The Online Streaming Act (), commonly known as Bill C-11, is a Canadian federal statute. Passed by the 44th Canadian Parliament and receiving royal assent on April 27, 2023, the legislation's main goal was to amend the Broadcasting Act to take account of the increased prominence of internet video and streaming services.
The Act gives the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) power to regulate and impose conditions on the operations of undertakings that conduct "broadcasting" over the internet, including the ability to impose Canadian content obligations similar to those of licensed television and radio undertakings. It also abolishes the seven-year fixed-term limit for CRTC-issued broadcast licences, adds a mechanism of imposing "conditions" on broadcasters without them being bound to a licence term, and introduces monetary fines for violating orders and regulations issued by the CRTC.
It was first introduced on November 3, 2020, by Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault during the second session of the 43rd Canadian Parliament. Commonly known as Bill C-10, the bill was passed in the House of Commons on June 22, 2021, but failed to pass the Senate before Parliament was dissolved for a federal election. It was reintroduced with amendments as the Online Streaming Act during the first session of the 44th Canadian Parliament in February 2022, passed in the House of Commons on June 21, 2022, and passed in the Senate on February 2, 2023. It received royal assent on April 27, 2023, after the consideration of amendments by the House. The CRTC began to implement the bill in 2024, including updating the long-standing Canadian content rules for film and television to provide more flexibility and incentivize Canadian copyright ownership of programming, and proposing Canadian content expenditure requirements on foreign-owned streaming services with more than $25 million in annual revenue.
Supporters of the bill state that it allows the CRTC to compel foreign streaming services to follow similar regulatory obligations to conventional radio and television broadcasters, and government officials projected that mandating participation in the Canada Media Fund by online broadcasters would result in at least $830 million in additional funding by 2023. The opposition has directed criticism at the bill for granting a large amount of power to the CRTC, who are unelected regulators and receive very little guidance from Parliament or the government. Its unclear applicability to user-generated content on social media services has also faced concerns that it infringes freedom of expression, and that the bill would extraterritorially subject any form of audiovisual content distributed online via platforms accessible within Canada to regulation by the CRTC. The bill also faced criticism over the lack of transparency in its legislative process, with both instances of the bill facing arbitrarily limited time periods for their clause-by-clause review, thus limiting the amount of debate and discussion of individual amendments.
The new Canadian programming expenditure mandates for foreign streaming services faced lawsuits from industry groups, which are pending in the Federal Court of Appeal. In June 2026, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller ordered the CRTC to review an expanded suite of expenditure requirements it announced in May 2026, arguing that they would result in increased operating costs that would be passed on to Canadian consumers.
History
On January 29, 2020, the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel issued a report to Minister of Heritage Steven Guilbeault and Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains, calling for reforms of Canada's broadcasting system to account for digital media. Among other reforms, the panel urgently recommended that any company "with significant Canadian revenues" that distributes or curates audio, audiovisual, or news content be required to register with and be regulated by the CRTC (which the review proposed to be renamed to the "Canadian Communications Commission" to signify its wider scope), and become obligated to make expenditures towards the creation of Canadian content (just as licensed radio and television broadcasters must do under the existing Broadcasting Act and CRTC policy). The CRTC does not currently regulate internet content.
The panel's urgent recommendations were incorporated into Bill C-10. The bill is the first in a series of three bills intended to address online platforms and their influence in Canada, alongside a proposed "online harms" bill that will seek to address online hate speech.Beck-Watt, Sebastian. 2021 April 15. "Federal Government Provides New Details of the Upcoming 'Online Harms' Legislation and Regulator ." Marks & Clerk. On November 3, 2020 the bill had its First Reading and went on to complete its Second Reading on February 16, 2021 and was referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC).
On June 1, 2022, a proposed amendment by the Conservatives to reinstate a clause excluding user-generated content from the scope of the bill, citing various concerns from critics and media outlets, was voted down by the House. The Liberals, with support of the Bloc, subsequently passed a motion of time allocation in order to limit debate of the bill (the first such motion in 20 years, and only the third overall) to five hours, after which the Heritage Committee was required to conclude its clause-by-clause review. Guilbeault cited "systematic obstruction" of the bill by Conservatives.
