Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert for raising this issue.
Our government recognizes the value of arts and culture to Canada's society and economy. We know we are living in exciting transformational times. Rapid technological advances and changing consumer behaviour are creating both challenges and opportunities.
The government consulted Canadians in order to ensure that its cultural toolkit is adapted to today's digital reality and that we can successfully meet all challenges related to the creation, discovery and export of Canadian content in a digital world.
The government's focus is to ensure that Canadian creators have the tools necessary to thrive in the digital world.
The consultation will help us adapt our cultural policies to today’s digital realities.
As the initial consultation paper indicated, the way forward is not in attempting to regulate content on the internet. Our focus should be on how to best support Canada's creators and cultural entrepreneurs in creating great content and in competing globally for both Canadian and international audiences.
Grabbing a bigger piece of the global pie is critical to building a strong and viable creative sector.
As part of the consultation process, we organized discussions in Vancouver, Halifax, Toronto, Iqaluit, Edmonton and Montreal. These discussions took place with representatives from a variety of creative sectors. ADISQ was one of the groups represented that took part in the event in Montreal on October 28, 2016.
As well, individual Canadians and groups were encouraged to submit their ideas to the consultation web portal. ADISQ took advantage of this opportunity to submit a paper, which is publicly available on our web portal. The information and data received from both the online consultations and in-person events is being analyzed and will be presented in a public report. This information will help inform the government's approach to continue to support the sector.
By directly consulting Canadians, the Government of Canada will be able to determine how best to support Canada's creators and cultural entrepreneurs in the new digital environment.