Canada to Eliminate Base Contribution on Foreign Streamers, Replace With C$600 Million a Year in Government Funding

A funding design meant to replace the declining 5% BDU levy with foreign streaming money has been withdrawn under trade pressure. The CRTC’s May package must be redrawn, with implications for the AVMSD review and Korea’s levy debate

Canada will scrap the base content contribution imposed on foreign streaming services including Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+, and replace the money with government spending. In a July 17 letter to the Federal Court of Appeal, Michael Morris, senior general counsel for litigation at Canada’s Department of Justice, informed the court that the government intends to eliminate the base contribution requirement on streaming services and to provide government funding in its place. The rate increase alone does not explain how it got here.

Canada’s content funding has run for almost two decades on cable, satellite and IPTV distributors paying at least 5% of broadcasting revenue into production funds, and that money has been shrinking since 2013-14 as subscribers cut the cord. Moving the gap onto foreign streamers was the practical purpose of the Online Streaming Act. When the CRTC’s May package eased obligations on smaller domestic players through thresholds and allocation flexibility while tripling the burden on foreign ones, the file stopped being cultural policy and became trade policy.

CMF funding structure and the declining BDU 5% levy

The Canada Media Fund was created in 2010 as a public-private partnership between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the cable industry. It has two funding legs: an annual federal contribution, and mandatory payments under CRTC regulation requiring broadcasting distribution undertakings — cable, satellite and IPTV — to direct no less than 5% of their Canadian broadcasting revenue to Canadian programming. Historically that private leg supplied roughly half the fund.

The problem is the base those 5% sit on. Government records show BDU revenues have been declining since 2013-14 as cable and satellite subscription revenue falls. In Budget 2018 Ottawa committed up to $172 million over five years to hold CMF funding at 2016-17 levels, adding $17 million in 2018-19, $23.5 million in 2019-20 and $26.3 million in 2020-21. Backfilling the shortfall with tax money has been the pattern for eight years; the CMF program budget for 2025-26 stands at $346 million, down from prior years.

Production data shows what the funding fight was aimed at. According to Profile 2025, the Canadian Media Producers Association’s annual report released on April 20, Canadian film and television production volume reached C$10.17 billion in fiscal 2024/25, up 4.6%, contributing C$11.72 billion to GDP and supporting 181,360 jobs.

The growth came from foreign location and service work: FLS production rose 9.5% to C$5.32 billion, while Canadian television production fell 2.0% to C$3.16 billion and theatrical feature film fell 3.2% to C$460 million. Canadian content production declined for a second consecutive year.

In share terms, a 53%-to-47% split favouring Canadian content in 2015/16 has inverted to 40%-to-60% in 2024/25. As of 2022/23, global studios and streamers supplied 12% of the financing for Canadian-owned content — among the largest private sources, against 7% from the CMF and 2% from Telefilm Canada. That is the basis for the MPA’s claim that American studios and streamers are the top foreign investors in Canada’s screen ecosystem, and equally the point at which Canada became dependent on foreign money for its own content.

Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO of the CMPA, said when the report was released in April that the investments promised under the Online Streaming Act would lift Canadian content production and reverse the recent decline. Three months later that premise is gone. Polling by Pollara Strategic Insights for the CMPA found 83% of Canadians support the Online Streaming Act; policy moved toward the trade pressure anyway.

Table 1: Canadian screen production, fiscal 2024/25

The Online Streaming Act and its 5% base contribution transplanted that structure. If cable operators pay 5%, streamers pay 5% — a symmetry argument. What the transplant never settled was which expenditures count as compliance, who owns the rights to what gets made, and whether foreign contributors can draw on the funds. Domestic players largely get credit for Canadian programming spending they already do; foreign services mostly face new spending. That asymmetry, built in at the start, later supplied the substance of the discrimination claim.

The May 21 CRTC package: CPE at 25% and 15%

What the CRTC issued in May was not a single rate but three linked decisions implementing the modernized Broadcasting Act: BRP 2026-96, revising the Canadian Programming Expenditure framework; BRP 2026-95, establishing a discoverability framework and the Services of Exceptional Importance Fund; and BRP 2026-98, imposing closed captioning obligations on online streaming undertakings.

