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Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Government wants to tax your internet

OTTAWA — A parliamentary committee studying Canada’s slumping media industry will reportedly call for a five per cent tax on broadband Internet services to boost a sector struggling to adapt to technological changes and evolving consumer habits.

The Globe and Mail, citing Liberal and opposition sources, says the new levy is at the core of a majority report of the Canadian Heritage Committee to be released today.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as the report is not yet public. The tax would be on top of sales taxes you already pay.

read more at baytoday.ca

Is the government about to make the Internet even more expensive for all Canadians?

At OpenMedia, we cover a wide range of digital rights issues, and so we’ve really seen the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when it comes to policy proposals over the years. And this one’s a doozy: Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly is considering adding a new ISP tax to the monthly bills of Canada’s Internet subscribers.

This new tax will make Internet access even more expensive, despite the fact that Canadians already pay among the highest prices in the industrialized world for this basic necessity. Indeed, fees are already so high that 44 per cent of low-income households do not have a home Internet connection, leaving vast numbers of Canadians excluded from our digital endowment.

The ISP tax is the brainchild of Canada’s large publishers and broadcasters, who have been using government consultations about how to fund Canadian content to push their plan. In a nutshell, they want to burden Canadian Internet users with an ISP tax in order to subsidize industries that are struggling to adapt to the digital age.

If implemented, an ISP tax will have serious consequences for our digital future. Making our sky-high Internet bills even more expensive will make it even tougher for low-income Canadians to surmount barriers to access, excluding them from the benefits of the open Internet. An ISP tax will also force offline low-income Canadian households which are barely managing to afford Internet access, further exacerbating our stark digital divide.

Source: http://rabble.ca/columnists/2016/11/government-about-to-make-internet-even-more-expensive-all-canadians