Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 26th, 2020

[Lyne Bessette, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Champoux, you have six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all three of you, Mr. Minister, Ms. Laurendeau and Mr. Piché, for being here, for your availability and also for your offer to stay longer if we have further questions. That may well happen, because I have a rather long list of them.

I would like to start by coming back to your plan to improve regional media coverage. We talked about it earlier. The subject is music to my ears. The music doesn't always sound right, though, because of some quite disturbing realities.

You talked about the support you provide to print media, in particular, and you said that the various industry players you consulted say that the majority of them are very happy and very supportive of this idea. Now, very recently, we met with representatives of...

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

That is not exactly what I said.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Did you not say earlier that the media people you told about the assistance said they were pleased?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I said they disagreed with Mr. Blaney, who said we didn't need to help them and that we just had to remove the section 19 he was talking about.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Okay.

So, I withdraw that reference and I am informing you of meetings I had personally, a few days ago, with representatives of regional weeklies that are eligible for the assistance program you are proposing. Certain provisions of the program totally penalize them, and this is really an industry that is suffering enormously. The weeklies are often the only media coverage that exists in many regions of Quebec and Canada.

Are you open to the idea of us doing a bit of a review of the criteria for this print media assistance program?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you for your question.

I am a big believer in local weeklies. When I was young, I delivered Le Nouvelliste for four years. I delivered the local weekly in La Tuque for many years. I wrote for several local media, including Transcontinental. Our government and I fundamentally believe that they are important.

This program is in its first year. We are quite willing to adjust the focus if we see the need to do so and if the program fails to meet the needs of the sector.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Perfect.

I already have the recommendations provided to me by the people in the industry, the representatives of those weeklies.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I think I got the same recommendations.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You very likely did. I am not the only one they sent them to, I feel.

Along the same lines, my colleague Mr. Blaney spoke earlier about the government's advertising investments in digital media in 2018-19. Personally, when that news came out last week, it stunned me. I could not believe my ears.

So, I called a friend of mine who is editor-in-chief for a regional weekly, and I asked him whether he had a lot of government-paid advertising and whether it made any difference to him. He told me that he had received $0 in advertising investment from the government. The only advertising investment in those regional weeklies was made by Google Ads and other service providers. In fact, they buy from them what they do not manage to sell.

In short, don't you think that it might be a concrete way to help regional media if you invested directly with them in advertising, rather than creating assistance programs like the ones you need to create to assist them?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

That's a good question, Mr. Champoux, and I will be very honest with you. The government is facing a challenge when it comes to buying advertising. Obviously, we buy that advertising to reach an audience. The public is on the Internet more and more. As I was saying earlier to Mr. Blaney, we buy $50 million in such ads.

Would the media prefer that we invest $50 million in advertising and drop the $650 million we put into the program we created?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Does one necessarily go without the other?

Maybe we could take $50 million to invest in media and still support the industry with an assistance program? One does not preclude the other.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

You must understand that it's a challenge for the government to reach people where they are. That is part of the challenge for government as it navigates through the murky waters of growing digital realities.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Are you aware that the unrest associated with all of this is mostly caused by the fact that these companies pay no taxes and give absolutely nothing back to Quebecers and Canadians? The unrest is quite widespread.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

That is going to change, obviously. We have committed to making them pay the GST. You have probably read, as I have, the statements by the Prime Minister, who said that the next budget would be a good time to do that.

As part of reforming the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, we made a very firm commitment to ensure that these giants contribute to Quebec and Canadian cultural content, and to what our friends on the review panel headed by Ms. Yale called discoverability, that is, the showcasing of that cultural content. So things are going to change.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I have one last question.

I would like to emphasize out another very harmonious note to my ear, and that is your plan to help museums. There are two museums in my riding. Drummondville's Village Québécois d'Antan is not a recognized museum because the houses, which are true ancestral homes, are not in their original location. Certain criteria in awarding museum accreditation penalize a number of museums, whose content and mission would otherwise make them worthy of consideration as such and of receiving the financial assistance that goes with that.

Are you open to looking at these eligibility criteria so that we can loosen the access requirements somewhat?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

First of all, if I gave the impression that we were going to help museums because we were not already doing so, let me correct that. In the 2018-19 budget, $396 million was provided to Canada's museums and heritage industries.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

That's right.

I am sorry to interrupt, but my time is almost up. I just want to clarify my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Champoux, I'm sorry. I have to cut it off right there; otherwise, I'd be giving you a bit of favour. I'm sure you'll have another turn at some point. Since the minister is generous with his time, it's quite possible.

Now, visiting us today, we have Monsieur Boulerice from the riding of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. It's good to see you, sir.

You have six minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to you, Minister, and to your colleagues for being here today to answer our questions. We appreciate it.

In 1999, the CRTC faced a dilemma. It wondered what to do about emerging digital media. It issued a broadcasting exemption order to exempt these media from licensing and regulatory requirements.

It is now 2020. We can all agree that it is not at all the same situation 21 years later, and that is quite clear in the Yale report as well. One clearly defined objective is that all players must participate in the system, that everyone must do their part to create Quebec or Canadian cultural content.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We are in agreement on that.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I already knew we agreed on that.

There is something interesting in the Yale report. It says there is no need to wait for a review of the Broadcasting Act and that, right now, the government can modify the broadcasting exemption order so that digital broadcasters will immediately be required to contribute to our culture.

Are you prepared to do just that and review the current exemption order?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Boulerice. That is an excellent question.

We are currently looking at several possibilities or scenarios that will allow us to change the situation as quickly as possible.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Is any possibility quicker than that one?