The Trudeau Liberals’ Bill C-11: An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act could stir up even more trouble between Canada and the US, a consumer analyst has warned. President-elect Donald Trump in November announced he’s issue an executive order on his first day in office to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico until they get their porous borders under control. Trump said the tariffs will remain in place until America’s neighbouring countries crackdown on illegal immigration and hard drug trafficking. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scampered down to Mar-a-Lago after Trump made his announcement to appeal to the incoming president to reconsider — Trump instead mocked the prime minister and said if he doesn’t like it, Canada can become the 51st state and Trudeau could be governor. .Controversial Online Streaming Act delayed to late 2025.Consumer Choice Center’s David Clement told the Western Standard Ottawa is playing with fire to impose Bill C-11, or the Online Streaming Act, while a “nasty trade war” looms. The Trudeau Liberals’ amendment of the Broadcasting Act attempts to classify podcasters and musicians as “broadcasters” and subject them to national broadcast rules — meaning the federal government will control what content search engines like Google and YouTube recommends to Canadian users, and require those platforms to pay up. The bill has already passed through both the House and the Senate, and gained Royal Assent on February 2, 2023. Currently the national broadcast regulator, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), is undergoing consultations and hearings to hammer out the details. .WATCH: Bryan Adams calls out Trudeau for trying to be arbiter on whether songs are ‘Canadian enough’.As the Western Standard previously reported, Netflix in September 2023 retaliated against Bill C-11 and announced it would pull funding from multiple Canadian arts institutions. Since 2017, Netflix has spent more than $25 million on Canadian audiovisual programming. The bill compels media giants like Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime to promote Canadian content and pay 5% of their revenue to support Canada’s legacy broadcasting system, according to Music Canada’s Patrick Rogers. The hitch is, as Clements points out, the majority of these tech giants are American Companies. “Bill C-11 is essentially a piece of targeted regulations almost exclusively focused on US companies in the midst of what could potentially be a very nasty trade war,” said Clement. “It could not come at a worse time.”.Scheer says Bill C-11 is evidence Liberals are becoming a 'tyrannical' government.Clement noted both the previous Trump administration and President Joe Biden’s administration have “expressed grievances over Bill C-11” as an attack on US companies. “Trump's grievances right now have been about the border and drugs crossing the border, but both the previous Trump administration and the Biden administration expressed grievances over Bill C 11 because essentially they, not entirely but very much, focus on US companies.”Which leaves analysts like Clements asking … “Why?”“Why bring this forward and hope to bear even more so when we're looking down the barrel of 25% tariffs across the board?”.Musk calls Trudeau's Bill C-11 censorship.Clements said Trudeau’s Liberals are “applying very outdated regulations to an ecosystem that doesn't need it.”“These regulations for Canadian content essentially tell consumers that they want, or should want, to consume Canadian content — and then force companies to create and promote content based on that silly assumption,” said Clement. “Not only that, there's no guarantee that the creation of any of this Canadian content is actually viewed or listened to. Just because something is created doesn't mean doesn't mean that there's demand for it.”“There is a mechanism to figure out where there is demand for things, and that's the market mechanism.” “If Canadians want Canadian content, they can certainly go and seek it out, especially in the context of platforms like Spotify and YouTube.”.‘WONDERFUL RANGE’: Justice minister pleased with sentencing options Bill C-63 allows judges .Clements added the argument for imposing the regulations is to “protect Canadian culture and the people who produce it.”“But my question would be, who exactly are they protecting Canadian culture and its producers from?” he asked. “Canadian content isn't successful in the domestic market,” he said. “That's because it's not appealing to the demands of Canadian consumers. So it's backwards to think that the government can intervene here to help artificially create demands for Canadian content.”“And we already pay a billion dollars to the CRTC for Canadian culture and content. Is that not good enough?”
