Canada To Compel YouTube, TikTok and Streamers To Boost Domestic Content (wsj.com) 141
Canada approved legislation that targets what video- and audio-sharing platforms like YouTube and TikTok can broadcast to a Canadian audience, as the country follows in Europe's footsteps in imposing a heftier regulatory burden on the digital sector. From a report: This marks the second attempt in as many years by Canada's Liberal government to compel digital platforms, including streaming companies like Netflix, to prominently feature Canadian artists on their services when users with a Canadian internet-protocol address log in. As contemplated under the new measures, users who search for music, television programming, films or do-it-yourself video shorts would get results incorporating a certain quota of Canadian-made content.
YouTube, a unit of Alphabet, TikTok, and the big streaming companies, among them Netflix, as well as legal experts and some Canadian artists, have either opposed Canada's move or warned of unintended consequences -- such as hurting the people the new policy is intended to help. Countries like Canada are increasingly turning to regulatory changes to protect domestic interests in light of the big inroads the world's biggest digital companies have made in transforming how households watch programs, listen to music, conduct day-to-day business and consume news.
YouTube, a unit of Alphabet, TikTok, and the big streaming companies, among them Netflix, as well as legal experts and some Canadian artists, have either opposed Canada's move or warned of unintended consequences -- such as hurting the people the new policy is intended to help. Countries like Canada are increasingly turning to regulatory changes to protect domestic interests in light of the big inroads the world's biggest digital companies have made in transforming how households watch programs, listen to music, conduct day-to-day business and consume news.
As a Canadian (Score:4, Interesting)
Lets also not forget the pointlessness of it. I watch many different Youtubers. Only three of them do I know where they are located. Only 2 of them are in Canada. (AvE and Hand Tool Rescue.) It is all about the content. Put as much CanCon as they want, but you can't make me watch it.
Although if they put The Beachcombers on Youtube, I might be convinced to watch an occasional episode. (NO stupid remakes/reboots!)
Re:As a Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of woodworking channels I have noticed are in Canada as well like John Heinsz, Matthias Wandel and a few others I have seen, I assume because lumber is cheap in the northern land of trees? There are actually quite a few of really great Canadian youtube creators.
Not to mention Canadian TV being very popular (Schitt's Creek, Trailer Park Boys, Letterkenney) and how many of our favorite hollywood actors over the decades hail from Canada.
For it's population size I would say they have a rather outsized cultural impact.
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I think that pretty well drained them....let it go.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:5, Funny)
Time to invoke the spirit of Bob and Doug McKenzie.
Add a "Great White North" segment to all You Tube videos.
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Time to invoke the spirit of Bob and Doug McKenzie. Add a "Great White North" segment to all You Tube videos.
I would be willing to accept that. :)
Take off, eh! You hoser.
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Modded funny but "Great White North" was originally added to Canadian broadcasts of SCTV explicitly to meet a broadcast standard similar to the legislation in TFA. It was seen by a few U.S. viewers near the border and after their feedback, it became a regular part of the international feed.
So like, add it to youtube eh?
Re:As a Canadian (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it was added to fill an advertising space difference between Canada and US broadcasts. The US had more commercial time than Canada did so the producers needed to fill the spot with content. The CBC did want the extra time to be filled with "distinctive Canadian programming" though so Dave Thomas jokingly said "What do you want us to do? Throw up a map of Canada and sit there wearing toques and parkas?" and the producers decided that was a great idea.
So Kanadian Korner/Great White North weren't added to meet broadcast standards but just to meet CBC's requirements.
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Well we have lots of softwood lumber. Hardwood, not quite as much as in the midwest and eastern US. It's kind of funny, though. Softwood lumber is Canada is quite expensive and relatively poor quality because all our good stuff gets shipped south.
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See when I watch those channels these guys seem to just have reams and reams of both high quality softwoods and hardwoods and I enjoy woodworking but at least in my region of the US that shit is expensive. I guess maybe that's that Youtube money for you.
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I think most youtube woodworkers are in eastern Canada. Hard woods are probably much more affordable back east (closer to where hard woods grow). Out west here, hard woods are really expensive.
As an American and a lefty (Score:3)
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And how much of that stems from Canadian law forcing broadcasters to support local artists? Those laws prop up the small players where they are most needed to create a critical mass of talent that can generate all those internationally successful artists.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. This is pretty pointless.
From an American point of view, I can see this being argued as borderline "forced speech". From a corporate point of view, this is sacrificing revenue.