Two payment mechanisms sit behind all of this. A base contribution is cash paid into designated funds as a percentage of revenue — effectively a levy. A Canadian Programming Expenditure obligation credits what a service actually spends making or acquiring Canadian programming. The May decision folded both into one rate.

BRP 2026-96 applies CPE obligations only to ownership groups with $25 million or more in annual Canadian broadcasting revenue; everyone below is exempt. There are two rates: 25% for Canadian broadcasting ownership groups and 15% for unaffiliated online groups, with the foreign 15% inclusive of the 5% base contribution set in BRP 2024-121-1. The BDUs’ own 5% is untouched.

Groups above $100 million also face allocation rules telling them where the money must go. Large Canadian groups must direct set portions to the SEIF, enhanced partnerships, news, original first-run French-language programming and official-language minority community programming. Large unaffiliated online groups must allocate to the 5% base contribution, the SEIF, French-language programming — half of it original first-run through enhanced partnerships — and OLMC programming. Between $25 million and $100 million, domestic groups allocate freely and online groups need only make the 5% base contribution.

On paper the domestic 25% exceeds the foreign 15%, but the two rates measure different things. A Canadian broadcaster already makes and airs Canadian programming, so that spending counts toward its 25% and little new money leaves the building. Netflix has to create Canada-directed spending before it can fill even 15%. One is a way of counting money already spent; the other is a bill for money not yet spent. Add the $25 million exemption and mid-tier flexibility and the effective burden moves from smaller domestic operators to the largest foreign ones. The Commission framed this as reducing the overall regulatory burden.

Table 2: The CRTC’s May 2026 decision package

MPA statement and the Section 301 bill

Motion Picture Association chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said the day of the decision that the MPA strongly condemned the CRTC’s move to impose unprecedented, unnecessary and discriminatory investment obligations on American streaming services operating in Canada. The association argued the framework unfairly targets global streamers with requirements that directly violate Canada’s obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, then under renegotiation amid the tariff war. American studios and streamers are already the largest foreign investors in Canada’s film and TV ecosystem, the MPA said, and the decision triples the cost of doing business there, fuelling inflation in the market and making further investment and innovation less attractive.

The response did not stop at statements. The MPA had already backed the Republican-led Protecting American Streaming and Innovation Act in March. Introduced on March 19 by Representative Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, the bill would launch a Section 301 investigation under the Trade Act of 1974 into whether Canada’s implementation of the Online Streaming Act discriminates against or burdens American commerce, and direct the U.S. Trade Representative to retaliate — potentially with tariffs — if it does. Co-sponsors include Greg Steube, Nicole Malliotakis, Nathaniel Moran, Mike Kelly and Carol Miller; the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Digital Media Association and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation joined the MPA in support.

The day after the CRTC decision, the Streaming Innovation Alliance wrote to House Ways and Means chairman Jason Smith urging passage of the bill. Under the OSA, the group argued, American streamers must subsidize their Canadian competitors, make large annual investments in Canadian programming, and elevate Canadian programming over American content regardless of consumer preference or demand.

Canadian Association of Broadcasters president Kevin Desjardins had called the U.S. bill, when it was introduced in March, another in a long line of tricks and machinations from foreign streamers seeking to keep taking billions of Canadian dollars out of the economy while gutting the domestic media industry, warning that shelving the Online Streaming Act under American pressure would be a crushing blow to the cultural sector. Marc Miller, the minister responsible for cultural policy, responded to the ruling by distancing himself from his own regulator, saying he was reviewing the decision and carefully assessing its impacts.

Federal Court status request and the Justice Department letter

Morris’s letter was filed at the direction of Justice David Stratas, who is overseeing the challenges to the base contribution brought by Amazon, Apple, Spotify and the Motion Picture Association-Canada. On June 29 the court noted it had seen press reports about the possibility that the Online Streaming Act and the measures made under it might be amended or revoked, demanded a status report, and said that if the basis of the proceedings disappeared or fundamentally changed it would call for submissions on mootness. Base contribution payments have been stayed since December 2024. With the government’s intention now on the record, mootness looks like the likely destination for litigation running since 2024.

