Conservative Election Platform and the “Nothing New” Digital Economy Policy

The Conservatives released their election platform this morning. The news with respect to those looking for something with respect to broadband Internet development and digital media policy?  Nothing new.

For those looking to see some shift in policy direction that might increase broadband Internet development, greater competition and anything else that has led to the uproar over Usage Based Billing, bandwidth caps and the pay-per Internet model, the document offers little.  No measures are offered to foster greater competition, such as setting aside spectrum for new wireless entrants, encouraging greater foreign ownership, or regulatory reforms so that the CRTC can better address problems of media, telecoms and Internet concentration. Instead, it is business as usual: the maximum reliance on market forces possible.

Nothing new is on the table with respect to broadband Internet development, although existing commitments of spending $225 million over the next five years to help fund the extension of such capabilities to 200,000 rural and remote households are maintained (see page 65).

The Quebec Government’s budget, in contrast, adopted last month announced spending of $900 million between now and 2020 to extend broadband Internet to all Quebecers and, in particular, the 290,000 households in Quebec alone theat currently do not have access to broadband Internet capabilities. In other words, the Conservative platform not only lowballs broadband development relative to, say, Australia, Britain, France, Finland, Korea, Japan and the U.S., it pales in comparison to actions taken by one province: Quebec.

No commitments are made to anything that looks like Network Neutrality, either.

In terms of copyright and digital media policy, nothing new here either, except a promise that a majority Conservative Government will reintroduce and pass quickly the Copyright Modernization Act that died when the election was called. That Act, as others have pointed out, has some very important beneficial qualities, such as formalizing fair use provisions and allowing individuals to create copies of digital content for their personal use across various platforms, i.e. computers, digital music players, tv, and computers.

The Copyright Modernization Act, however, has two fatal flaws: (1) provisions requiring ISPs to function as copyright cops and (2) the outlawing of attempts to undo digital locks that tie media content to specific devices.

Requiring ISPs to function as digital cops is a problem because it puts them on the slippery slope of playing the role of gatekeeper in the digital media environment. Preventing people’s attempts to undo digital locks is also problematic because it prevents people from using the freedom to make personal copies of digital content for their own purposes across different devices/platforms. In other words, digital locks and the content industries’ ability to lock content to specific devices trumps users’ rights to enjoy media content they have legally acquired across whatever platforms they choose to use.

With respect to a few other matters central to cultural policy, the election platform holds the line. For one, the CBC is not mentioned at all, thus sparing it from what some see as a Government hostile to the public broadcaster. This could be a good thing in the face of persistent worries that the Conservatives have a hidden ‘scorched earth’ approach to the CBC and all things cultural policy.

The Canadian Media Fund and Canadian Periodical Fund are also mentioned, without either new commitments made or drastic cutbacks. Thus, rather than slashing the CBC and gutting programs and funding mechanisms designed to foster the development of media content, the Conservatives appear set to maintain the status quo.

All-in-all, the Conservative election platform lays out an underwhelming approach in light of the magnitude of issues in front of us. Despite grandstanding by both PM Harper and Industry Minister Clement in the face of the massive uproar over the January 25 UBB decision by the CRTC, nothing at all is offered that suggests relief or that such considerations are central to the Conservative’s digital media policy. That, in turn, seems to be more rhetoric than substance, a mantra invoked in the hope that some of the pixie dust associated with digital media can transform Conservatives into hipsters. That is definitely not the case.