By Connie Thiessen
In a direct response to the dramatic collapse of Canada–U.S. trade negotiations, a broad coalition of Canadian screen sector organizations will publish a full-page advertisement in The Globe and Mail on Saturday thanking Prime Minister Mark Carney, the federal negotiating team, provincial leaders, and political parties of all stripes for holding the line on Canadian cultural sovereignty.
The public campaign – backed by the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), ACTRA, the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC), and advocacy group Friends of Canadian Media, among many others – comes after Ottawa explicitly rejected U.S. demands to dismantle key protections for domestic media, including streaming contribution requirements, discoverability rules for Canadian content, and French-language programming mandates.
“We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty,” Carney declared in a national address following the breakdown. “We were not prepared to compromise on the protection of the French language and our culture.”
Key protections under fire
The trade dispute reached a breaking point late last Friday when Ottawa suspended talks over terms the government described as “asking too much of Canada, and offering too little in return.”
In response to the U.S. enacting 50 per cent tariffs on $27.6 billion in Canadian goods, matching dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on U.S. imports were announced alongside a $7.5-billion economic support package.
While Washington targeted traditional trade sectors like steel and agriculture, the media and screen industries emerged as a major flashpoint. In addition to U.S. negotiators pushing to exempt major streaming platforms from mandatory supports for domestic production, Washington labeled rules requiring platforms to surface Canadian and French-language content as “trade irritants.”
Breakdown creates opportunity: Friends of Canadian Media
Friends of Canadian Media is among the groups welcoming Ottawa’s decision to walk away from negotiations, but noted that Canada had previously made pre-emptive concessions – including shelving the Digital Services Tax (DST) and signalling changes to CRTC policy implementing mandatory foreign streamer contributions.
“The collapse of these negotiations creates an opportunity,” Friends stated. “The rationale for making unilateral concessions to American technology and media companies has collapsed along with the negotiations themselves. Canada should use this moment to reset its approach around a simple principle: Companies that profit from Canada should play by fair Canadian rules.”
“That means revisiting the decision to eliminate the Digital Services Tax…Canadian taxpayers should not be expected to shoulder obligations from which multinational technology companies were excused in pursuit of a deal that never came,” the statement continued. “It also means respecting the CRTC…Its streaming framework followed an extensive public process and concluded that large foreign streaming services should make meaningful – but still lower – contributions than Canadian broadcasters toward Canadian and Indigenous programming. That is not discrimination against foreign companies. It is equitable treatment for Canadian ones.”
The policy watchdog, currently helmed by former CRTC Commissioner Raj Shoan, is also urging Ottawa to defend the Online News Act.
“Prime Minister Carney was right to say that the United States asked too much and offered too little. He was right to walk away. But cultural sovereignty cannot be invoked only when negotiations collapse. It must guide the decisions Canada makes along the way. The same resolve Canada brings to defending our steel, aluminum, automobiles, agriculture, energy and the French language must extend to the institutions through which Canadians tell our stories and understand our country,” the group stated. “That means taxing multinational technology companies fairly. It means requiring foreign streamers to contribute meaningfully to Canadian storytelling. It means defending Canadian journalism and the Online News Act.”
