Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 24th, 2025

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I'm moving on to another topic.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, has long been working on implementing Bill C‑11, another bill we worked on together at the start of our first mandates. That's taking a lot of time, and all the content and culture creators in the country are wondering when it will finally come to fruition and when they'll start to see money from digital companies. I would remind you that those companies are making billions of dollars and offering absolutely nothing in return to help Quebec and Canadian producers through a very difficult transition period.

How can we give those people a little hope?

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

Obviously, the CRTC is an independent body. We certainly want it to go as smoothly as possible. We did increase Telefilm Canada's funding by $50 million. That's nothing to sneeze at. We understand that the sector—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you, Minister.

Next, we are over to Mr. Waugh for five minutes.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Minister, welcome back. You were here in 2019-21, when I was here. There are few of us left on this committee.

Thank you to the staff, Ms. Mondou and the three Andrews who are here today.

Minister, I want to raise again this workplace culture with CBC. I just want to get it on the record, if you don't mind. When you met with the new CEO of CBC, Marie-Philippe Bouchard, you did not raise the workplace culture or the toxic atmosphere at CBC, or did you? Give me a yes or no.

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

Ms. Bouchard and I talked about a number of things, including the importance of the public broadcaster being aligned with Canadian values, of course, and the values defended by the federal government.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Did you talk at all about the workplace culture that has, all of a sudden, percolated—if you don't mind my using that word—through the CBC recently?

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

We're going to have to agree to disagree there. It isn't good to generalize from a few isolated cases and say that there's the same atmosphere and the same working conditions for the public broadcaster as a whole, for the thousands of CBC/Radio-Canada employees. I don't share your view.

Where I agree with you is that the public broadcaster—

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

This was a pretty high-profile case, though. It was on every—

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

It received a lot of media attention, but that doesn't mean that the situation applies to the public broadcaster as a whole. That's where I disagree with you and your colleague. I don't share that view.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Okay.

Will you share this, Minister? With the CBC, as you all know, the viewership is down, the revenue is down and, in fact, the trust is down. When we had the former CEO here, Ms. Tait, she actually agreed that trust in the CBC is down. On the streaming platform subscriptions, we don't know where they are, but now your leader has promised another $150 million to CBC. How is this possible?

I'll tell you what it has done in western Canada. CKSA-DT Lloydminster has served that community for 60 years. Stingray shut the station down because CBC's there now. It's the same with CHAT-TV in Medicine Hat. After 70 years in that community, television is gone—70 years in Medicine Hat...gone.

While you say that the public broadcaster is this and that, I want you to know that the public broadcaster has crept in and destroyed private media in this country. I gave you two examples here: 60 and 70 years. What are your thoughts on that? How is this reasonable?

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

We discussed this earlier with your colleague Mr. Champoux.

The traditional media sector, in Canada and almost everywhere else in the world, is going through a very difficult time with the arrival of online platforms and advertising budgets that have moved, for example, from local newspapers and local radio and television to the web giants.

Once again, I have reservations about looking at a global problem and saying that it's CBC's fault. For my part, I receive requests from people across the country who want to benefit from CBC in their community. I've heard it right across the country.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

All right. You say that, and then they hide the numbers for Gem. There was an ATIP on CBC this summer, asking how many subscriptions there were to Gem. They said that they couldn't tell that to anyone because it wouldn't be fair to their competitors. Crave, which is owned by Bell Media, actually has 3.8 million subscribers in this country, yet for CBC Gem, they can't share it. There are free subscriptions, and then there are the paid ones at $5.99 a month, I think.

Is it fair that the public broadcaster is hiding when someone says, “We'd like to know how much money is put into Gem or how many viewers there are”? It might be, Minister, that Gem is useless and should have been torched a long time ago.

When they're covering up.... As a former broadcaster, when I hear them say that they can't tell us, then I know there are red flags with the corporation. I know that for sure.

In Ontario, I will just tell you that 0.35% of the streaming market participated in CBC Gem. That's not even 1% of the province of Ontario. That tells me there is little or no participation on Gem in this country, whether it's free or by subscription.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you, Mr. Waugh. That's your time.

We'll move over to Mr. Myles for five minutes.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Thank you very much for being here, Minister.

I'd like to ask you a question about something I'm interested in.

Thanks to digital services, artists have access to international or global markets. However, this presents challenges at the same time, especially in terms of support for regional music and cultures. Regional music is extremely important to Canadian culture; I'm thinking of country music from Alberta, music from Cape Breton Island and Acadian music from my home in New Brunswick.

