Canada’s broadcast regulator has turned up the pressure on global streaming giants, announcing that platforms like Netflix and Disney+ must now funnel 15 percent of their annual Canadian revenues into homegrown and Indigenous content three times the original requirement set just last year.The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) made the announcement on May 21, and wasted no time signaling that it intends to push ahead regardless of an ongoing legal challenge from some of the world’s most powerful entertainment companies.
When the CRTC first introduced its streaming contribution framework in 2024, the baseline was set at five percent. That figure already drew significant resistance from major players including Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and the Motion Picture Association-Canada, all of whom have taken the original policy before the Federal Court of Appeal. Payments have been suspended while the courts deliberate.
Now, with that challenge still unresolved, the regulator has not only stood its ground it has raised the stakes considerably.
Scott Shortliffe, the CRTC’s Vice President of Broadcasting, was blunt about the agency’s posture at a media briefing the same day.
“The overall policy of the CRTC is we move forward,” Shortliffe told reporters. “If we waited for courts to rule, whether it’s on the broadcasting or telecom side, it would just give an incentive for everyone to take us to court on everything all the time.”
The new framework is expected to sustain more than $2 billion in annual support for Canadian and Indigenous programming covering everything from French-language productions to domestic news content.
The CRTC’s overhaul isn’t solely targeted at streaming platforms. Traditional broadcasters, who previously faced contribution requirements ranging between 30 and 45 percent, will see their obligations reduced to 25 percent under the new structure. The regulator framed this as a recalibration designed to ease the burden on legacy media while broadening the financial base.
Smaller broadcasters get a further reprieve. Those with annual Canadian revenues below $25 million will be exempt from the content spending requirements entirely. For those above that threshold, at least 15 percent of contributions must be directed toward news — a provision with clear implications for a domestic news industry that has been losing ground for years.
Streamers earning more than $100 million annually in Canada face additional requirements: at least 30 percent of their content expenditures must go toward collaborations with Canadian broadcasters and independent producers, pushing large platforms to engage directly with the local creative industry rather than simply writing a check.
The announcement lands at a particularly sensitive moment in Canada-U.S. relations. Washington has flagged Canada’s Online Streaming Act the legislation the CRTC is now enforcing — as a trade irritant ahead of upcoming negotiations. Ottawa maintains that cultural policy is protected under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, through an explicit cultural exemption.
The Motion Picture Association, which lobbies for Hollywood’s biggest studios and streaming companies in Canada, showed no interest in that distinction. CEO Charles Rivkin called the CRTC’s decision “unprecedented, unnecessary, and discriminatory,” and argued the new obligations “directly violate Canada’s obligations” under CUSMA.
The Conservative Party’s shadow minister for culture, Rachael Thomas, echoed those concerns from a different angle warning that the new rules would “drive business out of Canada and increase prices for consumers,” and describing the move as poorly timed given the fragile state of CUSMA talks.
Shortliffe, for his part, drew a firm line between the regulator’s mandate and the political realm.
“Because we’re an arm’s length quasi-judicial tribunal, we are not in touch with the government about the status of trade negotiations,” he said. “We’re applying Canadian law in Canada.”
Among the less-publicized but consequential elements of the announcement is the creation of the Services of Exceptional Importance Fund a new mechanism aimed at keeping alive the kind of niche but essential Canadian television services that don’t fit neatly into the commercial ecosystem.
The Cable Public Affairs Channel, better known as CPAC, offers a telling example of what’s at stake. The channel, which provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of Canadian parliamentary proceedings, recently had to cancel two of its flagship programs. The culprits: accelerating revenue losses, market instability, and the CRTC’s own delays in modernizing the regulatory system.
The new fund would require cable and television service providers to pay into it based on subscriber numbers creating a more predictable financial floor for channels that serve a civic rather than commercial function.
“This funding base has been decreasing,” Shortliffe acknowledged, “and that has placed significant pressure on those services.”
The CRTC has been careful not to frame the new rules as the final word. Rather than imposing a rigid, system-wide checklist, the regulator says it will work with broadcasters and streaming platforms individually to determine how each can best meet the new expectations particularly around making Canadian and Indigenous content easier to find and access on their platforms.
“We’re saying that we will work with each group, whether it is a domestic broadcasting group or a streaming group, to say how can you best fulfil these general principles,” Shortliffe explained. “And that will be forthcoming.”
Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller said the Liberal government will review the decision’s implications, noting that it remained committed to ensuring “Canadians continue to see themselves reflected on screen.”
Whether the streaming companies comply quietly, mount fresh legal challenges, or redirect content investment away from Canada remains to be seen. But one message from the CRTC rang through clearly on Wednesday: the regulator has no intention of pressing pause.
