Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I have a question for you regarding the consultation process and the 400 submissions that were made. That is a great level of participation. Mr. Flack was talking about 30,000 responses. Obviously, that will take a lot of analysis.

We all have the same question here. I do not doubt how qualified your staff is, but what kind of time frame are we talking about? Do you already have an idea of when all this information will have been processed so that new documents can be drafted?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

We are working very hard on that. Two hundred and seventy-two people submitted comments online, 75 submissions were made, and 30,000 people participated in six public consultations. I know this is a lot of work, but I am also convinced that my team will be able to complete this work so that we can present our new public policy in 2017, on both the information and entertainment sectors.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I do not want to insist too much on this, but we are wondering when we will be able to provide you with a report in order to ensure that the thought process has been started. There is no new policy. You correctly told everybody that everything was on the table. There will be no major changes announced for Easter, March or April. You said it would be in 2017.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

It will be during 2017.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

So we cannot get any more details. How unfortunate!

Yesterday, we were all surprised—and for my part, I was pleasantly surprised, unlike my colleagues—to see how well CBC participated through its submission. They have a fairly ambitious proposal. However, there was one point that was disappointing.

I remember that during the election campaign with Mr. Trudeau, you stated that you would ask CBC to conduct public consultations on its mandate.

Honestly, what CBC is proposing is interesting. I have often said that CBC must be the champion for our broadcasting policies and that it must position itself as a leader with special status.

Earlier, you clearly stated that CBC is an independent entity. We can decide to ask its representatives to come see us and tell us about their proposal.

There is also the issue of the public consultations you would like CBC to hold regarding its mandate.

What do you think?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

The issue of CBC's mandate was raised many times during the public consultations we conducted. One of the benefits of our consultations was that we were able to take a holistic, as opposed to a narrow, look at all of the government policies, the applicable legislation, and the various levers of funding.

As I mentioned, if the Broadcasting Act, which includes the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada, needs to be revised, we will do so. Of course, we must first study the whole issue to understand what the repercussions of the decision would be on the various stakeholders, in order to find the right answer. We must also take into account the importance of sustaining a healthy democracy, developing local content, supporting content creators, and having a culture export strategy that will have positive economic effects for the country.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Nantel. That's it.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I hope we will be able to speak again later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thanks very much.

We have Mr. Breton and Mr. Samson, who are splitting their time. Who will begin?

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

May I begin, Mr. Samson?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Breton, will you begin?

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will share my time with Mr. Samson.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for being here. It is always a pleasure to have you with us.

I will be brief. In your mandate letter it says you are to promote Canadian culture abroad. As you know, in my riding, there is the École nationale de la chanson in Granby, which trains francophone songwriters, composers and singers. In fact, it's the only school of its kind in Canada. Many recognized artists whom you probably know, such as Lisa LeBlanc, Alex Nevsky and Andréanne Malette, trained at this school, which is located in the Cégep de Granby.

My question is as follows, and you referred to it in your opening statement.

Can you tell us more about your vision for promoting Canadian cultural talent abroad, which is such an important thing?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Thank you.

In my mandate letter, I was tasked with bringing back and modernizing two programs that had been abolished by the previous government, namely PromArt and Trade Routes.

I decided to do more than what was laid out in the mandate letter and develop Canada's first cultural export strategy. I am currently working with my colleagues including the Minister of International Trade, Chrystia Freeland, to adopt an approach which will take into account not only the cultural export strategy, but also, generally speaking, the export and investment strategy for our creative sector.

This includes not only music, cinema, television and books, but also virtual reality, video games, design, and so on. It is therefore a wider approach than the traditional one, which includes the living arts and the various artistic categories I just mentioned.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Samson, you have the floor.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

Madam Minister, it is always a pleasure to have you here.

My question is about your consultations. For a while now, we have been hearing from communities and various councils, and they all talk about accountability. How can we make sure that the money is spent as intended?

In the course of your consultations, did you hear of new strategies or new ways which would help bring back more accountability in the future?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

During our public consultations, we heard a lot about changing the sector business model. I imagine that your committee has also heard about this.

The challenge for the government—and for any legislator—is to make the right decisions when the business model changes. One of the impacts digital technology has had on the business model is the fact that some intermediaries have changed or disappeared. That's why it is essential that we take into account these different aspects in the development of a new cultural policy or public policy.

Of course, accountability will lie at the heart of our approach. Nevertheless, you have to understand that the Department of Heritage oversees 17 government agencies, and each of these must of course be accountable.

I think that my colleague was also referring to official languages. The matter of accountability for groups receiving funding under the roadmap is being studied by another committee. This issue is being studied in the course of our development of a new plan of action which will come into effect in 2018.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I have a quick question. Our government of course has increased investment in infrastructure.

That's almost four times the previous amount. How are we going to make sure that communities living in a minority situation will benefit from these infrastructure investments?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

That's a very good question.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I always ask good questions.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I know, Mr. Samson.

Throughout our public consultations across the country, Mr. Boissonnault and I heard a lot about the importance of investing in official language minority community infrastructure. There is a lot of demand from minority language communities, but there is also a significant demand from Canadians in general for this type of infrastructure and for English and French courses for young people. We are looking at that issue right now, and we are working on our game plan.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

Tell us a little bit about how you think these consultations went. What were the two or three top issues which came out? Was there anything new? Was there anything the roadmap did not address?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Are you referring to official languages?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Yes.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

People talked about the impact media have. As far as official languages are concerned, the main concern we heard across the country was about immigration and how to ensure that language communities remain viable. I'm working very hard on this issue with John McCallum. We have already relaunched the French Significant Benefit Program, but we will have further good news over the coming months.

I also heard a lot about community infrastructure and early childhood education infrastructure. We want people to be able to choose the official language they wish to be educated in, from early childhood to the end of school.

You know, one thing is clear. We are now looking at the second generation to grow up under the Official Languages Act. One thing is truly fantastic, namely that this law has transformed our country in certain ways. We could always do more. The vitality of language communities is fragile and must always be supported.