Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault says that if the government implements the recommendations laid out by the BTLR panel, licensing for media companies would depend on size.
The government-appointed panel suggests that companies that deliver audio and audiovisual news content should be regulated by the CRTC through some sort of a license.
“If you’re a distributor of content in Canada and obviously if you’re a very small media organization the requirement probably wouldn’t be the same if you’re Facebook, or Google. There would have to be some proportionality embedded into this,” Guilbeault told CTV News.
Guilbeault has said that the government will go over the panel’s suggestions carefully. One of the major things that the panel is calling for is requiring streaming giants to allocate a portion of their budget to produce Canadian content.
“It’s about fairness. Companies are paying GST in Canada and there’s no reason that some of the wealthiest companies in the world who are operating on Canadian soil shouldn’t pay,” said Guilbeault.
“They’re investing a lot of money in Canada right now. We’re asking them to dedicate part of that money to specific Canadian cultural content. We’re not asking them to do more.”
You can watch CTV News’ full interview with Minister Guilbeault here.
Source: CTV News
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