Madam Speaker, as an aside, I would first like to point out to the House that, like many of my colleagues, I am wearing the colours of Ukraine today.
I was in Montreal yesterday, along with several of my Bloc Québécois colleagues, to take part in the rally in support of Ukraine. A number of rallies were held across Canada and Quebec. I saw yesterday why the people of Ukraine will emerge victorious from this conflict. Whatever the outcome of this Russian assault, the people of Ukraine have embarked on a path that will inevitably lead them to achieve their goals. When a people or a nation decides to live freely and to live in a democracy, the path to get there does not stop until the ultimate goal has been reached.
Quebeckers are worried about loved ones who are currently stuck in Ukraine. One of my constituents in Drummond, Mr. Nelson, comes to mind. His wife is sheltering in the basement of the school where she teaches in Nizhyn. He has not heard from her, although perhaps it is for some silly reason, like she cannot charge her phone or has no way to reach him. I want Mr. Nelson to know that the Bloc Québécois and his representative will never give up.
This long preamble on the situation in Ukraine is somewhat related to what we are debating today. War in the digital era plays out at different levels than it did a few decades ago, or even one decade ago. These days public opinion is infinitely easier to manipulate. We have seen it many times and examples have been pouring in for a few years now. It is a threat that we must confront urgently.
An example of this came up just today. My colleague from Saskatoon—Grasswood mentioned it. This afternoon, the Minister of Canadian Heritage was at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and we talked about the Russian propaganda media, Russia Today, which has been banned from several Canadian cable companies. I am not saying that muzzling or censorship is the solution. I want to make it clear that this is an exceptional measure.
The solution is not always to silence the voices of people with different opinions, and I pointed this out to the minister earlier. I told him that this was warranted in the case of Russia Today, which is broadcasting disinformation and propaganda from the Russian regime to justify Russia's despicable attack on Ukraine, but I said that this instance must not create a precedent for censoring or silencing other press or media outlets that might broadcast questionable content that we do not agree with or condone.
This is why a bill on the Broadcasting Act that takes today's reality into account is so important. As members know, the current legislation was passed in 1991. I think we explored the issue thoroughly during the debate on Bill C‑10 last year. This old and outdated legislation is long overdue for revitalization and modernization. I am very pleased to finally rise to speak to the long-awaited Bill C‑11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act, which will also address online streaming.
It is rather sobering to see that, 16 months after a bill that was urgently awaited by the cultural industry, broadcasters and the media was first introduced, we are essentially back to square one. I say “essentially” because some improvements were made to Bill C‑11. These improvements were obviously the result of the numerous amendments proposed when the bill was studied in committee last year. I also want to point out that many of these improvements were championed by my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, in particular the improvement regarding the discoverability of Canadian and French-language content and content from different cultural communities, which add colour and beauty to our cultural universe.
Had Bill C-10 passed, the CRTC would now be holding hearings to regulate the industry with a view to creating a more level playing field for all actors in cultural sectors and broadcasting.
Had Bill C-10 passed, we would be starting to see our content creators, programming undertakings and artists getting back to creating television shows, movies and music because they would have renewed confidence in the government's ability to create an environment where their content will do more than just make Chinese and American billionaires richer.
These people are not asking for a pandemic relief program. They are asking to create, sing, dance, produce shows, play, produce and earn an honest living through their passions.
We have lost many people and a great deal of expertise in the cultural and radio and television sectors since the start of this pandemic. Many people have left for more stable and less stressful sectors because they are also mothers and fathers. We underestimate these people's contributions to society.
I will repeat it, because I get the impression that it takes time to sink in, that it is not immediately or quickly understood: Culture is not an expense. Culture is an investment. Culture pays off. Culture contributes to the Quebec and Canadian economy. Artists and cultural workers are not a bunch of lazy old fogies who live off subsidies. Culture is an industry worth about $60 billion per year. Culture is an industry that supports more than 600,000 people in Canada. It is is wealth. It is not just wealth from a financial perspective, it is our wealth because it both reflects and conveys what and who we are as a nation. Culture conveys to the whole world what our identity is, what our values are, what our personality is, what our colours are.
If the means of disseminating our culture are taken away, what will be left of us? The rest of the world will continue to think that Canadians play hockey, that they drink beer and Tim Hortons coffee, that Quebeckers wear arrowhead sashes while eating poutine around a campfire in winter. We will see the usual familiar clichés that all of us are a little tired of seeing around the world. That is what our television, our radio, our cinema allow us to convey. They allow us to showcase our stories, what and who we are.
We must ensure that our creators, producers and broadcasters can continue to do just that on the new platforms forced upon us by the new technologies on which we are becoming increasingly dependent.
We have heard a lot of criticism about the regulation of content. Sometimes the criticism is ideological, while other times it is more partisan. Sometimes it is well-founded, while other times it is less so. I think the criticism is relevant in the sense that everyone is entitled to their opinions. For instance, someone might not be a big fan of quotas for French-language content.
