The Department of Canadian Heritage has issued the federal government’s final policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) around the implementation of Bill C-11, a.k.a. the Online Streaming Act, including a directive to examine how it defines audio and audiovisual Canadian programs.

Canadian Heritage issued the policy direction on Tuesday (Nov. 14), which the CRTC is now bound to follow, according to a news release. An initial draft of the policy direction was issued in June for a 45-day public consultation, with more than 500 comments received during that time period.

Later on Tuesday, the CRTC issued a statement in reaction to the directive, stating that the first of its three hearings on the matter, scheduled to start November 20, will address the contributions streamers make to Canadian and Indigenous content creation. “As we move forward to implement the new direction, Canadians can expect open, transparent, and respectful consultations leading to timely decisions,” the statement read.

The government’s directive to the the CRTC ask it to “prioritize its examination of how it defines Canadian programs,” adding that a definition should “be multi-faceted” and work with “evolving” policies. It also instructs the CRTC to create a regulatory framework that is “equitable, flexible and adaptable,” taking various business models into account.

The finalized policy direction includes a number of directives around diversity and inclusion. They include a call for the CRTC to support reconciliation efforts and narrative sovereignty for Indigenous persons in the screen sector; support the funding and discoverability of programs from official language minority communities; create meaningful engagement with Black and other racialized communities, and ensure expenditure requirements support the creation of programming from those communities; and support programming that is accessible to persons with disabilities.

Additional highlights from the policy direction include a directive to look at outcome-focused methods of discoverability for Canadian programs, and to exclude social media creators from its regulation.

“The Online Streaming Act is the result of years of work and collaboration between our government and the cultural sector,” said Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge (pictured) in a statement. “It’s about levelling the playing field and making sure we can share our stories and see ourselves on screens.”

This story originally appeared in Playback and has been updated from its original version