The Canada-U.S. trade talks collapsed on Friday night with 50 percent tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian goods now in effect and Prime Minister Mark Carney promising dollar-for-dollar retaliation by early next month, supported by a strong sense of the need to defend Canadian sovereignty. The push for “digital trade alignment”, which I unpacked in a post last week, does not appear to have been a major source of contention, though Carney pointed to late U.S. demands on culture, autos, and sovereignty in a press conference over the weekend and the Globe reports that the inclusion of discoverability rule reforms was rejected by Canadian negotiators. But with the major outlines apparently agreed to, how can Canadians reconcile general agreement on digital policy with the government’s insistence that it would not budge on cultural protections?
Archive for August 24th, 2026
Recent Posts
Back-of-the-Napkin Cultural Policy: The Government’s $600 Million Streaming Plan Copies the CRTC Decision It Killed at More Than Double the Cost 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 282: Udbhav Tiwari on Why Signal May Exit Canada Over Bill C-22’s Encryption and Metadata Retention Rules 
From Making Web Giants Pay to Paying Media Giants: Budget 2026 Replaces the Government’s Internet Platform Strategy With $1.5 Billion in Taxpayer Dollars for Culture and News 
Has the Government Read Its Own Bill? What Three Days of House Debate Revealed About Bill C-34 Before the Committee Hearings Begin 
Surveillance By Design: Government Officials Say Lawful Access Could Reach Gaming Platforms, Daycares and AI Services
