Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, September 13, 2016, the Minister of Canadian Heritage was very proud to launch a public consultation on how to support Canadian content creation, discovery, and export in the digital world.
As the minister clearly explained at the time and many times since, our cultural and creative industries are important drivers of innovation and a vibrant part of our economy. The intersection of culture and technology holds tremendous potential for our country's growth and prosperity.
As we adjust to the realities of rapid technological advances and changing consumer behaviour, the minister launched consultations to better understand the challenges and opportunities brought on by this transformation. These consultations provided an opportunity to listen to and learn from Canadians and examine the federal government's current cultural policy toolkit.
We have been very pleased with the response to our consultation, and all Canadians can find material related to that response at our web portal at www.canadiancontentconsultations.ca. Approximately 26,000 individuals and organizations expressed an interest in the consultations by visiting the portal. Over 800 of them contributed directly to the discussions, including more than 300 who attended the in-person discussions. The department received more than 200 submissions from creators, citizens, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and companies. Finally, approximately 20,000 people mentioned the consultations and shared ideas on the subject in various social media.
We are committed to this being an open and transparent public consultation. That is why all of the submissions we received are posted and publicly available on the consultation web portal.
On February 21, 2017, the independent firm Ipsos released a report entitled “What We Heard Across Canada: Canadian Culture in a Digital World”, which summarized the ideas and recommendations heard during those consultations.
We invite Canadians to read that report. Our government will pay close attention to the results of those consultations.
The consultations will help us develop a cultural tool kit that is better suited for today's digital realities.
Back in November, my friend posed two questions. One was to make the briefs public. That has been done. The second was to ask the government to put a price on Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc., to pay the taxes. The work related to the consultations is not complete. He is asking for us to prejudge the outcome. He is possibly asking for us to prejudge what might be in tomorrow's budget or a future budget. We are not in a position to do that. We were not four months ago. We were not yesterday, and we are not today.