Canada imposes 5% tax on streaming to fund local news, diverse content
techdirt.com
techdirt.com
> “The funding will be directed to areas of immediate need in the Canadian broadcasting system, such as local news on radio and television, French-language content, Indigenous content, and content created by and for equity-deserving communities, official language minority communities, and Canadians of diverse backgrounds.”
Original Announcement: https://www.canada.ca/en/radio-television-telecommunications...
I guess America was already doing a great job of featuring Canadian talent.
https://www.dal.ca/dept/hr/employment_equity/definitions-equ...
At least in the US, these things have to match well-agreed-upon definitions of certain groups to receive grants, etc.
(not going to comment on whether I agree with the overall idea or not, just providing a definition)
Answer is probably no
I think it's an interesting opportunity to see things I don't normally get to see. And I'm privileged enough that this isn't the end of my lifestyle with the increased cost that will occur.
So why not?
2. There is a finite amount of money and there are things more important than tv. Maybe curing cancer? Subsidizing childcare? Dunno two easy ones off the top of my head
Local news is important.
>things more important than tv. Maybe curing cancer?
This is a fallacy. The people making local news shows aren't the same people that are curing cancer, and the people curing cancer aren't going to stop to go make local news shows because of this.
Money is fungible but a tax on a specific thing is not fungible to a 'general increase in taxes', raising tax on gasoline its not the same as raising income tax, because the proportion of tax paid is based on gasoline consumption not income.
This tax effectively amounts to an import tax, since the big streaming content is all American companies (Netflix, Disney, Amazon, HBO). It's a protectionist tax to keep up local production just like a tax on imported cars or on foreign owned property is.
I'm not canadian but I'm actively trying to avoid american entertainment content more and more. Americans are probably not aware of the extent of american cultural imperialism but it's _insane_
I've heard some people use VPNs just so they can watch US Netflix.
I know Poilievre has talked about defunding the CBC, but I don't know of anything he has proposed that would result in more local journalists.
Do you have an alternative in mind? We need some way to get $ into journalists' pockets while also having some accountability.
Increased CBC funding? It's probably better to have a diverse set (i.e. not just one being subsidized) of news outlets, so the Liberal plan here makes more sense to me, though there's also an argument for not spreading things too thin across lots of tiny outlets.
Instead of taxing the streamers, require they provide local content directly? I think that this proposal is doing that indirectly. The streamers get taxed, but could pick up some $ from the CRTC if they start producing more local content.
Instead of taxing the streamers, tax people directly? That'd probably be less popular than taxing the streamers, so good luck with that.
Government subsidies flow to those who know the system. If what you want is journalists being paid by those people who know the system (probably postmedia, rogers, and bell), then this may be the solution you're looking for. However, it'll likely make it even harder for different viewpoints to compete, not only against big companies alone, but ones that get subsidies.
In the UK there's some ground-up work being done with some local newspapers becoming charities ( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/mar/15/glimmer-of-hop... ). This, plus some very specific tax advantages, could provide news viewpoints of all stripes and not be beholden to funding conditions that may or may not make sense for the news source. It's just one example, but it's not tied to funding that can be easily manipulated by governments of the day. Subsidized organizations also often tend to get lazy.
It's similar to the climate crisis: there's broad agreement that things are bad and getting worse, but individuals acting in their own self-interest can't be counted on to solve it.
Further, commercial interests are generally anti-aligned with exposing corruption. They'd rather their bribes/lobbying be unquestioned, driving down the cost of it at the expense of the tax payer. We can't count on business to provide this service.
Finally, this isn't just about québécois and indigenous content. The last I saw, the $ was available as long as you had full-time journalists on staff, regardless of their focus.
The broader the benefit, the broader the appropriate tax base is. If this is for local journalism and is as important as you say (I have major doubts), then it should be funded by a broader tax base than streaming subscribers. I.e. The future of corruption free democracy shouldn’t be on the shoulders of streaming subscribers. If it is so important it should be funded by income taxes.
What's the alternative?
I think you're misinterpreting the situation.
What we're actually seeing in this industry (and most others) is that the various levels of government in Canada have collectively imposed so much artificial overhead and interference on businesses that it has become nearly impossible for the free market to function.
Some of this is directly imposed, in the form of high taxation, unnecessary regulation, pointless bureaucracy, and so forth.
A lot of it, though, is indirect. For example, the high price of real estate (solely caused by the governments' flawed immigration and property development policies) imposes significant, but less-obvious, overhead on businesses. Buying or leasing office/retail/workshop/warehouse/etc. space has become prohibitive in many cases. Entrepreneurs and business owners are forced to direct more resources toward their own personal housing, instead of their businesses. Prospective employees can't move as easily. Entrepreneurs can't take as much risk as they otherwise could.
Even well-established businesses have been finding it more and more difficult to feasibly operate in Canada.
There are many private entrepreneurs and private businesses in Canada who are more than willing to providing local news coverage. Thanks solely to government, however, it's just not feasible for them to do so, so they don't.
