MONTREAL – Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, in Montreal for the nomination of the candidate in Outremont to replace Tom Mulcair, announced five measures he said will protect Quebec’s culture and end the preferential treatment of web giants such as Netflix receive.
Singh said the party intends to raise these questions once the House of Commons resumes in September. The five steps are:
- Tax foreign web-based companies on profits made in Canada;
- Require those companies to charge the QST and the GST;
- Hold Netflix and other web giants to the same standards as Canadian cable companies (Ed note: For what it’s worth, Netflix is more like a broadcaster than a cable company.);
- Legislate so that no future federal governments can strike an agreement like what Mélanie Joly did with Netflix, without consulting Quebec,;
- Close the tax loopholes which favor Google, You Tube, Twitter and Facebook for advertising purchases.
The last issue was raised in a Report issued by the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and was studied in a Senate Committee in the spring and even questioned Government officials on the issue. The Senate Committee Report came out last week and recommended the Government study the issue.
“Quebecers have made it clear to the federal government that we must put an end to the preferential treatment received by web giants,” said Singh on Tuesday.
“The preferential treatment received by these foreign platforms threaten our small and medium-sized businesses, our artists, our culture and our French language, our media and the financing of our social services.,” Singh added.
“By tackling these preferential treatments, the federal government would recover several billion dollars a year. This money could be used as a better investment to protect our culture, save our media and make life more affordable for all Canadians. For now, only the NDP has the courage to do it.”
