failcampmtl 2014 - 031 by Eva Blue (CC BY 2.0)

failcampmtl 2014 - 031 by Eva Blue (CC BY 2.0)







The reaction from the Canadian culture establishment?







  1. harper looked at phiones. libs look at quebec gambling?

    ebooks, phoning textbooks in since google.
    all your passwords belong to the US

  2. If the result is “old wine in new bottle”, the only thing that will be achieved is to build up the underground entertainment distribution industry (often called piracy). People, especially the younger and more tech-savvy ones, are switching to over-the-air broadcast supplemented by streaming services because cable TV is too expensive. If all they do is push through more taxes and more fees, these people will find other ways.

    I have a friend (who has very limited income). Until recently, he used freely available wifi (from various coffee shops) for Internet access. He has Internet at home now, thanks in part to the CTRC push for affordable Internet.

    I have several friends who have cut cable and gone the over-the-air with Netflix because the cost difference for dropping cable and increasing ISP bandwidth paid back the investment cost in equipment in under a year.

    Bad rules and increased taxes are not going to make these people stop. They will only change how they do things to keep costs down. Taxes keep going up, hidden fees keep going up, cost of goods in stores keep going up, yet almost nobody I know has had a raise in years. If something isn’t fixed, the underground economy is only going to get bigger.

  3. Peter Piper says:

    I look forward to reading your alternate policy possibilities next week. I agree that those in the Canadian cultural community continue to demand the same old policies in a vastly different world – policies that are no longer workable or effective, even if they were desirable.

    On the other hand, those in the Canadian technology community seem to demand the simple abandonment of any effort to provide support for Canadian culture. Claiming that such a policy represents the interests and desires of Canadian consumers is short sighted. Yes, we often hear Canadians (myself included) complaining about television cable packages and geographical restrictions on Netflix, but that’s an immediate concern unlike the support for our culture(s). Canadians do consider themselves to be culturally distinct from Americans, and surely our mass media plays a role in that distinction. If we suddenly found ourselves with only American news channels to watch, I think the reaction would be one of horror. Telling cultural content groups to just “compete on the international level” without any kind of assistance may result in the general annihilation of a distinct Canadian culture in the modern world. If you’re really okay with that (It’s law of the jungle and Canadian culture may simply fall prey?) be honest and say so when you are trying to attract support.

    I don’t think government restrictions choice is a good idea, but finding ways to ensure that Canadian options are among the options that we have to choose from? I think that’s essential, at very least.

  4. Peter

    What I think hurt these groups at the lets talk debates is they said we don’t need to compete what needs to happen is the Crtc has to kick all non Canadian program out and people will get use to it this did not go over well with the public.