In 2018, The Hollywood Reporter addressed that I provided information to the U.S. Trade Representative in relation to a company subsidy scheme in Canada. 

My submission to Ambassador Robert E. Lighthizer documents that Canada has exploited the cultural industries exemption in the North American Free Trade Agreement for over twenty years.

The catalyst for the submission to the U.S. ambassador was the failure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office to acknowledge receipt of information and documents that I had FedEx deliver to the attention of Mr. Trudeau - and which were also submitted electronically to the prime minister.  At issue is evidence of regulatory capture of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and long-term systemic corruption in relation to the same company subsidy scheme; one which has required millions of ordinary citizens, without their knowledge, to unjustly enrich corporations controlled by some of Canada's wealthiest families, including Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. 

The highly unorthodox company subsidy scheme served to artifically inflate the cost of cable TV. It was originally designed by CRTC commissioners while I was employed in the broadcasting industry for my specialist knowledge of the Canadian cable TV industry and its regulation by the CRTC. Central to the success of introducing this type of 'hidden tax' without opposition, the CRTC sanctioned cable TV companies to collect the premium under false pretence from Canadians - a deceptive method of collection that I have publicly described as "government-regulated fraud". 

Importantly, Canadian production companies supported the scheme in their own self-interest. As 50% of the premium collected from Canadians under false pretence was diverted into the Cable Production Fund and used to subsidize the operations of private production companies. The Fund subsequently morphed into the far larger Canada Media Fund, 'a government-industry partnership' that also uses money from taxpayers to subsidize private production companies. 

The scheme is documented in One Media Law and also Profiteering in the Name of Culture: available on this website. 

The Document Archive on this website contains a number of documents related to the scheme, including copies of several documents formerly stored in CRTC file 1000-121 (File 1000-121). The CRTC opened File 1000-121 in response to an official complaint that I initiated alleging the CRTC and cable TV companies had acted unlawfully in relation to the scheme. File 1000-121 was destroyed by the CRTC in 2006 after my lawyer specifically identified its existence in a submission to politicians addressing my allegations of long-term systemic corruption.

A copy of an unpublished CRTC decision is one of the File 1000-121 documents available to review. In effect, unidentified individuals at the CRTC ruled in the unpublished decision that the CRTC had the legal authority to require Canadians to unjustly enrich and subsidize private corporations in this fashion, while also ruling that Canadians ratepayers were not legally entitled to direct notice about the scheme or the monthly cost that they were being required to pay for it. Furthermore, the CRTC denies that the unpublished decision was a decision. 

This is not how a legitimate quasi-judicial regulatory tribunal acts in a democracy.  

"[Mahar] fought with a passion against the cable companies and the CRTC for citizen/consumer rights - and his fervour cost him his career as well as his emotional and mental health. An activist David against the media Goliaths, he didn't have a chance against the all-powerful cable monopolies and their allies in Ottawa." - Antonia Zerbisias, The Toronto Star, 6 February 2007.

The media columnist's 2007 assessment is correct. Challenge the powerful vested interests as a private citizen came at an extremely high cost. In fact, it almost cost me everything.

It is a matter record that I've publicly shared my personal story of experiencing suicidal depression and acute psychosis as a whistleblower.

Is this why the PMO has not acknowledged the information and documents that I provided for Justin Trudeau?