Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the trade dispute with the United States at the Davie Shipyard in Lévis, Que., on Monday.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
A film about a man’s decision to seek medical aid in dying may not, at first blush, seem like the kind of movie that would draw summer crowds to the theatre. But the French-language dramedy 125, rue des Malaises stands out as a Canadian box office success in a movie season dominated by the latest Spider-Man instalment and The Odyssey.
Director Louis Bélanger’s surprisingly entertaining film has plenty going for it, including its cast of well-known Quebec stars and luscious lakeside setting. Released on the same day as The Odyssey, it finished second at the Quebec box office on its opening weekend behind Christopher Nolan’s Hollywood blockbuster and has raked in more than $2.8-million since.
Still, homegrown cultural feats such as 125, rue des Malaises have become much rarer in the streaming age. Bilingual young Quebeckers are far less likely than their older peers to watch conventional French-language television programs. They gravitate toward the same foreign streaming platforms as other Canadians. This has created fears in Quebec’s cultural sector that fewer French-language films will find an audience in the future.
Governments in Ottawa and Quebec City have responded to these concerns by requiring foreign streaming platforms to alter their algorithms to ensure French-language content is offered to domestic subscribers without them having to search for it. This requirement, known in English as discoverability and in French as la découvrabilité, was reportedly a factor in the breakdown last week of Canada-U.S. trade talks.
Prime Minister Mark Carney cited “suggestions” made by U.S. negotiators that Canada scrap its discoverability requirements, and even drop bilingual product-labelling rules, as one reason he recalled Canada’s negotiating team from Washington. Both the federal Online Streaming Act and a 2025 Quebec law impose discoverability requirements.
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“For Americans, the French language, francophone culture, Canadian culture, these are irritants,” Mr. Carney said Monday at a press conference alongside Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette in Lévis, Que. “Here in Quebec, here in Canada, these are rights.”
Mr. Carney’s sudden defence of French has played well in the province on the eve of an Oct. 5 election that threatens to see the sovereigntist Parti Québécois return to power after more than a decade in the political wilderness. But it comes after his government cancelled the digital services tax (DST) on foreign streaming giants and rolled back plans to introduce mandatory Canadian-content rules for the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+.
The 2025 repeal of the 3-per-cent DST and this spring’s cabinet directive ordering the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to halt plans to force foreign streamers to devote 15 per cent of their domestic revenues to the production of Canadian content were widely criticized in Quebec. The moves aimed to appease U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, which had attacked the regulations as trade barriers.
While defenders of the Canadian content requirements cite similar obligations placed on U.S. streaming giants by several European countries, Mr. Trump has threatened to slap 100-per-cent tariffs on goods from European countries that impose a DST or domestic content requirement on U.S. streamers. The fate of Europe’s measures hence remains uncertain.
However, both Mr. Trump and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, a self-proclaimed francophile who is fluent in French, this week denied Mr. Carney’s claim that U.S. negotiators sought concessions on Canadian language requirements. “This lie was made by a weak an ineffective Prime Minster in attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec,” Mr. Trump charged in a social-media post.
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Mr. Trump was wrong about Mr. Carney’s popularity in Quebec, which has remained practically stratospheric. But his and Mr. Greer’s denial that the U.S. had demanded changes to discoverability or labelling provided an opening for sovereigntist politicians.
Both PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Quebeckers deserved to know the truth after the New York Times reported that U.S. negotiators “did not make any asks regarding the French language explicitly.”
Mr. Blanchet also demanded that Mr. Carney reinstate the DST and allow the CRTC to proceed with plans to force foreign streamers to devote 15 per cent of the revenues here to domestic content. Ottawa last month announced that it would replace those measures with $600-million in annual federal subsidies for Canadian content creators.
Meanwhile, as the campaign begins, Ms. Fréchette is under pressure to enforce her Coalition Avenir Québec government’s discoverability law, known as Bill 109. That law has yet to take effect amid questions about its constitutionality, given Ottawa’s exclusive power over broadcasting policy.
Still, it is unlikely that Ottawa would challenge the Quebec law during a provincial election campaign. After drawing a red line on the protection of French, Mr. Carney can hardly cross it now.