Week 4: An Overview of the Witnesses of the Bill C-18 Hearings

We take a look at the witness lists for the Bill C-18 senate hearings. This is for the 4th week of the hearings.

Week 4 of the Bill C-18 senate hearings is upon us. Already, we heard from some of these witnesses. Still, we thought we’d offer up the entire weeks scheduled hearings.

The Communications and Transport (TRCM) has had a very busy and eventful set of hearings so far. While it is unclear how long these hearings will go, we do know that they are still continuing.

Yesterday, on May 30th, there were the following witnesses:

Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada

Jesse Brown, Publisher Canadaland
Phillip Crawley, Chief Executive Officer and Publisher The Globe and Mail
Paul Deegan, President and Chief Executive Officer News Media Canada
Jeff Elgie, Chief Executive Officer Village Media
Jen Gerson, Independent Journalist As an Individual
Pierre-Elliott Levasseur, President of LaPresse and Director of News Media Canada News Media Canada
Brian Myles, Director Le Devoir

If you’d like to watch that hearing in full, it is now available here.

Today, on May 31st, we’ll hear from the following witnesses:

Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada

Sue Gardner, Member, Policy Committee Internet Society Canada Chapter
Lawrence Gibbons, Group Publisher, Star Observer and City Hub and co-chair of the Public Interest Publishers Alliance Star Observer
Chris Gogos, Publisher of Neos Kosmos and Director of the Independent Multicultural Media Association Star Observer
Matthew Hatfield, Campaigns Director OpenMedia
Randy Kitt, Media Sector Director Unifor
Emma McDonald, Senior Policy Adviser Minderoo Foundation
Philip Palmer, President Internet Society Canada Chapter
Rod Sims, Professor, Australian National University As an Individual

Names that stand out immediately are Sue Gardner and Philip Palmer of the Internet Society Canada Chapter. They are definitely known for pushing back against this bill because of the threats it poses to the internet.

Next is Matthew Hatfield of OpenMedia. He advocates on behalf of individual users and digital rights already, so it isn’t a surprise he would be opposed to the bill.

Randy Kitt is from Unifor, a well known lobbyist organization pushing for this bill. So, it’s widely expected that he will be for this crackdown on the internet.

Lawrence Gibbons is known for supporting the link tax, so he’ll also be pushing for this bill as well. He’ll be joined by Chris Gogos as well.

Emma McDonald of Minderoo Foundation was part of the lost hearing, but we don’t exactly know where she will stand on the issue.

Rod Sims, as we noted in the lost hearing, is a known foreign backer of this bill.

So, this is what the current week looks like with the Bill C-18 hearings. We’ll continue our coverage of the hearings soon.

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.