediaries that is not unlike Stockholm syndrome.

When the government of the day wouldn't provide an adequate budget for stable arts funding, Ms. Copps would create unaccountable and corrupt cross-subsidy schemes through the CRTC (Cable Production Fund, Canadian Television Fund, Canadian New Media Fund, Canadian Media Fund) and Copyright Board (Private Copying Levy, Access Copyright educational copying, and other compulsory or near-compulsory cross-subsidy schemes).

As technology changes, the department pushes to shift these cross-subsidy schemes into new sectors rather than finally recognizing the schemes were wrong from the beginning.


Once the tone was set, every Heritage minister since, Conservative or Liberal, and every Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC), has followed her lead.

When I was very active in copyright with what a decade later was passed in 2012 as Bill C-11, I would closely follow what was said from MPs from the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) committee and those from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC). It was my observation, including from meeting MPs in person, that the difference in views between an MP on INDU vs CHPC was far greater than the difference in views between a Conservative and NDP MP in the same committee.

During the 2019 review of the Copyright Act, INDU was forced to put out a press release reprimanding the CHPC for what for many people was yet another report from CHPC which read as if it were written by corporate lobbyists rather than a committee pretending to be concerned with the public interest.

• News release from the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology: On Shifting Paradigms
  

The same is regularly said of the CRTC, which largely acts as a lobbyist for specific corporations rather than regulating in the public interest.


So, what is Bill C-10 really about?

• C-10: An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts
  

In clause 1 it redefines "broadcasting" to include activities not related to broadcasting in order to yank jurisdiction away from ISED (INDU committee, and agencies such as the competition bureau, privacy commissioner, etc) toward Heritage and the CRTC.

It really is that simple. There is further discussion of cross-subsidy and other schemes, and some pennies to Indigenous languages and content to distract from the Heritage department's primary colonial mandate, but the core of the bill is a corrupt power grab between government departments and agencies.

While the Internet needs to be regulated, that regulation must be via a department and ministry, studied by a parliamentary committee, and managed by regulators that are looking at these issues from a lens that is the opposite of what Heritage and CRTC will offer.

• We need to remove "Broadcasting" and "Copyright" from the Department of Canadian Heritage, and move those areas of policy to ISED where they always should have been. Only then should the policy in Bill C-10 be revisited with the appropriate lens.
• We need to properly fund and empower the Competition Bureau, Privacy Commissioner, Consumer Affairs, and related agencies to handle a growing number of Internet issues.
• We need to complete the digital transition, not continue to regulate digital technology as if it were still analog. (See letter from March 1, 2021, copied below)
• We (including fellow creators) need more choice and competition in content distribution technologies, not less via central control.
• We need to disallow content distribution intermediaries from controlling technology which they don't own, such as was allowed/enforced in "Copyright" under "technological protection measures".
• We need creators to have more control over their own content distribution to maximize the benefits for themselves, rather than continuing to allow intermediaries to extract maximum benefits off the backs of creators.
• We need to empower audiences to make their own choices of what creativity they access. While we need to regulate situations where the sender is the content programmer (as was the case with analog-era broadcasting), we should never be regulating scenarios such as on-demand content libraries where it is the audience doing their own programming. (Discoverability is a Competition policy issue, not a Cultural policy issue)
• We must end unaccountable cross-subsidy schemes, especially never extracting money from services deemed essential during the pandemic to sectors which were not.
  

Russell McOrmond
Ottawa, Ont.
(The letter-writer is an internet consultant.)

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Feds should complete digital transition as part of its response to COVID

March 1, 2021


Re: “Bell Canada’s cuts were a shoddy way to treat people,” (The Hill Times, Feb. 10, by Andrew Caddell). I would like to point policy-makers to my May 2020 submission to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. In it, I suggested that the government complete the digital transition as part of its response to COVID.

The summary is that the pandemic demonstrated that communications infrastructure is an essential service. While having vertical integration was required by analog technology given you couldn’t put both telephone and television signals on the same wires, this is no longer the case with digital technology.

With digital technology the obvious way to manage the physical layer within municipalities is as a utility, where municipalities own and manage the infrastructure as they do with all other infrastructure. A competitive private sector can then offer services “over the top,” as happens with other infrastructure including roads. With an actual digital transition, we no longer need to have an exception for this communications utility.

While Bell Canada was necessary when we needed a dedicated analog telephone system, this time is long past. Any laws granting analog-era, private-sector privileges to right-of-way or wireless spectrum, including the Bell Canada Act, should be phased out as part of completing the digital transition.

• INDU Study: Canadian Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Direct link to PDF of my brief.
• Text published on this blog: My telecommunications focused brief to INDU for Canadian response to COVID-19 pandemic
  

Russell McOrmond
Ottawa, Ont.
(The letter-writer is an internet consultant.)

Heritage Minister and Committee misunderstand the purpose of the Broadcasting Act.

The text of Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, didn't surprise me. It is only the latest example of a Heritage Minister and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage misunderstanding their mandate and the purpose of various laws.  The problem isn't specific to any political party, as Heritage Ministers from the Liberals or Conservatives, and Heritage Committee members from all parties, have all exhibited the same problems. I'm just going to use the term "Heritage" to refer to this group.

The Conflict of Interest

A big part of what the Department of Canadian Heritage does is provide funding to creative Canadians -- arts funding, entertainment funding, and funding for heritage projects (including libraries and archives).  The Heritage Minister and Committee are intended to direct that department, so will also have a focus on that funding.

