Canadian singer Bryan Adams has issued a strong criticism of the Liberal Government’s recently-passed Online Streaming Act, saying it hurts Canadians artists more than it helps them.
In June, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that online streaming services that earn over $25 million and operate in Canada would be forced to pay 5% of their revenues made in the country to the federal government to help pay for various programs, like Indigenous broadcasting.
“The Canadian Government’s new music streaming tax is gonna cost you MORE to listen to the music you love online,” the singer said on Instagram.
Adams went on to say that he was never consulted, as promised, by Canada’s Heritage Minister, Pascale St-Onge.
“No calls, no meetings—nothing. And now they’ve slipped this new tax through – wanna know where your money’s gonna go? I’ll tell you – It’s going to prop up outdated broadcasting models such as CanCon, which were originally built to help Canadian creators.”
The international music star also said that CanCon is set up in such a way that anytime a Canadian artist collaborates with an artist who isn’t Canadian, the content isn’t recognized as Canadian.
“And therefore radio stations are less likely to play it,” he said.
In response, St-Onge said that lesser known Canadian content creators aren’t paid enough and require financial help and recognition.
“This is what the legislation that we passed is intended for — it’s to help local Canadian artists both get better pay and also get discovered on these streaming platforms.”
Yet if the sister law, the Online News Act, has a lesson in it, it’s that Canadians usually suffer the cost of the federal government trying to bully major corporations out of their money.
Following the announcement of the Online News Act, Facebook straight up banned the sharing of all Canadian news on its platform, effectively snuffing out independent creators and small media outlets across the country.