As a result of the effective "gag order", a number of amendments were voted on with no discussion or publication of the amendments permitted. On June 14, another motion was introduced to only allow one hour of debate for the amended bill when it returned to the House, and only 75 minutes for the third reading. On June 15, the aforementioned amendments were voided by Speaker Anthony Rota, for having been passed by the Heritage Committee after the five-hour period expired. During a late-night session on June 21, most of the voided amendments were reintroduced, and the bill was passed by the House of Commons 196–112 during its third reading. It awaited Senate approval, but was unable to do so before Parliament was dissolved for the 2021 federal election.
The bill was reintroduced in February 2022 as the Online Streaming Act, or Bill C-11 on February 2, 2022. Once again, in June 2022 debate was largely curtailed by providing only three, 120-minute sessions for a clause-by-clause review, after which all remaining proposed amendments were voted on with no discussion or publication permitted.
On May 20, 2022, CRTC Chair Ian Scott stated that the legislation would allow for user-generated content to be regulated but also stated that CRTC would not seek to do so. Minister of Heritage Pablo Rodriguez would later replace Scott with Vicky Eatrides as the new chair of the CRTC on January 5, 2023.
The bill was passed by the House of Commons 208–117 on June 21 during its third reading, and was sent to the Senate for review. Following the successful passage of the bill through the Senate, on March 7, 2023, Minister of Heritage Rodriguez and his caucus rejected a key amendment by the Senate that protected against the regulation of user-generated content. On April 27, 2023, the Senate voted 52–16 to approve other amendments that had been considered by the House of Commons, thus passing the bill. It received royal assent the same day.
Contents The bill consists primarily of amendments to the Broadcasting Act, along with consequential and related amendments to existing legislation such as Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, the Cannabis Act, the Copyright Act, and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act.
The exact regulatory policies would be determined by the CRTC based on its interpretation of the amended Broadcasting Act.
Broadcasting policies of Canada The broadcasting policy of Canada as defined by the Broadcasting Act is amended, stating that the broadcasting system must serve the needs and interests of all Canadians (including age groups, economic backgrounds, ethnic groups, disabilities, and gender identities among other categories) via programming and employment opportunities.
The CRTC is given the authority to impose conditions on broadcasters to uphold the broadcasting policy of Canada, including the production, presentation, and discoverability of Canadian content, accessibility of content to individuals with disabilities, and other regulatory matters similar to the current conditions of licence used to regulate broadcasters. Conditions would not be bound to licence terms.
The licensing framework for broadcasters is modified to remove the seven-year limit for fixed terms, and authorize the CRTC to issue indefinite licences. The CRTC will be prohibited from imposing any obligation on the industry that "does not contribute in a material way to implementing the broadcasting policy for Canada." The Act introduces monetary penalties for violating any regulation or order issued by the CRTC, with fines of up to C$25,000 for the first offence by an individual, and up to $10 million for the first offence by a corporation.
Online undertakings The Act is amended to include a definition of online undertakings, which are any internet service that broadcasts programs over the internet. The Act currently defines programs as "sounds or visual images, or a combination of sounds and visual images, that are intended to inform, enlighten or entertain, but does not include visual images, whether or not combined with sounds, that consist predominantly of alphanumeric text". The definition of broadcasting undertaking and broadcasting under the Act is also amended to include online transmission.
Foreign online undertakings are excluded from the requirement that all broadcasters be owned by Canadians, but are expected to "make the greatest practicable use of Canadian creative and other human resources", and "contribute in an equitable manner to strongly support the creation, production and presentation of Canadian programming".
Online undertakings are not required to be licensed by the CRTC. However, the Act gives the CRTC power to impose regulatory conditions and obligations on them as with all other broadcasters, such as giving prominence to Canadian content on their platforms (although the bill prohibits mandating that algorithms be used to do so), paying expenditures in support of Canadian productions, and being compelled to provide information to the Commission on such matters when requested.
The Act applies to programs on a social media service that are uploaded by "the provider of the service or the provider's affiliate, or the agent or mandatary of either of them", or otherwise covered under regulations created by the CRTC, making regulations that consider (Section 4.2(2)):
Whether the program, uploaded to an online undertaking that operates a social media service, generates revenue directly or indirectly. Whether the program has been broadcast via a broadcast undertaking that must be licensed or registered with the CRTC, and is not a social media service. Whether the program has been "assigned a unique identifier under an international standards system."
The regulations do not apply to programs that consist "only of visual images" (Section 4.2(3b)), and programs "of which neither the user of a social media service who uploads the program nor the owner or licensee of copyright in the program receives revenues" (Section 4.2(3a)).
A person is not considered to be carrying on a broadcasting undertaking for the purposes of the Act if (Section 3.2):