OTTAWA
The federal government will not clarify its stance on requiring financial contributions from streaming services for Canadian content in future years.
Spokespeople for the Prime Minister's Office did not answer questions from The Canadian Press about where the government stands on imposing financial contributions on streamers in future years.
This follows comments by Prime Minister Mark Carney at a press conference in Montreal on Tuesday, where he said it isn't necessary to impose a tax on big tech companies.
Carney was responding to a question about a CRTC-mandated requirement for streamers to pay a percentage of their revenues toward Canadian content.
"We will be asking the CRTC to establish some strict minimums that these streamers have to observe by if they want to do business in Canada, in making sure that they're investing, on their own balance sheet, into Canadian content," Culture Minister Marc Miller told CTV News this week.
The Liberals said in June they wanted the regulator to back down on that contribution requirement and would instead provide $600 million in annual funding directly.
But the federal budget only allocated $600 million for this fiscal year, and a government spokesperson confirmed the amount could vary in future because the CRTC could still impose some level of financial contribution on streamers.
Miller said part of the directive would be "to establish the funds that these streamers themselves would reinvest, and that would carve out some of the $600 (million) that we announced in June and are now deploying."
"So I can't guarantee every year that it'll be $600 million from the federal government, but in one way or another, there will be money going into the ecosystem," he said.
Miller said he couldn't provide details until the government issues a new policy directive to the CRTC.
Michele Austin, president of Motion Picture Association, Canada, which represents large streamers, said Miller's comments were "definitely concerning and confusing."
In a separate emailed statement, Motion Picture Association, Canada said global studios and streamers "invest $5.3 billion a year making movies and series in Canada with Canadian creators and talent. They commit another $1 billion to financing Canadian content, which reaches audiences here at home and around the world."
Canadian Media Producers Association president Reynolds Mastin said in a statement that a key tenet of the Online Streaming Act is "ensuring that streaming services earning billions from Canadian subscribers contribute meaningfully to Canadian content."
Spokespeople for the Prime Minister's Office also did not answer when asked which tax the prime minister was talking about.
CRTC-mandated contributions are not a tax, though they have at times been colloquially but inaccurately referred to as a "Netflix tax."
Last year, the Liberal government cancelled a digital services tax following opposition from U.S. President Donald Trump.
The tax would have applied to companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb, and was not related to funding for Canadian content.
The rules on contributions for streamers were imposed by the CRTC under the Online Streaming Act, which the U.S. has identified as a trade irritant.
Over the summer, Ottawa cited U.S. demands on the visibility of Canadian content on streaming services as one of the reasons it cut off trade talks with the United States.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer maintained the issue for the United States was streaming companies being required to make financial contributions toward Canadian content.
Past CRTC decisions
In 2024, the CRTC made an initial order under the Online Streaming Act requiring large streaming companies to pay five per cent of their annual Canadian revenues to funds devoted to producing Canadian content, including local TV news.
The Federal Court of Appeal put a pause on the payments.
In May, it said it would require large streaming services like Netflix to contribute 15 per cent of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content.
The decision set out rules on how the money must be spent for both streamers and traditional broadcasters, including contributions toward production funds and direct spending on Canadian content.
It said most of the streamers' financial contributions can go toward content, though it imposed rules on how that money must be spent for the largest streamers.
In response to a request for comment, Netflix pointed The Canadian Press toward already-public information about the shows it has commissioned, including the recent series Below, shot and set in Newfoundland.
The company says it has been filming in Canada for more than a decade and has contributed billions of dollars in GDP to the Canadian economy.
The information the company cited did not include figures on how much the company has spent directly on producing or commissioning programming in Canada.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents tech companies, including some streamers, has opposed the CRTC's contribution requirements for streamers.
The association's vice-president for digital trade Jonathan McHale said in an emailed statement that "any mandatory contribution would be discriminatory, so we would oppose it. That said, companies often see it in their interest to invest, and we also support that flexibility."
This story was written by the e2gold.ca newsroom from reporting by BNN Bloomberg, CTV News and CFJC Today Kamloops. Quotes are checked word for word against that reporting.