COMMENTARY: Revamped cultural policy needs facts, recent data

By Maureen Parker

ON AUGUST 7, THE Globe and Mail published an opinion piece by the University of Ottawa’s Michael Geist, entitled “Election 2019: Return of the Netflix tax debate”. The Writers Guild of Canada has long differed with professor Geist on the subject of cultural policy, but in this case he not only reaches conclusions with which we strongly disagree, but gets a number of his facts wrong in the process.First, Geist implies that the government convened the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel because a $500-million commitment from Netflix for production in Canada “failed to stem calls from the cultural sector...