If reproduction and public communication rights were recognized in the Copyright Act and were applied, that would mean that digital platforms would have to pay royalties for copyrighted material. That does not necessarily mean exorbitant tariffs.
The idea of creating a fund for the long-term survival of the news is not at all part of the recommendations on the Copyright Act that we made following the last federal budget.
What we want to see is a way of providing financial support for the news media that create content. Supporting newsrooms is extremely expensive. Journalists who conduct investigations for weeks and months, sometimes without producing an article, run up costs, with very little in the way of advertising revenues thereafter, especially in the digital age.
There are a number of ways to create a sustainability fund for the future of news. We could require royalties from GAFA companies or tax online ads on Google or Facebook, for instance. Such a tax of 5%, let's say, could be paid to the consolidated fund for the future of news or artistic content.
There are ways of making those who profit from Quebec and Canadian content contribute their share. There are also the Internet service providers.
I talked about the creation of the Canada media fund from royalties on cable subscriptions. People are increasingly dropping cable and using content provided by Internet service providers. Why not require those Internet service providers to pay royalties? In many cases, they are the same companies. Why are there no royalties on Internet subscriptions?
These are the kinds of questions we need to ask. There are a number of possible approaches. Now we simply have to take the bull by the horns, muster the political will, and defend our creators and content producers here.