A time limit is not the same as a safe rule

Letter from the table

To the Platform Council,

At our last council session, I expected to leave thinking mainly about notice. I left thinking about the clock.

On 12 January, a large marketplace held a payout of CAD 6,480. The sales behind it had already been completed. I received a notice that described a security review but did not say what specific issue needed attention or when the money might be released. I sent the documents requested through the account portal that afternoon. The next day, I asked for a person to review the case. I could not tell from the response whether anyone had done so.

The money was not abstract to me. CAD 2,760 was set aside for payroll; another CAD 1,950 was due for rent. I moved money from my personal savings to cover the immediate gap and called my bank to ask whether it could trace the payout. It could not: the transfer had not been sent. I opened another support request, attached the same records again, and asked for the reason for the hold and an expected date. The payout arrived on 28 January. I was relieved. I was also left with no clear account of what had triggered the hold or what had resolved it.

I live in Montréal. Here, article 1375 of the Civil Code of Québec says that parties must conduct themselves in good faith when an obligation arises, is performed or is extinguished. I considered whether to take the matter further, but I had no useful explanation to put before anyone. A general security-review notice gave me little to work with. I tried the platform’s support process, kept records, and asked my bank about the transfer. Those were sensible steps, but none gave me a timely answer.

That experience is why I support written notice, a real explanation, and access to a person who can review a decision. It is also why I oppose the Platform Fairness Standard as adopted. The standard places a time limit on payout holds and calls for the same protections in every country. It does not, as I read it, say enough about how a hold should be handled when a platform has a credible risk to investigate, or how deadlines should account for different legal and payment systems.

At the table, I learned to separate two problems that are easy to collapse into one. The first is silence: a business cannot correct a problem it cannot identify. The second is the duration of a hold. A long hold can be devastating, but an inflexible deadline is not necessarily the right remedy for every case. If the rule pushes a platform to release funds before it can investigate a serious risk, the costs may fall on other small businesses or on customers. I do not want those risks ignored in the name of fairness.

A fair process should make a business answerable for delay. It should not pretend every delay has the same cause.

I would replace the Standard’s broad approach with a rule that requires prompt written notice identifying the issue as specifically as the investigation permits; a way to submit relevant information; and review by a person who can change the decision. For a hold, the platform should give an expected review date, update the business when that date changes, and explain why. Extensions should be limited, recorded, and available for a defined reason, not left open-ended. The process should also make clear what funds are held and what steps could lead to release. That would not promise a payout by a date regardless of circumstances. It would make delay visible, reviewable, and accountable.

I know the Assembly adopted the Standard on 13 August, with 86.4 per cent voting yes and 58 per cent turnout.¹ Letters went to seven chief executives on 20 August; as of today, no replies are on record. The vote

deserves respect. It does not require every member to stop asking whether the text can be improved. My opposition is not a defence of unexplained holds. It is a request not to turn one blunt promise into another.

Notes and sources

1. RC/PL/RES/2026/1, adopted 13 August 2026. ↩