
Picture: The Canadian Press
Minister of Worldwide Commerce, Export Promotion, Small Enterprise and Financial Improvement Mary Ng.
Washington has raised considerations concerning the commerce implications of Ottawa’s online-streaming invoice, prompting a authorized skilled to warn that Canada might face tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} of retaliatory tariffs if it turns into regulation.
US Commerce Consultant Katherine Tai expressed disquiet concerning the proposed laws, often called Invoice C-11, throughout talks earlier this month with Worldwide Commerce Minister Mary Ng on the Canada-United States-Mexico Settlement (CUSMA) Free Commerce Fee ministerial assembly.
The net-streaming invoice, which has handed the Home of Commons and is now within the Senate, would power American-owned platforms, together with YouTube, Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video, to advertise Canadian TV, motion pictures, movies or music, and assist fund Canadian content material.
Final month, federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez claimed the online-streaming invoice, if handed, would generate at the least $1 billion a yr for Canada’s artistic sector, together with Indigenous applications.
Ottawa’s public report of the assembly on July 8 with Ng didn’t point out that her American counterpart raised considerations concerning the invoice
However the US authorities’s report of the assembly says “Ambassador Tai expressed concern about … pending laws within the Canadian Parliament that might impression digital streaming companies.”
Alice Hansen, a spokeswoman for Ng, mentioned Wednesday: “Ambassador Tai raised Invoice C-11, and Minister Ng reiterated that this invoice doesn’t institute discriminatory therapy and is in step with Canada’s commerce obligations.”
Michael Geist, the College of Ottawa’s Canada Analysis Chair in web regulation, accused the Canadian authorities of ignoring the “commerce dangers” linked to its online-streaming invoice.
“It’s clear the US is paying consideration,” Geist mentioned.
“By elevating considerations earlier than the invoice even passes, there may be an unmistakable sign that Canada might face tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} of retaliatory tariffs as a consequence of laws that already faces widespread opposition from Canadian digital-first creators,” he mentioned.
Toronto-based commerce lawyer Lawrence Herman, founding father of Herman and Associates, mentioned although Washington is elevating considerations concerning the invoice’s impact on American corporations and making use of strain on Ottawa, the US is “a great distance from retaliation.”
“Because the American authorities typically does, they’ll threaten all types of retaliatory measures,” he mentioned. “I do not suppose they might have a powerful case except they’ll present that the insurance policies are discriminatory or focused.
“In Canada’s case, they need streaming companies to pay their justifiable share for entry to the Canadian market. My evaluation is (the invoice) is just not discriminatory.”
Invoice C-11 has been sharply opposed by digital-first creators and Conservative MPs who declare it will permit a future authorities to manage folks posting movies on YouTube — a cost the federal government denies.
YouTube, in its submission to the Commons heritage committee, argued the invoice would impose worldwide commerce boundaries to the “alternate of cultural exports” on digital platforms, together with by Canadian creators, and set a “dangerous” world precedent.
The federal government this month launched a session on the event of a digital commerce settlement mannequin.
It mentioned such a mannequin settlement would assist Canada deal with rising expertise points and construct on present free commerce agreements, together with CUSMA, the North American free commerce settlement often called USMCA on the opposite facet of the border.
Digital points are additionally on the desk in ongoing talks with the UK on a free-trade deal.
The Workplace of the US Commerce Consultant had not but responded to a request for touch upon Wednesday.