Thank you for your question.
Of course, the bill is not perfect, but it lays an important foundation for the new regulations that need to be put in place. In the music community and in the cultural community in general, we have been waiting 20 years for this bill, ever since the CRTC chose not to regulate the Internet. In 1999, we thought it was a very bad decision. Since then, Internet development has increased tenfold. Today, cultural consumption is shifting to online music services, such as Spotify, or to Netflix, in the case of television.
The bill is designed to welcome foreign companies into our Canadian system, which was limited to Canadian companies. However, it is important for the system to keep its Canadian character in general. Above all, we must force all companies, even foreign companies that will now be under the CRTC’s authority, to make maximum use of Canadian content. This is stated in paragraph 3(1)(f) of the Broadcasting Act. However, the bill contains a new proposal that we find a little too watered down.
We want the current version of paragraph 3(1)(f) to remain, because it says exactly that all elements of the system must make maximum use of Canadian creative resources. It will be different for Netflix than it is for CBC/Radio-Canada, for TVA or for CTV, but first we have to see what kind of maximum use we must make.