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TORONTO — Friends of Canadian Media welcomes Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to walk away from a trade agreement that failed to respect Canada’s economic interests and national sovereignty.

No deal is better than a bad deal.

The Prime Minister was right to reject American demands that would have constrained Canada’s ability to govern itself and make decisions in the interests of Canadians.

But we should also be clear about how Canada arrived here; a bad deal became more likely when Canada began offering concessions before receiving anything meaningful in return. The Carney government abandoned the Digital Services Tax specifically to advance negotiations with the United States. Ottawa said it was doing so “in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement.”

That arrangement never materialized.

Then, after an extensive public process, the independent CRTC required large foreign streaming services to contribute meaningfully to Canadian programming – while still imposing greater obligations on Canadian broadcasters. Rather than support its regulator, Ottawa announced that it would direct the CRTC to reconsider that framework and committed $600 million annually in public money to replace support that would otherwise have come from industry.

And throughout the final stages of negotiations, troubling reports suggested that the United States was seeking concessions on the Online News Act. Canadians still deserve to know whether weakening or repealing that legislation was ever contemplated.

So when the Prime Minister says Canadian cultural policy was never on the table, the record requires a more difficult conversation. The reality is that Canada had already begun giving ground.

The collapse of these negotiations creates an opportunity. The rationale for making unilateral concessions to American technology and media companies has collapsed along with the negotiations themselves. Canada should use this moment to reset its approach around a simple principle:

Companies that profit from Canada should play by fair Canadian rules.

Canadian broadcasters, publishers and media companies employ Canadians, invest here, pay taxes here and accept Canadian regulatory obligations. Their multinational, trillion-dollar foreign competitors should not receive preferential treatment simply because they have greater political influence in Washington – or the Prime Minister’s office.

That means revisiting the decision to eliminate the Digital Services Tax. The tax was abandoned to facilitate a broader agreement with the United States.

There is now no broader agreement.

Canadian taxpayers should not be expected to shoulder obligations from which multinational technology companies were excused in pursuit of a deal that never came.

It also means respecting the CRTC. The CRTC is an independent Canadian regulator created by Parliament to make decisions in the public interest. Its streaming framework followed an extensive public process and concluded that large foreign streaming services should make meaningful – but still lower – contributions than Canadian broadcasters toward Canadian and Indigenous programming.

That is not discrimination against foreign companies.

It is equitable treatment for Canadian ones.

The government should allow the CRTC to do the job Parliament assigned to it.

And, finally, Canada must defend the Online News Act.

Journalism is democratic infrastructure. The laws Canada adopts to sustain Canadian journalism cannot become bargaining chips offered to foreign governments on behalf of some of the richest corporations in the world.

For too long, Canadian companies have been asked to compete uphill. Canadian media companies employ Canadians, invest here, pay taxes here and support Canadian culture and journalism. Their foreign competitors increasingly reach the same audiences without carrying comparable responsibilities.

When Canada tries to correct that imbalance, enormous U.S. corporations should not be able to enlist Washington to pressure our government for relief. Nor should Canadian taxpayers subsidize their competitive advantage by replacing private industry contributions with public money. That is not a level playing field.

Prime Minister Carney was right to say that the United States asked too much and offered too little. He was right to walk away.

But cultural sovereignty cannot be invoked only when negotiations collapse. It must guide the decisions Canada makes along the way. The same resolve Canada brings to defending our steel, aluminum, automobiles, agriculture, energy and the French language must extend to the institutions through which Canadians tell our stories and understand our country.

That means taxing multinational technology companies fairly.

It means requiring foreign streamers to contribute meaningfully to Canadian storytelling.

It means defending Canadian journalism and the Online News Act.

Canada does not need special treatment for Canadian companies. We need an end to special treatment for American ones.

The Prime Minister has asked Canadians to build a stronger, more sovereign and more resilient country. Friends of Canadian Media supports him in that ambition. Now we are asking him to apply it to Canadian media and culture.

Prime Minister Carney: be the Canadian champion this moment requires.

Defend our cultural sovereignty. Defend Canadian journalism. Defend Canadian creators. And make every company that profits from Canada play by fair Canadian rules.

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Friends of Canadian Media is a non-partisan citizens’ movement that stands up for Canadian voices in Canadian media – from public broadcasting to news, entertainment, culture, and online civil discourse, we work to protect and defend Canada’s rich cultural sovereignty and the healthy democracy it sustains. We are a not-for-profit organization that receives no government funding or donations from political parties or CRTC-regulated entities.