This new tax complements our CanCon rules [1] which help protect Canadian artists.
maybe the wrong composition of immigration, but too much? Not if you want to retire some day and need some help from the next generations. Our natural birth rate is not going to do it...
This fact is clearly inconvenient for progressives, who want nothing more than to go on playing Santa Claus. But the only solution you all have to offer (mass immigration) has the teensy-weensy downside of inevitably leading to the cultural obliteration of the West. It's a ghoulish and unserious option, which is why increasingly vocal majorities oppose it throughout the western world. The more you all push for this insanity against the will of the people, the greater will be the damage and the harsher the inevitable backlash.
On your other topic, let me point you to a certain western country which has always had a torrent of immigration from all around the globe and has not had the cultural downfall and obliteration in fire and flames that you vaticinate: a certain United States.
Nit-picking words is the lowest form of rhetoric. They're unaffordable, as you well know.
> The social security welfare state predates the baby boom you speak of and also exists in countries which never had it.
True and entirely irrelevant.
> Below replacement rates are a problem, yes, but that can be solved if you work towards not making "having children" be a luxury not affordable for the proles.
You people "working towards" your goals is what got us here in the first place. If you all had any way to raise birth rates, it would have happened somewhere by now. But you don't. Getting rid of your "work" is likely the best thing we could possibly do to raise birth rates. Vastly reducing the benefits of Social Security, for example, would make having children much more attractive. If you rely on your kids to take care of you in old age, suddenly you can't afford not to have kids. This is how it worked for all of human history, by the way, until you all started farting with the incentives.
> On your other topic, let me point you to a certain western country which has always had a torrent of immigration from all around the globe and has not had the cultural downfall and obliteration in fire and flames that you vaticinate: a certain United States.
This is an old argument which made sense historically, but has taken a serious beating over the last 20 years. For more than two hundred years, America boasted a unique political culture, born of the frontier, which was proudly individualistic, decentralized, and enterprising. But that culture is being obliterated as a direct result of mass immigration. Polling data show that heritage Americans continue to support the old ways (free markets, limited federal power, low taxes, free speech, gun rights, etc), while recent immigrants and their children are far more likely to eschew the frontier spirit and embrace the nanny state (in other words, they support their old ways, not ours).
I'm as Trudeau-fatigued and concerned about productivity as the next person... but I think high immigration is something most folks in Canada see as good, and couldn't guess what the connection between housing and CanCon / streaming regulation is.
I'm really curious to understand if the folks commenting so stridently are Canadian and hold some passionate views, or are maybe getting a particular info stream about Canada.
That's what many Canadians will express in public, just to keep their lives easier by avoiding false accusations of "racism"/"bigotry"/"xenophobia", by avoiding potential job loss or employment-related sanctions, by avoiding other forms of harassment, and so forth.
In private, and especially with people they trust not to attack them, the sentiment is often very different. They're well aware of the various negative impacts that immigration is causing, and has long been causing, to Canada and Canadians.
In my country there is high (and rising) anti-immigration sentiment, despite the fact that immigrants don't commit more crime than natives, and are net contributors to social security.
Not seeking to put you on the spot. I imagine there's a lot of variation in how people see things everywhere. But I'd certainly disagree with you. I appreciate the economic and cultural benefits of living in a growing, multicultural country. And I suspect given the number of people flocking to this city I'm not alone.
I think this was absolutely the case right up until every last city/town in Canada started experiencing skyrocketing housing costs in the last few years, and now many cities have absurdly low vacancy rates. Broad consensus (to me) seems to be that we need to at least pause or dramatically lower our targets while we catch up in building.
That's the best joke I have heard here on HN.
Our green transition? What exactly do you think is going to happen here?
I just wish the conservatives would show some interest in protecting the environment.
Like in curious which media sources you're watching that are informing you about the state of Canada?
Keeping medical school residencies small - zero growth! - while in a crisis of lack of primary care physicians?
In the midst of record inflation, choosing $40b deficit spending that any economist will tell you is inflationary?
In the midst of record low - and dropping! - productivity, increasing taxes on capital to disincentivize investment in this country?
I'm asking that user where they get their news about Canada from.
I'm assuming that they're not Canadian and I'm interested to know where non Canadians read news about Canada.
I'm a Canadian, I read these sources and am well aware of the issues you want to soapbox about.
I'm not interested in hearing about them from you. If I did I would go to /r/canada to hear the exact same stuff.
What I'm far more interested in is seeing where non-Canadians get their news about Canada.
FTFY. And I am saying this as a lifelong Liberal.
If you are hesitant about the concept of subsidizing local press or media companies in general, it's absolutely nothing new: Sweden has been doing this for more than 50 years, and (in my opinion) it's largely been extremely beneficial to the media environment.
The money for it needs to be diverted from somewhere. The UK has had TV licensing to fund the BBC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...
