The Internet is none of the CRTC's business.

A decade ago, the CRTC considered whether it should regulate the Internet. Almost everyone who took the trouble to speak to the broadcast regulator said it should not.

Those were the days when the Internet was new and exciting. Ideas were sprouting like spring crocuses. Regulation would be a late frost.

When the CRTC announced it would leave the Internet alone, a cheer went up, but an editorial in this newspaper advised "hold your applause."

What the CRTC actually decided was that audio-visual communication on the Internet did qualify as "broadcasting" and therefore was subject to its regulatory power. But it wouldn't exercise that authority because Internet broadcasting was still quite peripheral. Should that change, however, so would the CRTC's decision.

A decade passed. Broadcasting on the Internet grew. And now the CRTC is reconsidering. This time there are many voices urging the CRTC to put a yoke on the Internet. "Two distinct viewpoints have emerged," reported Vito Pilieci in this newspaper. "Broadcasters and (Internet service providers) want the CRTC to keep its hands off the Internet. ... But content-makers -- such as actors, writers and producers want to see Canadian-content regulations imposed on TV programming over the Internet."

"The CRTC must take measures now to ensure a place for Canadian programming online," wrote comedian Colin Mochrie in the Citizen. "If it doesn't create online space for Canadian programming today and provide a way to fund content, our culture and our industry will drown in a sea of foreign content."

There's so much wrong with this it's hard to know where to begin.

Take that stuff about "our culture and our industry." There's no doubt that Mochrie's industry is jeopardized by the revolution in communications technology. Mine is, too. But "our culture"? Much of the TV content produced in Canada is low-brow hokum whose Canadian origins are carefully hidden in order to make it sellable on the international market. Our culture needs that about as much as it needs the continued production of Danielle Steele novels.
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But dwelling on these sorts of details is precisely why otherwise intelligent people cannot see how outrageous it would be for the CRTC to plant its flag on the Internet. Let's start with the fundamentals.

Whether airwaves or fibre optic cables are the medium, we are talking about people communicating with others. This is about speech. Free speech. The most fundamental right. As such, we must start by assuming governments should not interfere without very compelling reasons.

So what are those reasons?

Go back to the origins of the Broadcasting Act and the CRTC. The reasons for government involvement were so clear they could be summed up in two words: spectrum scarcity.

There are no limits to how many newspapers and books may be published. The more the merrier. Similarly, there are no limits to the Internet. Anyone can set up a website or a blog or stream video, and the Internet can expand infinitely.

But radio and television broadcasting is inherently limited because there can be only one broadcast per frequency, and there are only so many frequencies.

So the government had to allocate broadcast spots. That could have been done by selling off frequencies as property, much as it sells Crown land to private buyers. But the government didn't do that. Instead, it decided to treat the frequencies as its own property. Hence, they became "the public airwaves."

In this model, broadcasters would get a licence to broadcast on a frequency. In exchange, they agreed that what they broadcast would be subject to regulations that don't apply to any other communication media.

In setting broadcast regulations, the government sought to advance certain public goals. One important goal was encouraging the production of Canadian music, drama, and news, and so broadcasters were required to meet various Canadian content regulations -- which musicians, actors, writers and producers liked very much, for obvious reasons.

This system worked well enough until the Internet grew into a behemoth.
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Now audiences are leaving old media for new and advertising revenues on television and radio are sliding. All agree that the future belongs to the Internet.

"Younger Canadians in particular are turning to Internet-based and mobile media that hardly existed as entertainment sources 10 years ago," CRTC chairman Konrad von Finkenstein said recently. "We are not blind to the plight of conventional TV. The model is broken and a systemic solution must be found."

But why is that the CRTC's concern? Private broadcasters are for-profit businesses. If they are losing audiences and ad revenue to the Internet, that's their problem. If they see a way of making the Internet work for them, fine. The troubles of broadcasters no more justify the CRTC regulating what broadcasters do on the Internet than the troubles of broadcasters justify the CRTC regulating newspapers owned by broadcasters (including this one).

Look, the logic is simple. The Broadcasting Act and the CRTC came into existence to solve the problem of spectrum scarcity. There is no spectrum scarcity on the Internet. Hence, there is no need for either the Broadcast Act or the CRTC on the Internet.

Yes, the lofty goals enumerated in the Broadcasting Act -- "to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada" -- are as relevant on the Internet as they are in broadcasting. But they're relevant to the printed word, too, and no one is calling for the CRTC to regulate that. Fortunately.

What Colin Mochrie and others concerned with Canadian culture should be demanding is not expanded regulation. It is expanded subsidy.

That doesn't mean a levy or a dedicated tax or some other variation on the CRTC robbing Peter to pay Paul. It means going to Parliament and explaining why more public funding is vital.

And letting the people's representatives decide.

You can contact Dan Gardner at the Ottawa Citizen.
E-mail: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com

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