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

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Minister

Pablo

Rodriguez

Government of Canada

To: The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage:

I am emailing to ask that you abandon your proposal for a Streaming Tax.

In practice, the Streaming Tax will make our online content more expensive, while cutting back our choices of what to watch and listen to. That is the last thing Canadians need as they struggle to stay afloat in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.

But the problems with the Streaming Tax don’t stop there. What defines a “streaming platform” is a huge gray area. This plan falsely assumes that streaming is as black-and-white as cable TV — and by doing so, threatens to go after way more than just Netflix.

The result? Serious collateral damage to small and indie creators who use new media, and who rely on various content platforms to make a living.

If we want to support Canadian content, we need to support how and where people want to watch it — online, and across platforms. This policy will harm creators of Canadian media, as well as folks just trying to enjoy their favourite content. Please abandon your plans for the Streaming Tax.

Kind regards,

{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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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

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
Who is proposing a Netflix tax? - CBC
What’s wrong with a Streaming Tax? (an FAQ): What does CanCon have to do with the Streaming Tax? - OpenMedia
Gov’t to introduce web giant, CanCon, news legislation in fall: Guilbeault - The Wire Report
See 1
What’s wrong with a Streaming Tax? (an FAQ): What makes streaming any different than cable or radio? - OpenMedia
Banner photos come from Freepik and Pixabay; composite and modifications by OpenMedia

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