Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 24th, 2025

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

They're also concerned about funding, since the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, Mr. Champagne, has asked you to reduce your overall budgets by 32.5% over the next three years.

Have you determined which budgets you are going to cut?

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

I believe the number is 15% over three years. Obviously, there are various ways of doing it. Earlier, I was talking about the Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada and others. When these institutions were created, Telefilm Canada funded films because people went to see them in theatres. The Canada Media Fund funded television because people were watching at home. Now everyone watches movies and TV shows on this device or a slightly larger one.

Do we need two or three structures to fund something? Should we not group everything together? That way, we could fund films, series and television within the same structure.

The department needs to think about this. It's not a bad thing to step back from time to time and ask if there is a way to be more efficient. Once again, as I told your colleague Mr. Champoux, we made historic investments by providing $4 billion over the course of the 2015 to 2024 mandate. That remains a priority for us and certainly for the Prime Minister as well.

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

Over nine years, you doubled the budget of these organizations and now you plan to take 15% away from them, knowing full well the effect of inflation and so on.

We sometimes get the feeling that the Liberal Party doesn't consider official languages to be important, while the country's francophone minority communities are working extremely hard to maintain their vitality. Honestly, I don't know how you would be able to justify a budget cut for these people. I saw how resilient they are in my 10 years on the official languages committee, and I'm glad we're here talking about it. I really believe that they need to be able to count on sustainable funding, because they are in a risky situation.

My question is this: Do you think it's appropriate to cut the budget of francophone minority communities? Can you promise me today that, in the next budget, there will be no cuts to the budgets for these communities?

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

Let me reassure you. If you look at what we've accomplished in recent years in the area of official languages, you'll see that we've modernized the Official Languages Act, recognized the decline of French in Quebec and provided $4 billion to support minority communities and $750 million a year toward French classes in Quebec, year after year.

As I told your colleague Mr. Champoux, I'm not the Minister of Finance. Therefore, I can't give any guarantees as to what measures will or will not be in the next budget.

You mentioned 15% cuts for everyone. What I can tell you, however, is that the streamlining exercise is not a wall-to-wall parametric exercise that applies to everyone. We are thinking about this and holding discussions with the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board to, once again, look for ways to improve efficiency where possible. We agree that, at the end of the day, what we want is for Canadians to get more for their money.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you, Mr. Généreux.

Mr. Al Soud, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister. As you well know, I was born in Montreal. I've lived there most of my life, so I'm quite familiar with the importance of the cultural and creative industry in Quebec.

Mr. Myles has already talked a bit about it, but this industry is just as important elsewhere in the world as it is in Canada. When Canadian stories travel abroad through film, music and literature, they show the world who we are while developing industries here at home.

Can you give us some examples of how federal funding has enabled Canadian stories to reach new audiences, both at home and abroad?

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

Thank you for your question.

I spoke about this a little earlier with your colleague Mr. Myles. Canadian Heritage and Global Affairs Canada are working together on the creative export strategy. We provide financing and advice to companies, and we organize missions. For example, 95 export projects have been funded, at a value of $44 million, reaching 25 international markets.

In addition, there is a very strong international interest in indigenous languages and cultures. I saw that when I was at TIFF a few weeks ago. We now have the Indigenous Screen Office, set up to support indigenous creators so that we can see their stories on our screens. The office has done exceptional work. There's an appetite, certainly here in Canada but also internationally, for this kind of initiative and these kinds of cultural stories.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mississauga is very fortunate to have Celebration Square, which has become a true cultural hub. On any given weekend, thousands—and I mean thousands—of people gather to celebrate food, music and traditions from every corner of the world. It was only two weeks ago that I attended Philippine Festival. It was partially funded by Canadian Heritage. I was very proud to let them know.

Could you speak to us about the different ways that Canadian Heritage is supporting multicultural, community-driven celebrations and ensuring that they continue to thrive across the country?

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

Thank you so much.

We have a number of different initiatives in place to support these particular festivals. There will be $65 million in federal funding infused into the cultural sector this year alone, including $15 million to help festival and art presenters reach audiences across the country and around the world.

