Major American streaming platforms including Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon, and Disney+ are facing a tripling of their mandatory contributions to Canadian content under sweeping new rules from Canada’s broadcast regulator, and the fallout is already getting loud on both sides of the border.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced yesterday that online broadcasters earning more than $25 million annually in Canadian revenues must now direct 15% of that income toward Canadian and Indigenous programming, up from a 5% base rate introduced just last year. Traditional broadcasters like CTV and CBC, meanwhile, will actually see their contribution rates fall from the current 30-45% range down to 25%.
The Motion Picture Association didn’t mince words. Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement on Thursday:
“The Motion Picture Association strongly condemns the CRTC’s decision to impose unprecedented, unnecessary, and discriminatory investment obligations on American streaming services operating in Canada. This burdensome framework unfairly targets global streamers with requirements that directly violate Canada’s obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)… This decision triples the cost of doing business in Canada and will spark even more inflation in the market, making further investment and innovation less attractive… We urge the Canadian government to reconsider this approach.”
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) represents Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Amazon, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
University of Ottawa law professor and tech policy expert Michael Geist was equally critical, arguing today the CRTC largely ignored the significant investments streamers already make in Canada. “That is no surprise, given that the CRTC basically treated the hundreds of millions they spend on production in Canada and the significant promotion of Canadian content around the world as irrelevant,” he wrote. “Instead, they added millions in new expenditures, while Canadian broadcasters see their costs go down.”
Geist also pointed out that Canada’s 15% rate puts it well outside international norms. While France has the world’s most demanding requirements at 20-25% of French revenue, most European countries land somewhere between 0.5% and 6%. Even a proposed Belgian increase toward 9.5% by 2027 has prompted a Netflix constitutional challenge. “Canada’s 15% is therefore well above the European norm,” Geist noted, “and with tight restrictions on how the money may be spent, the streamers are left with less control over their own spending than almost anywhere else.”
What was Ottawa’s response to the CRTC announcement? It was a bit odd, as Culture Minister Marc Miller said only that the government is “reviewing the changes and assessing their impacts,” which Geist found pretty curious given the decision flows directly from the government’s own legislation. “A government that wanted the regulator to act faster, and now treats the result as something to study from a distance, has the look of a government preparing to distance itself from what it set in motion,” he wrote.
As for what happens next, Geist outlined four likely moves from the streaming platforms: a near-certain legal challenge, intensified U.S. trade pressure through the 2026 CUSMA review, possible reshuffling of existing Canadian spending to meet the new requirements on paper, and higher prices for consumers. “The CRTC seems uninterested in the consumer costs of its regulatory policy,” he wrote, “but higher prices to fund these new regulatory payments are sure to follow.”
“The government should be doing everything it can to make life more affordable and that means cutting taxes, not hiking taxes,” said Franco Terrazzano on Friday, Canadian Taxpayers Federation Federal Director. “Canadians have every reason to worry this higher tax will mean higher prices to stream their favourite movies and TV shows.”
The U.S. government has already signalled it’s not happy about this. Republican Congressman Lloyd Smucker warned this week that an American response to Canada’s Online Streaming Act was coming, calling the rules “discriminatory regulations targeting American streaming services.”
The CRTC says the new rules should lock in more than $2 billion a year for Canadian content funding. That sounds like a win on paper for the government, but whether the big streamers quietly pass those costs onto subscribers is probably the more important question for most people (you know they likely will).
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