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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32488 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Streaming Bill Regulating Netflix, Amazon And Co In Canada [Finally] Becomes Law

Felt like it's been a slow-motion battle happening for years right past the horizon.

The key impact of Bill C-11 is that streamers such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ will now be regulated by similar laws to those overseeing the country’s networks.

In practice, the streaming services are now required to “contribute to the creation and availability of Canadian stories and music” and “pay their fair share in supporting Canadian artists, just like traditional broadcasters,” as per government bill guidelines issued last year. Canadian networks are compelled to hit certain quotas to fulfil terms of their licenses.

Basically: major streamers content sites will be obliged to push more Canadian content like television broadcasters are. For internet companies the goal would be to provide them with an incentive to increase the visibility of "Canadian" (defined by the government) content.

I'm...ambivalent. On the one hand, I constantly attack Canada for having limited independent cultural generation or even political discourse. So I find it hard to be too critical at them for taking proactive steps to push Canadian content. The cultural exception is an old concept at this point.

On the other hand...I just...don't trust the Canadian governments' competence at actually pushing "Canadian" (which they'll define for us) content. It's possible that this'll lead to more "non-descriptly Canadian" shows, but also more Nickelback-style shows (one common explanation for why they're hated is CanCon requirements meant radio stations had to play some Canadian and they benefited disproportionately, with a corresponding backlash).

There's also the question of just how this'll affect Canadian content creators (especially individuals uploading in spaces like Youtube), who probably benefit from basically being seen as indistinguishable from Americans and don't necessarily want the government putting its finger on the scale of what content gets rewarded. It might lead to less good Canadian content, as creators who could probably do a "one for us, one for them" model might find that harder. Or just lead to the people being promoted being part of a government-sustained, low-stakes artistic ghetto that can't be allowed to fail or we might have to give up on this "cultural sovereignty" thing.

One weird thing that I tend to see is Canadians (Australians, too) thinking that there's a global problem with Canadian/Australian visibility in pop culture matters. Sure, their visibility does not equal US or Great Britain, but those are by far the two biggest cultural lodestones and content producers globally, or at least within Western context; no other country comes close to them, and even then GB does not come close to US. Compared to a country like Finland or hell, even Germany, both Canada and Australia have a considerable advantage in getting global recognition to local artists, or TV shows and such, for that matter, whether talking some sort of a per-capita rubric or sheer volume, just simply since they're a part of the Anglosphere.

Basically: major streamers content sites will be obliged to push more Canadian content like television broadcasters are. For internet companies the goal would be to provide them with an incentive to increase the visibility of "Canadian" (defined by the government) content.

Fortunately, the definition is simple - do you have the piece of colored and stamped paper?

Nothing about any "Canadian culture" or "Canadian values", whatever they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content#Criteria

For the purposes of MAPL, a "Canadian" refers to a citizen, permanent resident, someone whose "ordinary place of residence" has been in Canada prior to their contribution to the musical selection, or someone who is a CRTC licensee.

In the context of movie or even a band I think it gets more complex though -- was Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young "Canadian Content"? What about The New Pornographers?

You can try this CanCon quiz to see how much your intuitions map to practice and whether you can predict what is CanCon based on your common sense

Surely Front Line Assembly must count...

To what degree is this even about the culture vs just being regular old protectionism? I assume that actors and writers in Canada lean left just like they do in the US, so the left wing government pays back their constituents by protecting their jobs from foreign competition. Not really all that different from the US putting heavy tariffs on foreign cars to protect GM.

As far as it goes, this type of protectionism is probably a lot better than other types. In the US we have to deal with unreliable domestic cars which can actually damage the economy. I believe in Brazil they have (or had until recently) tariffs on electronics which make businesses that need laptops for their employees less competitive internationally. But it doesn't really matter to the nation as a whole if TV shows are worse. In fact it's probably better if people watch less of it.

pay their fair share

Such a poisoned statement. So often used as an excuse to weaponize taxation. At this point I interpret it as the opposite of its literal meaning.

Yeah it's really irritating that they hide the premise that regular people watching TV owe money to untalented artists just for existing.

I…I never knew nickelback was Canadian. Wow.

Streaming services already push a lot of mediocre in-house projects. The modern equivalent of “direct to VHS.” I assume market research says that having a broad catalogue is better than a deep one; it seems plausible, at least.

Maybe this just makes each service set up a Canadian studio hiring Canadians to make quota. I can’t really be upset if the second and third rows on the Netflix homepage are full of Canadian filler instead of American. It’s still vaguely unappealing, though.

I…I never knew nickelback was Canadian. Wow.

Also Justin Bieber. What a mistake of a country

There's probably plenty of Canadian content that's currently airing on CBC. Netflix can just add that. Or, failing that, I'm sure there's local Canadian reality shows that've been moved to a 2 am slot which netflix can buy for much less.

