Bad internet regulation in Canada is becoming costly in more ways than one

Canada’s Online Streaming Act was sold as a way to protect Canadian culture. In practice, it gives the CRTC power to require foreign streaming platforms to promote Canadian content and influence the “discoverability” of what Canadians see online. The Justice Centre opposed this legislation from the beginning because government should not be manipulating what content Canadians are encouraged to see—or pressuring platforms to reconfigure their algorithms to serve government cultural policy. 

Now, according to The Globe and Mail, these requirements may even have helped derail a Canada-U.S. trade agreement. The Globe reports that an 11th-hour U.S. demand for exemptions from Canada’s “discoverability” rules was “one of a number of reasons Ottawa’s team walked away from the negotiating table.” Bad internet regulation in Canada is becoming costly in more ways than one.

Ottawa rejected last-minute U.S. demand to drop Cancon rules for streamers (Globe and Mail, Aug. 23, 2026)