The letter goes further than the government has been willing to say in public. Miller’s office told CBC only that a new policy direction is in development, as announced in June, and did not say whether the elimination is permanent or temporary. Desjardins said the language does not align with what the association has heard from government and that it would be premature to draw conclusions from an administrative communication between the court and one of the respondents; based on his exchanges with officials, the long-term intent appears to be that streamers generating revenue in Canada contribute back in some form, and in his view there is no way to eliminate contributions for foreign services while keeping them for domestic ones. Miller’s office has also said the level “won’t be zero,” that the government will not repeal the Online Streaming Act, and that the coming direction will give greater flexibility to those contributing to the broadcasting system.

Table 3: Timeline of the Online Streaming Act contribution regime

The character of the C$600 million in government funding

The alternative announced on June 3 is C$600 million a year for the audio and audiovisual sector. The Wall Street Journal reported the previously announced support for music, television and film at roughly $430 million. The moment that money replaces a contribution, industry funding changes character: from a revenue-linked levy to a line item that must clear budget scrutiny every year. The pattern the CMF has followed since 2018 — taxpayers covering an eroding private leg — becomes the whole structure.

Hélène Messier, francophone co-chair of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, said the government must permanently guarantee the funding the audiovisual and music sectors expected under the base contribution — no less than $200 million annually by her estimate — and that replacing the amounts at stake is not enough, because the money must grow in step with streaming revenues. Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO of the Canadian Media Producers Association, said the industry is still waiting on specifics and that Ottawa must require foreign streamers to reinvest a portion of what they earn from Canadian audiences. The Wire Report estimated the 15% rate would have moved roughly C$2 billion a year into the Canadian media ecosystem; C$600 million does not fill that space.

Political criticism came from both directions. NDP MP Heather McPherson said the Liberals are cancelling fees on U.S. companies and forcing Canadians to subsidize the American tech and media firms that compete with Canadian media, calling it appeasement of President Trump and his tech backers. Conservative culture critic Rachael Thomas, whose party opposes the CRTC’s rules, said the Liberals are letting American streamers off the hook while making Canadians pay a C$600-million subsidy.

Trade talks and the digital services tax precedent

Ottawa changed course after Washington identified the Online Streaming Act as a trade irritant, and there was a precedent. In June 2025 Canada dropped its digital services tax and resumed negotiations after President Trump halted talks, calling the tax a direct and blatant attack on his country. The streaming contribution has now travelled the same road. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said recently that Washington has not seen much movement from Canada, and that a country does not get credit for doing something bad and then undoing it.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc spent this week in Washington as Trump threatened new tariffs on Canadian goods. On Tuesday he attended a Washington Nationals–Toronto Blue Jays game staged as “Canada-U.S. Friendship Day,” sponsored by Google, Netflix and Amazon. Asked about the streamer decision on Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the decision was made two months ago with a focus on affordability: most Canadians subscribe to one or two of these services and the cost adds up.

Scope of the fallout

The base contribution is not a free-standing line item. It is a component inside the foreign 15%, and it appears by name in the allocation rules for large groups. Take the component out and the Commission has to recalculate what fills the 15% and rewrite the allocation rules from scratch. The online sector’s SEIF contribution and the implementation conditions of the discoverability framework get pulled into the same proceeding. Deleting one clause becomes redrawing the whole package.

The funding gap shows up first in the allocation rules. What the May decisions compelled large operators to fund were exactly the categories the market does not finance on its own: news, original first-run French-language programming, official-language minority community content, services of exceptional importance. Replacing a levy with tax money can restore a total while losing the mandated allocation. That is why Messier demanded both a permanent guarantee and indexation to streaming revenue.

The regulator’s standing also changes. The government is attempting to unwind a specific decision of an independent regulator through a policy direction, an instrument whose legal fitness for that job is open to question. Whether or not it works, operators have less reason to treat a CRTC decision as final. The lesson on offer is that combining litigation with trade pressure buys enough time for a political solution — and the Commission enters the next proceeding with less leverage than it had in this one.

If the litigation ends in mootness, no judicial ruling on the legality of the contribution survives. Nearly two years of proceedings close without precedent, and the same questions resurface from scratch when the CRTC reopens its process under the new direction. As Michael Geist notes, that direction must clear Canada Gazette Part 1, consultation with the Commission, tabling in both chambers and a minimum 30-day comment period — the previous direction took five months from draft to force — leaving the framework promised in 2023 years away.

