Yes it’s a protection racket…
do your really think it is us they are protecting?

Well, we’re wending our way through another round of renewal hearings on the television industry up and we are being assured that this time they will fix things. They won’t change anything of course but if we all wish really hard then they are sure that things will work out better this time ‘round.

Not that anything is decided at these hearings, not even the in-camera portions. I would bet that any changes, or lack therein of, will be agreed on over lunches and in backroom meetings that we never hear about.

I say it is time that the CRTC slept with the fishes.

The CRTC was originally created to conserve and regulate a scarce resource of spectrum to ensure that Canada’s culture is protected.

First off, their is no scarce spectrum any more- we can have a million channels if anyone wanted to fill them. The CRTC is trapped pretending that the industry they oversee hasn’t changed in the last half century. They can’t work with the world as it actually is or it would be obvious that they serve no purpose and are simply an anachronistic throwback that needs to be trimmed to help balance the budget.

What’s that you say; they are still charged with protecting Canadian culture? And how good a job are they doing there? The rules they create are designed to ensure that Canadians will be protected from the cultural imperialism of the big bad American media machine by… uhh… continuing to prop up a business model where all the profit for Canadian broadcasters comes from mainlining American content into Canadian living rooms?

Sure they say that, without the profits from the American shows they couldn’t afford to create all the great Canadian content that they do. Do they mean that rare interstitial content between American shows that they spend the absolute minimum of time and money creating?

Really, if you wanted to create a system where all that matters is quarterly profits for the broadcasters then you couldn’t do much better than the CRTC has done. Hell, when an American broadcaster sends a feed into Canada they are supposed to automatically strip out their own advertisement and substitute in the ads from the Canadian broadcaster- the Canadian broadcaster makes money for doing absolutely nothing but get in the way.

To make it look better to the rest of Canada they suggest that broadcasters put some content on the air that could be wrapped in red tape to meet incredibly lax rules to be considered Canadian content. Of course this FauxCanCon gets the lowest possible expenditure in resources- it takes a lot more effort, skill and money to create content than it does to buy a plane ticket and bid on someone else’s content so teh CRTC isn’t going to push them too hard on it.

When it comes right down to it, Canadian content is not the business of Canadian broadcasters, it is a cost of doing business. Like electricity or printer paper, Canadian content is an expense that they will continuously try to cut in search of a better bottom line. The actual business of Canadian broadcasted is to barge in between American content owners and Canadian citizens so they can transfer something they didn’t create to an audience that they demand be forced to go through them.

Keep in mind that this is standard operating procedure for ALL government regulatory proceedings. The lack of knowledge and experience on the part of the regulators is used by the industry stakeholders to twist and distort the rules to their own needs while asserting that it is all being done in the best interests of the country at large.

The corruption of regulation by those who are regulated isn’t a flaw that can be eliminated, it is a feature that is inherent to regulation. The business and organized labour that comes under the aegis of the regulators will do everything in their power to tilt the field in their favour. This isn’t evil, it is human nature and to think they would do otherwise is naive to a destructive level.

When a regulating body like the CRTC can move billions of dollars into and out of bank accounts with the stroke of a pen, there is no way that the people who have the most to gain or lose can avoid manipulating it. The companies shareholders and the union members could reasonably make a case of negligence against the board members or union reps.

What is taking place with the CRTC is taking place in greater obscurity in the agriculture, banking, housing, energy, resource, health… hell, there is no corner of our lives that is safe from over-regulation and mis-regulation.

That isn’t to say there is no need for regulating, just that the harm done by current regulations is outstripping the good. The cleanest, safest and least corrupting regulation is that which regulates only as much as it needs and no more. For example, the Canadian film and television industry doesn’t need regulating outside the rules against fraud and crime that we are all subject to.

If you really want a corporate oligarchy, all you need to do is create a highly regulated industry.