The Canadian Media Guild is grateful for the opportunity to address this matter of great significance to Canadians and a pressing concern for its members, who are media workers. It is the crisis in the Canadian media sector stemming from the dominance of foreign digital companies.
The CMG believes that safeguarding Canadian media jobs, protecting quality Canadian journalism and guaranteeing the availability of Canadian content will ensure the vitality of the Canadian media sector. As a cornerstone of our democracy, Canadian media plays a crucial role in informing, engaging and empowering citizens, but this mission can only be realized with a robust and resilient workforce. Media workers are the backbone of our information ecosystem, tirelessly researching, reporting and disseminating news and stories that shape public discourse.
I am a media worker with 30 years of experience. I started working when we were cutting tape to do radio, and I finished, before I started this job as president of the CMG, doing digital news editing. In a sense, I was the person editing the stories that went online on the Radio-Canada website in the west of Canada. I have, we have and media workers have gone from one type of media to the next type of media to the next type of media. These are different mediums. What's important is the message. The mediums will keep changing.
As president of a union representing Canadian media workers, I believe that protecting our labour rights within the media industry is paramount. Safeguarding media workers' rights to fair wages, safe working conditions and collective bargaining upholds the dignity and well-being of these workers and fortifies the integrity of our media institutions.
Misinformation and disinformation pose profound challenges to the integrity and credibility of Canadian media. They erode public trust, disrupt democratic discourse and undermine the credibility of legitimate news sources. We believe that by fortifying the resilience of Canadian media against the threats of disinformation and misinformation, we can safeguard the integrity of our democratic institutions and ensure that Canadians have access to reliable, trustworthy Canadian information.
The CMG believes that to preserve and celebrate their culture, Canadians must have access to stories told by members of their communities. Bringing Canada to Canadians is the mandate of some public broadcasters, but it's the daily goal of all Canadian media workers. Media outlets such as TVO, APTN and CBC/Radio-Canada play a vital role in shaping and reflecting the unique identity of our nation by offering platforms for Canadian voices and perspectives.
A Quebecker and Acadian, I grew up in Dieppe, New Brunswick. Our culture was fuelled daily by the media that talked to us about us and did so in our language. It is a gift that is still not offered to all Canadians.
I had hoped that Bruce Spence, the president of our APTN branch, would be by my side today, but that was not possible. I humbly speak on his behalf and that of our APTN members, whose job it is to report on events and issues relevant to their audiences from a perspective they cannot get from mainstream news media outlets.
The CMG supports Bruce's belief that every tribal group in the country should have its own APTN—its own media network—regionally and locally so that languages of every tribal group and the societal concepts that go with them are spoken and learned in the home of its members no matter where that home may be. The work done by APTN is essential to supporting aboriginal culture and ties into the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.