It travels across borders too. Analysts note the U.S. bill is drafted to reach beyond Canada to markets with comparable frameworks, including Australia, Brazil and Israel. With the AVMSD under review this year, Canada’s retreat becomes material for those arguing for relaxation. Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ filed formal appeals against France’s diversity sub-quota in early July — immediately after the combination of litigation and trade pressure proved itself in Canada.

European investment obligations: France 20%, Italy 16%, Germany 8%

Europe moved the other way over the same period. France’s 2021 decree requires streamers to invest 20% of French revenue in French and European films and series, with a diversity sub-quota covering animation, documentary and live performance added from January 1 this year. Writing in Le Monde, Netflix France content vice president Pauline Dauvin argued the rule doubled subscription services’ obligation in those categories overnight.

Italy requires 16%, and on May 27 the German cabinet approved the draft Media Services Investment Obligation Act (MedienInvestVG) requiring streamers targeting Germany to invest 8% of German revenue in European works: at least 60% to new production rather than licensing, at least 80% to works with a German cultural imprint, at least 70% to independent producers, with the existing film levy fully offset. The AVMSD separately requires 30% European works in catalogues.

Against a global norm near 4%, Canada’s 15% was an outlier — but the mechanism mattered more than the rate. The French and German model specifies what must be invested and how it must be allocated, and offsets existing levies. Canada mixed a fund payment with an expenditure credit and put domestic spending that already exists on the same table as foreign spending that must be created. The second design is far more exposed to a discrimination claim.

Table 4: Funding obligations on foreign streaming services

Outlook: the direction process and annual CUSMA reviews

The first thing to watch is the Gazette text. The government plans to publish the new direction for consultation in Canada Gazette Part 1 within weeks, after which it must consult the Commission, table the draft in both chambers and allow at least 30 days for comment. The previous direction took five months from June draft to late-November force, which makes even completion this year tight. Once finalized, the CRTC still has to unwind its May decision and reopen the CPE rates and allocation requirements — and any outcome invites fresh challenges. The funding framework contemplated when the Online Streaming Act passed in 2023 remains years out.

The trade environment has shifted toward recurring pressure. Rather than extending CUSMA in its current form to 2042, the United States opted for annual reviews. The agreement itself remains in force until 2036 and can be renewed for a further 16 years at any time; LeBlanc signalled support for a 16-year renewal in a June 1 letter to USTR Greer and Mexican Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. After the July 1 trilateral joint review meeting he said Canada’s priority is resolving U.S. sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber. Canada was not announced as a participant in the third round held in Mexico City the week of July 20. Cultural funding rules are now a chip in a negotiation about metals and cars — and under annual reviews, the same demands renew every year.

The direction can land in one of three shapes: full elimination with the C$600 million treasury line fixed in its place; revival at a lower rate with compliance flexibility, consistent with Miller’s repeated line that the level “won’t be zero”; or, as Desjardins argues is inevitable, a broader reset in which the domestic 25% CPE is adjusted alongside the foreign requirement. The third path turns the May package from a single amended clause into a rewrite of the whole rate structure.

The indicators to track: when the direction appears in the Gazette and how binding its text is; whether the Federal Court of Appeal declares the cases moot; the CMF’s funding level for 2026/27; when the CRTC reopens its proceedings; whether the Protecting American Streaming and Innovation Act moves in Ways and Means; and how the Canadian precedent is cited in the AVMSD review.

What this means for Korean players

The decision Canada took in May is not somebody else’s problem. The bill now before Korea’s National Assembly is built almost the same way.

The amendment to the Framework Act on Broadcasting Communications Development, tabled on May 13 by People Power Party lawmaker Choi Hyoung-doo, does two things at once. It widens the levy base to cover streaming services such as Netflix, internet news services such as Naver and Kakao, and large programming providers with revenue above 300 billion won — while cutting the levy ceiling on terrestrial and general programming broadcasters’ advertising revenue from 6% to 3% and granting reductions for public-interest contribution including production spending and donations. New burdens on foreign services, relief for domestic ones. At home it is explained as restoring fairness; abroad, it is exactly the combination the MPA cited when it accused Canada of violating the USMCA. The sentence “foreign services start paying and domestic ones pay less” translates, in trade grammar, into a discriminatory measure. Who absorbs the net increase when base expansion and domestic relief are designed together is the first question a trade review asks — and it has to be answered while the bill is still being written.

