Canadian Heritage Committee on May 30th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Please answer in 30 seconds.

[Patrick Rogers]

This is one of the most important parts that our members play in the partnership with the artist.

As you know, the pickup of streaming in Quebec was generally low compared with other parts of Canada. Those numbers are changing, and our members, specifically, are excited about the opportunity to partner with wonderful Quebec artists and bring the best of streaming and the best of Quebec culture to the world.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Rogers, the chair is about to tell me that my time is up, but if you were—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, Martin, but your time is up.

We now have Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm going to give Mr. Rogers an opportunity to answer this important question on how artists can be adequately renumerated for the work they produce.

You mentioned, Mr. Rogers, that the numbers are changing. Do you have numbers you could provide to the committee?

[Patrick Rogers]

I think ultimately the streaming platforms would be the best to provide that information in terms of their customers and where they're at. We know that there's a lot of opportunity throughout Canada and particularly in Quebec.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

When you say that the numbers are changing, though, that is an important point for the committee to consider. If you have any additional information to provide to us, that would be helpful.

I also understand from your comments that you're very supportive of the provisions of proposed paragraph 3(1)(f) around Canadian employment. You cited Music Canada and the number of jobs in Canada. Could you comment a little bit more about the importance of having Canadians employed in these industries and making sure that there are benefits that go to Canadians right across the country?

[Patrick Rogers]

It's obvious, I think, that Canada's major labels are success stories in this space. We employ Canadians in offices in Toronto and Montreal. They're full of Canadians making Canadian music for the Canadian market and around the world. It's of note because often our members are not necessarily the clients of Canadian Heritage due to their ownership structure, but it's nice to see that the structure we have is the structure that the government is pushing on other players.

I think it's important because it's important to have people on the ground thinking about what's important in the Toronto market or in the Canadian market broadly. We've seen the benefits of that, and we look forward to discussing that further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Peter, you have 11 seconds, nine seconds...eight seconds now.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I will take the opportunity to say that I think the committee has been advised by numerous witnesses of the importance of maintaining Canadian employment. That's something we will have to consider moving forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I will now go to the Conservatives.

Mr. Uppal, you have five minutes.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Starting with Disney, just hearing from you about the Canadian content or Canadian stories that you have produced, I would think it would be a dream scenario, for someone who wants to have any story told, to have Disney tell it. There's also the job creation in Canada. I know that, like other provinces, Alberta, my home province, is working really hard to get major productions to come to the province and to create those jobs.

That's all being done without Bill C-11. What would bring a major international brand to Canada, not only to create jobs but also to create Canadian stories?

[David Fares]

Thank you very much for the question, MP Uppal.

I think, or I hope, I demonstrated in my opening remarks that we already are investing heavily in Canada and we hope to be able to invest more in Canada. We're investing in Canada because it's a great market to invest in, whether it is production or whether it is producing our own facilities or infrastructure in the marketplace with the virtual production stage that ILM is producing in Vancouver.

It's a good market today. What we are hoping is that Bill C-11 will preserve a level of flexibility such that we can continue to invest in the best way we can to the Canadian ecosystem based on the nature of our services. It's really a flexible regime that we're seeking, because we all do great things but we do things differently. We would just like to be able to maximize our investments by allowing us to do what we do best in the marketplace.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

Patrick Rogers, in many situations when we're looking at international trade discussions, if one country has some sort of protective regime, others countries may respond. Are you concerned at all that other countries may respond with what type of content their populations start to see? There are so many artists, especially new artists, and especially artists who are Canadian who have, let's say, a cultural background. They might be from the Philippines, say, or from India. I know that a lot of Canadian Punjabi singers are getting massive views on their YouTube videos, not only from Canadians but from around the world.

Is there a concern that this part of it might be restrictive? I'm hearing from some people who are from different cultures and communities that this would actually hurt them and start to hurt their discoverability.

[Patrick Rogers]

I thank the honourable member for the question.

Look, Canadian music is global music. Canadian music is available to the whole world. We spend a lot of time, our members spend a lot of time and the Government of Canada has spent a lot of time exporting that music around the world. It has done so under the premise that the music is available through the Internet in a global fashion. I think anybody in the commercial space is concerned about the idea of raising guardrails, even well-meaning ones here, that encourage blocking Canadian content elsewhere.

I think your comments about diasporas and Canadian diasporas are very well made. It's something I would encourage the committee to think about carefully. I foresee needing to spend quite a bit of time on that at the CRTC in the future.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

Patrick, you talked about a number of Canadian artists who have great success online. How are Canadians finding them? What are they doing? How are they finding them? Right now, without Bill C-11, how are we getting these millions of views? I think you mentioned somebody with billions of views. How is that happening?

[Patrick Rogers]

I am so glad someone asked me this question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 40 seconds.

[Patrick Rogers]

In 15 seconds, I will tell you everything I know about it.

The biggest point about streaming in the digital space is your ability to engage with your fans directly. That is as true for Drake and Bieber as it is for my daughter Grace's favourite group, Splash’N Boots. One of the wonderful things about streaming is that, as you put that information in, they will push back information to you that allows you to find more of that. My daughter, through listening to Splash’N Boots, discovered Sharon, Lois & Bram. The algorithm did that. That wasn't me, so “Skinnamarinky dinky dink” lives on in another generation—and it's Canadian content at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'm now going to go to Mr. Bittle from the Liberals, for five minutes.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My question is directed to Ms. Auer. At a recent conference organized by the CDEC, you stated an interesting point about the current Broadcasting Act. You said that subsection 4(2) of the current 1991 act explicitly confers to the CRTC regulatory jurisdiction over all broadcasters operating in Canada, both “in whole” like the CBC or CTV, or “in part”. You stated that these last two words “in part” effectively include all online broadcasting platforms within the 1991 act.

Could you expand on this, or explain this?

[Monica Auer]

I think we're looking at an act that was devised basically beginning in 1985, before the Internet had become more than a gleam in Al Gore's eye. At that time, the idea was that transmissions were coming from the United States, even from Mexico, and Parliament wanted to ensure that it had control over its sovereign territory, including the transmission of signals. Perhaps that's because Parliament wanted to ensure that Canadian programming that was being transmitted was available to all Canadians. Also, perhaps it wanted to ensure that it could control the content that was available.

These days, however, the legislation is still intact, and Parliament has chosen not to say, “All you're going to control is programming that takes place in its totality within Canada.” Having distinguished between “in whole or in part”, it's up to the courts, to some extent, to decide what that “in part” means. I think common sense—

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I've asked you, but.... As a lawyer, I can appreciate that it's ultimately up to the courts, and ultimately up to nine people down the road.

[Monica Auer]

Yes, but....

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

But your belief is that the legislation does confer that and, ultimately, the CRTC hasn't regulated in this ballpark to date. Is that a correct assessment?