The federal government reportedly declined to concede to a demand from the U.S. to axe Canadian content (CanCon) requirements for American streamers.
According to The Globe and Mail, this was one of the reasons that Canada ultimately stopped trying to negotiate with the Trump administration, leading to both countries implementing significant tariffs on one another.
In a press conference over the weekend, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada wouldn’t “compromise our sovereignty, protection for French language, or our culture.” Per The Globe and Mail, the U.S. made a last-minute demand for Canada to stop requiring U.S. streamers like Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ to promote Canadian media, including French-language content, on their platforms.
This comes after the Carney government scrapped requirements for foreign streamers to pay a base requirement into CanCon. Commonly referred to as “the Netflix tax,” this was viewed as a U.S. trade irritant and ultimately nixed as a concession in trade talks. It’s unclear whether the feds may revisit this investment requirement now that trade talks have fallen through.
Of course, it’s one thing to stop requiring significant financial investments into CanCon. It’s another entirely to even refuse to simply help with the discoverability of CanCon on your platforms. It’s one of many examples of how the U.S. has been a bad faith negotiator with Canada during this unjustified trade war it has launched with its once-closest ally. Other U.S. demands that proved deal-breakers for Canada include automakers moving production to America, restrictions on Canadian foreign trade partners and concessions on products having to comply with French-language rules.
Trump, naturally, has been having a temper tantrum about all of this on his Truth Social platform. On Monday morning, he reiterated baseless claims that “Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” and said he would be raising automotive tariffs on Canada by 50 per cent on January 1, 2027. Of course, one of the many profoundly stupid things about Trump is the fact that his sweeping tariffs — many of which were found in court to be illegal — only significantly raise prices for Americans, so ultimately, he’s hurting his own country as well as Canada.
Source: The Globe and Mail
