It seems to me that the agenda here is to try to make Canadian content creators produce a certain kind of content for Canadian domestic consumption entirely. If I understand the agenda that's being articulated here, it's that the goal of the government, Parliament, is to create mandates for Canadian creators like me to make more explicitly Canadian content for a Canadian audience exclusively. It's the reigning consensus that dictates our existing CanCon regime when it comes to Canadian television, radio and all of that kind of thing. The idea is that government has to set down an explicit set of identifiers of what Canadian content is, and those identifiers are being done ostensibly for the benefit of a narrow Canadian audience that is determined to benefit from CanCon, with a capital C.
In my world, we make content with a global audience in mind. Canadians are part of the globe, so Canadians are certainly part of that consumer base, but they're not exclusively the only people we're targeting.
I think if you create a new regulatory system, you're essentially boxing in new media creators. You're saying that you know they had global ambitions, but now you want them to dramatically narrow their ambitions and only target Canadians, exist in this rarified, walled garden, and only appeal to other Canadians, which will dramatically shrink their revenue and appeal, and frankly will shrink the influence of Canadian cultural creators globally.
It is a good thing that Canadian content creators in the new media space are able to appeal to a global audience. As I said, my own life is a case study of this. I have introduced the world to Canada. I have made many foreign people interested in Canada and Canadian affairs, as I've said, even to the point where they've wanted to move here.
I think we have to be very sensitive to the idea that we live in a globalized world now. New media offers unprecedented global reach. We need to, I think, at least when it comes to new media, get away from this idea that Canadian content creators only exist for the benefit of Canadians. We exist for the benefit of the world.