Culture and heritage ministers from across Canada meet in Victoria by Province of British Columbia (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/HVZpWv

Culture and heritage ministers from across Canada meet in Victoria by Province of British Columbia (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/HVZpWv

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Melanie Joly’s Tough Choice on Canadian Content: New Thinking or New Taxes

Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly launched her surprise national consultation on Canadian content in a digital world last April with considerable excitement for the possibilities of revolutionizing policies born in an analog era. Joly spoke enthusiastically about the potential for Canadian creators to use digital networks to reach global audiences and for all stakeholders to rethink the cultural policy toolkit.

My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that submissions to the consultation closed last week and despite the hope for new, innovative thinking, many of Canada’s largest cultural groups placed their bets on extending a myriad of funding mechanisms to the Internet. Rather than overhauling older programs, the groups want those policies expanded by mandating new fees, costs or taxes on Internet services, Internet service providers, Internet advertisers, and even the sale of digital storage devices such as USB keys and hard drives.

Netflix is the top target, as the streaming giant is on the receiving end of demands to extend sales taxes and implement a Cancon contribution tax on foreign online video providers. For its part, Netflix highlighted its investment in Cancon in its submission, noting that Canada is now one of the top three locations worldwide for its commissioned original productions and pointing to dozens of Canadian programs that it has licensed or helped finance.

Yet groups such as ACTRA, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Canadian Media Producers Association, and the Directors Guild of Canada remain unconvinced, arguing that the government should require Netflix to contribute a percentage of its revenues toward the creation of Canadian content.

If implemented, such a Netflix tax could have far reaching effects. For example, ACTRA recommends that any online video service that distributes broadcast content with more than 2,000 subscribers be required to contribute 5 per cent of its gross revenue toward independent Cancon creation funds. The proposal could mean that many services block Canadian subscribers to avoid the mandated payments, resulting in decreased online video competition in Canada. In fact, the Directors Guild of Canada wants even more, running into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The rumoured demands for a new tax on Internet access also surfaces with many submissions calling for a new requirement on ISPs to contribute a portion of their revenues for Cancon creation. Groups play down the impact on the affordability of Internet access, with the WGC arguing that an additional 5 per cent cost on Internet services is “minor, bordering on insignificant for virtually all Canadian consumers.” Recent CRTC data reported that Internet access revenues was nearly $10 billion last year, suggesting that an Internet access tax could cost consumers at least $500 million annually.

Not only are new digital services the target of new tax proposals, but ACTRA also supports extending the private copying levy, whose origins date back to the cassette tape, to newer digital storage devices. The creation of an iPod tax was roundly rejected several years ago, yet the group asks Joly to apply the fees to iPods, USB keys, and hard drives when it next reforms the Copyright Act.

Joly opened the consultation by saying that “for a long time, politicians have been afraid to deal with these difficult issues.” As she now faces the unenviable choice of promoting new Internet taxes over the objection of companies and consumers or implementing new export-driven policies that fall short of the expectations of cultural groups, it may be easier to comprehend why previous politicians were reluctant to re-examine longstanding Cancon policies.  The full column can be accessed here.

4 Comments

  1. The idea of an internet tax to fund uncompetitive Cancon productions is ridiculous. The mechanisms like an iPod or hard drive tax are lame when the iPod is out of date and silicon and the cloud are replacing hard drives. Netflix is a perfect example of new distribution working. People don’t need to copy movies when they are readily available for a low monthly fee. Similar services exist for music and other media. Content producers need to make content that the market wants not whine for government subsidies to marketable content.

  2. As I wrote in “Ad free CBC? Why not shift money to creators?”, I believe the greatest threat to the content industries is ties to specific brands or technologies on other layers of the communications stack.

    If, as an example, a screenwriter believed that their future is tied to that of “broadcasting” then they will try to force any type of content distribution — even disruptive technologies that will likely replace broadcasting for most audiences of scripted programming — to act as if they were the same “broadcasting”.

    This policy is of great benefit to the “broadcasting” industry, who would then have less to fear from competitors hobbled by a regulatory environment that is mismatched for these competitors. It is, however, extremely harmful to the interests of the content industries as well as their audiences. There are many features of some of these disruptive technologies which would benefit creators that they won’t be able to harness if they incorrectly identify suppliers of these technologies as opponents.

  3. Joe Williams says:

    Why would we want to pay more taxes for a product that most of us do not consume.

    Consumption of a product is based on demand for that product. If you have a good product, and there is demand for it – it will sell.

    This is basically another form of corporate welfare.

    No thanks.

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