Catching up on MediaPolicy: why we’re so funny – no Netflix taxes anymore – a Québec media merger ?

March 8, 2025

I have video clips to recommend.

If by some miracle you missed CBC host Jeff Douglas’ reprise of his 2000 “I am Canadian” video, I think you will enjoy “We are Canadian.” (click above).

Also, Friends of Canadian Media released a new campaign video this week: “FU__ the CBC.”

Yes vulgar, but the humour works (says me, who once considered calling this blog “I call bullshit.”).

Maybe it’s our Canadian superpower to punch above our weight in comedy, thanks to a guileless working class humour that has inspired 22 Minutes, the McKenzie Brothers, Corner Gas, Red Green, Trailer Park Boys, Shorsey, et cetera, et cetera.

Have fun.

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One of the weirder things on Donald Trump’s trade list is Canadian GST paid on subscriptions to US streaming services. Yes, that GST.

As of this week, one less Canadian pays GST on a Netflix Canada subscription. I cut the cord this week. Sorry Ted, call Donald.

That provides me with a segue to recommend a 30-minute video explainer on tariffs and trade from Centre of Future Work whiz Jim Stanford (click below).

Economist Jim Stanford

Trump’s media trade hit list goes beyond the federal sales tax. MediaPolicy posted a few months ago about the Digital Services Tax that so torments the President and his Tech oligarchs.

Since this trade war will end in a trade negotiation, Canada needs to establish its own Canada First agenda (I claim trademark on this, Pierre).

Previously I wrote about the Canadian cultural exemption and this week I posted about an old idea that is new again; extending corporate tax deductibility laws governing analog media into the online space.

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Back in August, the Montréal digital news daily LaPresse and the six Québec regional outlets operating as the non-profit Coopérative Nationale de l’information Indépendante (CN2i) announced they were exploring “collaboration,” talks that might lead to merger.

There’s no outcome to those discussions as yet: but Pierre-Karl Pélédeau’s Québécor made a dramatic intervention last month by publicly expressing frustration that an exclusivity and confidentiality agreement between La Presse and CN2i was keeping Pélédeau from pitching a superior offer.

CN2i newsrooms are staffed by 145 journalists and Le Devoir reporting on the private talks speculates that these reporters (but not their non-editorial colleagues) might wind up in a merged La Presse newsroom. CN2i and La Presse already share editorial content and customer service.

There are old ties that bind. Up until 2015, La Presse shared a corporate roof under the Desmarais family’s Power Corporation with the six CN2i dailies in Ottawa-Gatineau (Le Droit), Trois-Rivières (Le Nouvelliste), Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean (Le Quotidien), Québec City (Le Soleil), Sherbrooke (La Tribune) and Granby (La Voix de l’Est).

CN2i wants to go all-digital by 2026, making it a natural fit with LaPresse. It’s a sign of the times that in a media-mad francophone environment, with extra provincial subsidies stacked on top of federal aid, the regional dailies are looking for synergies and scale to remain viable.

Québécor can offer synergies too: in addition to broadcasting properties, it operates Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec. Pélédeau wants to make CN2i an offer but has been told nicely to cool his heels.

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