The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday said the federal government will not impose a 5-per-cent tax on broadband Internet services as a way of "levelling the playing field" in Canada's rapidly evolving news industry. A Canadian Press dispatch to the Post says that the Liberal members of the Commons heritage committee released a long-awaited report Thursday with 20 proposals aimed at helping the slumping media industry adapt to rapid technological change and shifting consumer habits.
The majority report calls on Ottawa to apply the tax, levied on broadband Internet providers, to high-speed Internet services that allow for the streaming of music, movies and TV shows.
Liberal MPs on the committee tried to sell the idea as creating more fairness, since the tax is already applied to satellite and cable TV services.
"We're not going to be raising taxes on the middle class through an Internet broadband tax," Trudeau said in Montreal. The committee spent 15 months studying the ailing Canadian media industry, which has been steadily losing advertising revenue and market shares to on-line giants such as Facebook, Netflix and Google.
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