At first, I thought there may be a way to accomplish the same goals via tax breaks of some kind. But tax incentives can, and frequently are, abused.
Honestly, the only reasonable course of action would be to help Canadian content creators create better content. I'm not in the industry so I'm not sure what type of help Canadian content creators want or need. Studio space? Equipment rentals? Production staff? Loans? Professional industry advice/mentorship?
If C-11 became law, how would it be enforced? More lawyers, more court filings, more trials, more political debates, more amendments?
It doesn't make sense.
Help the creators directly. Just ask them what they need help with to create better content.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:5, Informative)
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And what happens when there's enough Canadian content to make up the required percentage? Do they play the same things over and over to fill the time or simply cut their broadcast time?
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I assume you meant "not enough" but the inference that playing "the same things over and over" is terrible is a little silly in light of the fact that this happens in markets free of content regulation as well.
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Re: As a Canadian (Score:2)
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> Honestly, the only reasonable course of action would
> be to help Canadian content creators create better
> content.
And just what *EXACTLY* constitutes Canadian content anyway ? Is it not "Canadian" just because some of the funding for the show comes from the US, even when the filming and production is done in Canada? It is "not Canadian" if the US viewership is larger than the Canadian? There are tons of Canadian-filmed shows that I've loved over the years: The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, the BSG
Re: As a Canadian (Score:3)
You can tell it's Canadian when the actors say 'eh' a lot, pronounce again as "a-gain", or when every word that is spelled with an ou is pronounced as "oh" as in "oh, Canada?"
It's called wildling speak.
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"And just what *EXACTLY* constitutes Canadian content anyway ?"
Right! Do these broadcasters need to stream more movies with Ryan Gosling? Or maybe a show's location needs to be set in Canada? Or maybe just filmed in Canada? Or maybe the writing team needs to be +50% Canadian? Or maybe just the production team? Maybe it'd be Canadian if it were +50% funded by Canadian citizens and corporate entities? The list goes on and on.
I suspect there already is a definition of "Canadian Content" that regulators accept.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:4)
This kind of thing has been the law for years in some European countries. TV channels and streaming services must carry a certain amount of domestic content, must spend a certain amount of their new programme budget on locally produced media, etc.
Netflix had embraced it, and given us shows like Lupin. Scandinavian crime dramas are popular overseas too.
No need for silly firewalls or technical measures. The law applies to the subsidies these companies have to set up to do business there. Same way US companies have to abide by GDPR, get into regulatory issues etc.
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The interesting thing is that Netflix does show the English CBC content which counts as cancon, but also all the CW content which would qualify as Cancon content if it was relevant to Canadian audiences.
But to get the provincial film credits, they don't need to hit cancon.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be enforced by installing government controlled firewalls, regulating what content is permitted to flow inside and outside of Canada. And when VPN's in other countries are discovered to be a workaround, they will gate those off as well. Yep. Canada is turning into China.
I live in Canada. While I agree that this law is stupid, pointless, and very hard to enforce, your post is absolute BS.
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Almost.
The main point of C11 is to force Netflix, Disney+, etc into wasting money on the Canadian Media Fund to produce quebec language programming that nobody watches in Canada or outside it. Only 16% of that fund produces english content, which must be spent on indigenous and minority content.
I get the sentiment of wanting to support Canadian artists, but the CMF doesn't do that. CBC/Bell-CTV/Rogers-CITV gets all that money back in the form production credits for producing content nobody care about.
So now
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For YouTube and Twitch the plan is the require them to favor Canadian content in their recommendations to Canadians.
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It doesn't look like they're doing that. They are setting a quota for recommended content and search results. If you search for something obscure and there's no Canadian video about it, you'll just get some irrelevant Canadian videos instead.
I imagine there might be some problems if some of those Canadian artists don't want their nationality known, but if they get boosted in the search rankings only in Canada, people might notice.
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With the passing of this bill, the CRTC will have the power to regulate exactly what content qualifies as "Canadian content" on the internet as seen by Canadians just as they already do for broadcasters and cable companies in Canada, and if you are a some random Canadian youtuber, it's actually quite unlikely that they will single you out as a Canadian content provider unless you are already quite popular and have brought some kind of attention to the fact that you are Canadian.
If you are in Canada and p
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The posts here are crazy.
