CRTC Mulls Canadian Content On the Internet

PsiCTO writes "The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is going to weigh Internet content regulation — this could mean requiring some amount of Canadian content coming across Canadian pipes. The CRTC is akin to the FCC. They get that they can't 'regulate' the Internet, but are proposing to promote additional Canadian content in some way, as is currently done with radio and TV content. Likely they will discuss tax credits, subsidies, grants, or other traditional mechanisms. What do people think about this? Are there similar efforts, existing or proposed, in other countries?"

Comments

Government should not compete

[wealthychef]

What is special about "Canadian content" anyhow? The whole notion of nationalism needs to begin fading into the background. If there is something unique of value that the Canadian gov't brings to its citizens, fine, but an attempt to promote the Canadian brand by the government is not really useful in the big picture. If there is something great to publish, then there is no real barrier to its being published. This is just branding and it's a waste of time.

Re:Net Neutrality in Action

[MightyMartian]

It's a great story. When they started showing SCTV down in the States, the CRTC demanded that some extra time in every episode be Canadian in content. So, feeling that this was an insane and idiotic intrusion on the show, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas literally put a couch in front of a map of Canada, had a single cameraman rolling, and sat around being as stereotypical as possible beer-swilling inbred Ontario morons for the required number of minutes. Bob and Doug were nothing more than one big F--- You to the CRTC's Canadian content rules.

Re:Net Neutrality in Action

[dkleinsc]

This isn't net neutrality at all. This is a government agency requiring the exact opposite of net neutrality, namely the favoring of one kind of content over another. By the looks of things you're conflating "net neutrality" with "any government regulation of the Internet".

Re:It's not about the government

[cyriustek]

Canada clearly has a distinct culture, that many of its people want to preserve. However, it does seem that some Canadians do go a bit overboard with it.

When traveling across Europe, or Australia or NZ, it is quite easy to pick the Canadians out. It seems that a very large percentage keep a Maple leaf somewhere on their body or clothing. Evidently, they do not like people assuming that they are Americans due to their accent, so they over compensate.

Since many people have noticed this attitude from Canadians, they usually will not ask someone if they are American if they meet them, so as to avoid offending the Canadians. Instead, they inquire whether one is from Canada, since it seems rare for an American to be insulted by this question.

I think this is a little like a little brother / big brother rivalry. Although Canada is large geographically, it clearly does not have the population of the USA. As such, there is not a concerted effort of Americans trying to implement imperialism over Canada, it just happens due to the numbers. We can see similar examples of this in NZ and Australia. Another example would be Wales and England.

I cannot blame Canadians for trying to get their culture out there. However, going overboard just makes one look a bit silly.

Re:CanCon

[MikeBabcock]

Actually, CBC probably has some of the best radio and news content available, while I'm not personally a fan of most of their TV series.

Their radio shows are all available online as podcasts, and they produce excellent content that I'm proud to sponsor with my tax money.