GAFA TAXATION: JUSTIN TRUDEAU WANTS TO GIVE NETFLIX ANOTHER GIFT

Services such as Netflix will be spared from the new digital services tax proposed by the Trudeau government.

OTTAWA — New Democrats are condemning the Liberals' inconsistency in wanting to exempt streaming platforms from the promised 3% tax on the revenues of web giants.

"It's cowardly," says Alexandre Boulerice, deputy leader of the NDP and MP for Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie. “The Liberals have accustomed us to half measures and to their lack of leadership. This is the last straw and their inaction on this issue is jeopardizing the survival of Quebec culture and all Francophone culture across Canada," he said. "Our French-language cultural content producers are not on an equal footing with giants like Netflix. The Liberals are suffocating Quebec and Canadian audiovisual production by refusing to act."

In their latest budget, the Liberals confirmed that their new 3% tax on digital services will only apply to web giants whose business model is to monetize data collected from their customers and sell advertising space. Thus, only companies like Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon will be subject to this new tax.

"The Liberals had a golden opportunity to bring all the web giants to heel and instead they are continuing to give gifts to multinationals like Netflix," said Peter Julian, Finance Critic and MP for New Westminster-Burnaby. "These foreign companies already have an advantage over Canadian companies and they threaten our local cultural content producers. "

New Democrats will continue to fight to ensure that all web giants pay their fair share and that our local audio-visual production industry can flourish once again.