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Dec 28, 2018
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Streaming
Bloc Québécois Wants Streaming Services to Pay to Fund Canadian Content
The Canadian political party will use its Opposition Day today (Oct. 22) to file a motion calling for streaming services to contribute to funding the cultural sector. It is also asking the Liberal government to disburse the $600 million it promised to invest in June, as the debate surrounding the polarizing Online Streaming Act continues.
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The Bloc Québécois is getting into the Online Streaming Act debate.
The Quebec political party is demanding immediate funding of the Canadian cultural sector and accountability on behalf of major streaming services.
Per a report by The Canadian Press, Bloc Québécois MP Martin Champoux is asking for major streaming platforms to pay royalties to fund the Canadian cultural sector, as originally set out by the Online Streaming Act. Champoux is also calling for the current Liberal government to pay the annual $600 million amount that it promised to invest into the cultural sector back in June, which he claims has not been done yet.
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The party plans to file a motion today (Oct. 22), using its Opposition Day to request the changes at the House of Commons.
“What we’ve seen in recent years — in fact, since Carney joined the government — is that the Liberals have been backing away from that commitment and from their stance against the Americans in the context of negotiations with Donald Trump,” he says. “The concessions that have been made (to the Americans) have largely come at the expense of culture, and that’s the conversation we want to bring back to the table,” he says.
Introduced by the Trudeau government in 2023, the Online Streaming Act sought to collect a base contribution of 5% from all non-Canadian streaming platforms collecting more than $25 million in annual revenue, using the money to fund Canadian content production. In May 2026, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced plans to triple the contribution rate to 15%, causing additional pushback from foreign streaming giants like Amazon, Spotify and Apple Music. That's when the Carney government then stepped in with its landmark investment to provide "stability and immediate support" to the audio and audiovisual sector, which includes the $200 million base contribution that would have otherwise been covered by foreign streaming services.
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However, Champoux stresses that the investment hasn't been made yet, and the industry is feeling the gap. "That money still hasn’t reached the cultural sector. It’s been expected for months, and now people are starting to have enough. There are people who are starting to get really fed up, worn out, and running out of resources," he explains. In its motion, the Bloc also calls for the government to make an interim investment of $600 million into the cultural sector, or to include it in the upcoming federal budget.
Most recently, Carney refused to forfeit the imposition of streaming regulations on American streaming services, which contributed to the collapse of trade talks between both nations in August. The CRTC subsequently announced it would move forward with implementing the regulations on how Canadian content is featured on streaming platforms, although the specifics and dates for the regulatory proceedings have not yet been confirmed.
The Bloc is bringing the discussion back to the House of Commons after a series of hearings were hosted in Gatineau in 2025, during which stakeholders such as Music Canada, CBC/Radio-Canada and Universal Music Canada discussed how the new CanCon regulations should be implemented to best support Canadian and Indigenous audio content.
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