But, for a variety of reasons, the cabinet doesn't provide adequate funding in the budget for the department.  So, Heritage looks elsewhere to try to provide funding. They have unfortunately grabbed onto the false premise that if they modify legislation that grants intermediaries between creators and their audiences more power, then magically creators will get paid more.

I first noticed this flawed notion with Copyright, where the livelihoods of fellow creators are being harmed by Heritage policies which increase the power of the intermediaries at the expense of creators. The first example I noticed was legal protection for technological measures which empowers technology companies at the expense of creators -- This is companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Netflix -- the "Big Tech" companies Heritage now claims it has a problem with.  The alleged "problem" which Heritage has with these companies is that they have become too powerful and can control what creative works Canadians can access. This is of course the predicted outcome of legal protection for technological measures, a policy which Heritage pushed hard to put in place.

I have seen the same problem with discussing broadcasting and the Broadcasting Act, with the theory being that if Broadcasters are given more control over the Canadian communications landscape that somehow creators will get paid more.

The reality has always been that these intermediaries are the entities that limit the livelihoods of creators, and the purpose of these various pieces of legislation should be to limit the control that these intermediaries have.

Fixing the conflict of interest

The Department of Canadian Heritage was only created in 1994 by Kim Campbell in her few months as PM.  This was a time when Canadian policy makers should have been aware of the upcoming digital transition and been focused on the regulatory benefits of a decentralized digital communications system.  It might be time to question whether the current structure of the department makes sense, or ever made sense, as a way to get Canada out of the current conflict of interest situation.

It seems obvious that the regulation of broadcasters should be considered a specific subset of competition policy, and considered under the department currently called Innovation, Science and Economic Development.  The Copyright Act already lists the Minister of Industry as the relevant minister, and the influence of Heritage over Copyright should be revoked. Digital radiocommunications should not be managed by entities also involved in content distribution, and with that policy clarification radiocommunications no longer needs to have any involvement by Heritage.

What is the purpose of the Broadcasting Act

What should be obvious is that the purpose of the Broadcasting Act is to regulate broadcasters.  Broadcasters have specific control over what Canadians can hear and see, and thus they need to be regulated to reduce the harm that this control can cause.

• Broadcast programmers set what content is seen at what time. Broadcast listening and viewing has prime-times when audiences are maximized, and the ability to control what is seen then offers considerable power.
  
  
• The technology needed for Broadcasting was expensive, so there were very few broadcasters.  This also granted additional power.
  
  
• Broadcasters were granted a monopoly from the programming, through transmission equipment, to a monopoly on a frequency (part of spectrum) that only they were allowed to use.
  
  
• Broadcasters are private businesses and want to maximize profit. One way they did this was to purchase US programming (which had larger audiences, and thus bulk purchasing pricing) over Canadian programming (which historically tended to have a more narrow audience focus).

 

All of these factors and more created a need to regulate broadcasters.  It is, however, the unique features of broadcasting that require this regulation and not the generic concept of "content distribution".

 

As an example, with the invention of record players, cassette tapes, VHS, CDs and eventually DVD's, a mechanism to distribute content separate from broadcasting was available.  This music, movies, television and other content was made available in retail stores and libraries, offered for rent, and distributed over roads (trucks, cars, etc).  At no time did Heritage claim that because content was being distributed that they needed to regulate retailers or the road system.

Then along came the digital transition (See: Hiding OSI layers leading to policy failures: Net Neutrality, Encrypted Media, ... ). Digital technology allows us to break up much of the monopoly control which broadcasters have, which means less of a need to regulate entities which don't have the harmful features of broadcasting.

• On-demand services allow Canadian audiences to become their own content programmer.  This is analogous to a library (some private, some public), and not remotely similar to a broadcaster. No longer is some programmer in a corporate HQ allowed to dictate to audiences what they can see or when.
  
  The notion in C-10 that broadcasting should be redefined to include "on demand" makes about as much sense as having a bill that says that the mathematical constant pi (π) should be considered to be 3 or 7 because some parliamentarians want to claim it is.  It is a nonsense concept that creates unnecessary terminology confusion as well as being contrary to the purpose of the Broadcasting Act.
  
  
• Creating and distributing content to wide audiences is no longer expensive because of digital technology, enabling competition where government regulations allow.
  
  It is now the case that rather than regulating broadcasters because having a few granted them too much control, governments are now regulating non-broadcasters apparently to seek to limit who can communicate.  Instead of regulating problems away, they are regulating problems into existence.
  
  
• Digital communication allows for OSI layers to be split into separate entities.  The physical connections within municipalities can be managed by municipalities, and so-on.  This means that the monopolies no longer exist, as the entities which right-of-way or spectrum granted (now municipalities) are not the same entities which are creating content catalogues or funding content creation.  It is the hardware layers of the OSI stack, preferably managed by municipalities, that are carrying out activities related to "radiocommunication" and not anyone carrying out activities at other layers.
  
  Unfortunately the government is still regulating digital communications as if it has the limitations of analog, allowing broadcasting entities to also claim control of the communications infrastructure into our homes, and deliberately replicating all the problems from the historical analog technology world in the digital world.
  
  
• This last problem is also partly solved by the competition enabled by digital.  Audiences who want to see more Canadian content, can get more Canadian content.
  
  In my case my focus is to avoid US centric content, as I really enjoy the International programming on Netflix, and the true domestic (rather than British descendant) content on APTN Lumi and related channels on YouTube and podcasts.  Arts and Entertainment funding should be going to Canadian creators and never intermediaries like broadcasters.  These intermediaries should be thought of as merely "the hired help" for creators and their audiences, and regulation should be intended to revoke intermediary control and never grant it.