How could the government support regional music and cultures in this globalized market?

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

Mr. Myles, given your decades of experience as a musician who plays all across the country, in English and French, you probably know more about the subject than we do.

I see two parts to your question.

The first is how our government supports Canada's local and regional arts and culture industries, and the second is how the government supports Canadian arts in the global market.

The first part of the answer is obviously thanks to the Canada arts presentation fund. The sum of $31 billion has been allocated to help and support professional organizations that present arts festivals or concert series. We support organizations such as TOHU, the Festival TransAmériques, the Festival cinéma du monde de Sherbrooke and the Vancouver Fringe Festival.

There are also support programs for news and local culture, through which $150 million was provided to the CBC to enhance local news reporting and Canadian storytelling and to combat disinformation.

The second part of the answer is that we support Canadian creators who promote our culture at home and abroad by increasing funding to the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, the National Film Board of Canada and the Canada Media Fund. There is also what is called creative export Canada, a flagship export-oriented program that falls under the department. It has two components: the export-ready stream and the export development stream for new start-up exporters looking to expand their network internationally. It's a very popular program.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Another question I have is about small venues. We talk a lot about our big theatres in Canada, which are beautiful—Winspear, the National Arts Centre, Dalhousie's Arts Centre. In fact, I think the member and I were talking about this last week. No one shows up in those venues unless most of them have toured across the country and our small venues, whether it be performance spaces, creative spaces, bars or cafés.

I'm wondering whether there is a way for us to support the small venues for the next generation of talent—emerging artists—to build their skills, in the same way we have hockey rinks across the country that help people become professionals. We won't have people at the NAC unless we find ways to support them as emerging artists. I wonder whether there are ways the government can support that.

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

There are two things that come to mind. The first one is the Canada arts presentation fund and the second one is the Canada cultural spaces fund. The second one is for upgrades, renovation, equipment and planning. This tends to be for smaller projects all across the country. We're not talking about big, $100-million projects but smaller projects in communities.

Let me give you a couple of quick examples: $2.8 million invested to the Canada cultural spaces fund in New Brunswick for upgrades to museums and theatres; $750,000 to the Highland Arts Theatre in Nova Scotia for accessibility, sound, lighting and livestream equipment; $1 million provided to Where Edmonton Community Artists Network Society to purchase Harcourt House, which is an artist-run centre that I had the pleasure of visiting—it's not completely finished—when I was in Edmonton recently. These are some of the examples of how we're trying to support smaller venues across the country.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

That's great. I think it is really important. I want to go back to the first question. I know we were talking about export, but I'm wondering about streaming in particular. I know it's a tricky subject, but I think that one thing streaming presents us with is that it really gives us access to international markets.

Again, I want to go back to this: Are there ways that we can support our streaming? I don't mean support our streaming services per se, but in what ways do Bill C-11 and some of the bills and work that have been done in the past try to adjust, let's say, to address minority language, minority communities, discoverability and those kinds of things?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Unfortunately, there's no time to answer that question, Minister. I'm not sure whether you have a hard stop at 5:30 or if you can give us a couple of extra minutes so we can get in a third round.

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

I can stay a couple of extra minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

All right.

Next we have Monsieur Généreux.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, thank you very much for being here.

A rumour that has been circulating for about a week and a half that two former ministers were about to leave the government, and a current minister is waiting until October 19 to leave. That would be you.

In the other two cases, the rumour has turned out to be true, since one of the ministers will be appointed to New York and the other to the Netherlands.

Are you planning to leave after October 19?

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

I don't know if you're a Star Trek fan, Mr. Généreux, but I am. In one of the series, there is a species called the Ferengi, who have a book that is kind of like their bible. The book contains rules. One of them specifically applies to rumours, and it says:

“Hear all; trust nothing.”

I'm very happy where I am and I intend to stay here.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

That's good. I'm very happy to hear that.

Today, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, or FCFA, has openly and quite vehemently complained about the fact that the Official Languages Act still hasn't been fully implemented 28 months after it was passed and that some parts of it haven't yet been put in place.

Do you have an answer to give them?

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

Yes, absolutely.

I have met with members of the FCFA on a number of occasions, and some members of my team meet with them on a monthly basis.

In the next few weeks, we will publish at least two of the three regulations to implement the modernization of the Official Languages Act. The third one will follow shortly afterwards, but two of them are about to be introduced.