Canada Online Streaming Act (C-11)

CanadaBill C-11 (44th Parliament)Updated April 27, 2023

100%became law
Bad for your rightsLaw
  1. Introduced
  2. Passed Commons
  3. Passed Senate
  4. Royal Assent

Law since April 2023; CRTC implementation ongoing

Put the CRTC, Canada's broadcast regulator, over online streaming and audio platforms, with user-generated content pulled in through an exception to the exception.

Latest update

Royal assent

The bill

Read the full billOfficial bill record

Key facts

Where
Canada
Bill number
Bill C-11 (44th Parliament)
Status
Law
Introduced
February 2, 2022
Threat
Medium
Last update
April 27, 2023

Topics

Censorship

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What it does

C-11 extended the Broadcasting Act to online platforms: streaming and audio services must register with the CRTC, contribute to Canadian content funds, and make Canadian content discoverable, meaning the regulator influences what platforms surface. The Act says user content is excluded, then lets the CRTC regulate user content that generates revenue, the carve-out that fueled two years of fighting. Royal assent came April 27, 2023, and the CRTC has been building the regime through hearings and orders since.

What’s at stake

A broadcast regulator now has jurisdiction over the open internet in Canada, and discoverability rules mean a government agency shapes recommendation feeds. The user-content carve-out was the warning: exclusions written by the regulator being empowered tend to have exceptions.

Our take

The fight over C-11 came down to the CRTC gaining a foothold over what platforms show Canadians, with the content-fund payments as the respectable cover. The foothold is law. The CRTC orders since are the actual policy, written where the audience is smallest.

Timeline

  1. Royal assentLatest

  2. Passed the Senate

  3. Second reading (Senate)

  4. First reading (Senate)

  5. Passed the Commons

  6. Second reading (Commons)

  7. First reading (Commons)

The record

Sponsor

Pablo Rodriguez