To try to regulate non-broadcasting as if it were broadcasting is to try to create a lowest-common-denominator of the harm that broadcasting causes.  This does not create a "level playing field" as broadcasters claim, but only promotes the special interests of those broadcasters against much needed competition.

If Heritage wanted creators to get paid better it would be actively seeking to revoke the control that broadcasting had over creators.  They would do that by strongly regulating broadcasting, and deliberately enabling and promoting non-broadcasting to eventually replace broadcasting entirely as a concept within Canada.  While live-events will still be simulcast, that feature is available from most non-broadcasters and doesn't require that a narrow set of broadcasters control Canadian media.

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Side note...

I am happy to see the mention of aboriginal peoples and cultures mentioned in Canadian legislation.  In this case it is too little too late, as broadcasting as a concept isn't something Canada should be promoting as the centrally controlled (and primarily by white men) nature of broadcasting has been a tool used to filter aboriginal peoples and stories from Canadian audiences.

Arts and cultural grants, and not the broadcasting or copyright act, is where these changes need to be made. I look forward to increased and stable public funding of indigenous arts and entertainment!

My thoughts on the 2020 Speech from the colonial Throne

This afternoon, on unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory currently the subject of treaty negotiation, a British colonial ceremony was held. With parliament only retaining British tradition, we were reminded by a "speech from the throne" that to this day the settler-state doesn't fully recognize the two groups who make up Canada: European colonialists/settlers and the peoples who had already been here for thousands of years.

As I read the text of the Speech from the Throne I noticed a few themes. I could easily put them under an overall headline of the continuation of narrowly harnessing European world views to attempt to further public policy goals.

• A  romanticization of over 150 years of the members of our European settler-state parliament dealing with challenges, with no recognition or harnessing of the experiences of the peoples who were already here for thousands of years.
• The continuation of the European entitlements vs responsibility world view around rights, which generate the wealth and power inequality at the heart of the gaps in social responsibility.
  
• A continuation of creating excessively large centralized entities which then need excessively large government regulatory and police interventions, rather than enacting policy to decentralize.

 

The speech properly recognized that we are in a series of crises, including not only COVID-19 but also climate change. There is also a crisis of legitimacy, where more Canadians are questioning the status-quo of how government has been operating.

Solving these problems requires far more change than postponing travel plans.  I believe it will require re-evaluating our world views, including abandoning the entitlement concept which allows individuals and groups to exploit resources (land, animals, people or ideas) to extract private benefit without any responsibility.  We need to think of rights as responsibilities we have to each other, not as entitlements we take from everyone and everything else.

 

Systemic racism is mentioned, but only in the unfortunately common "white" way of incorrectly believing that systemic racism relates to systems which include individual racists.  Systemic racism relates to the norms and practices within society or an organization. Good individuals can participate in systemic racism, as it is not about individual attitudes.

One large class of examples is the use of police forces as a top-down mechanism to ensure conformity to policies that deliberately avoid discussing the roots of the disputes that armed officers are thrown into. Those who are talking about defunding or abolishing the police are discussing changing our focus to solving societal problems at their roots.  This is not limited to the "war on drugs" or "war on mental illness", but many other government policy manufactured armed conflicts.

While claiming to recognize that Black Canadians and Indigenous Peoples are over-represented in the criminal justice system, the government had already stated it believed that criminal code amendments were needed for those who neglect seniors.  It is Canadian society, including the federal and provincial governments, that are neglecting seniors and yet through a "white" lens the solution is always seen to narrowly focus on criminalizing individuals.

I feel there is a similar problem with bringing up that it is unacceptable that any citizen be arbitrarily detained in relation to Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The same is true of Meng Wanzhou being detained in Canada as a barely veiled part of trade and other disputes between the USA and China.

The RCMP has excessively close ties with a specific subset of foreign agencies and foreign political interests, and none of the above listed people would currently be detained if it were not for the hypocritical structural failures of the Canadian government.  The Five Eyes (FVEY) membership overlaps with the countries that opposed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States -- all British colonies, with the UK itself being the fifth member of FVEY). This should cause us to openly question what world views and values these agencies have in common.

The government can claim in a speech that this is something for which all Canadians stand united, but that doesn't make it true.

The backward-facing discussion of "Web giants" is another example of the government trying to hide its own policy failures.  Our communications infrastructure involves government granted monopolies in the form of right-of-way for physical wired infrastructure and spectrum allocation for wireless.  Phone companies were created by provincial and federal governments, and cable companies via municipal monopolies.  While this infrastructure exists as a matter of government policy, private interests were allowed to buy up all these monopolies such that only a handful of private sector companies claim exclusivity over most of the right-of-way and spectrum.  These companies then also bought most Canadian media that would be communicated over those wires and wireless, including television stations, radio stations and newspapers. (Note: Given their lobbying record, I consider CBC to be a Bell partner and not a public service)

When companies involved in physical entertainment distribution (Book/tape/CD/DVD sellers including Amazon, DVD rental by mail including Netflix) wanted to move existing distribution online, they were blocked by these vertically integrated monopolists. When possible Canadian online competitors to cable were formed, the monopolists blocked it (convincing parliament to pass targeted legislation against already existing iCraveTV and JumpTV). The same was true even of companies that offered search engine services that could be paid by advertising. These companies that could not get big enough were forced out of existence, and those who did were forced to move into the media creation and/or distribution business in order to be allowed to exist at all in a policy world controlled by analog-era media monopolists.

So the "Web giants" are a result of failed government policy around phone and cable companies, and compounding these failures can't possibly solve anything.

