Peter Menzies: Canada's broadcasters are still waiting for their Trudeau-era panacea

Forcing U.S. streamers to subsidize the domestic industry via the CRTC was a bad idea three years ago, and likely a doomed one now

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

By: Peter Menzies

Almost three years ago, much to the delight of the official Canadian content industry, Royal assent was granted to Bill C-11 and the Online Streaming Act came into force.

It all sounded so rosy back in April of 2023. Simple, even.

“The world is watching,” said Pablo Rodriguez, then-heritage minister, his buttons fairly bursting with pride. He predicted the legislation designed to “modernize” the Broadcasting Act and force online streamers to pay into designated funds would be implemented by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) within nine months.

And why not? Earlier in 2023, Joanne Levy, the CRTC’s regional commissioner for Saskatchewan/Manitoba, had delivered a speech in which the Commission announced it would “hit the ground running.

“There is already an extensive amount of work that’s been completed by CRTC staff that will enable us to swing into action,” she told attendees at the On Screen Manitoba All Access conference.

Ian Scott, CRTC chair when the bill was first introduced, had predicted that the legislation redefining “broadcasting” and regulating offshore streamers in a fashion similar to television would be fully implemented within two years.

His successor, Vicky Eatrides, was three months into the job when the legislation took effect, but was full of belief the handoff wouldn’t be fumbled. In the spring of 2023 she expressed every confidence that, for all intents and purposes, the Justin Trudeau government’s signature digital legislation would be up and running by the end of 2024 and money from the so-called web giants would be flowing into the pockets of approved film and television producers by 2025.

Ah, the memories.

Skeptical jaws dropped at those forecasts and eyebrows were raised by critics, some of whom suggested — given the problematic nature of the legislation, the likelihood of legal challenges and other regulatory complications — that there was every chance Eatrides’ five-year term would have long expired before the job was done. It could even take, some (including this writer) suggested, until the end of the decade. Passage of the bill, it was also warned, was likely to signal a prolonged period of investment-stifling regulatory uncertainty that would bring to a close the most financially prosperous era in the history of Canadian film and television program production. It was feared the companies impacted might halt or at least trim the considerable amount of cash they were already investing in Canada.

But those were dismissed, waved away and pooh-poohed as the suspect ramblings of people likely in the pay of the streamers.

Anyway, that’s how it started.

And here’s how it’s going.

Eatrides announced in August, 2023, that, pending the outcome of the Commission’s system renewal, expiring broadcasting licenses would be auto-renewed until Aug. 31, 2026, effectively freezing the industry in time — a genuine problem during an era of rapid change in media. Nine months later, she took off the rose-coloured glasses after the regulator’s “Path Forward” hearing made it clear that — whoo boy — this regulating-the-internet thing was going to be a little trickier than anticipated. Like, who knew? The new deadline for completing the implementation process, the CRTC announced, would be the end of 2025.

Legal appeals of some of the regulator’s initial decisions then began to pile up as the likes of Apple, Spotify, Netflix, Disney, and others filed challenges in Federal Court.

And, as if that wasn’t enough of a hassle, American streamers spent a lot of money explaining to politicians in Washington why Canada was being mean to them. In fact, they had been doing this from the moment the Online Streaming Act and its desire to shift the burden of Canadian cultural funding offshore became more than just a gleam in Trudeau’s eye.

Nevertheless, the CRTC might have pulled it off had it been able to stick with its initial sunny forecast of completion at the end of 2024. But Eatrides’ approach, which, depending on your disposition, is either thoughtful or unprecedented in its ponderous particularism, didn’t make that happen.

Which is too bad for fans of the legislation because, right around the time she could have been in the i-dotting and t-crossing phase, along came (trigger warning) U.S. President Donald Trump for his second term.

It was always anticipated, given the speed with which Prime Minister Mark Carney put his tail between his legs when Trump objected to the Digital Services Tax, that the Online Streaming Act might fall under Mar-a-Lago’s evil eye. That fear became formal when U.S. trade negotiators confirmed the legislation would be a matter they’d be raising in negotiations concerning a renewed CUSMA. Marc Miller, culture and identity minister, has suggested some amendments might be possible, a statement that alarmed Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO of the Canadian Media Producers Association.

He declared it “imperative that the federal government continue to defend this important legislation.”

Mastin’s industry, by the way, was worth $9.58 billion in 2023-24, down starkly from its all time high of $11.75 billion the previous year.

Kevin Desjardins, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, warned that ditching the act would constitute a “crushing blow” to the nation’s culture. He might be right, given the shrinking industry’s increasing dependence — similar to a growing number of Canadian industries — on subsidies.

And the CRTC? It appears as frozen in its deliberations as the five-year plans of the hundreds of radio, TV owners and and networks for which it is responsible. So frozen, in fact, that it has refused to consider CPAC’s desperate appeal for a three-cent increase in its $0.13 per subscriber fee set in 2018. The application was made in June, 2024. The CRTC, believe it or not, sat on it for 17 months and then deferred any decision until, well, whenever. CPAC, meanwhile, continues to trim staff and programming.

When all is said and done, we’re well into 2026 and so far no one has profited from the Online Streaming Act other than regulatory affairs lawyers.

On Nov. 18, 2025, the regulator released the first of its decisions stemming from a process it first announced in 2024. It promised a second decision on funding for official Canadian content “in the near future.” Some thought that might mean before that year’s end or, at least, early in 2026.

But not many reckoned on it taking, at time of writing, almost four more months.

Perhaps that is because CRTC time, as CPAC and others have discovered, moves more slowly than the Gregorian calendar that rules most of our lives. Or, maybe, word somehow sifted through to Eatrides, head of an independent, arms-length administrative tribunal, to not do anything that might further provoke the Americans. In other words, make sure she kept her elbows down and her hands in her pockets and not Netflix’s. Regardless, the pace with which matters are unfolding doesn’t appear consistent with the rapid speed with which the Prime Minister indicated matters would be evolving under his watch. Nor does the situation inspire images of a modern-day panel of Laura Secords standing firm against the Orange Menace.

Perhaps the next decision will still arrive “in the near future” but the CRTC’s timid hesitance has only furthered uncertainty — a mood that smothers desperately-needed investment — and has left the industries for which it is responsible in despair. As one operator described it to me recently:

“They (CRTC) are at a dead stop. Our industry associations are resigned to the fact that any meaningful action from the regulator is not happening until the greater trade issues are settled.

“The business is not in a good place.”

Ah, well, at least we have the memories of the way we were. Can it really be that it was all so simple then?

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