Canadian media leaders touched on some of the existential crises impacting the domestic sector on the second day of Content Canada.

Jocelyn Hamilton, president, television at Lionsgate Canada, said the local industry is “paralyzed” until the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) completes its multi-phased approach to modernize the broadcasting system.

“It’s not until streamers and broadcasters have the requirement to commission that we will see the value [of Bill C-11], in my opinion,” said Hamilton during a spotlight session on Lionsgate Canada.

The CRTC’s requirement for foreign-owned online undertakings to contribute 5% of annual domestic revenues to various funds went into effect on Sept. 1 How the funds will impact the sector is yet to be determined, with streamers not required to submit funds until the end of the broadcast year on Aug. 31, 2025.

Hamilton said the CRTC must speed up its consultation process, especially with a federal election looming over the next 12 or 13 months.

The definition of Canadian content is among the critical topics still to be explored in the consultations. Hamilton said Canada needs to be “progressive in our thinking about where we take the Canadian content definition” and “not get stuck in the ’90s.”

Her ideas include bringing authors and Canadian-owned IP, into the 10/10 CAVCO system, along with Canadian distributors like Lionsgate.

“The fact that we’re even debating [the definition of Canadian content] is absurd,” said CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Catherine Tait.

“If we lose the control and the ownership of our intellectual property, we have lost our cultural sovereignty,” said Tait in a conversation with Shaftesbury founder and chairman Christina Jennings.

Tait said “public broadcasting is in a very, very vulnerable situation” as she approaches the end her tenure at the head of CBC/Radio-Canada on Jan. 2, 2025. She said she has not been successful in her “call to action” to Canadians to fight calls to defund the national public broadcaster.

“We know that 70 to 75% of Canadians consider CBC the most trusted source of news… and yet Canadians [are not] jumping out of their seats saying save CBC,” said Tait. “That sense of urgency is not there and perhaps my successor and the others that I leave behind will take that up and be more successful.”

Pictured (L-R): Jocelyn Hamilton and Catherine Tait