I started working in radio as a young host in the mid-1980s. Canadian music quotas and francophone music quotas were just starting to be imposed. I can say that it really got on my nerves, because it was not very cool, even though there was some great music there. There were some excellent artists, but the choice was still pretty limited at the time. There was not a huge pool of music for the different styles of radio, for example. The radio station I worked for was much more youth oriented. We definitely had a little less to choose from in those days.
I can admit quite honestly now that I used to find it annoying to have to comply with francophone music quotas. However, over time, I began noticing the positive impacts of that regulation, that push to promote francophone content on Quebec radio stations.
As time passed, more and more new bands and new musical genres came along and were discovered because of the regulations that were put in place to showcase our music and our artists. There were extraordinary positive impacts.
Today, there could be radio stations with 100% French-language programming and listeners would never get bored. They would not necessarily hear the same thing all the time, even if some radio programmers believe that the same songs should be replayed just about every hour. That is another matter and another debate.
The positive effects of implementing such regulations are tangible. If it worked for radio, if it works for traditional media, it is also going to work for digital media. We must do it for digital media for the same reasons that I mentioned earlier. We show the entire world who we truly are through our media, our art, our culture, our programs, our movies and our talent. We are more than just beer and coffee drinkers, more than just lovers of poutine wearing arrowhead sashes and gathering around a fire. Culture dispels clichés.
The need to quickly bring in new broadcasting regulations, to refresh the ones that have been in place since 1991, is even more urgent given the current crisis in the cultural industry, which has certainly been aggravated by the omnipresent digital media and digital corporations like GAFAM. These giants are gobbling up our news media's profits and their share of the advertising pie. It is time to regulate this.
I have some figures to share. Since the beginning of the pandemic, out of the 180,000 jobs lost, whether temporarily or permanently, more than 50,000 cultural sector workers, artists and content creators decided to throw in the towel and do something else. They went off to get another job. They have families to feed, and they cannot stay in a situation where they do not know when the next crisis will crop up or what impact it will have on them.
These people no longer want to go through that kind of stress. More than 50,000 people in Canada have decided to do something other than the work they loved above all else. One of these days, we will have to come back to this and think about how much importance we give to our artists and content creators. We might want to consider reviewing the Status of the Artist Act. I want that to happen soon. It will be important to do that, because these self-employed cultural workers lack even a modicum of financial security, as they are excluded from government programs by virtue of their status. That means we lose them in times of crisis, which is what we are seeing right now.
The Union des artistes, a Quebec-based artists' union, polled its members earlier this year, and the numbers are alarming: 61% reported having lost interest in their artistic trade, 35% had sought help for mental distress, and 15% had suicidal thoughts during this period. The Union des artistes has 13,000 members, so 15% is a lot of people to be having those thoughts.
Culture is important, but we also need to talk about broadcasters. Up until a few years ago, companies across Canada were operating in a system that they helped to build and that afforded them some protection from the invasion of powerful foreign consortia and major media outlets. This was, in large part, thanks to the legal requirement that this system be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians.
For decades, these companies helped develop Canadian and Quebec content, highlighting and promoting cultural and linguistic diversity. These companies spent and are still spending a lot of money to be able to operate and meet the licensing requirements. Many of these companies are key parts of our economy, in Quebec and across Canada. These companies still bear a massive burden just to be able to operate as broadcasters.
What message are we sending these builders, these major employers, these broadcasters that have been required to contribute to helping artists and niche broadcasters thrive?
Niche broadcasters, which may have less influence, have had the opportunity to thrive and offer programming for cultural communities. ICI Télévision in Montreal is a wonderful little TV station that I think everyone should check out.
There is also APTN, which does such a good job of promoting the culture of our first nations and serves as an example for the entire world. People come here to learn from APTN's expertise and apply it in other countries. I think we can be proud of that, and it is thanks to our broadcasting system that we can have success stories like this one.
The message we are sending our broadcasters right now is that it is okay for the big sharks to swim in our little fishbowl, siphoning off the bulk of the advertising revenue without having to contribute significantly to the system. However, it is our broadcasters who must comply with burdensome, increasingly costly, counterproductive and decidedly unfair regulations as the industry transforms.
These days, there is a lot of talk about politicizing issues. It is true that a lot of politics is done on just about everything, and I think that is normal. We are in politics, so it is normal to politicize issues. Otherwise, I do not think we would be in the right place. However, I think there are issues that require us to rise above and look beyond ideology or filibustering. We need to be open and aware of the issues we are debating here.
Bill C‑11 may not be perfect yet, but we will have the opportunity to work on it. I think this is a bill with a very good foundation, and it certainly does not deserve to be blocked the way Bill C‑10 was last year.
I sincerely hope that all members and political parties in the House will see this bill as a necessity for our Canadian and Quebec broadcasters, but also for the entire cultural industry, for our artists, our content creators, our artisans and our self‑employed workers in the cultural sector.
