Don’t let Minister Guilbeault break streaming!

UPDATE: Bill C-10 is currently in front of the Senate, having cleared the House of Commons. With Parliament on summer recess since June 23rd, the Senate won’t continue its examination of C-10 until Parliament resumes in September. But should a federal election take place before then, Bill C-10 will “die”, meaning it loses its progress in the stages of becoming a law — but will likely be reintroduced from the beginning in the new session of Parliament.


Against all reason, rookie Heritage Minister Guilbeault is bent on breaking streaming for everyone.

Under his dangerously broad Streaming Tax plan, some of your favourite content – including music, podcasts, and web shows – could disappear from Canadian feeds.1

And to top it all off? When the tax is inevitably passed on to subscribers, you’ll be paying even MORE per month for whatever scraps are left over.2

Everyone loses with Guilbeault’s reckless Streaming Tax. But if we flood his inbox with emails, he’ll be forced to drop this harebrained plan to save face. Send a message to Guilbeault: drop the Streaming Tax NOW!

Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage

Enter your details to begin writing your letter to the Minister asking him to abandon the Streaming Tax.

Minister
Pablo
Rodriguez
Government of Canada

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There’s so much wrong with Guilbeault’s plan that it can barely fit on this page.

His Streaming Tax – sometimes falsely peddled as a sales tax – will do more than just levy fees on streaming sites in Canada, raising the fees we pay for each service we subscribe to. It’ll also force these platforms to squeeze into a set of obsolete Canadian content rules designed for Canada’s largest cable TV conglomerates, like Bell Media. These rules are made for, and reward, rigidly-defined content produced by traditional media cartels, while doing nothing for the indie Canadian producers that dominate new media platforms. And if these rules are applied as-is to streaming platforms, they will mandate a set percentage of Canadian content for streaming libraries.3,4

If that happens, people in Canada can say goodbye to a huge number of foreign-made shows, films, and music. Instead of ramping up Canadian production, it’s way more likely Netflix and Spotify will just trim US and international content from their catalogue until the ratio of foreign-to-Canadian content meets the requirement.5

And it doesn’t stop with the streaming platforms you might expect.

As it stands, there’s no fair way to decide what is a streaming service and what is not. Meaning: platforms beloved by indie creators, like Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and even Twitch, could potentially be swept up in Guilbeault’s crusade against “streaming giants”, cutting into new media creator revenue and support on these platforms.6

Guilbeault’s plan to break streaming hurts everyone. But if speak out in full force, he’ll be forced to listen to us. Send a message to Guilbeault: stop the Streaming Tax NOW!

Sources

  1. What’s wrong with a Streaming Tax? (an FAQ): I love Canadian content. What’s wrong with making streaming services pay into CMF and follow CanCon rules to support it? - OpenMedia
  2. Who is proposing a Netflix tax? - CBC
  3. What’s wrong with a Streaming Tax? (an FAQ): What does CanCon have to do with the Streaming Tax? - OpenMedia
  4. Gov’t to introduce web giant, CanCon, news legislation in fall: Guilbeault - The Wire Report
  5. See 1
  6. What’s wrong with a Streaming Tax? (an FAQ): What makes streaming any different than cable or radio? - OpenMedia
  7. Banner photos come from Freepik and Pixabay; composite and modifications by OpenMedia

Press: Matt Hatfield | Phone: +1 (888) 441-2640 ext. 0  | [email protected]