First, Canada has a serious problem of internalizing American problems. We have our own problems and they get drowned out by American problems to such an extent, that we forget about our own problems while trying to solve problems we don't have or are very small compared to the US. Take gun violence. Yeah, some gun violence exists in Canada, but we already have strict gun regulations. But every time something crazy happens in the US, suddenly Canada needs more gun laws?
The main bene
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All good points. Unfortunately, some people were raised with this simple worldview: all regulation is stupid and awful and evil, and no regulation is a utopia that'll always be awesome but for reasons that are obvious to any reasonably educated person, we'll never see it in actual practice.
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Hacksmith is a great Canadian channel too: https://www.youtube.com/c/theH... [youtube.com]
I'm not sure whether this legislation is good or bad. I do think Youtube would do well to add a "Made in " button so that you could easily find local content. Especially for music and politics.
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Hacksmith is a great Canadian channel too: https://www.youtube.com/c/theH... [youtube.com]
I'm not sure whether this legislation is good or bad. I do think Youtube would do well to add a "Made in " button so that you could easily find local content. Especially for music and politics.
Yes, a thousand times! I'm a Canadian, I watch YouTube a lot, and I just follow where the rabbit-holes lead. But I would absolutely filter for Canadian content sometimes, just out of interest. I would also filter for content from other countries, in order to become more world-citizen-like and to broaden my horizons. And I'm sure people in other countries would filter for Canadian content sometimes if given the chance - I hear that we have a pretty good rep in the world, in spite of our current government's
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Having country filter switches on YT would be a brilliant innovation. But I guess it would fuck up advertising metrics, so we'll never see it happen. YouTube is primarily an ad agency after all.
I feel like this is why we can’t have nice things in quite a few countries.
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You might use to "broaden my horizons", the majority of people won't. They'll set it to "USA" or whatever country they're from and call it a day.
This actually hurts content creators in small countries because they would not have enough people watching to support their livelihoods. Let's say they make some obscure content like HoMM3 playthroughs. There might be 1 million people world-wide that are interested, so if they're good, they can make a living off of it. But in Canada there's only 5,000 of those peop
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Put as much CanCon as they want, but you can't make me watch it.
It's not about what people want. It's about government control.
People who WANT Canadian content will have absolutely no problem finding the content that is available. This is simply about the govt exercising control and telling companies that they have to do something that the govt wants them to do.
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People who WANT Canadian content will have absolutely no problem finding the content that is available.
How? There's no way to filter by geography in Youtube, and Canadian content doesn't have any tags to indicate it's provenance.
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What? You don't know what you want to watch?
If not, do some Google for "Canadian content providers". I mean, DUH!!
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I am embarrassed that this is something my government thins they can actually do.
When I saw this article, it reminded me of the French language protectors who create new words in French to avoid Anglicizing French. (For example: email is bad - courriel is good). It's easy to mock this as pointless bureaucracy trying to fight a world that is moving onwards to the future. But think about it for a bit. Isn't it a good thing to try and preserve individual cultures in different regions? It is way too easy for big global platforms to broadcast everywhere and overwhelm local content by the she
Re:As a Canadian (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, and no. There are benefits to preserving cultures, but there are issues as well. Britain alone had dozens of languages, and British English is based heavily on German with influences from French and Latin, but now people from across a large proportion of the earth can converse relatively freely because English has become widely known. I don't see a strong case that Britain or America don't have strong cultures even though the language they use isn't originally there's and words from other languages are incorporated freely.
In many places suppression of women, minorities, or different sexualities is cultural. The caste system in India that assigns some people as untouchables fated to clean toilets or streets based on birth is cultural, female genital mutilation is cultural in some communities. Dressing up in blackface as part of christmas related festivities is cultural in the Netherlands. Owning enough firearms to wipe out an entire school district seems to be cultural in parts of America.
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In many places suppression of women, minorities, or different sexualities is cultural. The caste system in India that assigns some people as untouchables fated to clean toilets or streets based on birth is cultural, female genital mutilation is cultural in some communities. Dressing up in blackface as part of christmas related festivities is cultural in the Netherlands. Owning enough firearms to wipe out an entire school district seems to be cultural in parts of America.
The beating of wives and children used to be part of Anglo culture. Even though that's culturally frowned upon now I think it's safe to say that Anglo culture still exists.
There's a lot more to those particular cultures than their most offensive aspects, and the most effective way for those people to move past those practices isn't to push them to adopting a new culture, it's to give their old culture the space to move past it.