I have come to believe that the only solution to this problem is structural separation. The monopolies, whether for right-of-way or spectrum, should be returned to municipalities and managed as a utility in the same way as all other critical infrastructure is.  All over-the-top (OTT) services, including two-way voice (phone) and one-way simultaneous video (cable/etc), would compete on a level playing field and no longer be legally allowed to leverage government granted monopolies.

Taxing new media to perpetuate problems caused by old-media monopolists will only make existing problems worse. This will only increase the cost of those services for Canadians, when those services are providing far better value than the old-media monopolists.

Shitts Creek was able to break the Emmy's record for the most wins of a single reason of a comedy only after it was able to break free of CBC and get wider distribution internationally on services such as Netflix. While we should be providing more stable funding to Canadian production through accountable government subsidies (not anti-competitive old-media entitlements), that money and any other subsidies should be moved entirely away from legacy OTT media companies (broadcasters, and BDU's like cable companies).

Having a "Universal Broadband Fund" is also counterproductive when that money is handed over to old-media monopolists.  Necessary government support from the provincial and federal level should only be to municipalities building their own municipal infrastructure, and never to continue the harm of allowing private-sector monopolists to gain unaccountable control over that infrastructure.  It is the local communities, through their municipalities, that should be setting infrastructure priorities and not those priorities being set in the boardroom of some distant private sector monopolist.

I was happy to hear a renewed commitment to reverse almost a hundred years of Canada's opposition to the policies that became the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada needs to abandon its colonial period, and no longer side with Australia, New Zealand and United States as settler colonies of the United Kingdom.  We should instead be moving forward with decolonisation in order to become a republic. As a settler Canadian I do not support the continued implication that Canada was formed only by two sets of European colonists (French and English), and that these Europeans took over this land through conquest rather than being honorable with our existing treaty partners and within ongoing treaty negotiations.

Budget 2018 Investment in Canadian Content a missed opportunity

I checked Federal Budget 2018 for new support of Canadian content creators.  What I found under the title of "INVESTING IN CANADIAN CONTENT" (Chapter 4) is disappointing, as it is media creation that continues the conflict of interest tie with the broadcast sector.

The CMF receives funding contributions from the Government of Canada, but it advertises as also receiving "contributions" from Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors (Broadcast Distribution Undertakings, or BDUs). 

CMF contributions are mandated by the CRTC, shouldn't be thought of as donations, and BDUs shouldn't be "thanked" for actually paying what they owe. CMF contributions should be thought of as a highly justifiable tax on BDUs as compensation to the public for the right-of-way and other privileges which BDUs have been granted by multiple levels of governments.  The CMF contributions page should only list the Government of Canada, with special taxes collected from BDUs being earmarked for small-screen content creation.

The problem with this money being seen as coming from BDUs is that the BDUs then believe they "own" this content and should have the right to deny this content being available from competing legal streaming services.

As discussed in my recent CRTC submission opposing "site" blocking, the business practices of the BDUs do not support the interests of content creators, and are all too often a form of contributory infringement.  A condition of CMF funding should be that the results be made available via legal streaming, at least simultaneously with any broadcast.  I am not suggesting that the content be free, but that all Canadians be given the right to pay without also needing to subscribe to any BDU or access via broadcasting.

While I welcome stable arts and cultural funding from any level of government, I do not consider an increase in funding of the CMF to be an example.  The appearance of a tie to BDUs ties that federal money to the ongoing battles that the BDUs are having with legal streaming services.  This prolongs the current instability.  The fact that (un)Fairplay contains a few vocal stockholm syndrome victims (creator groups who incorrectly believe the BDUs and broadcasters support their interests) suggests that this will continue to be a problem.

While I support the new STEM money for granting councils, it is unfortunate I didn't see new money for arts.  There is only a small mention under "Supporting Canada’s Official Languages".

CBC

I found no reference to the CBC, suggesting the federal contribution and policy surrounding the CBC is unchanged.

This is also unfortunate, as instead of the CBC being part of the solution to the problematic tie between the cultural industries and historic distributors, the CBC has continued to be part of the problem.

The CBC decided to sign onto the BDU's (un)Fairplay coalition.  While it might be nice to think of the CBC as creators who are only stockholm syndrome victims, I believe they are acting as a commercial broadcaster who sees the inevitable move away from broadcasting and BDUs as a threat.

I've proposed that the CBC be split up, with government funding only offered to content creation.  This splitting up would effectively be an increase in cultural sector funding, as the private sector broadcasting arm will fade away as broadcasting is replaced with streaming.  Having a more competitive private sector distribution market needing to bid on programming also drives up the cost of higher quality content, meaning more money for the content creators.

 

Intellectual Property

 

This term appears in the budget a few times. While there is a focus on patents, copyright policies can help or hinder the interests of the arts and cultural sectors.  Proposed legal clinics and increased literacy might help artists and other creators to harness (rather than be fearful of) new distribution mechanisms and technologies.

While an "intellectual property marketplace" was mentioned in the context of public sector-owned intellectual property, this is needed in the private sector as well.  I mentioned in my CRTC submission how hard it is for Canadian fans to find content on legal streaming services, and the need for public disclosure of exclusive content distribution licenses. An expansion on the concept of an "intellectual property marketplace" could go a long way to solving this problem with a publicly searchable database of private sector arts and culture.  This licensing transparency and creation of a functioning marketplace isn't something that can be left to the existing private sector distributors who have conflicting interests, and requires government intervention at least during the transition.

Yes, CBC, I'm waiting for Alias Grace to be on Netflix.

CBC runs InCanada, an "online" Canadian Media Panel. I put "online" in quotations because while the panel is online, the CBC's broadcaster bias is always visible in how they ask questions. The latest survey is no exception.

