Shortcut buttons for streaming services Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video are seen on a television remote control in Ottawa.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Groups representing Canada’s cultural sector say the collapse of trade talks with the United States creates an opportunity to restart conversations with American streamers, including on their funding of Canadian content.
On Friday, Ottawa’s negotiators rejected an 11th-hour demand from the Trump administration to ditch requirements that U.S. streaming platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video promote Canadian film, TV and music for users north of the border.
Reynolds Mastin, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Media Producers Association, said that up until Friday, those platforms may not have had enough incentive to come to an arrangement on supporting Canadian content. He said this was likely because they thought the Trump administration could press Ottawa to get rid of the Online Streaming Act.
But Canada stood firm on preserving the act. Now, Mr. Mastin said in an interview Monday, the country is at “an inflection point.” This presents “an opportunity to make it very clear that Canadians are going to make decisions about their cultural destiny and no one else,” he said.
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Mr. Mastin said the new landscape allows space for a fresh conversation with U.S. streamers “about what the future could look like: where we strengthen and reinforce the Canadian media production industry in a way that also is aligned with the commercial objectives of these players.”
“The opportunity for that dialogue now exists,” he said. “It may not have existed until around 11:30 p.m. last Friday night, and we have the government to thank for that.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed at a press conference in Quebec on Monday that U.S. negotiators had introduced an unexpected demand in trade talks late last Friday, asking that Ottawa rejig laws requiring major American streamers to make Canadian content, including in French, easy to find in Canada.
Ottawa rejected the demand, made hours before the talks broke down, regarding it as a threat to this country’s culture and sovereignty.
At the press conference, Mr. Carney said that U.S. negotiators regarded the French language, Francophone culture and Canadian culture as irritants, but to Canadians they are fundamental rights.
Canada’s cultural sector has widely welcomed Mr. Carney’s decision to walk away from the trade talks rather than compromise.
In a statement Monday, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees commended Mr. Carney’s move. John Lewis, the group’s international vice-president and director of Canadian affairs, said it supports the decision “to walk away from the table and refuse to accept a deal that jeopardizes working families and weakens Canadian sovereignty.”
The l’Association québécoise de la production médiatique, which represents independent film, television and Web production companies in Quebec, applauded Ottawa on standing firm on requirements to promote French-Canadian content on streaming platforms.
Hélène Messier, the association’s president and CEO, said the federal government may now want to consider pausing its direction to Canada’s broadcast regulator to reduce the percentage of Canadian revenue foreign streaming companies would have to spend to support homegrown content.
But she also said it is crucial that the government quickly deliver the $600-million in annual funding it has promised to bolster Canada’s cultural sector. Quebec’s TV and film industry has been starved of funds because of legal challenges from streamers and delays to the implementation of the 2023 Online Streaming Act, she said.
In June, the Department of Canadian Heritage said it would direct the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to re-examine its recent decision to triple the percentage of revenue that streaming platforms must contribute toward creating Canadian content. The broadcasting regulator had released a framework in May that would require large streamers to contribute 15 per cent of their Canadian revenue.
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Marie-Julie Desrochers, executive director of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, said the government should give the CRTC the freedom to implement the act and make its own decisions on funding levels.
“We want the CRTC to have the full latitude it is intended to have to implement the Act as quickly as possible,” she wrote in an e-mail, “either through the government withdrawing its request that the CRTC reconsider its decision or by issuing a policy direction that maintains significant and predictable contributions from online undertakings to support a wide range of Canadian content involving Canadian creators, performers, professionals and producers.”
Mr. Mastin, of the Canadian Media Producers Association, recalled how Ottawa had announced in June that it would assume some of the financial obligations the CRTC planned to impose on streamers. He said his organization was concerned that, “knowing those players as we do, they were not going to say, ‘Thank you very much. We’re done.’”
“They were going to regard that solely as the appetizer. And late on Friday night the U.S. negotiators demanded the main course in the form of the Online Streaming Act,” he added. “Fortunately, our government said Canadian culture and sovereignty isn’t on the menu.”