The resemblance in funding structure runs deeper. Just as Canada’s 5% BDU levy lost its base to cord-cutting, Korea’s development fund is fully exposed to shrinking pay-TV and terrestrial revenue. Cable operators’ levy payments reached 168% of operating profit in 2024, and the rate has been fixed at 1.5% since it was unified in 2017. The Broadcasting, Media and Communications Commission has resisted immediate relief on timing grounds while commissioning research through the Korea Communications Agency on redesigning the levy base and rates by business category and diversifying revenue. The problem statement — the old source is drying up, so find a new one — is identical to Canada’s.

The weakness lies in the mechanism, not the rate. What broke in Canada was not the number 5% but the questions left open: which spending counts as compliance, who owns the rights to what gets made, and whether foreign services that pay in can draw on the funds. Germany’s MedienInvestVG did the opposite, fixing a 60% share for new production, 80% for works with a German cultural imprint and 70% for independent producers inside the obligation, and offsetting the existing film levy in full. The difference is that it left no ambiguity. If Korea asks foreign services for a funding commitment, writing an independent-producer share and IP ownership into the obligation will do more for the production ecosystem — and is easier to defend in trade terms — than enlarging the fund.

Trade risk also has to be booked as a cost of regulatory design. Canada built the regime, litigated for two years and withdrew it, and as Greer made clear, got nothing in return at the table — a repeat of the 2025 digital services tax episode. The U.S. bill links investigation to retaliation as a near-automatic sequence and is not limited to Canada. The prevailing industry view in Korea, that levying the development fund on global streaming services would trigger trade friction while the Trump administration treats regulation of U.S. platforms as a non-tariff barrier, follows the same logic. Without legal durability and a trade defence prepared at the drafting stage, the path repeats.

Where the allocation rules sit is the other open question. Canada bound large operators to fund news, original first-run French-language programming and minority-language content — areas the market does not finance — and lost that compulsion when the framework itself came apart. In Korea, funding for regional broadcasting, documentary and independent production likewise depends on mandated allocation rather than on the size of the pot. If the debate proceeds on totals alone, the Canadian ending applies: the moment the money becomes treasury money, the allocation mandate disappears.

The production data carries a separate warning. While Canada’s foreign location and service share climbed to 60%, domestic content production fell for two straight years. Total foreign money rose, but so did the share of work that leaves no intellectual property behind. Korea moves the same way as global platform commissions grow. Where the rights sit, and what share independent producers hold, will outlast any argument about the size of a fund.

Public support does not guarantee policy durability either. 83% of Canadians backed the Online Streaming Act, and the framework still entered withdrawal under trade pressure. Once funding moves to the treasury, it faces budget scrutiny every year. In Korea, the 2026 budget process brought a dispute over cuts to development-fund support for Arirang International Broadcasting and Gugak Broadcasting, with regional and small broadcaster content funding set at 5.46 billion won. Money not tied to revenue moves with the political calendar rather than with the industry.

The practical constraints on widening the base rhyme as well. In Korea, the argument that loss-making domestic streaming services cannot absorb a new levy has pushed the discussion toward large programming providers and portals. Canada also failed to move any burden back onto domestic players, and the resulting concentration on foreign services became the target of the discrimination claim. As the U.S. shift to annual CUSMA reviews shows, trade demands do not end with a single response. Korea should assume digital and platform regulation will be a recurring item in bilateral talks and build a standing case with evidence rather than reacting once.

Finally, Korea is both a rule-maker and a rule-taker. France’s 20%, Italy’s 16%, Germany’s 8% and the AVMSD’s 30% quota are not only burdens on global streamers; they are financing channels for European co-production and local partnership.

Where a streamer has to meet an obligation, a Korean producer structuring a co-production with a European independent can count toward it. With German legislation and the AVMSD review both moving this year, this is the window to confirm the qualifying conditions and line up partners.

