This is a watershed moment for the future of content here. The tabling of Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, represents a perfect opportunity to protect our stories and our cultural industries. C–11 aims to modernize the Broadcasting Act, forcing web giants like Amazon, Disney and Netflix to pay their fair share. More than a simple update, it is a necessary passage in order to ensure the sustainability of our histories and our cultural institutions.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
I want to be clear: streaming has given our cultural actors a big boost. Local content creators have taken advantage of these new opportunities to tell their stories and reach new audiences at home and abroad. But it is very difficult to create a sustainable industry when all the profits leave the country and all the decisions are made by big foreign companies that do not care about the influence of our culture. These platforms enjoy a power that extends beyond our borders and resists any attempt at government control.
You will therefore not be surprised that these web giants do not mobilize this power for the benefit of our cultural ecosystem. On the contrary, for years, the Netflix and Amazon of this world have taken advantage of our industries without investing their fair share in them.
Guests who stay with us
Imagine you have longtime guests at home who don’t bother to pay rent. Maybe at first you enjoy their company. They replaced the empty pint of milk in the fridge and even bought you a meal or two.
But when it came time to help financially with housekeeping or renovations, they wiped their face on your clean towels and just refused.
That’s basically what these streaming platforms have been doing with us for 10 years. They crash into our cultural couch, paying no cents to the structures and systems that allow our stories to survive and thrive. They only contribute when it suits them.
Hence the importance of the new streaming law. With C-11, we are creating rules of the game that ensure that those who benefit from our cultural sector will be obliged to contribute to it.
And the work does not end there. Even if we succeed in passing C-11, vigilance will be required to ensure that contributions collected from foreign broadcasters flow to Canadian storytellers and stay there. We must ensure that the web giants do not use their size and influence to roll back our earnings and undermine the viability of our cultural sector.
Reassert our sovereignty
In doing so, we are not only protecting our crucial cultural industries. We also reaffirm our sovereignty. Strictly speaking, these digital giants are established in the United States. But they are fundamentally global in the way they operate and the way they escape accountability.
Longstanding rules and regulations developed in countries around the world – including our own – are rejected outright by these platforms, which label them as anachronistic and outdated, out of touch with contemporary forces and technologies. In their view, no country or people should be able to contradict them.
What is truly alarming is that they have succeeded – hiding behind those who revel in the rhetoric of unfettered choice and who spare no thought for the important work required to support the development and production of the stories. from here.
For all these reasons, it is urgent to act now. If we don’t take this opportunity to establish fairness and sustainability as the basic principles of Bill C-11 and to impose a clear set of obligations on these web giants, we may not have any never the chance.
The federal government attempted this legislative feat last year, only to meet massive resistance. The new bill addresses many of the concerns raised during the last Parliament. But it still comes up against resistance from the powerful interests of GAFAM and their allies.
It is a question of will. In Europe and beyond, several countries are creating new rules and guidelines to curb these platforms and level the playing field. Now it’s our turn to show that we are ready to defend ourselves and our culture, by changing locks to flout those who expect to be able to continue crashing into our cultural couch. In short, we should be masters in our own house.
* Citizen movement that defends local voices within our Canadian public broadcasting, our media and our culture