Budget 2026 Strengthens News Funding, Cuts CBC Dollars, and Leaves CanCon Hanging

Budget 2026 strengthens news funding, cuts CBC dollars, and leaves CanCon hanging

(AI illustration) November 7, 2026 Finance minister François-Philippe Champagne’s Budget 2026 proposes substantial cultural spending including greater support for privately owned news media. Here is a rundown, beginning with news journalism. The five-year federal journalist salary subsidy to news organizations introduced in 2020 has been extended yet again, to 2031/32. The Journalism Labour Tax Credit‘s … Continue reading Budget 2026 strengthens…

From Making Web Giants Pay to Paying Media Giants: Budget 2026 Replaces the Government’s Internet Platform Strategy With $1.5 Billion in Taxpayer Dollars for Culture and News

The government’s Budget 2026 made culture a major focus, with headlines trumpeting billions in spending and a potential new personal income tax credit for creators. One aspect that should not get lost is a major reversal in how the government regulates large Internet platforms. For most of the past decade, the government’s approach to Internet platforms rested on a single idea: making web giants pay. That approach underpinned both the Online Streaming Act, which required streamers such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney to fund Canadian content, and the Online News Act, which required Google and Meta to fund Canadian journalism by paying for linking to the news. Budget 2026 confirms that the strategy has been largely abandoned, replaced by taxpayers footing the bill with roughly $1.5 billion in new or renewed support for culture and news in this budget alone, including $600 million in streaming-related funding budgeted for only one year, half a billion in journalism labour tax credits, most notably an extension to broadcasters such as Bell, Rogers, Corus and Quebecor, a permanent doubling of the Local Journalism Initiative, and another two-year renewal for CBC.