The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that last year, Netflix said it would increase its original programming lineup to more than 1,000 hours in 2017. The Globe's John Doyle writes that is a lot of TV content which costs an awful lot of money. It just got a helping hand from the Canadian taxpayer. The promise that Netflix will spend a minimum of $500-million over five years on the production and distribution of Canadian movies and TV shows is the attention-grabbing ploy to attract support and positive attention for Heritage Minister Melanie Joly's long-promised, much-talked-about new game plan for backing Canadian creative content in this digital age. It is only a sweet deal for Netflix. Its estimated content budget for this year alone is $6-billion (U.S.). There is nothing in Ms. Joly's proposals to suggest there will be less subsidy for the making of Canadian TV drama and comedy, whether by the CBC or commercial broadcasters. Canadian TV viewers sit down to watch a new Canadian drama that has Netflix money behind it and suffer through the usual array of commercials, while Netflix customers in the United States or other countries sit down to binge-watch the same shows, commercial-free.