Tax the Internet in the name of Canadian culture?
Those of you who have fled the walled garden that constitutes Canada’s regulated Can-con broadcasting system for the freedom of the Internet, beware: the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is ready to round you up.
After years of news, information, education and entertainment being available unregulated from whatever source you want on a platform where creativity, investment and innovation blossomed, the CRTC has recommended the government pass legislation to allow it to tax and regulate the Internet.
This is the primary takeaway from the report prepared at the request of Heritage Minister Melanie Joly entitled Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada. The CRTC concluded that the best way to save its 1980s-era system is not to adapt it to the 21st century but to expand it beyond the realms of over-the-air, cable and satellite broadcasting into all commercial audio-visual content on the Internet, regardless of where in the world it originates.
Because more people are viewing programming online, the CRTC insists, every Internet service provider in Canada should contribute on a per-subscriber basis to provide for the care and feeding of the nation’s film and television content creators. And in case you were unclear, that means your bill goes up. The only question is: by how much?