Broadcasting review hears renewed calls for online streaming services to do more to fund Canadian content

Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime should be required to pay their fair share toward producing Canadian content, according to some arguments filed during public consultations on an overhaul ofbroadcast and telecommunication regulations, which wrapped up Friday.

In written submissions to a seven-memberpaneltasked with reviewing the Broadcasting Act, Telecommunications Act andRadiocommunicationAct, CBC and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), also called on Ottawa to create new rules that would ensure that the news content distributed on platforms such as Google and Facebook isaccurate and trustworthy.

The submissions are part of a wide-scale reviewthat started last June. More than 100 stakeholders are taking part.

CBC president CatherineTaitsays the current system is not viable.Netflix is not required, for example, to contribute to the Canada Media Fund, through which broadcasters, cable companies and others help finance original productions.

"Looking at the ecosystem, everybody's swimming in the same swimming pool, but some of the people aren't cleaning it up," Taittold CBC News.

CRTC chairman Ian Scott says the regulatorneeds a different approach to regulations that would require foreign players to put more money into the Canadian system.

"It doesn't mean more regulation. It means smarter, better, flexible regulation. A new toolbox," Scott told The Canadian Press.

The panel is expected to makerecommendations to the minister of innovation, science and economic developmentand the minister of Canadian heritage.Its final report will not come out until January 2020 after the next federal election although an interim report is expected this June.

"The revolution will be over before any new legislation comes about," saidDouglas Barrett, a broadcast industry consultant and former media and entertainment lawyer.

"What we're doing is kind of examining our toenails with a microscope while the world around us is changing."

2-tiered system?

Submissions from some of the other big stakeholders weren't immediately available but will be made public after the closeof the consultation process.

Broadcasters and others in the industry have long called for a so-called Netflix tax. Rogers Media president Rick Brace, for example, saidlast Junethat the industry needs a level playing field.

"For theNetflixesof the world, to come in and not have any real responsibility a hard, hard responsibility to Canadian program content and funding ... creates a hardship for the domestic broadcasters," Brace said during an event unveiling the company's new TV season.

Rogers owns the Citytv stations, among other broadcasters.

CTV's parent company, Bell Media, similarly described in a previous submission to the CRTC the regulations as a two-tier system. It proposed any streaming service earning over $100 million in annual revenue contribute 20 per cent of annual revenue to Canadian programming, according to the Financial Post.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Heritage ministerMlanieJolyhave previously spoken out against a Netflix tax. Butthe CBC'sTaitsays the appetite for it is increasing, pointingout that European countries have introducedsuch legislation.

International streaming companies now help finance original content in France, for example:Netflix has a twoper cent tax levied on its revenuefrom French subscriptions, and in the case ofYouTube, the taxis applied to ad revenue.

Netflix wasamong the stakeholders thattook part in the review. Its submission hasn't yet been made publicand the companydid not have anyone available for an interview.

The streaming giant currently spends millions of dollarson creating broadcast productions in Canada, which, it argues, translates into jobs, tax revenues and economic activity. It has pledged tospend at least half a billion more dollars over the next five yearsto fund original Canadian productions.

YouTubealso pays content producers directly, based largely on audience size, regardless of where the content is produced.

Netflixhas said previouslyit shouldn't have to pay into something like the Canada Media Fund because it can not draw from it. It also said that if it were forcedto pay, the costs would likely be passed on to Canadians in the form of a higher monthly fee.

Barrett, who was chairman of the board of directors of theprecursor to the media fund, the Canadian Television Fund, from 2004 to 2008, pointedout thatNetflix recently increased subscriber ratesin Canada by a far greater margin than what it would likely be required to contributetoward Canadian content.

He said whether the next government would be able to rally support for a tax depends on the political will and the sales job.

"Calling it a 'Netflix tax' is pretty much guaranteed to ensure that most people who don't think terribly much about the thing would be against it," he said.