This isn't the 90s when they could force feed us bad Canadian produced TV shows on Canadian TV channels. Netflix gives people the choice of global content now and there's more opportunity and money floating around for young up and coming filmmakers than ever before.
There is such a thing as a public good outside of the logic of The Market.
Companies base their prices on what the market will bear, not necessarily on their costs.
Because now they have an external reason they can point to, similar to “inflation”… even if the extra charges end up being mostly profits.
If all companies in an industry suddenly face higher costs, that shifts the supply+demand equilibrium.
Looking at the demand curve alone does not tell you the equilibrium price.
If every point on the supply curve increases by 5%, this will almost change the price at which the supply and demand curves intersect.
This argument is illogical. Netflix does not carry news, so how is that affected one way or another by public funded news?
Streaming services have circumvented this and this law changes that for the better.
The kind of cynicism on display about anything that Trudeau does is frankly disconcerting. Even a broken clock can be right twice a day.
Good policy is good if you reverse the winners and see if the people implementing it complain. So if we take this tax and fund media for men and white people instead of women, First Nation and immigrants would it still be good policy?
No this is political patronage
And we've been trying to tell you this about the Liberal Party for 50+ years. It's a corrupt opportunistic self-interested institution. There's nothing intrinsically "left wing" about them, they just put up whatever ideological sail will keep their party in power. In the 90s they were the party of austerity. This decade, they're all about "debt doesn't matter" neo-Keynesianism. An election or two later and they'll flip again. But you can count on seeing the same faces and them putting the Party first.
Me: self-identified socialist who knew ArriveCAN was a f*in disaster from the moment it was announced?
I suspect almost complete decimation in the next election, and Singh out right after.
NDP needs to return to delegate based leadership elections.
Huge mis-steps during COVID and after by the NDP. They've completely lost their bearing as a party for working people people.
And people will either credit the Liberals, or just hate Singh for propping up the dreaded Trudeau. Every store or place I go to some baby boomer is ranting at me about Trudeau. Being associated with that gov't in any way is toxic.
Like I said ... tactical move but bad strategically.
Precisely. I think what really grates on people is that the policies pursued are so anti-working class interests while being patronized to from cabinet about it all the time.
This is why despite being libertarian I manage to maintain active friendships with lefties - it is the self serving provably corrupt we cannot stand. I think both of us tend to assume the other leads to an even worse scenario.
> similar efforts are often derailed by corruption, and there’s no guarantee the money guaranteed for useful things actually finds the way it its original destination
I suppose the question becomes should it have been there on the others?
I kind of feel that due to the reduced population scale and density of Canada, if you want marginal communities to have closer to home produced content you need to do something like this. The base for the niche groups isn’t big enough (and realistically often isn’t wealthy enough) to minimally support niche content sustainably.
Then again, it feels the recent focus in Canada has been to strip down the taxable to fund and placate the untaxable, with total disregard as to making the taxable or the untaxable more productive and improving their outlook on life. The tax feels fine to me if in decent circumstances, but it’s another example of the governments broader attitude which makes it off-putting.
A strong negative example: Reporting a Gov/Corp/LEO press release without analyzing the integrity of the remarks or the issuer is classic ineptitude. Especially when the data that discredits them are trivial to find.
kids alone are at meaningful risk of stranger kidnapping
FBI/DA says encryption makes Americans less safe
Today, Huge Corp announced ambition new plans to...
I truly appreciate a financial lifeline to keep news orgs from dying completely (even if the method is highly questionable). I do not relish a continuation of journalists failing to minimally vet the info they're advancing.
That said if you think Canada is going south economically faster then the US and inflation is going to temper than the rates will go down faster and the dollar will be lower vs USD.
More discussion:
I voted for Trudeau in 2015 and am so fucking done with this clown and his party.
> Eek… I’d never want to fly a plane that’s beneath me. I’d prefer it to be at the same altitude.
Maybe a controversial opinion but a market is basically just a popularity contest where dollars are votes, which is not only inherently biased towards the wealthy, since those with more dollars get more votes, but it's the same flawed people doing the voting at the end of the day. The results of that certainly matter in that those who want to succeed in a given market will pay attention to what does succeed, but it's far from beyond reproach.
Sometimes markets choose badly.
Private health care in the US is ruinously expensive with worse outcomes than most of the rest of the developed world.
Google says the average Canadian pays, including taxes, about half of what I do. Do you just not get any coverage at all?
The only reasonable way for someone to pay for a particular type of content is either: 1. Subscribe to a major provider that has it in their library (e.g., "I want to watch some anime, and Netflix has some anime"), 2. Subscribe to a special-purpose provider for just this content ("I want to watch a lot of anime, enough to justify having crunchyroll beside netflix").
What happens is that people shop amongst the big ones, and just do away with content they do not offer. Unless people want to protest/boycott providers, there is no way to vote with your money on products they are not offered, nor does it work if the products are extremely inconvenient or financially unsound.