Thank you, Mr. Blais, for coming today to participate in our study on media consolidation and its impact on Canadian voices.
In the context of that study and in the context of the review that Minister Joly is doing right now of Canadian content in a digital world, I would like to talk to you about the CRTC's Canadian content decision of August 25, specifically where the decision drops the points of access to certified independent production funds to support Canadian shows and Canadian voices from eight to six.
That is a decision I've been hearing about almost daily since its release. In looking at news media and how it's reported, the decision was described by John Doyle in The Globe and Mail as “truly appalling”. In Toronto–Danforth, my riding, there are many people who work in the creative industry who are very concerned about the impact of this decision. I expect you would find that what they are telling me is what you would hear across this country from people working in the creative industry.
I'm getting emails and calls, I'm hearing it at meetings, and people stop me on the street to ask about this. What they're telling me is that they have chosen to stay in Canada or they have moved back to Canada because they wanted to contribute to what they saw as a flourishing industry for television and film and for Canadian voices. This is where they want to raise their families, here in Canada, and they want to be part of what we can develop here. They're very concerned about the impact of the CanCon points decision on the creative industry, as opposed to just the service industry.
They're not only concerned about their livelihoods, although they are, but they are also particularly concerned about the impact this is going to have on Canadian voices.
I'll give you an example. I received an email from a screenwriter who lives in my riding. He was trying to describe the impact of this points decision. This is what he wrote to me:
If Stephen King wrote a new book and it was edited, typeset, formatted, printed, and bound in Canada, would anyone call it a Canadian book? I don't believe so. The public recognizes that the authorship of a book or television or feature film determines its nationality. Apparently the CRTC believes differently.
It's not just screenwriters I've been hearing from, but actors and the whole spectrum of the industry. Just last week I met with seven ACTRA members, and they were talking to me about how the Canadian productions that we have promote diversity and the strength of the diversity of Canadian voices.
I'll focus on that word “strength”, because they also talked about the strength of our industry and how well we're doing right now. That's something I hear across the board. Just recently we celebrated the fact that Tatiana Maslany won an Emmy for a Canadian production, Orphan Black. That was something we all celebrated as showing how we are producing great productions that are getting international renown.
Going back to how our local news is reporting on things, Jessica Wong from CBC News spoke to the co-creator of Orphan Black, Graeme Manson, who called the CanCon decision from CRTC a “vote of non-confidence”. I'll quote him: “The underlying message from the CRTC is we need foreign help to tell Canadian stories. That's frankly insulting to all of us.”
That's the end of his quote, but he goes on to say that under the system from this CanCon points decision, he would have been under pressure to not hire Tatiana Maslany for her role, and I think that's something that we can agree would have been really an unfortunate thing.
I'm focusing on Orphan Black, but that's not our only success story. We have Flashpoint; Degrassi, which is based on a street in my riding; Being Erica; and Murdoch Mysteries. There are lots of great Canadian shows that are doing so well.
Shortly after the CanCon decision, I had a meeting in my office with my constituents—writers, directors, producers, musicians, and actors. We came together to talk about what their concerns were. They were concerned about the impact. Even more, they were confused about the timing of this decision, because Minister Joly is doing a review of Canadian content. They all agreed that this was a troubling decision to come in the middle of that kind of review.
My constituents said, when they came back to me, that the best outcome would be to see a pause in that decision. That's what they wanted to see: they wanted to see a pause of the CRTC CanCon decision pending the review by the minister, so that we could let her do a holistic review. That's what they came to me with. They also wanted to see evidence from the CRTC that this decision would do no harm to the industry.
My question to you is—