Canada's Heritage Minister Marc Miller has unveiled the long-awaited details of $600 million in additional cultural spending for 2026-27, the federal government's replacement for the streaming levies it scrapped earlier this year.

Miller gave news organisations the breakdown on Sunday afternoon, ending months of uncertainty in the cultural sector over how the money would be divided. The funding was first promised in June as a make-good for Prime Minister Mark Carney's decision to give Netflix, Spotify and other foreign streamers a break on paying cash levies into Canadian media funds.

Those funds feed into existing public and private support for Canadian news and entertainment programming. The one-off $600 million allocation is three times the $200 million in annual streamer payments cancelled by the government, and may cover more than a full fiscal year of the contributions that had been due to take effect on 1 September 2025.

The biggest recipients include the Canada Media Fund, which finances television dramas, documentaries and children's programming. Money will also go to the Indigenous Screen Office, the Black Screen Office and a range of corporate-sponsored television funds that perform a similar function.

Local news and community broadcasting are also in line for support, through the Independent Local News Fund and the Commercial Radio News Fund, as well as the Community Radio Fund. Services described as being of exceptional importance, including the parliamentary channel CPAC, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and the French-language channel TV5, will also receive funding.

The government's Canada Music Fund, which channels support for Canadian musicians through industry-managed funds, is included, along with the newly established Indigenous Music Office.

Three other media funds that were not covered by the CRTC's June 2024 levy on foreign streamers will also see cash from the package: Telefilm, which supports the financing and export promotion of Canadian feature films, Northern Aboriginal Broadcasting, and the Canada History Fund.

The announcement follows Budget 2026, tabled on Thursday, which restated the $600 million commitment but provided no itemisation of how it would be shared out. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters welcomed the budget's reiteration of the funding, while noting that the fine print appears to guarantee it for only the 2026-27 fiscal year. Miller has told reporters the funding is intended to be permanent.

The budget also set aside $300 million over two years for CBC/Radio-Canada, and $134 million over four years, starting in 2027-28, plus $41 million ongoing, to support independent and diverse local news organisations through the Local Journalism Initiative.

It extended the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit to qualifying private audio and audiovisual news organisations, covering 35 per cent of eligible journalism salaries with immediate effect, a change the broadcasters' association called critical and welcome support for trusted local and national news.

Budget 2026 also created new tax relief for Canadian artists and set aside $20 million over four years, plus $5 million ongoing, for the Canada Book Fund to help Canadian titles reach readers.

The funding package sits at the centre of a wider sovereignty push by the Carney government. The Online Streaming Act had become a trade irritant with the United States, and the streamers had tied up payment of the cash levies in Federal Court. Ottawa's answer has been to replace the contested levies with direct public investment, while pressing ahead with a revised policy direction to the CRTC on what it wants from streamer contributions to Canadian content.