A group representing major foreign streaming companies told a hearing held by Canada’s broadcasting regulator on Friday that those companies shouldn’t be expected to fulfil the same responsibilities as traditional broadcasters when it comes to Canadian content.
The Motion Picture Association-Canada, which represents large streamers like Netflix, Paramount, Disney and Amazon, said the regulator should be flexible in modernizing its definition of Canadian content.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is holding a two-week public hearing on a new definition of Canadian content that began Wednesday. The proceeding is part of its work to implement the Online Streaming Act — and it is bringing tensions between traditional players and large foreign streamers out in the open.
God I hate them. « We’re the future » they said, they’re only more privatized bullshit and bubble you cannot escape.
They’re just worst than cable TV
As a Canadian in 2025, I have cancelled almost all of my US web services including streaming services. Apple still has there hands in my pocket for some 50G icloud stuff, I have been trying to offload all of my stuff but it takes time.
I have turned to a pirates life for some things other things I just use my pihole to block ads I would love it if I could setup a system on my LAN that I could have ad free streaming music on. I also wish youtube had a Canadian or a not US competitor that came close to the same things.
We all need to stand behind the CRTC and cancel the US streaming services.
Arr Stack and CBC Gem.
Yes I have gotten in to the Arr apps, and I pay for CBC Gem.
Yo ho ho. It’s a pirate’s life for me. 20 years plus. We buy from the little guy and do not reciprocate copyright law in our house.
Facebox argued that piracy is ok! Good enough for a billionaire, good enough for me!
They must be expected to face the same requirements.
If you expect to be allowed to take money from the Canadian economy, you have to contribute some value back into the Canadian economy.
Over the entire history of this country, there have been too many foreign companies swoop in, undercut the local industry, take over the market, and suck out all the profits and leave nothing but waste behind.
I’m torn. With broadcasting there’s an argument that the bandwidth is publicly owned so there should be some oversight in the content that’s transmitted. Mandating Canadian content here seems okay, kind of like how we control .ca domains and have some say in who gets to use them. For streaming though it seems to be private infrastructure, it’s been built using public funds, but the people running the infrastructure aren’t really making decisions about the content it caries. They just lease it out to anybody with minimal oversight. It’d be kind of like mandating that some% of phone calls need to be Canadian content.
Then again, we do control the .ca domains so we might argue that foreign companies using them should make some effort to carry or promote Canadian content. Get too restrictive though and companies just shut down the .ca domain and make us use the .com version which we can’t really control.
I think trying to label on demand streaming as a public broadcaster is dumb.
You can’t control what people prefer to watch.
Broadcasters had limitations cuz you can only broadcast 1 thing at a time on a channel
You couldn’t play more than 1 TV show on the same channel, obviously.
But Netflix can serve 1000 different TV shows to 1000 different households simultaneously.
The effect is similar in both cases. Even if there’s choice for everyone to watch what they want but most of the content is US-based, Canadian content doesn’t get enough views, doesn’t make enough revenue and isn’t made anymore. Freedom of choice can mask a lot of undesirable effects. We want to keep Canadian content alive.
Small mind thinking.
It’s definitely possible to control what people prefer to watch. For example by spending on ads, or by providing more production budget to the things you want people to prefer.
CanCon for streaming is bullshit. Does every message board have to have a percentage of Canadian posts? Does Twitch have to have a percentage of Canadian Gamers? The Canadian-ized versions of streaming sites are always a step down, removing shows in favour of Bell media shovelware.
No, it means large streaming services have to pay some of their Canadian revenue towards CanCon.
Have you ever used a VPN to compare the selection available to Canada vs the US?
If you like American content so much, you can move to the US.
Or, I can continue to use the internet in such a way that neither our, nor the US government, can track or limit my media consumption.
Sure. But the next time you want to watch a Canadian movie or series and you can’t find it on any platform, or that your favourite studio or artist is quitting because they don’t receive any revenue, don’t fucking complain.
This is already the case. Canadian media corps do not help Canadian artists, Like every other media corp their job is to siphon wealth away from talented people, except in Canada they hide behind fake national pride.
There are loads of Canadian movies and TV shows that are not available to stream or even buy on disk. If you’re lucky you can get a used DVD on eBay. This media is lost, no one will get to enjoy it and paying Bell more will not bring it back.
That’s not a can-con issue though, it’s a rights licensing issue.
