Building community by ensuring streaming services don’t continue to get a free ride

Whenever I see old friends, the same thing happens. After the hugs and handshakes, or maybe elbow bumps, we get down to the real business of reconnecting. We start catching up — recounting the stories of our lives since the last time we were together, sharing news about our families and the latest on what’s happening in our communities.

 

We share photos, sometimes videos. We find common ground. And occasionally we disagree, as friends sometimes do. Through it all, however, our ties are strengthened and our connections grow. All communities need this. It’s how communities are built.

As a country, that community is built largely by the stories we tell in TV shows and movies, and through the stories told in local and national news broadcasts. Yet that is increasingly threatened, as streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon drown out Canadian broadcasters, without paying their fair share for the development of Canadian stories.

Building a national community was the inspiration behind the Broadcasting Act back in 1936. Canada was big and growing, and its people were moving around to find work in unprecedented ways. New technologies, such as radio and cinema, were taking off, telling the stories that held our communities together as much as they informed and entertained us.

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Randy Kitt is the director of media at Unifor.