Here in Canada it’s an election year. Canadians will go to the polls on October 19th to choose their next government and the current Prime Minister who is Stephen Harper is currently behind in the polls. Though we have about 11 weeks to go until election day which means that he can still turn it around. I guess going after the Netflix generation is part of the strategy to turn that around because this Tweet appeared on Prime Minister Harper’s Twitter timeline yesterday:
In short, Prime Minister Harper likes Netflix and he will not tax it. Now this is strange because Netflix if you recall didn’t exactly want to tell the CRTC how many subscribers it has which would make real easy to figure out how much money it makes in Canada. Thus it is a safe bet that they’re not being taxed on whatever they make anywhere near to the level that they perhaps should be. In contrast, CraveTV which is Bell’s streaming service and Shomi which is the streaming service that Rogers and Shaw operate are being taxed by the Canadian government as they are obliged to provide Canadian content. That sounds like an uneven playing field for streaming services. Thus one could say that Harper has opened a “Pandora’s Box” that didn’t need to be opened just to try and grab some votes. But in an interesting twist something else has happened. The hashtag #HarperANetflixShow started trending yesterday. Here a some really funny examples that were tweeted:
The picture above is of Stephen Harper and his wife. Laureen Harper.
https://twitter.com/ElizaDeee/status/629343585318604800
This is a reference to the current government’s attempt to keep government employed scientists from talking to the media freely.
On the right is the current Finance Minister Joe Oliver. Many people are not impressed by his performance as Finance Minister.
https://twitter.com/JazzlamHazzlam/status/629095960606572549
If you do a search of this hashtag on Twitter, you’ll find over 7000 examples. Thus, it’s a safe bet that this attempt to grab votes has backfired as people who don’t like Prime Minister Harper have latched onto this to protest against Harper and his policies. In a way, this reminds me of the #Rogers1Number fiasco where Rogers tried to use social media to promote their products and instead it backfired spectacularly. I’m guessing that the team around the Prime Minister are regretting doing this right now given this reaction. It also shows that they have an uphill battle to get re-elected in October.
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This entry was posted on August 7, 2015 at 10:37 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Canadian Prime Minister Promises “No Netflix Tax” On Twitter…. Gets Lampooned Online
Here in Canada it’s an election year. Canadians will go to the polls on October 19th to choose their next government and the current Prime Minister who is Stephen Harper is currently behind in the polls. Though we have about 11 weeks to go until election day which means that he can still turn it around. I guess going after the Netflix generation is part of the strategy to turn that around because this Tweet appeared on Prime Minister Harper’s Twitter timeline yesterday:
In short, Prime Minister Harper likes Netflix and he will not tax it. Now this is strange because Netflix if you recall didn’t exactly want to tell the CRTC how many subscribers it has which would make real easy to figure out how much money it makes in Canada. Thus it is a safe bet that they’re not being taxed on whatever they make anywhere near to the level that they perhaps should be. In contrast, CraveTV which is Bell’s streaming service and Shomi which is the streaming service that Rogers and Shaw operate are being taxed by the Canadian government as they are obliged to provide Canadian content. That sounds like an uneven playing field for streaming services. Thus one could say that Harper has opened a “Pandora’s Box” that didn’t need to be opened just to try and grab some votes. But in an interesting twist something else has happened. The hashtag #HarperANetflixShow started trending yesterday. Here a some really funny examples that were tweeted:
The picture above is of Stephen Harper and his wife. Laureen Harper.
https://twitter.com/ElizaDeee/status/629343585318604800
This is a reference to the current government’s attempt to keep government employed scientists from talking to the media freely.
On the right is the current Finance Minister Joe Oliver. Many people are not impressed by his performance as Finance Minister.
https://twitter.com/JazzlamHazzlam/status/629095960606572549
If you do a search of this hashtag on Twitter, you’ll find over 7000 examples. Thus, it’s a safe bet that this attempt to grab votes has backfired as people who don’t like Prime Minister Harper have latched onto this to protest against Harper and his policies. In a way, this reminds me of the #Rogers1Number fiasco where Rogers tried to use social media to promote their products and instead it backfired spectacularly. I’m guessing that the team around the Prime Minister are regretting doing this right now given this reaction. It also shows that they have an uphill battle to get re-elected in October.
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This entry was posted on August 7, 2015 at 10:37 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.