The news
On August 31, 2026, Unifor welcomed the CRTC decision to move forward with rules requiring streaming services to make Canadian programming discoverable. A CRTC spokesperson said the regulator is moving forward to decide how streamers must make Canadian programming available and visible. One caveat: the exact CRTC instrument, number and date were not shown on the page we could fetch, so this analysis rests on the Unifor release and press reporting.
The decision follows a reversal. In May 2026, the CRTC raised the spending obligation for non-Canadian online services to 15% of Canadian revenues, up from a 5% base contribution. On June 3, 2026, the government directed the CRTC to review that decision. It said the new costs could fall on Canadian consumers through higher prices, and Culture Minister Marc Miller acknowledged that the U.S. trade representative treats these rules as a trade issue. Ottawa offered C$600 million a year in direct funding instead.
The strongest case for the rules
Supporters have a serious argument. The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), which received royal assent on April 27, 2023, extended the Broadcasting Act to online services. Canadian broadcasters have carried content obligations for decades. Foreign platforms earn large revenues from Canadian subscribers, and a French-language market of this size can be crowded out by English-language catalogues from abroad. Unifor president Lana Payne put the worry plainly: Canadian content cannot be "technically available but effectively buried." That is a real concern, and a country can legitimately care about it.
Why the levy was the wrong tool, and discoverability is the better one
The 15% figure tripled the earlier 5% base contribution. According to Blakes, it applied to services with more than C$25 million in annual Canadian revenue, and the CRTC projected over C$2 billion in contributions to Canadian programming. The industry group CCIA estimated the cost to affected U.S. companies at nearly $7 billion over five years and argued the rules distort competition. Those are advocacy figures, but the direction of the concern is sound. A revenue-linked spending mandate works like a tax on subscriptions. It hits smaller and newer services hardest, and it invites retaliation. The government was right to take the affordability and trade risks seriously.
Discoverability is a different instrument. It asks how a service presents content, not how much it must spend. Done well, it costs little, does not raise subscription prices, and helps Canadian creators reach viewers who might want their work. The May framework, as summarized by Blakes, was principles-based. It set outcomes such as easy access, prominent presentation and transparent measurement. Tailored conditions were to follow through consultation planned for fall 2026, with an industry working group developing metrics.
Where the risk lies
The danger is in the design. Three pitfalls deserve attention.
- Mandated placement is a speech issue. Forcing a recommendation engine to favour certain titles interferes with how platforms curate for users. Viewers, not regulators, should decide what is relevant to them. Rules should require that Canadian content be findable, for example through a category, search and metadata, and should not dictate the order of a home screen.
- Metrics should measure viewing, not exposure. If the working group counts how often titles are shown rather than whether audiences watch them, platforms will be pushed to bury users in unwanted suggestions. The measure should reflect audience discovery.
- Tailoring must be predictable. Service-by-service conditions give the CRTC flexibility, but also discretion. Published criteria, a proportionality test and a clear review clock will keep rules from turning into a negotiation carried out under trade pressure.
There is also a trade dimension. Prime Minister Mark Carney has indicated that Washington pressed Canada to drop discoverability requirements. Reporting says the CRTC is proceeding anyway. If discoverability becomes the new front in that dispute, a light and clearly bounded rule is the easiest to defend, both domestically and to trading partners.
What a good outcome looks like
The sensible path treats the June reversal and the August decision as a sequence, not a contradiction. Ottawa removed the most expensive and price-sensitive element and replaced part of it with public funding. That leaves the CRTC to address the part of the Act that does not depend on subscriber cost: whether Canadian and Indigenous content, in both official languages, can be found by people who want it. Unifor is right that vague rules will fail creators. But rules that are enforceable and transparent should also be narrow, evidence-led and reviewed against real viewing data.
The test for the fall consultation is simple. Does each proposed condition tie to a measurable audience outcome, and is it the least burdensome way to achieve it? If so, discoverability can deliver what the levy promised without the price risk. If not, the CRTC will have rebuilt through the back door the cost and trade friction that Ottawa just chose to avoid.