Well, it would be an insistence by the private and public sectors and this committee to the Department of Canadian Heritage and to the Canada Council for the Arts of more comedy creation in this country.
Right now, whether it be live or produced—and obviously, as I mentioned, the distribution channels are changing dramatically—we are still recognized as a comedy nation. We are missing the boat in terms of the volume of content that's been created for all of the streams.
Comedy, either stand-up, sketch or improv, is one of the most immediate forms of theatre and storytelling in the world, and it's not even recognized as an art form and funded directly to comedy artists in this country. If there's no insistence on comedy creation in terms of content, whether it be streaming, programming or directly in live environments....
I stated that I did a scan of the 2017-18 prime-time schedule. On English Canada television, aside from CBC, less than 7% of the prime-time television programming originated in Canada.
The Massey commission started its study in 1951 because of a bleak cultural landscape in this country. It stated that only 14 English novels were created in an entire year.
CASC believes that we're in a similar crisis right now. We need to embrace and insist on the creation of content here, and fuel it—as you heard from Hunter Cardinal—in respect to all communities, to make sure we continue to thrive in terms of the volume of comedy content.