By Howard Law, author of MediaPolicy.ca and Canada vs California: How Ottawa took on Netflix and the streaming giants (2024)
In the permanent state of chaos that Donald Trump’s presidency has unleashed on our trade relationship with the United States, Canadian political leaders are racing to put together a unified and coherent approach to defending Canada’s interests.
Trump’s “America First” tariff threats against Canada are a repudiation of both the letter and spirit of our bilateral CUSMA trade treaty and the multi-lateral General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, both of them products of 75 years of trade liberalization.
The situation is so chaotic we don’t know who will be the Prime Minister who comes to terms with Trump or the nature of the outcomes for domestic industries and Canadian wallets. The Liberal government and most provincial premiers wisely say that “everything is on the table” in terms of countervailing tariffs. But the public discussion of which trade issues should be on the table is only just beginning.
A “Canada first” media policy and strengthened cultural sovereignty must be on the table, if only because Trump will put it there himself.
A great many Cartt readers already know the history. The Hollywood studios (now joined by the Silicon Valley tech bros) have long sought the assistance of Washington D.C. in fighting Canada’s various legislative expressions of cultural sovereignty in a continental media market dominated by US media companies.
Just one iconic moment in that history occurred in 1987 when Ronald Reagan told Prime Minister Brian Mulroney that, if Canada wanted a Free Trade deal featuring greater access to the US market, Mulroney had to tear up a Conservative Bill 109 to boost the domestic market share of Canadian theatrical release movies beyond a paltry 3 per cent.
Mulroney complied by dropping the bill, but first obtained a fig leaf of cultural sovereignty: a “cultural exemption” allowing Canadian cultural legislation to stand but at the cost of green lighting US trade sanctions against any Canadian industry on a “dollar for dollar” basis. Unfortunately, when push came to shove, the US habitually ignored the agreement that countervailing trade measures be proportional.
Most recently, that Californian agitation is for trade action in retaliation against Canada’s Online Streaming Act C-11, Online News Act C-18, and the new Digital Services tax on Big Tech products.
Canadian public support for these bills may not be unanimous but opinion polling has consistently demonstrated majority approval of the public policy goals of C-11 and C-18, both in English Canada and Québec. Three out of four political parties endorsed them in Parliament. (The Digital Services tax is not media policy, but a tax measure that addresses revenue offshoring by US companies operating in Canada.)
What would a trade fight over culture be about?
Stereotypes of protectionist Canadian cultural regulation never seem to go away. In reality, Canadian content regulations merely seek to move the needle to a better market share of Canadian media consumption in our own domestic market. Over time, CanCon market share minimums —airplay quotas on TV and radio— have largely given way to market-facing regulations that require video and audio distributors operating in Canada to focus on the financing and prominent availability of Canadian products to Canadian consumers, who make the final choice of content.
Our commitment to cultural sovereignty may be sorely tested when Trump tries to shake us down for lunch money in multiple trade sectors.
But if America comes first, so does Canada. This is an opportunity for our federal and provincial governments to put Canada first by tabling and negotiating the repeal of US trade retaliation against our legislative expressions of cultural sovereignty.
A fulsome and bullet-proof exemption of Canadian cultural products must be part of our trade agenda.
Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr
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