On May 21, 2026, Canada's broadcasting regulator finalized Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-96, requiring non-Canadian online streaming services with at least C$25 million in annual Canadian revenue to devote 15% of that revenue to Canadian Programming Expenditures — tripling the 5% base contribution the CRTC set in 2024 by layering on a new 10% expenditure mandate. The regulator expects the package to stabilize funding at more than C$2 billion a year for Canadian and Indigenous content.
The backlash was immediate. The Motion Picture Association branded the rules "unprecedented, unnecessary, and discriminatory" and a direct violation of Canada's CUSMA obligations; the US Trade Representative had already flagged the Online Streaming Act as a trade irritant, and retaliation is now openly on the table during the CUSMA review. Conservatives forced a Commons motion to scrap the rule, which the Liberal government said it legally cannot overturn because the CRTC is an independent regulator.
India is watching — or should be. Its own OTT rulebook is still unfinished, and Ottawa has just staged a live demonstration of what happens when a content-investment mandate is bolted onto streaming regulation.
The case for a levy, fairly stated
Canada's objective is not frivolous. A small domestic market fears cultural crowd-out: global platforms capture attention and subscription revenue while commissioning comparatively little local work, and minority-language and Indigenous production rarely pencils out on commercial terms alone. A guaranteed C$2 billion annual floor for homegrown storytelling is a genuine public good, and there is a coherent argument that a screen culture serving roughly 40 million people cannot self-finance against Hollywood scale without intervention. India's policymakers feel an analogous pull toward cultural sovereignty, and that instinct deserves to be engaged on the merits rather than dismissed.
India took a different road — so far
Crucially, India regulates OTT content, not OTT investment. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 subject streaming publishers to a Code of Ethics, age-based content classification, and a three-tier grievance-redress structure rising to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting — but they impose no local-content quota and no financial expenditure mandate. The long-gestating draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill would extend a content-evaluation-committee regime to OTT, again along the content-governance axis, not the investment axis.
That distinction matters. We have criticized India's framework before for its discretionary takedown pressure and classification creep on the speech margin. But India has not yet tried to convert streaming platforms into involuntary financiers of a state-directed content fund — and it should not start.
Why importing Cancon would backfire
Three reasons India should hold that line.
First, India is a content exporter, not a content supplicant. Indian films and series travel globally on the very platforms a levy would tax. The binding constraint on Indian screen output is not under-investment by Netflix or Prime Video — both have commissioned extensively in India — but production capacity, IP enforcement, and ease of doing business. A Canadian-style "spend X% locally" mandate solves a problem India does not have, while taxing an industry that is already a net cultural exporter.
Second, levies become consumer taxes. As Michael Geist notes of the Canadian rules, mandated contributions flow through to subscription prices. India's streaming growth is built on price-sensitive, mobile-first adoption; a 10–15% cost wedge would slow precisely the access expansion the sector needs, and would fall hardest on the new subscribers regulators claim to serve.
Third, the trade exposure is real and current. Canada's mandate is now a CUSMA flashpoint with credible retaliation threats. India, in the middle of its own trade conversations with the US and EU, would be handing counterparts a ready-made grievance. Discriminatory investment obligations aimed predominantly at foreign firms are exactly the kind of measure trade partners challenge — and the Computer & Communications Industry Association estimates Canada's rules could cost affected firms nearly C$7 billion over five years.
A proportionate path
None of this argues for leaving streaming unregulated. Content classification, transparent grievance redress, and clear takedown due process are legitimate regulatory aims, and the IT Rules already supply a workable scaffold. The line worth holding is between governing how platforms behave and dictating how they spend. Canada crossed it and bought itself years of litigation and a trade fight.
India's comparative advantage is that its creative economy competes on quality and scale, not quotas. The smarter industrial policy is to deepen that strength — production incentives, skilling, ease of filming, and robust IP enforcement, the kind the Delhi High Court applied on June 2, 2026 when it ordered takedowns of AI deepfakes of actor Varun Dhawan — rather than taxing the distribution layer and calling it culture. Canada's experiment will be litigated for years. India should let it serve as a warning, not a template.