Poilievre wants to eliminate Canadian content requirements for foreign digital streaming services.

By Ray Rivers

May 25th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

“Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have / Before he can hear people cry?” (Bob Dylan – Blowin’ in the Wind)

Mr. Poilievre is saying he wants to eliminate Canadian content requirements for foreign digital streaming services.  He argues that the latest rules from the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC), under what is called CanCom, will most likely result in increased subscription fees for Canadian viewers.

The CRTC has set a requirement that foreign streaming services must allocate 15% of the fees they collect from Canadians to be used for adding Canadian content to their programming.

The CRTC has set a requirement that foreign streaming services must allocate 15% of the fees they collect from Canadians to be used for adding Canadian content to their programming.  And lobbyists for Netflix, Apple, Disney and other big foreign streamers as well as the US movie and film industry, and Mr. Poilievre, would rather not.

The CRTC did not arrive at the 15% decision in a vacuum, its neither an arbitrary nor trivial decision.  It is the result of extensive consultation with Canadians on how to ensure that what we see and hear includes stories about Canadians, and reflects and strengthens our Canadian culture.  And that these stories are produced in Canada and by Canadians.

It was back in the 1970’s when the CRTC mandated Canadian content for music.  That policy led to Canada becoming the third largest music maker globally – after the USA and UK.  So why wouldn’t we want to apply the same formula to digital streamers?  This is a jobs, export income and industrial development policy.  But Poilievre is fixated on a possible small putative price increase for those consumers who choose to watch Netflix.

There is no question about it.  National content rules are protectionist – a kind of non-tariff policy instrument.   And like tariffs they may well result in a small increase in subscription fees, an additional tax, as Mr. Poilievre suggests – at least initially.  Still, while something like 80% of Canadian households include streaming services on their flat screens, it is estimated that as many as 80% of those choose subscriptions with advertising to lower cost or eliminate fees entirely.

Poilievre cloaks his objection on the theory that Canadians playing a bigger role in our culture will annoy the US president and impede the update of CUSMA. 

Besides, what Poilievre doesn’t see, as the leader of a major political party, is the potential for growth in Canadian film and other media production…. and the possibility of the development of a Canadian streaming service to compete with the US based giants.   It’s hard to believe in a strong Canada when the information we receive originates from another nation.

Poilievre cloaks his objection on the theory that Canadians playing a bigger role in our culture will annoy the US president and impede the update of CUSMA.  But then he still believes that CUSMA will remain tariff free as if he wasn’t listening to the clear messaging from the US president, all of his CUSMA negotiators and even the US ambassador to Canada.

Free trade with the USA as we once knew it is dead.  Any update or renegotiation to CUSMA will see sectoral tariffs on exports to the USA, like we see today on steel, aluminum and autos – like the rest of world is experiencing.  And even if we dismantle our agriculture supply management systems and the CRTC, the US will still want to tack on a 15% tariff to everything we export to them, with the possible exception of oil and critical minerals.

Mr. Poilievre is living in fantasy land if he thinks the answer to Trump’s tariffs, America’s economic war on Canada, is to become even more integrated, more suppliant, more embedded and to surrender our sovereignty by eliminating the CRTC and the CBC.   He needs to seriously re-read Mr. Carney’s Davos speech about how the ‘hegemons’ behave once they’ve hollowed out their middle power neighbours’ economies.

he Tories have long wanted to abolish our national broadcaster, the CBC.  But if Poilievre watched a little more CBC instead of Netflix he might have heard the US ambassador say it as clear as day – “Tariffs are here to stay”.   As Dylan once put into words – perhaps he needs more ears because he’s just can’t hear.

Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links:

Canadian Content-   Digital Streaming Services –   Poilievre –