In another blow to lobbyists, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has agreed to set aside the 5% streaming tax to hear the case.
It appears that the court case surrounding the 5% online streaming tax isn’t going so well for lobbyists. Back in June, the CRTC arbitrarily slapped a 5% streaming tax on streaming platforms at the behest of the Canadian government through the Online Streaming Act. The tax, which will invariably be passed onto consumers, will see the money taken from streaming platforms and be handed over to Canada’s cultural elite at the expense of Canadian content creators and consumers alike. All this in an effort to try and prop up the past at the expense of the future.
Many, including myself, have long predicted that this would invariably result in, among other things, lawsuits. Well, those lawsuits came. In May, Google sued the CRTC over the fees. In July, the MPA also sued the CRTC. The lawsuit trifecta was ultimately complete when Apple also sued over the Online Streaming Act.
As a result, multiple lawsuits were filed against the CRTC. Cultural elite lobbying organizations, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), naturally, did what they could to stave off those lawsuits more or less on the argument that their members right to free money stolen from other organizations shall not be infringed. As a result, they attempted to have the cases dismissed.
Well, that push backfired as the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal rejected the lobbyists efforts and allowed the case to move forward. In response, the court consolidated the lawsuits into one case and allowed the case to move forward.
Recently, there has been another development in the case. The court has apparently ruled that the 5% fees can be set aside so that the court case can be heard. This seemingly marks a second blow to lobbyists hoping to get a stream of free money. So, there are indications that things aren’t going all that great for the lobbyists.
Now, we tried looking up this case ourselves to get a better sense of what the more nuanced thinking is in all of this. Ideally, we would have liked to see if these decisions are being made with a great deal of skepticism for the court or if the court is basically laughing off the lobbyists efforts. Unfortunately, it seems that the court system is a rather opaque system.
In searching through the court document databases, we believe we found the court case which is GOOGLE LLC v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA, case number A-248-24. The reason we think it’s this case is because it does involve Google, the CRTC, and the CAB, so the party members do match up with what we know of the case, but the site is generally devoid of documents involving the case outside of how documents are being sent and received. In fact, we looked up up and coming court hearings throughout the month of June, which is when this case is set to take place, and found no references at all to this case.
As a result of a complete lack of transparency that we were able to find, we don’t have access to what is going on in the court system. Still, at the very least, we know things aren’t going so well for the lobbyists. This given the pair of rulings that don’t appear to be in the lobbyists favour.
What’s more, the ensuing reports from the mainstream media show an incredible amount of bitterness towards the development. The CBC, for instance, angrily wrote the following:
Streamers like Netflix, Disney Plus get court reprieve from paying for Canadian content
The Federal Court of Appeal says big streaming companies won’t have to pay for Canadian content until it hears their appeal of a CRTC decision ordering them to pay.
In this case, if the CBC is seething in rage over the decision, then the court case must be going well. Obviously, the above is not even close to being remotely true. The streaming platforms have long paid for Canadian content being produced. This through shared revenue plans, platforms producing Canadian made stories and paying the costs for them, and more.
What is really going on is that the platforms are refusing to pay the costs of legacy media companies out of pocket for no real good reason. Who could blame them for not wanting to pay the salaries and bonuses of CEO’s running legacy media companies for no real reason?
Obviously, the CBC’s words are extremely twisted, warping what’s really going on here. I’d be outraged that the CBC is lying about what’s really going on, but at this point, that sort of thing is entirely expected at this point. What would be newsworthy is if the CBC actually reported truthfully on this story.
Of course, it’s not just the CBC lying about what’s going on. The Canadian Press also published this nugget:
The Federal Court of Appeal says big streaming companies won’t have to pay for Canadian content until the court hears their appeal of a CRTC decision ordering them to pay.
Again, for reasons stated above, such statements are not even remotely accurate. It’s the court saying that the platforms won’t have to pay the 5% taxes on platforms until it hears the case. There’s no platforms getting out of having to “pay for Canadian content”.
At any rate, the fact that the Canadian media is absolutely furious right now is a positive sign that this case is going well – at least in these preliminary stages.
There will seemingly be a break in the interim. Reports suggest the case is going to be picked up in June of next year which is definitely an accelerated timeline for your standard court case. So, at least we have something to look forward to in the new year.
