Law Bytes

Canadian digital law and policy in 2025 was marked by the unpredictable with changes in leadership in Canada and the U.S. driving a shift in policy approach. Over the past year, that included a reversal on the digital services tax, the re-introduction of lawful access legislation, and the end of several government digital policy bills including online harms, privacy, and AI regulation. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2025, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year.

The creation of an Artists' Resale Right has been adopted in many countries to at best mixed reviews. They’re unsurprisingly widely supported by potential beneficiaries, but the data on who actually benefits raises real questions about the wisdom of the policy. Canada may be headed in the same policy direction as the government recently announced in its budget plans to introduce the measure. Professor Guy Rub is the Vincent J. Marella Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and an expert in the intersection between intellectual property law, commercial law, the arts, and economic theory. Professor Rub has written critically about the Artists' Resale Right including as part of a submission to a House of Commons committee that studied the issue several years ago. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the policy measure and its drawbacks, including his view that it primarily benefits artists who are wealthy, old, or dead.

The CRTC recently released its much anticipated decision on Canadian content rules, the first of two decisions that could reshape broadcasting and film/TV production in Canada. The Commission promoted its Cancon approach as offering new flexibility into the system but the fine print matters as some changes may be more restrictive than they appear at first glance. To help make sense of the decision, Len St-Aubin, the former Director General of Telecommunications Policy at Industry Canada, joins the Law Bytes podcast. Len provided consulting services to Netflix until 2020 and has since been an active participant in the debate on Internet policy as part of the Canadian Internet Society.

Digital sovereignty is hot the digital policy phrase of the moment driving discussion on Canadian digital policy involving AI, digital infrastructure, privacy, and cultural policy among others. Yet despite its widespread use, its meaning remains opaque as it often used to frame – or reframe – longstanding policy positions. The government has begun to flesh out the issue with Treasury Board recently releasing a white paper on digital sovereignty that provides a useful starting point for discussion. Jennifer Pybus, the Canada Research Chair in Data, Democracy and AI at York University joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the white paper and Canada’s digital sovereignty debate.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but somehow this is the 250th episode of the Law Bytes podcast. To mark this milestone, I’m joined by Jan Gerlach, Wikimedia’s Director of Public Policy, who leads its EU advocacy work, including efforts on UK Online Safety Act. This is particularly relevant in a Canadian context since this work has touched on issues such as user identification, platform regulation, and rules surrounding AI. Our conversation features a wide ranging discussion on these issues, providing insight into some of the risks and challenges associated with digital policy reform.