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The Angles didn't develop English until they got to England. English is a British language.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I have no interest in arguing the development of the language, especially with someone who thinks "British English... has lost all its relationship with German" and even more perplexingly specifically "And as far as grammar and structure based on German" when there are literally dozens of ways anyone with a passing knowledge of both cou
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Then you'd have to check out Sergei Dratchev [youtube.com] too.
Maybe you don't consider him as Canadian though.
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These morons think it's still 1965 and there are 3 channels.
What if they just said "NO" to the requirement? (Score:3, Insightful)
Would Canda really erect a "Great Canuk Firewall" to stop Canadians from watching YouTube? Governments are really getting desperate to try and keep people's attention. Narratives are failing all over the place now that the government found a new problem that is resistant to lying.
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They wouldn't be able accept Canadian credit cards or to show Canadian ads.
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They could certainly take Canadian credit cards. I mean, A Canadian can use their card pretty much anywhere on the planet that takes credit cards. Only a few exceptions to that.
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Before NetFlix steaming was officially available in Canada, Canadians who wanted to subscribe would use a mailing address to get a US credit card.
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That had to do with restrictions placed on them by the copyright holders of the content. Youtube presumably has copyright permission for the vast majority of user-created content. For the rest, it's already not viewable in Canada. Nothing to do with Canadian regulations, though. All about copyright.
Re: What if they just said "NO" to the requirement (Score:2)
Which has fuck all to do with much or anything on topic.
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Narratives are failing all over the place...
You mean elected liars are being called out for their lies in real time now.
...now that the government found a new problem that is resistant to lying.
Of course the answer is censorship as opposed to...stop electing liars.
Canadian content (Score:3)
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Like every other company. If you do business in a country you have to abide by their laws.
Re:Canadian content (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Canadian, I can't say that I know of any peers of mine who actually want this.
There is quite a noticeable outcry from small Canadian content creators that I follow as well as some public figures. I think the ones pushing for this are the big legacy media conglomerates who feel competition from streaming services and, in the most charitable interpretation, are trying to put them on a level playing field and, in the least charitable interpretation, are trying to hurt them and/or force them to boost content from said legacy media giants.
In either case, I would personally like to abolish this law and the CRTC (our regulatory body that enforces this) all together.
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As a Canadian, I know plenty. Funny how that works.
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Like every other company. If you do business in a country you have to abide by their laws.
Well, there goes Net Neutrality.
If you transmit packets in a network you have to abide by their traffic-shaping laws.
Yes (Score:2)
> Should I also find "no surprise" that elected Canadian leaders are fucking morons who have zero concept of jurisdiction?
Yes.
Canadian dogs are hairy.
Canadian trees are woody.
Canadian water is wet.
Canadian politicians are stupid.
None of these should be a surprise.
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A company has to (theoretically) follow the laws of any country in which is does business, for business done in that country, at least. If Youtube is showing ads to Canadian viewers, they are doing business in that country. Just because a company puts their HQ in Ireland for tax purposes, it does not mean they only have to obey Irish laws when dealing with American consumers.
Isn't it up to Canadians (Score:2)
to produce Canadian content?
Re:Isn't it up to Canadians (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, they do. A lot of them do.
The problem with legislation such as this is that it biases against less popular domestic streams, even if the content might actually be *more* relevant to what they are actually looking for than what the better known domestic channels might carry. The requirements to qualify as "canadian content" are not something that most amateurs are going to be bothered with - it's not just good enough to happen to be a streamer who is Canadian and streaming from Canada, especially if you are unknown to most people.
It is going to result in newcomers to streaming in Canada being all but completely undiscoverable. Basically, if you're a Canadian youtuber, and you don't already have at least a million subscribers already by the time this law is enacted, it is likely that your channel will be all but forever unknown to a lot of people in Canada.
JJ McCoullough, a moderately popular Canadian youtuber, attempted to bring this matter to people's attention in Ottawa when he was invited to speak there as an expert on the matter pertaining to the passing of this law. They basically ignored him and are just going to do what they had intended to do from the beginning.
Encouraging TikTok? (Score:2)
I get the point of the specific legislation. Always nice to promote local.
But TikTok?
Maybe these lawmakers haven't had enough stupid pranks played on them yet? Maybe their kids are still attending school? Tide-pod anyone?
