Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
My name is Marie‑Julie Desrochers and I am the executive director of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. For over 25 years, the organization has been carrying the collective voice of Canada's cultural sector in all its diversity. We bring together more than 50 organizations, representing 350,000 creators, as well as 3,000 cultural enterprises across multiple disciplines.
I am joined by Christian Laforce of Copibec, a member of the organization's executive board. Last week, your committee heard from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, which is also a member of the organization.
Generative artificial intelligence is becoming an unavoidable force and is profoundly transforming the cultural ecosystem. Some embrace it and integrate it into their daily work, while others proceed more cautiously or reject it altogether. Different levels of adoption and comfort coexist. However, beyond these differences, one point of consensus remains: the need for proper regulation so that this technology serves human creativity, rather than the other way around.
The work of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is grounded in the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Canada played a decisive role in the development and adoption of this convention. It was the first country to ratify it. Twenty years later, this commitment remains essential. Canada is a recognized leader in the implementation of the convention, a role that must continue in the era of generative artificial intelligence.
In this regard, we have in fact received encouraging signals this year from the government of Canada. In February, at UNESCO, the Minister of Culture and Canadian Identity, Mr. Marc Miller, supported the addition of a protocol to the convention. This marked a significant step toward the adoption of a new binding legal instrument aimed at complementing, strengthening and enriching the objectives of the convention in the digital environment, particularly in response to the growing challenges posed by artificial generative intelligence systems.
During the national summit on artificial intelligence and culture held in Banff this past March, Minister Miller also stated that he had no intention of amending the Copyright Act and noted the importance of ensuring that rights holders are compensated when their works are used. These are encouraging statements, but they still lack clarity and firmness. We therefore strongly hope that the national artificial intelligence strategy will finally provide the necessary guarantees, at a time when discussions on the North American framework and the place of cultural policies within it take on particular importance in the context of the review of the Canada—United States—Mexico Agreement.
The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions' positions are part of a broad international consensus and are well within reach for the government of Canada. They can be summarized in three words forming the acronym ART: authorization, remuneration and transparency.
Let us start with authorization. The Copyright Act requires industrial users to obtain authorization from rights holders prior to any use of their works, and this must remain unchanged. To be clear, there should be no new consent mechanism introduced, but rather a reaffirmation that Canada operates in an opt-in system, and a clear statement that Canada does not intend to modify this principle, for instance, by introducing an exception for text and data mining.
Next, with respect to remuneration, we are at the dawn of a new licencing market for rights holders, based on voluntary, individual or collective licencing schemes. This market should not be disrupted or undermined.
Finally, when it comes to transparency, developers and deployers of generative artificial intelligence systems should be required to disclose the training data used and to document their sources. In addition, content generated by artificial intelligence systems should be clearly identified as such when made public.
This past February, the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions organized a conference entitled Valuing Human Creativity in the Age of AI. Speakers from France, Australia and the United Kingdom came to support the Canadian cultural sector's positions and highlight developments in their respective jurisdictions.
Sebastian Cuttill, head of parliamentary and legislative affairs at the News Media Association in the United Kingdom, where the government recently stepped back from its intention to introduce a text and data mining exception, aptly stated that respecting copyright is not about
protecting the vested interests of a particular sector or maintaining an outdated legal system. It is simply about applying a basic principle of resource management: when someone wants to use your assets, you must ensure that the value created remains within your economy.
We fully endorse this view. Genuine innovation cannot be built on the appropriation of such a valuable resource as human creativity and our intellectual property, but on the recognition of its value in every sense of the word.
Thank you for your attention.