If the recent news is any indication, it will happen while in a parked car somewhere in suburban Vancouver.
The last thing that Canadians need is another tax. It seems that for many people, the Canadian past time is asking the government to fund some dumb thing or another.
Part of the problem is that Parliament has already affirmed a reason for the CRTC’s existence–have a look at the Broadcasting Act. Being a law, it’s not terribly understandable at first glance and it does cross-reference and backtrack upon itself, but it seems that here is where the CRTC gets its mandate:
The broadcasting policy in subsection 3(1) is broad (too broad to get into here), but demonstrates that the CRTC is more than just a radio spectrum allocator and an output wattage regulator. Subsection 3(1), in short, deals with what the CRTC can control in terms of broadcast content.
To further understand the CRTC’s content control, you need to look to the Radio Regulations 1986. Note that although the Regulations are dated 1986, the text at the link has been updated with amendments since then. Notice how Part 1 of the Regulations is devoted to “Canadian and Musical Content.”
To put it as simply as possible, the CRTC didn’t just decide to take this responsibility for content control on itself. It was handed its mandate to do so by Parliament, and it is only Parliament that can change that.
Leaffan, I’m unsure if writing your MP will do much, but given the above, at least you’re directing your concerns to the right person.
Yes, this seems to be the proposal. I don’t see any way to directly “regulate” the amount of Canadian content on the Internet; as Gorsnak says, the Internet is a global market anyway.
Now, I don’t know if taxing Internet use in order to fund Canadian cultural projects is a good thing. I’m not going to speculate on whether it’s better or worse than any other tax. But I am going to say that I support the government funding cultural projects. It’s questionable whether the federal government should be involved in this (culture is a provincial responsibility, and with the cultural variety present in Canada I’m not convinced I trust the feds to know what is significant and what isn’t), but some level of government should have money for culture. There are economic benefits from a healthy cultural industry, and there are more intangible benefits as well, in terms of national identity for example. We do fund scientists with public money after all (including me, but don’t worry, I don’t get federal money, at least not directly! :p). True, I guess artists won’t find a cure for cancer or solve world hunger, but then again, neither will I.
I wanted to say this, because it seems to me that “culture” or “artists” in Canada has sort of become shorthand for “overpaid snobs eating caviar at taxpayer-funded galas while showing their latest ‘works’ mocking the common man”. And that’s too bad, because this isn’t what our cultural industry is.
Easy low cost solution to that – hand out citizenship grants as major music awards so that you can listen to more non-Canadian Canadian music. 
The CRTC regulating a global medium? What are we? China?
I’m all for subsidizing Canadian arts. God knows it appears that we need to in order to maintain some sense of national identity, but we’ve been doing that for some time. But spend even more? High priced lawyers don’t have a problem spending a few bucks more each month, but there are a lot of poor kids out there begging their parents for an internet connection, which by the way also happens to be quite a decent library to facilitate their education.
And I like many others don’t even watch broadcasts on the internet.
There is a more reasonable solution I think using the Canadian content rule for television.
Make the Canadian internet broadcasters who now spend 800 million dollars on mostly foreign material spend at least $100,000,000 instead,(some percentage of the total at least) for Canadian content and broadcast it. There, were done !
So tell me, What am I missing?
I think all levels the Canadian government have a reposibility to promote the arts and the Anglo/Franco cultural foundation of the country and I dont have a problem if tax payer dollars go towards this, but I think that there is some sort of surcharge that gets tacked on to recording media as it is , thats supposed to go to the arts and now they want more obviously.
As for that last point ,while caviar eating snobs may be a caricature, the arts folks have not been really all that good at communicating why its important to focus on culture and what culture are they promoting, with the various Canadian parliaments over twenty years ,I have no idea , we were just told cause its a good thing.
Declan
Bumping this zombie to update a new development. From today’s Globe and Mail: Supreme Court rules ISPs not subject to broadcast regulations.
I guess the earlier CRTC hearings somehow morphed into a court case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. And it looks like it was indeed more of a money grab, and less of a cultural issue; although not having read the Court’s written reasons, I cannot say for sure. Still, funding of arts groups did factor into the decision. From the above link:
The item goes on to say that the case was brought by such groups as the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, which was quoted upthread.
Good.
Living near Toronto and knowing as many people as I do in the arts scene… I hate to admit it but this is pretty much as accurate a criticism as I’ve read.
The arts community is quite strikingly NOT made up of caviar-eating snobs. For the most part it’s people struggling to get by like anyone else. Theatre, dance, the visual arts and what have you are demanding and high-risk careers, and the technical side of production is as hard a job as any.
But your characterization of the argument for arts funding is more or less bang on; there is nonstop howling for more arts funding or not cuts or what have you but the argument invariably comes down to one or both of two things:
Point 1 is silly; it is of course true that giving someone $X to mount a production will create a number of jobs, but it’s never explained or proven that the $X is marginally productive as opposed to supporting, say, a struggling manufacturer, or a restaurant, or any other economic endeavour.
As to Point 2, arts are great, but lots of things are great. Baseball is great but I really, really don’t want the government subsidizing the Blue Jays. Video games are great but I’d hate to see the government start single-payer “World of Warcraft” coverage.
Every coupe of weeks I’m sent a petition on Facebook asking me to “support the CBC.” It’s never really explained why I should though. It’s just “the CBC is awesome. Support it.” Nobody ever explains why I should support it, or why it can’t support itself, or what’s so great about it, anyway. I’m not saying there ISN’T a good reason to subsidize the CBC, but if there is maybe that shuld be part of the pitch.
I get the sense the arts need a spokesman who can verbalize a clear and truthful message as to why they deserve my tax dollars. I don’t mind paying taxes and paying for soldiers, teachers, firefighters, cops, the people who plow the roads, health insurance, welfare, and stuff like that, but I’ve seen and read convincing arguments why those things should be delivered by government. I have not seen convincing arguments for why arts should be delivered by government.
If the argument is “because it would make this a better place to live, more fun and vibrant” I’d be willing to consider that. I don’t necessarily need to be shown proof we’ll make money on the deal. Nice things cost money. Maybe we should be spending money on arts just because things would be less nice. That’s a perfectly good reason; it’s why we have parks and tree-lined avenues and rules against eyesores and the like. But I’ve never even seen a convincing argument that even that is true; nobody’s convinced me there’s a market failure that will result in a lack of beautiful, popular or interesting arts without government funding.
Seconded.