CRTC’s new definition of Canadian stories fails to reflect Canada

Stories about the world and our role in it do not qualify

November 18, 2025 — Today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released its revised definition of Canadian content – the rules that determine whose creative content can benefit from promotion and funding intended to encourage the creation and consumption of Canadian cultural content, and whose content may not. For the first time, the CRTC is awarding a single bonus point based on works featuring Canadian characters, as described in point 115 of today’s ruling. However, this point for telling Canadian stories will only be granted to works entirely set within Canada, in which all lead characters are Canadian.

"Today the CRTC failed to recognize Canada,” said OpenMedia’s Executive Director Matt Hatfield. “Every Canadian’s life is deeply intertwined with the lives of non-citizens. Many of us started our journey in this country as students or non-citizens; many of us have friends, family, confidants and sparring partners spread around the world, including in the U.S.. Yet any story that features these ties cannot receive a point for being a Canadian story. Canadians told the CRTC through this consultation that we want stories that represent our lives as they actually are to be recognized as Canadian. Today’s decision does just the opposite; by restricting story-based recognition on such narrow terms, it encourages the telling of narrow, nostalgic, and fundamentally unrealistic stories about what Canada is and the lives we live within it.”

To be recognized as Canadian content, which qualifies a work for Canadian Media Fund support and allows it to be broadcast to fill Canadian content quotas, a work must receive at least 60% of default points available for a type of production, out of a total of 10-14 points. Until today, no points were awarded for featuring recognizably Canadian settings or characters, only for creative and production roles. In today’s CRTC decision, a single bonus point will now be awarded for works featuring Canadian settings or characters - but only when all settings and all lead characters are Canadian or Indigenous.

More than 2,300 people in Canada shared their thoughts with the CRTC on how they wanted to see CanCon redefined in January 2025. Their input overwhelmingly backed the CRTC’s own polling, which showed significant majorities of Canadians believe clear Canadian settings and characters should define Canadian stories more than back-end production roles.

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