After U.S. studios criticized Canada for raising cash calls on major U.S. streaming companies, skeptical local creative guilds and guilds have raised questions about the CRTC’s latest ruling on online streaming law.
These are the same Canadian filmmakers who are supposed to benefit from the country’s TV czar imposing another 10 percent tax on foreign streaming platforms as well as a temporary mandatory 5 percent expenditure on domestic Canadian content production in controversial legislation often referred to as the “Netflix tax.”
The Writers Guild of Canada said the Radio-television and Telecommunications Canada decision was an “important step forward” in OSA legislation that has been in the works for years, which was first enacted in 2023 and is now on hold in the federal court of appeal due to a legal challenge by foreign media operators.
On May 21, the CRTC ordered U.S. digital platforms to contribute 15% of their Canadian revenues to support independent domestic film and television production, while reducing spending obligations on local broadcasters. But local scriptwriters disagreed with the TV regulatory body which ended the policy of prioritizing Programs of National Interest (PNI), or local dramas and documentaries, including children’s and youth programs and animation, to receive subsidies from foreign broadcasting companies.
“Dramas, children’s shows, animation and documentaries are genres that are fundamentally at risk in Canadian programming. When we talk about the need to support Canadian content and Canadian voices, the vulnerability of these genres in particular is at the root of the discussion,” Bruce Smith, president of the WGC, said in a statement.
The Directors Guild of Canada also cited the loss of protection for major Canadian programming to put the jobs of local directors and creative teams at risk.
“The market alone will not reliably protect Canadian storytelling without clear, measurable rules. This framework has spending requirements, but there are very few direct obligations tied to the telling of original Canadian stories themselves. Without these protections, there is a real risk that investment will shift away from original Canadian drama and documentaries toward safer, less expensive or internationally optimized content that does little to support Canadian creative voices, key Canadian creators or long-term domestic production capacity,” said Alistair Hepburn, DGC’s national executive director. statement.
Far from good intentions, he showed us that the money was invited by ACTRA, the country’s actors’ union, as it reacted to the CRTC’s decision to dig deeper into the pockets of American digital platforms doing business in Canada.
“While yesterday’s announcement contains encouraging language about supporting Canadian and Indigenous productions, performers cannot build a future on aspirations alone. The test is whether these statements will lead to meaningful and actionable investment in Canadian culture. ACTRA needs to see clear rules, accountability and measurable results, while also asking why Canadian broadcasters will pay less to invest when billion-dollar foreign broadcasters will only see a modest increase,” Eleanor Noble, ACTRA’s national president, said in another statement.
Even the Canadian Media Producers Association, which represents independent film and television producers, said it was reading the fine print in the CRTC’s decision before voicing a thumbs down. “We are reviewing the decisions in detail, and will work to ensure they enable independent Canadian producers to continue to make a significant contribution to the production of Canadian programming,” the CMPA said in a statement.
The Motion Picture Association, which represents major studios and streaming companies in the United States, previously criticized the CRTC’s decision to impose “unprecedented, unnecessary and discriminatory investment obligations” on U.S. companies and violate Canada’s obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a trade arrangement currently being renegotiated between Canada, the United States and Mexico amid the ongoing tariff war.
This has left the threat of a trade battle on top of the current legal challenge, which is holding back the implementation of the OSA to ensure the cost of producing local content in the era of streaming.