--
Be careful what you wish for because you will get it. Be even more careful what you work for because you will get it even more quickly. - Colin Cunningham
Canadian Content (Score:3)
This will make Crunchyroll interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally support this (Score:4, Interesting)
As a canadian we're bombarded with american culture constantly, this doesnt force anyone to watch canadian content it just requires them to present it to us.
A lot of out cry against this is "raw raw they're forcing us to watch government propoganda" they're not the government isnt goign to decide what videos each platform features, just set requirements that a certain amoutn of it be by canadian creators.
I for one support this endevour as i've seen canadian culture slowly being overwritten by american culture most of my life, and when i look at america its depressing and something I dont want us to become.
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America also inheretid its culture from britian, but both canada and america diverged from it and through over 100 years of sepration formed into something each uniquely our own.
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"how about a state sponsored video site"
I definitely wouldn't use 2 music streaming apps. It _might_ work for video, but I likely wouldn't subscribe to a canadian only service, and I wouldn't watch it for free if it had ads.
I really have no objection, in principle, to government projects that encourage people to buy local. Regulations to give a bit of extra exposure to local producers is not objectionable to me in the least.
The actual law as written may be problematic, with unintentended consequences, but that's a completely separate issue.
"If Alphabet wants to prioritize content that's local to the user, it should be Alphabets choice"
Alphab
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I think you're adding conditions to my statement that I didn't make. I didn't say a government sponsored site wouldn't have content from outside the country. That could be true but it's not a mandatory part of my suggestion.
But then it's a direct competitor to commerical alternatives. That's not really somehting the government is very good at, or appropriate for, and generally should stay away from. IMO.
It does seem that regarding audio content, you're suffering from locked in syndrome. That's your choice of course but it's never a good thing.
I don't feel "locked in" at all, and I feel free to switch at will. I just can't see ever paying for two.
If businesses are all forced to do the same thing, you lose variety and opportunities for upstarts to bring new ways of doing things.
Sure. But there's only a handful of real streaming services dividing the VAST majority of top tier produced video content between them. If someone was going to come up with a novel service watch Star Wars. Hah, free market f
No. It's not the power of Canada that compels you (Score:2)
"Good Day, Welcome to Great White North..." (Score:2)
Hey, Canada! If you want more Canadian-produced content, you could try giving these guys [loadingreadyrun.com] a hefty grant. They have regularly scheduled livestreams [twitch.tv] all week long, and have been consistently producing [youtube.com] quality material [youtube.com] on a shoestring for 15+ years, not to mention their annual charity drive, Desert Bus for Hope [desertbus.org], which last year cleared over $1 million in donations.
Imagine what they could do if they had a budget...
Intentions are good (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if this policy is a good idea from a practical perspective, but it's definitely a good idea to help promote and safeguard our culture.
It's not uncommon to see right-leaning Canadians post Tucker Carlson clips on Facebook. The "Trucker protest" was full of QAnon nuts and people whining about their 1st amendment rights [reddit.com]. And racial equality discussions are inundated with use of the word "woke", which is a term fairly specific to African Americans. Canada's traditional small-c conservatives are being replaced by people who adhere more closes to the US Republican party.
The problem is that the US media market is far too large and it drowns out a lot of our domestic dialogue. Even hit Canadian shows [wikipedia.org] tend to make the locale ambiguous in order to appeal to US audiences and our politicians are caught reacting to US news cycles [www.cbc.ca].
And yes, the Americanization of Canadian culture has serious consequences. Talented youth being drawn south because they lack a strong national identity, politicians focusing on political narratives from the US at the expense of domestic issues, and most seriously long term threats to our sovereignty. One of the things that enabled Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine was the legacy of Russification that undercut Ukrainian unity. It's a few political generations away, but if the GOP goes the way of Ron DeSantis I'm not confident that the US will remain a Democracy. And when that happens I want a Canada with a strong coherent identity and a strong military to defend ourselves.
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if you replace canadian with "white", this post reads a little.. eeek..
Sure... though this is one of those cases where the replacement also completely changes the context and meaning.
For one, Canadian culture includes the concept of multiculturalism as a foundational element. One of the more popular Canadian shows of the past few years starred a Korean-Canadian family [imdb.com], and one of the longest running shows stars a cast from one of the more culturally unique region of Canada [wikipedia.org].
That's actually one of my criticisms of the word "woke", it's very African American specific and I have a
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Counterpoint - Canadian PM is pushing gun control measures in response to school shooting in US.
Isn't your counterpoint literally one of the examples I cited?
