Ottawa May Help Washington Kill Quebec’s Streaming Law

French-language content rules on streaming services have become a sticking point in the collapse of Canada-U.S. trade talks, and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist argues Ottawa is likely to oppose Quebec’s law in court.

Washington has publicly denied that French is a concern. Prime Minister Mark Carney pointed to U.S. demands involving culture and the French language at his weekend press conference, and Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S., Mark Wiseman, confirmed the dispute included how much French-language content sits on American streaming platforms. The Globe and Mail reported Sunday that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer raised Quebec’s Bill 109 directly. That fight already showed up in how the trade talks collapse hits Netflix in Canada.

Quebec’s National Assembly adopted the bill last December with all-party support, but it is not in force yet. The province still has to set up an oversight office and write regulations deciding which platforms are covered and what they owe.

The law sets up a registration regime for streaming services, requires interfaces be readily configurable in French, and allows regulations governing the presence, proportion, promotion, and discoverability of original French-language content. Geist argues the proportion piece amounts to a quota, and that services would meet it by cutting English-language programming rather than adding French titles, leaving a smaller Netflix library in Quebec.

Geist has called Bill 109 unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unworkable since it went through the legislature, on the grounds that broadcasting is federal jurisdiction. He points to the Supreme Court’s 1978 Dionne decision, which shut down an earlier Quebec attempt to regulate cable television. Critics flagged that federal clash when the bill was still moving, and Netflix and YouTube later pushed back on the French-first rules.

His argument is that the two laws cannot coexist. If streaming counts as broadcasting, Bill 109 is unconstitutional. If it does not, the Online Streaming Act is in trouble. Either way, once streaming services sue, the Attorney General of Canada has little choice but to defend federal jurisdiction, meaning Washington could get through the courts what it could not get at the negotiating table.