Post Tagged with: "dst"

President Trump Attends G7 Summit in Canada by White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/gallery/president-trump-attends-g7-summit-in-canada/ CC BY 3.0 US

Ignoring the Warning Signs: Why Did the Canadian Government Dismiss the Trade Risks of a Digital Services Tax?

U.S. President Donald Trump announced yesterday that he was suspending trade negotiations with Canada due to the imminent implementation of the digital services tax (DST). The result could be increased tariffs on Canadian products and a stalemate on many of the current trade battles between the two countries. This result should not come as a surprise. Indeed, the prospect of a trade war over the DST has been readily apparent for years. In my Law Bytes podcast episode in May on Canadian digital policy under Prime Minister Mark Carney, it was the top short term issue (I did not anticipate burying lawful access in a border bill).

Just prior to Trump’s inauguration in January, I wrote:

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June 28, 2025 — 31 comments — News
President Trump Signs an Executive Order by Trump White House, https://flic.kr/p/2jgs8nP PDM 1.0

Why Years of Canadian Digital Policy Is Either Dead (Prorogation) or Likely to Die (Trump)

The Canadian political and business communities are unsurprisingly focused on the prospect of U.S. President Donald Trump instituting 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and services. The threat of tariffs, which could spark a retaliatory response by Canada and fuel a damaging trade war, would likely cause serious harm to the Canadian economy. But tariffs aren’t the only story arising from new Trump actions in his first day in office. Amidst the many executive orders signed on day one are several with significant implications for Canadian law, particularly Canadian digital policies such as the digital services tax, mandated streaming payments arising from Bill C-11, and mandated payments for news links due to Bill C-18. When combined the government’s decision to prorogue Parliament earlier this month, the results of years of Canadian digital laws and policies now largely fall into two groups: those that have died due to prorogation and those that are likely to die due to Donald Trump.

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January 22, 2025 — 13 comments — News
Looking back by Susanne Nilsson https://flic.kr/p/niBFZo CC BY-SA 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 223: Looking Back at the Year in Canadian Digital Law and Policy

Canadian digital law and policy in 2024 featured the long-delayed online harms bill, controversial implementation of streaming and online news legislation, as well as a myriad of notable copyright, AI, and privacy court cases. Government legislation stalled in the House of Commons, but with trade battles over a digital services tax, a competition case against Google, and plans to kick TikTok out of the country, there were no shortage of high profile issues. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2024, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year.

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December 16, 2024 — 4 comments — Podcasts
Our Beloved Phone Company by Dennis S. Hurd (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/8v9Mm9

The Bill on Canada’s Digital Policy Comes Due: Blocked News Links, Cancelled Sponsorship, Legal Challenges, and Digital Ad Surcharges

Canada’s digital policy has seemingly long proceeded on the assumption that tech companies would draw from an unlimited budget to write bigger cheques to meet government regulation establishing new mandated payments. Despite repeated warnings on Bills C-11 (Internet streaming), C-18 (online news), and a new digital services tax that tech companies – like anyone else – were more likely to respond by adjusting their Canadian budgets or simply passing along new costs to consumers, the government and the bill’s supporters repeatedly dismissed the risks that the plans could backfire. Yet today the bill from those digital policy choices is coming due: legal and trade challenges, blocked news links amid decreasing trust in the media, cancellation of sponsorship deals worth millions of dollars that will be devastating to creators, and a new Google digital advertising surcharge that kicks in next week to offset the costs of the digital services tax.

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September 25, 2024 — 16 comments — News
Robert_Lighthizer_at_Round_1_renegotiation_of_NAFTA, Office of U.S. Trade Representative, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Lighthizer_at_Round_1_renegotiation_of_NAFTA.jpg

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 210: Meredith Lilly on the Trade Risks Behind Canada’s Digital Services Tax and Mandated Streaming Payments

The battle over a digital services tax has been the subject of Law Bytes podcast episodes for several years as the Canadian government signalled its intent to move ahead with one even as US officials warned of risks of trade retaliation if they did so outside of an international framework. With the DST now in effect, what does trade law have to say and how might the US respond? Meredith Lilly is a full Professor and Simon Reisman Chair in International Economic Policy at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. She joins me on the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the current digital trade policy tensions, what our agreements say about complaints and retaliation, as well as explain why a U.S. response on at least the DST seems likely.

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July 22, 2024 — 8 comments — Podcasts
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