This is a decisive moment in the history of Canada-U.S. relations.
For over 150 years, Canadians have been blessed with the world’s largest undefended border. Over time, we became economically prosperous and culturally productive. But we let down our guard. We let foreign tech giants permeate our news and cultural sectors, assuming that our local newspapers and iconic storytellers would be around forever.
The result: one by one, newsrooms closed across the country, algorithms buried our stories, and American digital platforms began to dictate what Canadians saw and what they didn’t. Now, the American tech sector is working hand in hand with a U.S. administration that openly disdains the very notion of a sovereign Canada.
And they’ve decided it’s open season on our democratically enacted laws, right in the middle of a trade war between our two countries.
It’s time to push back.
CUSMA, the most recent North American free-trade agreement, is up for renewal in July. As trade talks heat up, the coming months are a critical time to lock in Canada’s absolute non-negotiables.
At Friends of Canadian Media, it’s our job to ensure that our cultural sovereignty – our freedom to tell our own stories, on our own terms – is at the very top of that list. That means:
- Defending the Online Streaming Act, which ensures global tech platforms contribute to Canadian content rather than simply profiting from Canadian audiences.
- Safeguarding the Online News Act, which protects Canadian journalism by requiring tech giants to compensate news publishers when they profit from their work.
- Enforcing strong cultural exemptions in present and future trade agreements to protect our creative industries and ensure the future of Canadian voices in Canadian media.
But we need your help.
Write to Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada–U.S. trade, and tell him that Canadians expect him to stand up for our cultural sovereignty at the negotiating table. Because if our stories disappear, so do we.