> routinely enters into contracts with foreign companies with the requirement that those companies create Canadian jobs while executing the work under that contract
Sure, for the price of government contract you can always find some things to do for some Canadians (and not that Canadians are bad at doing stuff, so they may be hired anyway, with or without this requirement, but since there is a special requirement, you could always ask for the special price...). Or invent them if needed. The funny thing is that any extra money spent on this requirement is taken from other Canadians...
> In this respect, CanCon isn't philosophically inconsistent with the government's other policies.
Oh, I'm not saying it's inconsistent with other policies. If anything, the tradition of "creating of jobs" (also known under the name of "broken window fallacy") is very popular among politicians of all kinds, and for a clear reason - the benefits of it are concentrated and easy to show, while the costs are distributed and easy to hide.
> Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon all have Canadian-specific offerings
The question is not whether Canada should allow Microsoft to open its office in Canada, but whether it should force it to do so under the threat of being excluded from the Canadian market and prohibiting Canadians from using Microsoft products. Some people apparently think it'd be a great idea.
> For example, here's a good take on many Canadian actors who were part of X-Files while it filmed in Vancouver
I know a lot of quality Canadian production and actors (see my other comment in this thread about Canadian shows). Which begs the question - apparently Canadians are doing fine even on the market as strong and competitive as US TV/movie scene. Despite the fact that CBC has no way to force any US network to show Canadian content, as far as I know - they willingly do so, and not once but quite frequently. So why there's a need to do the same on Canadian market - what makes one think Canadian companies can withstand competition with Hollywood on Hollywood's own soil, but would inevitably lose in Canada if only CBC didn't take regulatory measures to prevent it?