The survey was essentially about Alias Grace, a Canadian-American miniseries that will air on CBC on September 25, 2017, and on Netflix on November 3, 2017.

The survey typically conflates Netflix with broadcasters, when Netflix is not a broadcaster. This is about as nonsensical as confusing a radio station with a record store when discussing music, and yet the legacy broadcasters continue to try to push this nonsense.

I sometimes make the comparison to the difference between an outhouse and indoor plumbing: Like broadcasting, people made use of outhouses before modern conveniences like indoor plumbing came along. And like indoor plumbing, people aren't likely to want to go backwards once they get used to online streaming.

While outhouses still exist in places where indoor plumbing is not available, it is not the predominant way that people "do their business". Unlike with an outhouse, there is no sense of urgency to use the outmoded platform to watch Alias Grace.


The survey asked if I saw the American series The Handmaid's Tale (TV series). While this was distributed by Hulu starting in April 2017, the series was blocked from Canadian access by Bell until they made it available on CraveTV in late July. Bell blocking, hiding and/or delaying lawful access to content is typical, and I consider them to be the largest Canadian contributory copyright infringer for their ongoing inducement of infringement.


If the NAFTA negotiations were intended to modernize trade relations within North America, the trade barriers disallowing cross-boarder shopping for telecommunications services and creative content would be a top priority. I believe we could massively reduce copyright infringement in North America if we moved to a single content market, where creators from the entire of North America had unrestricted access to the audiences of North America. That includes the content distribution services. North American audiences should also have the right to subscribe to any North American streaming service, and regional content restrictions within North America would be prohibited.

The concept of Canadians not being to view content at the same time as US audiences, including having the option to subscribe to the same online distribution services, must quickly become a distant memory.


Canadian Content policy should be focused on content, not on outdated distribution mechanisms. Hopefully a pro-free trade agenda will be part of the current Heritage Minister's thinking: you can't promote Canadian production capabilities and wide global distribution of Canadian content while still allowing regional content blocking.


Bell's anti-free trade agenda is trying to push policy in the opposite direction, including asking for mandated blocking when Canadians wish to access content that is not lawfully streamed in Canada. Bell is asking for mandated blocking because they want competitors to have to block the same competing distribution sites Bell already wants to block, which is also why they oppose VPNs (Apparently the technology, not only the perfectly legitimate cross-boarder-shopping use).

If I wanted to watch The Handmaid's Tale when US viewers were (or those that can tolerate the smell of an outhouse/broadcaster), or on the devices of my choosing, I would be forced to infringe copyright (easiest) or use a VPN (Less convenient, but currently more lawful).

There was no sense of urgency to watch The Handmaid's Tale. While there are shows that are important enough to me that would warrant finding alternative streaming options, none of these TV series based on Margaret Atwood novels are of sufficient interest.


My wife and I watched Handmaid's Tale on CraveTV. CraveTV is a horrible streaming service: there is a difference between the indoor plumbing at a 5-star hotel and an out-of-the-way truck stop. We only watch programming on CraveTV when it is not available anywhere else. The CraveTV Android App crashes fairly regularly. CraveTV works on few of my devices, compared to Netflix which pretty much always works -- and Netflix even has a simple app built into the SmartTV such that my wife and in-laws can also use it (CraveTV is too messy for less technical people to put up with).


While CBC isn't as bad as Bell when it comes to policies, I believe their outdated broadcaster-era thinking is harmful to Canadian creators and taxpayers.

Van Helsing #DigiCanCon via Netflix Canada

I just finished season 1 of Van Helsing via Netflix Canada. Filmed in Vancouver with most cast members being Canadian, this is the type of Canadian content that makes me feel proud of Canadian talent.  There were so many familiar Canadian actors from other series out of Vancouver including Flash and Sanctuary, and it even had Amanda Tapping directing 4 episodes. Nomadic Pictures, the producer, operates out of Calgary.

I'm excited to hear that season 2 has already been ordered, and that production starts next month.  My hope is that for future seasons that legal Internet distribution will be simultaneous with any broadcast-era distribution.

The Wikipedia page for the series suggests that some fortunate events happened for this to be released on Netflix Canada on December 23'rd (after the September 23 broadcast launch) rather than being tied up in broadcast-only licensing for much longer : Super Channel's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. In earlier articles (Ad free CBC? Why not shift money to creators? and Space (Bell) has no Class when it comes to protecting copyright) I discussed how I consider broadcasters and BDUs to be in a conflict of interest when it comes to the modern lawful distribution of video content. I consider it a sign of ongoing progress when broadcast channels close and new OSI layers 3+4 (what ISPs provide) neutral video distribution systems open (like the launch of Amazon Prime Video in Canada).

I hope that in the new year we will continue to see more Canadian content with wide international distribution on modern layer-6 neutral video distribution services like Netflix, Google Play, Amazon Prime Video and CraveTV. I further hope that opponents to the ongoing cycle of technological change like Denis McGrath, councillor for the Writers Guild of Canada, will not be able to confuse politicians into continuing to favor broadcast-era distribution and distributors over the interests of Canadian creators and Canadian audiences.

First look at Amazon Prime Video Canada

I received an email this morning from Amazon.ca titled "Your Prime membership now includes Prime Video", indicating that Amazon Prime Video has been launched in Canada.

