Good afternoon.
I taught journalism, particularly investigative journalism, at the Université de Montréal for about 10 years. That's when I became particularly interested in the relationship the media and culture have with the Internet giants. My acquired expertise led me to publish a book in February whose title is Les barbares numériques: résister à l'invasion des GAFAM.
I also spent time as the director of information at Radio-Canada. From 1992 to 1997, I was the president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec. More recently, from 2017 to 2019, I co‑chaired Culture Montréal's Commission permanente Montréal numérique.
I said that I was particularly interested in the relationship the media and culture have with the Internet giants, most of which are American, and which I call barbaric.
Here is a quote from my book:
The history of the Western world will record that it was the most important conquest of the 21st century. What am I talking about? The conquest of the digital world and our lands by American superpowers. In fact, it was the most crushing attack on national sovereignty ever experienced by states in the new millennium.
That's why I believe that states and their institutions need to take appropriate measures to protect their media and their culture. In my brief, I place more of an emphasis on the protection of our francophone language and culture. The problem is that I don't think we've understood that for us, francophones, this invasion of our territory by the Internet giants has marginalized our media, our language and our culture. We must never forget that these superpowers are largely American. It's an invasion that has to be resisted.
I believe that Bill C‑11 is one way of accomplishing that. Additional measures will, I hope, be introduced. The CRTC could also address the various aspects of implementing this act. In any event, it's one way of regulating the cohabitation between American Internet giants and us. It's essential to place foreign digital companies and Canadian digital companies on an equal footing.
Giving the CRTC the power to regulate all digital activity pertaining to culture and communications could promote a healthy form of cohabitation between the Internet giants, on the one hand, and our own companies, creators and people, on the other.
Requiring superpowers to reinject a significant share of their revenues here, in creation and production by people from here, is one way of supporting our cultural milieu and our media. That would be the best way to counter the American content that dominates these platforms.
Protecting our cultural sovereignty is what it's all about. Doing nothing amounts to total laissez-faire. Playing the game with those rules would give us nothing. Doing nothing amounts to allowing these Internet giants and their marketplace laws to dictate for us what's good and what's bad. As we have been able to see, they have failed in terms of self-discipline in performing the role of major content regulatory bodies. False information has piled up, particularly over the past two years. And all the while, they have generated record profits.
In Canada, we have always been able to respond when American corporations have attempted to invade our territory with their cultural content. That's why the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was established in 1936, and why the CRTC was entrusted with the power to regulate communications. Similarly, the government introduced television in 1952 to counter American television when Americans treated Canada as part of their market.
In 1997, the CRTC unfortunately missed the boat when it decided not to regulate the Internet so that it could foster its growth. Well, the growth has happened, and that's the best I can say about it. These days, people under 35 years of age live strictly through the social networks and platforms operated by these American Internet giants. They obtain information through social networks, which weakens our own media. Their main source of music is now YouTube. A little earlier, Mr. Jérôme Payette pointed out that Quebec's market share was only 8% for those among the 10,000 most popular performers. How can you have a career in music when a single play on YouTube earns the songwriter only half a cent.
There is another source of concern. For the first time in our history, traditional television is being outpaced by streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Disney+. According to the Media Technology Monitor, 70% of anglophones and 58% of francophones in Canada have a Netflix subscription. That's how people watch television series and movies now.
So today, we need to go through the same exercise again. The Internet giants want to establish their own ground rules and are challenging ours.
As we heard, they are lobbying heavily and fighting against state efforts to establish a healthy form of cohabitation between them and us. That's why we need to act now. Bill C‑11 is a first step in that direction.
As I wrote in my book, it's late, but it's not too late.
Thank you for your attention.