Before that, he used January 6 as a rationale to suspend Charter Rights and suppress protests against his government COVID overreach. So please, don't give me bromides about US culture and PCs.
Huh? I literally don't know what you're referring to.
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I re-read your post, I still don't think I misunderstood it. Your central theme, that US-based Trumpism encroaching on Canadian culture via PC [wikipedia.org] is accurate. If you didn't intend to present such lopsided view, try wording things differently.
It's true I see US-based Trumpism as the biggest threat to Canada, culturally and politically.
But I also specifically criticized Trudeau and the use of the word 'woke' inside Canada.
I'm sorry if I didn't achieve a "you can't infer my political leanings" degree of balance, but I don't think I was nearly as lopsided as you believe.
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While I acknowledge that encroaching Trumpism is not completely fictitious, it is greatly overstated in context of Canadian conservative movement. My view is that it is reactionary in nature, a response to what Left is doing. However, Trudeau's complete alignment and championing of illiberal, censorious, and hyper racialized Woke movement is undeniable. If anything, it is Trudeau's Liberals and not Biden's Democrats that are international leaders of this wretched movement.
So if Trudeau wasn't leading the Liberals do you really think the Conservatives would be nominating Charest instead of Poilievre? I really think Twitter and Fox News have killed off the small-c conservative in Canada.
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Yes, I do think that if Trudeau wasn't going Full Woke with all that entails, we would be seeing O'Toole or Charest style conservatives in power. Small-c conservatism is only possible in an ideologically tolerant society, which Trudeau calls "fringe minority" and has police use rubber bullets and horse charges on.
O'Toole wasn't small-c, he tried moderating for the general election, but he won the nomination by running to the right.
As for the trucker protest, they were literally blockading the capital and major trade arteries. That's not a protest, that's attempted extortion bordering on insurrection (there was a real threat of implied violence in the protest), you don't get to change federal policy and become the government [ctvnews.ca] just because you own a physically large vehicle.
It wasn't tolerated when natives shut down ra
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Corner Gas (Score:2)
Zip Ties And Bias Plies (Score:2)
For those who know....
For those who don't, look him up on YouTube. There are already a lot of great content creators in Canada and this kind of dumb legislation just goes to show how truly out of touch with reality governments can be.
Interesting (Score:2)
Have they watched TikTok?
Time to bring back Canadian Corner (Score:3)
.. paste 2 minutes of Bob & Doug to the end of every vid, problem solved! It worked for SCTV, eh? :)
If it got Rick Moranis to do a show (Score:2)
It would be kind of justified, eh?
Search also? (Score:2)
So if I type in YT "Michael Jackson" I will get Celine Dion videos?
China (Score:2)
So China was not wrong https://viewdns.info/chinesefi... [viewdns.info]
Re:Canda or North Korea? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those truckers were too dumb to even understand their own government. Everything they were protesting against had zip to do with Trudeau as it was implemented at the provincial level. That and the USA for requiring truckers to be vaccinated before entering. When they arrested the head of the movement she was screaming about her first amendment right to free speech...
So the left is always accused of having paid protesters and being asked if they have jobs. Well now, look who was also being paid to protest and wasn't working.
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If this keeps up it's only a matter of years or decades before we're signing the songs of the leader, and basically living in North Korea 2.
Thanks for putting your post in context. I was getting worried about Canada until you claimed it was going to become another North Korea. People with that level of melodrama rarely have a strong grasp on reality.
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You clearly have far too rosy opinion of North Korea if you think your list of exaggerated claims (although some do have some validity) even approaches that country. Life in Canada is no more controlled than most European countries and I have yet to see any "inevitable" slippery slope into authoritarianism over there.
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I have a blog, that I post on randomly, and which outlines my ideas from comments in code, through to working in an
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I can appreciate your concerns. Personally, I think if Canada wants to promote native to Canada content (an idea I see no problem with) it should be handled by finding some way to support content creators or as a mild worst case scenario make Youtube legally obliged to create a made in Canada subsection that could be accessed separately as opposed to messing with people's search results.
Of course my opinion doesnt matter so much here as I'm not Canadian but those are my own thoughts.
My point in this has alw
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Believe it or not, most of CW network's prime-time big-budget TV shows (specifically, their DC-licensed Arrowverse shows) are produced in Canada, and most of their leading actors are Canadian. For some crazy reason, most of those shows apparently aren't even AVAILABLE in Canada.