Like Youtube(Google) and Netflix, Amazon is an internet native company, so I wasn't surprised to see that Prime Video worked on most of my devices.  It plays from my desktop, Chromebook, and has an Android App.  Missing, and something people often complain about, is Chromecast support. Amazon has a competing Amazon Fire series of devices, but they are not being sold in Canada.  This is quite unfortunate that their ongoing rivalry with Google diminishes the utility of their service. Vertical integration isn't helpful, and it is inappropriate to expect everyone to have so many different incompatible devices plugged into their televisions.


This service wasn't quite what I was expecting.  I thought Amazon Prime would be more like Google Play Movies and TV, offering per-movie, per-episode or per-season pricing for video.  Instead this is more like Netflix where my yearly fee for Amazon Prime gets me access to a catalog without an incremental fee to watch each movie or TV episode.  I immediately watched the first episode of Mozart in the Jungle which looks like an interesting Amazon original series.

I will continue to evaluate.  At the moment I would rank the service higher than CraveTV, even with Amazon Video's lack of Choromecast support, as the user interface is considerably better.  This is also early for the service as they have very little Canadian licensing for content, given even Internet video services have to deal with the archaic region restrictions and region licensing.

During the DigiCanCon consultations I was made aware of some Canadian content released on Amazon Prime that was available in the USA but not Canada.  That title is still not available in Canada, but I have asked the copyright holder (via twitter) if they know if there is something they can set from their end.

Ad free CBC? Why not shift money to creators?

In response to articles discussing an advertisement free CBC, I had the following to say:

#DigiCanCon @howardalaw I would rather that money went to distribution mechanism neutral content creation: #CBC via #Netflix #GooglePlay etc

— Russell McOrmond (@russellmcormond) November 29, 2016

When I was asked to elaborate, I realized I need to give context as most people in the content industry do not think the same way as I do as a system administrators with decades of experience in the technology industry.

The layered approach to communications technology

4134   COMMISSIONER DENTON: Mr. McOrmond, interesting brief. I see it is informed by an internet idea of the world.

4135   So in your preferred solution then there would be essentially some kind of bandwidth to the house, whether wired or wireless, it would be part of a municipal infrastructure such as sewage or water, and applications would float on top of that or through it.

4136   Now, what happens to the carrier in that instance?

4137   MR. McORMOND: I am essentially suggesting that we no long would have carriers in that instance. They would be replaced by a utility and a free market.

4138   COMMISSIONER DENTON: Right. So you realize this is formally heretical and they will be onto you for this?

The above is from an intervention I made in front of the CRTC in 2009.  I'm not informed by an Interned idea of the world, but informed by the OSI model upon which most digital communications infrastructure is designed.  This model emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and was already in-place when I was learning about digital networking in the 1980's before I or most people heard of the Internet.

The core idea is quite simple:

Its goal is the interoperability of diverse communication systems with standard protocols. The model partitions a communication system into abstraction layers. The original version of the model defined seven layers.

A layer serves the layer above it and is served by the layer below it. For example, a layer that provides error-free communications across a network provides the path needed by applications above it, while it calls the next lower layer to send and receive packets that comprise the contents of that path. Two instances at the same layer are visualized as connected by a horizontal connection in that layer.

When we are talking about the layers that together offer wired Internet services, I separate the layers tied to geography (layers 1 and 2) from layers above that.  I consider all digital communications (whether it is ISP services providing IPv4 or IPv6 public routing, IPTV, cable or telephone) to be "over the top" of that service.

This is quite different than how the converged phone and BDU industries define it which is that only competitors to their own vertically integrated services are "over the top".  While I am using a neutral definition that is based on the underlying technology, they are using a business definition which privileges existing vertically integrated companies over the interests of a competitive marketplace.

This creates very different language between people from the Information Technology industries and people who are part of the converged telecom/BDU industries.

How does this layering impact the content industries?

When I look at the content industries I also see a number of layers.  Like my separation between physical networking and services that are built "over the top" I separate industries involved with the creation of content from those who are involved in the communication or distribution of that content between creators and audiences.

In the most recent "Canadian Content in a Digital World" consultations the type of content discussed most often was television ("small screen" format video content, contrasted with "big screen" format movies).

When some people think of television they bundle together everything from the first ideas that a scriptwriter has all the way to the wiring (aerial, cable/satellite/IPTV receiver) that plugs into the television.  Most stop there and at least don't consider the television manufacturers to be part of the same industry.


When I think of television I see a series of layers with interoperable interfaces between them.

• Content generation:  There are a large number of creators involved in the production of scripted (and even unscripted) shows. While there are different layers within, I feel comfortable as an audience member grouping those layers together even if the different layers are critical within the industry.
• Content distribution:  There are many interoperable and competing methods, with the following being only a few examples:
• physical media distribution, such as DVDs, through online and physical retailers
• online content libraries, which includes flat-fee subscription services like Netflix or online retailers like Google Play or Amazon Video (once launched in Canada to compliment their existing physical DVD distribution business)
• Broadcasting and BDUs, which provide pre-programmed streams of content (Note: I strongly reject claims that online content libraries are more similar to broadcasters than they are physical media retailers)
• Content access: there are a wide variety of access technologies, and an increasing number of these are networked within the home.  One content access device (receiver) may be a different home networked device than the screens used to view and the speakers used to hear, and we need vendor neutral interoperability between these devices.

In my primary submission to the DigiCanCon consultation I focused on how the government managed (I suggest mismanaged) convergence.  The transition could have been a transition from purpose-built analog networks where what was on top of the network was fixed to one that could be modeled after the OSI networking model with interoperability between services built on top of each other.


I believe the greatest threat to the content industries is ties to specific brands or technologies on other layers of the communications stack.  If, as an example, a screenwriter believed that their future is tied to that of "broadcasting" then they will try to force any type of content distribution -- even disruptive technologies that will likely replace broadcasting for most audiences of scripted programming -- to act as if they were the same "broadcasting".

