On Nov. 3, Ottawa announced legislation that would hold streaming companies like Netflix and Crave to the same standard as traditional broadcasters for the increased creation and circulation of Canadian content. Though this might be a step in the right direction, the proposed bill is woefully insufficient.
As radio and television stations have been subject to Canadian content quotas since 1971, this legislation seeks to support the development of Canadian content, while levelling the playing field between traditional broadcasters and online streaming services. So, what are the issues at hand?
The underlying intent of mandating a certain amount of Canadian content is that it will help foster Canadian identity and national unity.
However, since Canadian content quotas do not have a requirement to broadcast or fund French-language or Indigenous content, what culture is the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) trying to construct? Shafting (for the most part) the music and entertainment created by Indigenous and French-speaking Canadians only serves to promote a colonial and anglophone culture—which is hardly unifying.
Now, this bill does not completely ignore Indigenous and francophone content creators. It suggests imposing financial incentives for broadcasters that air a certain amount of Indigenous or French content, but it should be noted this incentive program has not been formally developed and is merely an idea. Historically, the CRTC has been anything but shy to compel broadcasters to air Canadian content, so why not legislate a quota for francophone and Indigenous content—two of Canada’s most underrepresented groups regarding media promotion?
If these regulations seek to create a Canadian identity, then it should be representative of all Canadians. Simply proposing mandating the support of francophone and Indigenous content is representative of where the CRTC’s and Liberal government’s priorities lie. Clearly, those priorities aren’t based in a truly multicultural Canadian identity.
Also, in what world would this new bill create anything resembling a level playing field? It is commendable for the government to funnel some of Netflix’s revenue into the domestic arts industry, but even with these proposed new regulations, streaming platforms are starting the game—in football parlance—up by five touchdowns.
The audience for cable television and other traditional broadcasters is dwindling, while Netflix and similar platforms are seeing rapid growth. The prediction is that online platforms could contribute about $830 million to Canadian media in the next three years. This seems good on the surface—until you remember that Netflix alone had a revenue of $20 billion USD in 2019.
In the age of Netflix and Spotify, an apparent dark future is imminent for traditional television and radio—but how did we let this happen? The damage occurred in 1999, when the CRTC decided not to regulate the internet. This allowed streaming services to flourish, unbound from the broadcasting restraints of Canadian content quotas.
It would be unfair to blame former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s administration for the current predicament in which traditional media now finds itself, as no one could have predicted the internet’s gradual erosion of traditional media. In 1999, Google was but a search engine, not the Orwellian instrument of corporate surveillance it is today.
So although we cannot blame the 1999 decision for leaving the internet unregulated, we can question why it took so long to address this explicit market inequality. Now, one Liberal government is trying to walk back a decision made by another, and they’re doing so with a delicateness that is both unwarranted and unproductive.
There is nothing wrong with legislating streaming platforms to invest in Canadian content, but the Canadian broadcasting regulatory system is so fundamentally broken that this bill doesn’t really help anyone. It perpetuates the CRTC’s negligence towards francophone and Indigenous content creators and maintains the problematic dominance of streaming platforms over traditional media.
It is encouraging the government has acknowledged this issue, but they continue to fall short of substantively addressing the enduring problems underlying Canada’s broadcasting regulations.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
