Fat chance. Here's how it works.
For the last thirty years or so, the CRTC's mandate (US equivalent: FCC) has been to promote Canadian content as well as protect the Canadian broadcaster's market from foreign broadcasters. This includes imposing controls on American and foreign content to the point where only a handful of American broadcasters are allowed to have their broadcast signals carried on Canadian cable and satellite systems. Many Canadian broadcasters have thrived in a market that protects their business. This includes forcing the Canadian cable and satellite carriers to substitute an American channel with a Canadian one if both are broadcasting the same show at the same time. The goal of this "signal substitution" or "sim-subbing" as it's called is to protect the Canadian broadcasters' ad revenue.
As a "reward" for this enforced government protection (US equivalent: graft), the individual media conglomerates have been contributing large sums of money to whichever government is in power in order to maintain "protection" of their markets from "foreign invaders" (i.e. American content). This includes forbidding the distribution of satellite equipment designed to receive satellite signals from American carriers even if you pay the subsription costs. The Canadian broadcasters along with cable and satellite carriers have a virtual stranglehold of the Canadian market.
The only problem with all this is that it doesn't work very well. Despite the current laws and the proposed new laws that may make anyone possessing US satellite equipment a criminal under the law, it's estimated that a third of all satellite receivers in Canada (close to one million) are in fact illegal US based satellite receivers that either have a subscription through a broker, or as is usually the case have been hacked to open up all the channels.
One big surprise in all of this is that many of these illegal satellite receivers are owned by immigrant families wanting to get news from back home. The process of obtaining a foreign channel broadcast license in Canada is so complicated and laborious that most major ethnic groups have no representation whatsoever on Canadian cable and satellite systems. They're forced to "steal TV" just to catch the news from back home.
Also, so many Canadians are fed up at having government sanctioned "Canadian culture" forced down their throats that they'll go through all the trouble of obtaining illegal satellite equipment just so they can view original American content with all the original American commercials totally unaltered. They're effectively shutting out Canadian TV altogether.
When the CRTC asked for feedback on how Canadian content, more specifically Canadian dramas, can be better encouraged, I've sent them a reply which was not very flattering.
You can read it here (Microsoft DOC format). Basically, I've told them that French Canadian production companies should be left alone considering our TV shows already attract on a regular basis an audience of a couple of million viewers in a seven million viewer market, sometimes much more.
As far as the English language market is concerned, no proper Canadian culture has ever been developed because the broadcasters have never been properly motivated to develop anything of value. Most Canadian shows are nothing more than cheap imitations of American based shows, created by Canadian broadcasters in order to respect their Canadian content requirements. They're nothing more that the cost of doing business. Most English language broadcasters make their money by rebroadcasting prime time American shows for which they've purchased the Canadian broadcast rights.
Because of the sorry state of English language Canadian television, most Canadians would rather watch higher quality American shows than the pablum that's being served by the Canadian broadcasters. In many cases, that extends to "stealing satellite signals" as the Canadian lobby groups love to call it. From my perspective, I call it civil disobedience.
You want your American television? You have no other alternative than to steal it or move to the United States.
Sorry for the long post, but this subject just burns me up.