This policy is of great benefit to the "broadcasting" industry, who would then have less to fear from competitors hobbled by a regulatory environment that is mismatched for these competitors.  It is, however, extremely harmful to the interests of the content industries as well as their audiences.  There are many features of some of these disruptive technologies which would benefit creators that they won't be able to harness if they incorrectly identify suppliers of these technologies as opponents.

The Innovator's Dilemma

Much of the dynamic we can see between the content industry, broadcast industry, and Canadian audiences can be explained by Clayton Christensen's 1997 textbook The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail.

Over-simplifying: companies who were successful in one market have a hard time providing services based on disruptive innovation that is likely to replace the older market.

This can be seen with broadcasters, and those that see themselves as dependent on broadcasters, claiming that Netflix and other "foreign" companies are extracting money out of Canada.  Not discussed in this attempt to wave the Canadian flag is the fact that there are no domestic competitors because the incumbent content distributors are themselves "broadcasters" who see this disruptive innovation (online content libraries) as a threat. They have been unwilling to offer that service, and have done everything they can to block competitors.  The closest that will remain at the end of the month is CraveTV which isn't competitive with first-run content libraries like Netflix, most likely because it is owned by a parent company that doesn't want to disrupt its existing broadcasting and BDU services.


My own experience trying to watch Supergirl in Canada is an example of what happens.  As the "broadcast" industry was tied to specific geographic regions, much of the content licensing models have been as well.  Canada is carved out and one entity, in this case (and all too often) a broadcaster (Showcase, owned by Corus Entertainment), is granted an exclusive license for the region of Canada.  That broadcaster then doesn't want online content libraries to compete with broadcasting so doesn't advertise (or sometimes allow to be offered) legal alternatives to broadcasting, nor provide services to paying customers who have opted for existing legal alternatives.

I was essentially forced by Showcase to resort to using a VPN service to bypass region restrictions and watch Supergirl from a US source.  While I paid money to Showcase for a season pass, Showcase hasn't been willing to update the content library offered through Google Play with new episodes.

I had the same problem with other shows including Game of Thrones and BBC Class which Bell apparently would prefer I infringe copyright than find out about legal alternatives to broadcasting.

Personally, I "cut the chord" (unsubscribed from cable service) years ago, and don't want to go back any more than I want to give up indoor plumbing or other modern conveniences.

An Ad free CBC?

CBC is a large corporation that receives a large amount of public money for all the layers that exist within it.   I believe taxpayers should be looking more closely at each layer and ensure that it is taxpayers and the politicians that represent us that more closely direct the specifics we want we are willing to pay for:

• Canadian content creation:  I want to see more of this.  This means not only am I willing to have my tax money going towards content creation, but that I want the results to be available to me.  I don't use the services of broadcasting (OTA or via a BDU), so content that is only made available via broadcasting isn't made available to me.  As I wrote in my submission, public funding should be conditioned on wide public access.  This means being neutral on the wide variety of content distribution mechanisms and services.
• Domestic and foreign radio broadcasting:  This is the cheaper of the two types of broadcasting, both for transmission and reception.  This is an important way for Canadians domestically (especially in rural and remote areas), as well as abroad to get news from Canada.  Terrestrial audio radio is accessible in locations which can't be served by the Internet.
• Television broadcasting: I only believe in subsidizing television broadcasting in rural and remote areas not able to be adequately served by commercial broadcasters.

A proposal to add $318million more to CBC's budget to remove advertising from broadcasting doesn't sound appealing to me.  If we were talking about $318million more for Canadian content creation that would be accessible to me as an audience (public money conditioned on being neutral as far as content distribution systems) then I would be in favor.

Even if we were talking about transferring budgets away from television broadcasting to subsidize emerging content distribution as a policy tool to reduce copyright infringement, I would be in favor.

I don't see anything of value to me of making broadcast television ad-free.  It might make that broadcaster more competitive with online services that are paid for by subscribers rather than advertisers, but I think that is a very inappropriate abuse of public funding.  The last thing I want is my tax money funding a broadcaster which would think of online content libraries as a "competitor" (or some extremists claim "industrial dumper") and be denying me access to content which I partially funded.

A more future-facing proposal

 

I believe we should be creating structural separation between the major layers in the CBC.  Specifically, content creation would be structurally separated from any type of content distribution.

As part of that structural separation some of the money currently paid to the content distribution layer (the broadcaster) should be shifted to content creation.  I do not believe it is advertising that conflict with CBC's public interest mandate, but the conflict of interest that arises whenever content creation and content distribution are thought of as a bundle.

In markets where the broadcasting arm is seen as being in competition with commercial broadcasters, we really need to finally ask ourselves if a publicly funded content distribution service should be in that market at all.

And yes, it wouldn't make sense to call the Canadian Content Creation Corporation (CCCC?) the CBC any longer...

Notes from watching Supergirl via VPN

It is only 2 more sleeps (as the kids would say) until the Monday episode of Supergirl launches #DCWeek, the 4-series crossover event between Supergirl, Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow.





I have been looking forward to this since I first heard about the possibility last spring.

Unfortunately, as anyone who reads my blog knows, I've been having trouble watching Supergirl in Canada even though this content is very Canadian, being filmed in Vancouver.

The other 3 shows are on the CTV GO app which, while not being ideal, at least works. For Supergirl I tried to watch on the Showcase website, then gave up and paid for a season pass via Google Play. It is Saturday and last Monday's episode of Supergirl has still not been posted to Google Play by Showcase.