Every year, the Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage program supports 700 events in 435 communities across the country, including events organized for indigenous cultural celebrations and 2SLGBTQIA+ events. The major festivals initiative is $23 million over three years. That started in 2024-25 for the TIFF, to attract leading filmmakers and actors from around the world. There was $15 million for the Shaw Festival Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario. The list goes on.

I think you see that we are very involved. This is something that is very important for communities across the country—communities like yours in Mississauga Centre.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I have one more minute. That's fantastic.

Minister, Ms. Royer asked the question earlier about local media. Obviously, we all know within the broader context that it's a topic that's brought up to us as members of Parliament fairly frequently.

Could you reiterate the importance of local media and ethnic media within our individual communities in terms of getting some of the more community-related achievements out there?

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

Yes, the initiative for local journalism has certainly been a very popular program. I hear about it all across the country, whenever I meet people in communities.

One thing we are doing is asking, are there things that we can do or improve, or are there other things we can do? We know that the media sector is going through a rough time. Obviously we want to support our public broadcaster, but private broadcasters also play an important role in our communities. We have initiatives for them as well.

Whether there are other things we can do is certainly one thing that's very front and centre in our conversations in preparation for the budget and in terms of what we can do as a department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, is English an endangered language in Quebec?

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

Is that a trick question, Mr. Champoux?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Call it what you will, but it still requires a fairly honest answer from you.

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

The answer to your question is no. Obviously, anglophone communities are a minority in Quebec, since there are more francophones than anglophones.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

We understand that, but does it justify anglophone groups receiving the support that should be reserved for minority official languages that need promoting and protecting? Do you think it makes sense to spend so much money to protect English in Quebec rather than supporting, as Mr. Généreux mentioned earlier, organizations like the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, or FCFA? They are concerned about the implementation of the new Official Languages Act and afraid that the funding for linguistic communities will melt away like snow in the sun.

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

I don't share your point of view on funding. I have said it before and I will say it again: We have made historic investments in minority language communities in Canada. I think there's an issue of fairness. As I said, the anglophone community is a minority community in Quebec, even though it is not in the rest of Canada.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I have a great deal of respect for the anglophone community in Quebec, I assure you, but it is not endangered or in jeopardy. It's doing quite well.

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

There are issues for this community, just as there are for francophone communities outside Quebec, although they are not the same.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

In one minute, I wanted to bring you back to the cultural sector, because these are issues that concern me a great deal. This week, the subcommittee adopted a motion to study the effects of artificial intelligence on the cultural sector. I'm sure you're well aware of all these impacts and the danger that AI poses to our cultural industries.

What do you and your government intend to put in place? Do you intend to legislate on this specific issue in the very short term?

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

I'm very interested in that. In fact, the last book I published before entering politics dealt with the issue of artificial intelligence.

There are certainly areas of concern when it comes to artificial intelligence, but, as we hear from creators, there are also opportunities. As a government, we are trying to see how we can maximize the benefits of AI for the entire population, particularly for creators, and how we can minimize its adverse effects. These are discussions I have, as the minister responsible for Canadian Heritage, with my colleague Minister Solomon, who is the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, and with Minister Joly. The three of us are working together to find the right balance.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Minister.

Madam Chair, thank you for allowing those extra seconds for the minister to answer an important question. I really appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

You're welcome.

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you for being so quick to respond to this committee's invitation and for giving us all of the time you had available. We really appreciate your time.

We're going to suspend for about five minutes so we can switch over and give you a chance to leave the room. Then, we have the rest of our time with some of your officials to answer further questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

There are just a couple of housekeeping things before we get back into questioning.

We have our artificial intelligence study. We've asked members to submit witnesses by the end of today. However, many members did not give us complete information for the witnesses. I know lots of us are new and the process is a little different. I'm wondering if everybody is in agreement that we give members until tomorrow morning, since we're sitting late tonight, to submit the final list of witnesses for the AI study. Is everybody okay with that, that we have until tomorrow morning for our witness list for the AI study? Okay.

Secondly, the clerk has let me know that we have no CRTC confirmation yet for our meeting on October 1. We are still waiting to hear back to see whether the chair of the CRTC will be available next week.

Mr. Champoux.