The CRTC says it’s modernizing what counts as Canadian content for TV and streaming, but the reaction from digital-rights groups suggests the regulator has once again managed to make a complicated system even more confusing — and even less connected to real Canadian life.

The update is part of the CRTC’s job under the new Broadcasting Act, which requires online streaming platforms to support Canadian and Indigenous stories. To get there, the CRTC reviewed how it decides whether a show or movie qualifies as “Canadian,” a classification tied to funding and promotion rules.

As usual, the regulator pointed to its long consultation process (480 submissions and 3 weeks of hearings) before announcing that it’s tweaking the points system used to judge whether a production is Canadian. The system

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