(Nov 29 update: Nov 14'th episode still last posted, so 2 weeks behind).

There is no way I'm going to trust that both episodes will be available on Monday, and that Showcase's screwup won't continue the rest of the season. Typical with my interactions with Canada's broadcast industry, I feel duped.


I've sent tweets to @showcasedotca , and while the person in charge of that account acknowledged the problem it hasn't been resolved yet.

@russellmcormond not good! We recommend you contact feedback@showcase.ca about this immediately so they can look into it. Much appreciated!

— Showcase (@showcasedotca) November 25, 2016

I sent a messages to feedback@showcase.ca, and while I received an automated reply from "Showcase Viewer Relations" I have received nothing else.


I've now taken the next step to ensuring I can view the launch of the crossover event Monday without a problem.

Setting up a VPN to watch via the US source

While I use VPNs as part of my work every day (I manage servers spread across the country, and need to communicate between them securely), this is the first time I have been driven to use a VPN to bypass region restrictions.  If anyone in the broadcast industry has a problem with me using a VPN for this purpose they can send their complaints to feedback@showcase.ca to see if they get any better response than I have.


Some quick searching found many review sites for services that use VPNs for the purposes of bypassing region restrictions.  The one I decided on was ExpressVPN, and paid $99.95US for a year subscription.  They indicate that if I cancel within 30 days I get a refund, so like Netflix I have a month to decide if this is worth keeping.


My first attempt to use ExpressVPN was with the Android App on my ASUS Flip Chromebook.

I ended up learning about something new about the Android support in new Chromebooks.  It seems that it is only the Android container, and not the device as a whole, that the VPN software works with.  This meant that the version of Chrome running within ChromeOS would show my normal IP address, while I would get the US based IP address if I used the Android version of Chrome.

With this setup going to The CW's Supergirl site didn't work as I would have hoped. Detecting that I was on an Android device (not a Chromebook) it sent me to Google Play to download the Android CW App. Google Play indicated that the app wasn't available in my country.

I installed the ExpressVPN client on my Linux desktop in the basement. I was able to go to the CW Supergirl site and watch last Monday's episode.

This isn't where I want to watch television, so isn't something I would be wanting to do often.  I could set up the VPN via my gateway rather than on a desktop, which would allow me to watch via my Chromebook, but then enabling/disabling the VPN all the time would be inconvenient. Any use of VPNs slows down network speed, and I wouldn't want our normal network usage to be diminished because of a few broken content delivery services.

If I keep the VPN software I might have the router send specific subnets via the VPN (CW, not sure about Netflix).  I just checked the BBC iPlayer and it works well with this VPN service -- all it took for me to finally decide to take a look at bypassing region blocking was to finally get so upset with dealing with the Canadian broadcast industry and Showcase finally pushed me over that edge.

The CW experience.

It's a broadcaster, so I'm putting it in that context.  I really prefer first-run subscription content libraries like Netflix, and wish there were competitors to this in Canada for anything not available on Netflix.   Second-run subscription content libraries like CraveTV are fine for watching old shows, but are not a substitute for first-run services.

The CW's website is a massive improvement over anything I've seen from the Canadian broadcaster-run websites.

The show has commercials, and like when watching broadcasting they are at the same video quality and sound volume as the show.  None of this jarring mess of uneven video quality and massive audio volume jumps that you can see on the Showcase.ca website.

The commercials even have text below them (outside of the video) clarifying who the advertiser is, and have links directly to the advertisers website.   This must be amazing for US based advertisers where audiences are more likely to want to thank them for sponsoring the show, rather than in Canada where you feel like contacting them to let them know the broadcaster has duped them.

I wrote in the earlier article how Supergirl was the only series I'm watching where I saw advertisements.  I'm not sure if advertisers are better treated by Showcase which tries to display commercials and does it poorly, or CTV where the CTV GO app doesn't bother to show advertisements (just interrupts the stream and takes a few moment for buffering to catch up again).

I'd rather pay to not have advertisements, but bad experience with paying Showcase to access Supergirl has reminded me that paying money is no guarantee you'll get service from a Canadian broadcaster.  I'm getting good service so far from Space for my season subscription to BBC Class, even though they'd rather I didn't pay them that way.


I've now paid for the ExpressVPN service, money I would have preferred was sent to a content creator.  I might as well make use of it for watching the rest of the CW series.  I don't know if I'll keep the service, but I at least know I'll be able to enjoy the crossover event next week no matter what the Canadian broadcasters do.

---

February 18 update:

The problem hasn't improved. After complaints about ongoing delays for episodes, I received a suggestion from the person managing their twitter feed to send more email.

@russellmcormond @TheCWSupergirl hi Russell, we recommend contacting feedback@showcase.ca about this. (1/2)

— Showcase (@showcasedotca) February 18, 2017

@russellmcormond flag it for them each time, so they can put pressure on the team who uploads the files. (2/2)

— Showcase (@showcasedotca) February 18, 2017

This is entirely unreasonable. Either the people they have hired to make the episodes available should have been fired months ago for incompetence, or this is deliberate behavior on the part of the company. Showcase is likely presuming that if they constantly screw up legal alternatives that fans will be driven to watch via Showcase (either via cable of via their website).

If your child stole money, would you reward them with candy or would you believe they needed to be reprimanded and/or punished? The reality is that this type of dishonest behavior by broadcasters drives people to VPN services as well as to copyright infringement. Showcase should be being treated by lawmakers and the law similar to how ISOhunt was during the C-32/C-11 hearings, as a commercial contributory infringer.