Canada spent two years and got nothing. There is no reason to walk the same road.

Table 5: Summary for Korean operators and policymakers

Sources

· The Hollywood Reporter, Etan Vlessing, “Major Studios Slam Canada For Slapping ‘Discriminatory Investment Obligations’ on U.S. Streamers,” May 21, 2026 — https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/major-studios-canada-us-streamers-discriminatory-investment-1236603995/

· The Hollywood Reporter, “Hollywood Studios Back GOP Effort to Dismantle Canada’s Online Streaming Act,” March 2026 — https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hollywood-studios-u-s-bill-1236542300/

· Fasken, “The CRTC Releases Three New Policy Decisions Designed to Modernize Canada’s Broadcasting Framework,” June 2, 2026 (structure of BRP 2026-95/96/98) — https://www.fasken.com/en/knowledge/2026/06/the-crtc-releases-three-new-policy-decisions

· CBC News / The Canadian Press, Anja Karadeglija, “Ottawa plans to end ‘Netflix tax,’ replace with public Canadian content funding: document,” July 29, 2026 — https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cancon-online-streaming-act-crtc-9.7289223

· The Wall Street Journal, Paul Vieira, “Canada to Cease Compelling U.S. Streamers to Help Finance Domestic Broadcasting,” July 28, 2026 — https://www.wsj.com/business/media/canada-to-cease-compelling-u-s-streamers-to-help-finance-domestic-broadcasting-3f969061

· The Wire Report, “Ottawa to scrap base contribution requirements for U.S. streamers,” July 28, 2026 — https://www.thewirereport.ca/2026/07/28/breaking-ottawa-to-scrap-all-contribution-requirements-for-u-s-streamers/

· Michael Geist, “Starting Over: Court Filing Confirms the CRTC’s Streamer Contribution Decisions Are Dead With a Full Online Streaming Act Reset to Come,” July 29, 2026 — https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2026/07/starting-over-court-filing-confirms-the-crtcs-streamer-contribution-decisions-are-dead-with-a-full-online-streaming-act-reset-to-come/

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· CP24 / The Canadian Press, “Ottawa to ‘eliminate’ streamers’ CanCon payments, provide government funding instead,” July 29, 2026 — https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2026/07/29/ottawa-to-eliminate-streamers-cancon-payments-provide-government-funding-instead/

· Canadian Heritage, “Question Period Note: Canada Media Fund” (BDU 5% contributions, decline since 2013-14, federal top-ups) — https://search.open.canada.ca/qpnotes/record/pch,PCH-2020-QP-00081

· Canadian Heritage, “Evaluation of the Canada Media Fund Program 2014-15 to 2018-19” — https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/corporate/publications/evaluations/evaluation-canada-media-fund-2014-2019.html

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· CRTC Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2026-96 (CPE framework) — https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2026/2026-96.htm

· CRTC Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2026-95 (discoverability and SEIF) — https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2026/2026-95.htm

· CRTC Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2024-121-1 (base contribution) — https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2024/2024-121-1.htm

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· CMPA, Profile 2025 Summary (production volume and FLS share) — https://cmpa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Profile_2025_Summary_ENG_FINAL.pdf

· MPA Canada, “Driving Economic Growth” (foreign investment in production) — https://www.mpa-canada.org/what-we-do/driving-economic-growth/

· White & Case, “USMCA 2026 Joint Review: United States declines to extend Agreement, triggering annual reviews,” July 2026 — https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/usmca-2026-joint-review-united-states-declines-extend-agreement-triggering-annual

· Global Affairs Canada, “Statement by Minister LeBlanc following trilateral CUSMA joint review meeting,” July 1, 2026 — https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2026/07/statement-by-minister-leblanc-following-trilateral-cusma-joint-review-meeting.html

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· Money Today, “Commission moves to redesign development fund levy rates — will OTT be included?,” May 25, 2026 — https://www.mt.co.kr/tech/2026/05/25/2026052114063968110

· Dailian, “Commission: immediate levy cut difficult this year; OTT and portals under review to fill the gap,” April 22, 2026 — https://www.dailian.co.kr/news/view/1636675