This month movie lovers and filmmakers flocked yet again to the Toronto International Film Festival.
asserted
lovers → flock → Festival
TIFF is a stunning Canadian achievement built reel by reel and brick by brick over the last 51 years.
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TIFF → build → years
TIFF brings together the finest newly released global and Canadian films.
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TIFF → bring → films
Audiences, industry, and the federal government have all played a role in building TIFF into one of Canada’s most important cultural institutions.
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Audiences → play → institutions
But this year, TIFF was launched under the dark clouds of a nation-defining trade war.
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TIFF → launch → war
When the histories of the Trump trade assault of 2026 are finally written, we will remember how close the Trump administration came to reducing Canada to a cultural colony of the United States.
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administration → write → States
In the days leading up to the negotiating trade deadline of Aug. 21, rumours swirled that perhaps both the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act were about to meet a nasty end.
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were → lead → end
But one of the key reasons the August “deal” went sideways was that Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the Trump administration’s last-minute demand that Canada abandon regulatory measures flowing from the Online Streaming Act to promote Canadian shows and songs on U.S. streaming services that are operating in Canada.
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that → go → Canada
Though U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade negotiators may play down the threat to Canadian cultural sovereignty, it is clear that the president is backing Hollywood studios and California-based streamers.
uncertain
president → play → studios
Netflix and the other U.S. streaming companies are seizing the Trump moment to push for near-zero regulatory contribution to Canadian content.
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Netflix → seize → content
They oppose the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) determination to pair crucial financial support for making Canadian shows with the costless but invaluable commitment to making them visible on streaming platforms.
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them → oppose → platforms
To that end, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos secured a meeting with Carney in a New York City hotel room in late May.
uncertain
Sarandos → secure → May
We don’t know what he told the prime minister, but a week later Carney overturned the CRTC’s ruling that the streamers match the cash payments to Cancon already required of Canadian cable companies.
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streamers → know → companies
While Ottawa’s commitment to the Online Streaming Act seemed to waver this summer, the prime minister now appears to have decided that culture, like all Canadian industries, is worth fighting for.
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culture → seem → industries
We can no more surrender the Online Streaming Act than we would dismantle TIFF and send our Canadian filmmakers south to the Sundance Festival in Utah.
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we → surrender → Utah
This resolve is what Canadians want and, as public polling on the Online Streaming Act over the last several years confirms, have consistently wanted.
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polling → want → years
A Pollara poll last October, for example, found that 87 per cent of Canadians support the Online Streaming Act in principle and defending it from Trump, with results consistent across regions and provinces, and in both English and French-speaking Canada.
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cent → find → English
Canadians from across the country support cultural legislation.
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Canadians → support → legislation
We don’t want it traded away.
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it → want → ?
It requires both global and Canadian streamers to finance Canadian content in a manner proportionate to their ever-growing share of the Canadian audio and audio-visual market.
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It → require → market
Just as importantly, the CRTC is preparing to take the crucial next step by harnessing the streamers’ extraordinary reach into Canadian living rooms.
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CRTC → prepare → rooms
New regulations would make Canadian content more discoverable, sharing space with the foreign-made hits and blockbusters recommended on our home screen and in our search results.
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content → make → results
None of this prevents Canadians from watching American programs, listening to American music, or enjoying the best entertainment the world has to offer.
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world → prevent → entertainment
All the Online Streaming Act does is ensure that Canadian culture is at the table, not on the menu.
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culture → ensure → menu
But the cultural objective inevitably conflicts with Hollywood’s century-old dominance of global markets and audiences.
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objective → conflict → markets
The unique economics of Hollywood production give American streamers and studios an enormous advantage.
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economics → give → advantage
Big-budget cultural productions recover much of their cost in the huge U.S. domestic market, allowing them to exploit foreign markets at little additional cost.
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them → recover → cost
Canadian producers, serving a domestic market a fraction of the size, must find another recipe for success.
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producers → serve → success
That is why Canada, like other middle nations, has long adopted measures designed to sustain domestic cultural industries in the face of overwhelming imported competition.
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Canada → adopt → competition
A robust cultural economy gives Canadian artists and producers the means to tell our stories, share our histories, and express our values.
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economy → give → values
A nation cannot know itself if the stories, histories and values that define us belong to someone else.
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that → know → someone
That is worth fighting for.
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That → fight → ?
The Aporia
