Canada’s federal government is at a legislative standstill in the wake of a Liberal Party leadership race and possible spring election, with a number of implications at the feet of the domestic screen sector.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader and prime minister following the selection of his successor. He also confirmed during the press conference that Governor General Mary Simon granted his request to prorogue Parliament until March 24.

The move followed a period of turmoil on Parliament Hill in the wake of the Dec. 16 resignation of former Deputy Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, NDP’s Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet have all stated they will bring down the current government and trigger a federal election in a non-confidence vote once the new Parliament session begins.

Kelly Wilhelm, head of the Cultural Policy Hub at OCAD University, tells Playback Daily that the prorogation of Parliament won’t impede the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) work to implement Bill C-11 in the interim.

“Everyone understands the urgency of moving forward and, at the end of the day, the CRTC has set out objectives for itself on a timeline that it needs to deliver on with respect to the pieces of legislation that have already been passed by the government,” says Wilhelm.

The CRTC ramped up the timeline for its regulatory plan late last year. Consultations are currently underway around programming and the definition of Canadian content, with hearings scheduled to begin on March 31. Separate consultations on market dynamics and the sustainability of the broadcasting sector is set to be announced Thursday (Jan. 9) afternoon.

However, a prorogued Parliament means any bills yet to be passed in the current session have been thrown out, referred to as having died on the order paper. Among those bills is C-27, which was intended to introduce the country’s first regulations around artificial intelligence (AI). The bill proposed three acts around consumer privacy, data and protections around the fast-moving tech.

“We don’t have a federal AI regulation in this country, and it’s going to become more and more challenging the longer we wait to be able to put any kind of guardrails or regulatory balance into the equation,” says Wilhelm, warning that the screen sector “can’t afford” to contend with growing AI capabilities without these guardrails.

A number of screen sector stakeholders provided witness testimony during the study of the bill at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, including the Directors Guild of Canada, which argued that the proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act was not strong enough to uphold necessary copyright principles.

“Whatever Bill C-27’s flaws may have been, we still need improved clarity, transparency and public oversight with regard to the rapidly evolving area of artificial intelligence,” said Neal McDougall, the Writers Guild of Canada’s assistant executive director and director of policy, in a statement. “We hope the next government will take up this vital subject with the appropriate sense of urgency. Canada needs to adopt a responsible AI framework to protect the economic and social foundations upon which our creative sector relies.”

ACTRA National president Eleanor Noble, who was among the witnesses during the committee stage, said the union “maintains the belief that the best way forward to protect Canadian performers from the inherent threat to their jobs by AI, is through strong and robust legislation.”

As for new legislation, Wilhelm says there’s unlikely to be much of anything put forward from the Liberals before an election is called, including any new spending on the screen sector or tabling the expected modernized mandate for CBC/Radio-Canada.

Wilhelm says there are some measures that can be made in the interim, including a mandate letter to Marie-Philippe Bouchard, who assumed the role of president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada on Jan. 3, from Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge. She says a throne speech from the incoming Liberal leader may also indicate the party’s vision for the pubcaster.

In a statement to Playback, a spokesperson for the Canadian Heritage office said St-Onge “has worked closely with experts, Canadians and caucus colleagues for many months on possible policy changes” for the pubcaster and “looks forward to having more to say on the specifics in due course.”

Even if the government would have tabled a modernized mandate, Wilhelm speculates it would not have been able to block a Conservative Party plan to defund the CBC. She says the defund campaign has been a successful fundraising strategy for them and will very likely be part of its election platform.

While the Conservatives have also been vocal in the past about plans to overturn Bill C-11, Wilhelm says the likely cultural priorities will be around CBC and Bill C-18, the Online News Act. In that time, the CRTC would have the ability to continue to implement new regulation around C-11, which would make it harder to unravel on a legislative level.

Wilhelm emphasizes that this is a critical time for the screen sector to not get complacent and to build relationships with politicians across all parties to articulate the value of the sector and CBC.

“It’s very difficult to predict what is actually going to happen on March 24,” she says. “It is entirely possible that the government could live a little longer, depending on what the opposition parties decide to do. It’s also entirely possible that it has no more time and we go straight to an election, but in either of those scenarios, the most important thing is to have the relationships in place, to be able to impact the [election] platforms that any of the parties would be running on.”

Wilhelm says the screen sector is “well-positioned” to connect with political decision-makers due to the economic benefits, job creation and geographical spread of the industry. However, she warns that it can’t be a “one-size-fits-all screen strategy.”

“There’s a lot that can be said that will really resonate with MPs about where they live, and I think that’s the way to go when we’re making these kinds of relationships happen,” she says, giving the example of connecting the dots between film and TV production and the local businesses and constituents that are directly economically impacted. “We need to understand what the priorities are of the MPs in their riding and be able to make the connections for them.”

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