Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, on Monday told local filmmakers their industry was turning to the world for additional co-production partners amid a continuing tariff and trade war with the U.S. to the south.
“Canada is moving fast. We need to move faster, strengthening our economy at home and diversifying our relationships. And our Canadian audiovisual sector is key to that strategy,” Miller told the Access Canada Summit in Toronto and powered by The Hollywood Reporter.
“In a crisis, fortune favors the bold,” Miller added, echoing Canadian prime minister Mark Carney as the Canadian leader continues efforts to negotiate a new cross-border trade deal with the U.S. administration in Washington, D.C.
Miller at the Toronto Film Festival has signed new and updated official co-production deals with the U.K., Northern Ireland and Spain, and that follows another a more modernized co-production treaty signed with Korea in April 2026.
“When we work together and bring together a pool of financial incentives that allow your crews, your teams to work together, whether that’s in the U.K. or here, or a combination of both, that makes us all stronger off,” Miller told the Access Canada Summit.
The federal government in Ottawa also has offered up around $600 million in new production coin to local producers after Canada abandoned plans to get American media players to foot the bill. That followed in early June Ottawa killing regulatory plans to triple a local tax on foreign, mostly U.S. streamers to get more favorable terms on a new cross-border trade deal from the U.S. president.
More recently, U.S. president Donald Trump cause a perfect storm for Ottawa by implicating audiovisual content in the now-stalled North American free trade talks.
