Bryan Adams decries elements of Ottawa's online streaming rules

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Global hitmaker Bryan Adams is adding his voice to opposition over new federal regulations on streaming.

The “Cuts Like a Knife” and “All For Love” singer released a video on social media saying elements of the Online Streaming Act would make it harder for Canadian musicians to break through globally.

The video echoes points raised by a national campaign by the Digital Media Association, which represents the world’s leading music streaming companies including Amazon, Apple Music, Feed.FM, Pandora, Spotify and YouTube.

The group says Ottawa’s requirement that big foreign streamers financially contribute to Canadian content could result in them raising subscription prices, and thereby make those services less affordable.

Federal Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge says she’s glad Adams jumped into the debate but disputes his description of the rule as “a streaming tax.”

She says the changes are meant to help emerging Canadian artists, many of whom complain about the difficulty of finding an audience on global digital platforms.

“If you talk to them, they’re going to tell you that online streaming platforms don’t pay them enough and also that it’s hard for them to be discovered on these streaming platforms,” St-Onge said Wednesday in Ottawa.

“This is what the legislation that we passed is intended for _ it’s to help local Canadian artists both get better pay and also get discovered on these streaming platforms.”

The Online Streaming Act is currently in the hands of the CRTC, which said in June that foreign streamers must contribute five per cent of their annual Canadian revenues to funds devoted to producing Canadian content, including local TV and radio news, as well as Indigenous and French-language content.

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The CRTC said the rule would apply to companies that make at least $25 million in Canadian revenue and are unaffiliated with a Canadian broadcaster. The contributions are expected to bring in about $200 million per year.

Adams has been a longtime critic of Ottawa’s approach to the Canadian music industry. The singer spoke out earlier this year about how Canadian content is defined, and in the early ’90s complained about CanCon.

St-Onge described the call for streamers to help fund Canada’s creative ecosystem “a base contribution” that homegrown companies have been making for years.

“It was the right thing to do a few decades ago and it’s still the right thing to do today.”

— With files from Alessia Passafiume in Ottawa.