The Carney government’s recent U-Turn on the CRTC streaming levy mirrors the historic 1971 collapse of The Big 8 CKLW, demonstrating Ottawa’s recurring failure by cultural elites to balance self-imposed cultural quotas with harsh cross-border trade realities. Instead of protecting consumers, the government deployed a $600 million of taxpayer dollars to buy peace, all while signaling weakness to Washington before CUSMA reviews.

In 1971, regulators tried to draw a physical border separating the United States and Canada to police AM radio waves. In 2026 they tried to impose the same geographic constraints on global, digital streaming networks by demanding a 15% vig.

The Liberals implemented the Online Streaming Act, allowing the CRTC to set these crushing regulations. But Silicon Valley is not a local radio station; the internet is a cloud. The tech giants, the movie lobby, and foreign streaming networks held a mirror up to Canada’s tiny market size and threatened to raise prices, strictly police password sharing, or even leave the market entirely (the market being Canada).

Border realism kicked in. With the U.S. Trade Representative putting the levy on the annual list of key trade irritants, and the U.S. Ambassador to Canada (who recently shared a Trump 51st Canada State social media post), calling the 15% mandate discriminatory, Ottawa faced immediate, crushing American trade retaliation with the renegotiations, or even worse, the potential for the end of the free trade deal itself.

The Liberal party is still completely haunted by the ghost of Chrystia Freeland’s infamous Disney+ incident, when she suggested that cutting a streaming subscription was an inflation-busting strategy, even in her own house. In a tight economic climate and operating a fragile government patched together through floor-crossings, letting an out-of-touch regulatory body increase household bills is bad politics. If families lose Netflix because they can’t afford it, or platforms start pulling access, you’re going to lose donors, support, and ultimately voters. They didn’t want the angry phone calls, and they couldn’t afford the backlash.

So, the government panicked and folded. This is not central-banker pragmatism; this is classic Liberal cronyism and taxpayer-funded patronage. Ironically, the government doesn’t have the legislative authority to overturn the CRTC because it is independent, so instead they played a cynical shell game by issuing a “broad policy direction” telling the regulator to review the very rules they just legally authorized them to make. They loaded the deck and forced a shuffle, framing it around consumer feedback to guarantee a positive outcome just before the high-stakes trade review.

To hide the policy failure and buy peace, the government is deploying $600 million annually to put out the very regulatory fire they lit themselves.

But the problem is that they have established a dangerous blueprint for global megacorps: threaten to walk, remove services (as Facebook logically did with the news ban), or hint at job cuts, and Ottawa will fold and hand you a compensatory check.

This $600 million isn’t an economic strategy; it’s an absolute scam. The money is being funneled into top-down, bureaucratic programming that people don’t watch or want.

But it’s worse, from the $600 million, $220 million is going to services like CPAC, or the Cable Public Affairs Channel. CPAC is already a public taxpayer-funded machine that primarily provides coverage of parliamentary affairs. It’s ridiculous.

If this government genuinely cared about civic transparency and citizens getting news, they would have funneled that cash to independent organizations doing grassroots local journalism, boots-on-the-ground reporting that actually holds municipal leaders and regional leaders accountable. Instead, local news is starved to while Silicon Valley tech executives are sitting on mega-yachts, drinking expensive champagne, and laughing at Canadian taxpayers who just picked up their tab.

Meanwhile, special interest business and labor groups like the CMPA and ACTRA are throwing a massive public temper tantrum. They pretend to be cultural defenders fighting for identity but the truth is they are institutional special interest groups throwing a fit because this direct subsidy bypasses their bureaucratic tollbooth and cuts off what was expected to be a guaranteed annual gravy train funded by Silicon Valley.

The entire system is an ecosystem of mutual survival. Canada exists as three telecom giants and a handful of legacy organizations stuffed into a trench coat, and the CRTC looks out for the old guard because if the legacy system goes down, the regulator’s reason for being vanishes with it.

The ultimate danger is the blood now in the water. We are marching straight into intense CUSMA trade negotiations, and Donald Trump operates entirely on a psychological framework of leverage, dominance, and deals. When he sees that Canada made a pre-emptive concession, he won’t see a smart move; he’s going to smell blood in the water and the stench of desperation.

Canada just took a machete, chopped off our collective arm, and let the blood pool in the water without a life preserver. We just signaled to Washington that our domestic policies are a paper tiger and that all the U.S. needs to do to force an immediate capitulation is sabre rattle. By killing the streaming tax before we even sit down at the negotiating table, we have handed Trump the cards. He will use this blueprint to try to make us fold on supply management, dairy, auto, you name it; and because we showed our weakness early, we won’t have the leverage to walk away from the table.

It is sheer madness. The government is busy counting regional votes and catering to specific electoral pockets to preserve a fragile house of cards while an existential continental trade war looms. Carney was brought in on a mandate to fix things and take on Trump, but the structural reality is getting worse because he is still busy acting like his primary opponent is Pierre Poilievre.

It does not have to be this way. We can choose to have an adept, functional government that divides public resources equitably instead of funding centralized pork-barrel projects and buying off special interests with public cash. We just have to demand it. Stop letting them buy peace with your money. Stop accepting the loaded dice.

---

This can be heard on Spreaker, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, or other podcasting platforms.

Kvetch with Jon Liedtke is a podcast of all of my radio interviews, reporting, commentary, media interviews, and more!

I’m bored of culture war theatrics. If you’re interested in more deep dives into the absurd, funny, politically intriguing, or just downright batshit wild stuff that happens all around us, be sure to subscribe and follow me on my socials. Let’s talk about this vast country we live in and the politics which makes it operate. Email me at high@jonliedtke.ca