They don't just have to add it. They are being required to directly fund the production of it.

or we might have to give up on this "cultural sovereignty"

The only people who care about "cultural sovereignty" are the Eastern City people for what should be obvious reasons; the rest of their empire throwing in with the Americans is a real risk. Of course, the Eastern Cities are arguably even more [Blue] American than the rest of the country so it's not really going to help them any more than it did before, but they think it will and that's what matters.

American here. What are those obvious reasons? What empire?

Canada is basically what the US would look like if NYC, DC, and San Francisco had absolute control. The US doesn't have this problem because they intentionally structured their government to prevent a couple of states from dominating all the others; the Canadian system is by contrast specifically intended to encourage this (as are all polities that use the British model as a base). All executive power is downstream of whoever holds the legislature here as well, so even in a situation where one party can't get the rest of the country to agree with them that party still has an outsized amount of control.

All [relevant] votes in the legislature are on party line, so Canadian parties don't have to deal with the problem US parties have when their representatives sometimes decide to put their constituents first. You're not really even voting for a representative here, just a party.

So provided its largest cities can be set against the rest of the nation (and just like in the US, they are, with significant regularity), which is the usual electoral strategy, it's not meaningfully different than imperial domination over the rest of the nation (I get that some people will claim "but democracy therefore it's valid", forgetting that consent of the governed isn't equally geographically distributed).

The rest of the nation is not only culturally distinct from its largest cities, but their largest trading partners (by province) is the US by a wide margin. You can think of the provinces between the Pacific and Toronto as slightly bluer variants of the states to their immediate south- the ones east of that city are very different from their southern neighbors, though (different demographics, different levels of economic opportunity).

This is why the Eastern Cities need to keep that shared identity strong, or in other words, recognizing that Toronto and Ottawa have the right to rule the land and have your best interests at heart. The Canadian Content rules are their best attempt at this.

As an American, my vague impression was that the Canadian confederation of provinces had, if anything, even less centralization of power at the federal level than in the US. In particular, the absence of anything like the Interstate Commerce Clause means that Canadian provinces can and do get into trade wars with each other. And moreover my understanding was that the famed Canadian healthcare “system”—which is misunderstood by nearly all political commentators in the US—was in reality administered by each province separately, with the federal government’s role relegated to transferring money from one province to another.

Is my understanding correct? If so, could it be that Canadian federal politics sees no pushback against the Laurentian elite because (to steal a quote about academic politics) the stakes are so low?

Healthcare is under provincial jurisdiction. So what the federal government did was to set some standards which need to be met to get federal money which funds a large part, but not all, of the healthcare system. The systems themselves are run by each province, but they need to meet certain standards, such as covering certain things such that they're free and allowing visting residents of other provinces to use their own province's health insurance.

Of course, if the federal government can just tax everyone and only give the money back to those who do what it wants, I don't see how provincial jurisdiction is meaningful. The federal government can do what it wants if it has the political will. It's currently in the process of setting up a national subsidized daycare program, even though this is also an area of provincial jursidiction. It did something similar with the carbon tax, although it probably didn't have to.

I think a big part of the story is that Canada isn't really a natural country. It's just the leftover provinces of British North America that didn't join the United States. Geographically and culturally, it doesn't make much sense. Before they joined Canada, the different provinces didn't have much to do with each other. They had closer ties to the neighbouring parts of the U.S. Most provinces either have a history of trying to separate from Canada or it almost joined the U.S. instead.

This seems absolutely terrible, comparable to affirmative action in nature. Artificially increasing demand for a thing lowers the standards it has to reach in order for the market to accept it. This can't have a positive impact on the amount of genuinely quality Canadian content, because content they make that is comparable to non-Canadian content is/was able to compete in a fair playing field without regulations demanding it be spread. So this only impacts low quality content that wasn't previously good enough but now is accepted anyway to meet quotas. If you want people to consume your product, make a good product that people genuinely want to consume out of their own free will, don't force it on them. Now the average piece of Canadian content people encounter will have a lower quality than it did before, which actually reinforces stereotypes and breeds annoyance and resentment.

I can only see this going poorly.

I think this sort of quotas are quite standard for many European countries. Looking at the output quality seems to indicate you are right. It’s a jobs program for local arts networks

Given Sturgeons's Law, the more art that gets made the more Great Art gets made. But you have to grow the pie & allow for all the art. Even "Photograph".

It's been a staple of Canadian TV and radio since the 60s, and it isn't going anywhere.

In fact it's the whole reason Great White North (and Strange Brew) came into existence.

I have to link this song now. Possibly the most Canadian song ever.

Does this law change the definition of Canadian content?

AFAIK, no. It extends the CRTC's ability to enforce Canadian content across the internet but the criteria hasn't changed...yet.

Critics distrust the idea in general, and seem to believe the system will change (search for Hatfield's comments) but I'm not sure if they mean "practically has to" or "is actually in the works and we know the shape of things to come"

EDIT: Found a link I was looking for

Your comment makes it sound amorphous or unclear what would qualify.

There has been...some criticism of the system

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