Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Willowdale.
I am pleased to speak about the trans-Pacific partnership. I would have liked to ask my colleague from Jonquière another question, since she mentioned dairy products, but not forest products. We kept chapter 19, which addresses dispute resolution. That is very important to her region, but she never mentioned it. However, that is not what I will be talking about today.
I am pleased to be able to talk about protecting Canada’s culture and creative industries within the context of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, the CPTPP. I proudly represent the riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. I sat on the Standing Committee on International Trade for two and a half years, and I am very interested in international trade.
As a nation, Canada can celebrate the vitality of its creative industries. Throughout our history, we have established a wide range of dynamic cultural institutions, created a diversified publishing industry, developed a music industry based on Canadian talent, established a prolific digital media industry, and built critically acclaimed film and television industries. Our cultural sector is a powerhouse in Canada’s economy, and it is at the heart of our competitive advantage on the international stage. Canada’s stories, shaped by our vast, rich diversity, need to be celebrated and communicated across Canada and abroad.
Creative industries drive development and diversity. They create jobs and enhance the quality of life of all Canadians. In 2016, the creative industries accounted for $53.8 billion, or 2.8% of the GDP, and created more than 650,000 direct jobs. That is enormous. They generated $16 billion in exports. Our government believes that the creative and cultural sectors, which account for an increasing percentage of our economy, have the potential to be leaders in accelerating the growth of our prosperity.
Over the years, to promote Canada’s dynamic culture, the government has established a combination of financial incentives, Canadian content requirements, tax measures, and other foreign investment and intellectual property policies and tools.
Among other things, the Government of Canada is investing $125 million over five years in Canada’s creative export strategy in order to optimize the export potential of Canadian creative industries. The strategy boosts export funding in existing Canadian Heritage programs, increases and strengthens the presence of Canadian creative industries abroad, builds relationships needed to make business deals, and establishes the creative export Canada funding program.
In short, the Government of Canada's cultural policy was essentially designed to create an environment for creating, producing, marketing, protecting and distributing Canadian cultural products in Canada and abroad, which contributes to the economic, social and cultural development of our country.
Our plan helps protect major national institutions, supports industries that reflect our unique identity as Canadians, and creates good jobs for the middle class, as well as economic opportunities in the cultural and creative industries.
Our government believes that Canada must maintain some flexibility in developing policies and programs if we want to create the right conditions for success and achieve the objectives of the cultural policies.
With regard to international trade agreements, our approach has always been to have exemptions for creative industries. In negotiating past agreements, we always tried to leave enough strategic leeway to pursue cultural objectives that support creating, distributing and experimenting with Canadian cultural content. We have also worked to promote cultural diversity in Canada and abroad and to open new export markets and opportunities for artists and culture professionals.
The CPTPP is no exception. During negotiations, our government has always been mindful of the importance of the creative institutions and industries that Canadians cherish and promoting the values that define them.
In public consultations, we listened to stakeholders from the Canadian cultural industry.
They expressed concerns about the original scope of CPTPP exceptions with respect to measures affecting cultural industries, which was narrower than that of the exceptions in previous free trade agreements.
In their opinion, such limits would have reduced the range of accessible strategic options for maintaining the success of Canadian cultural content in an open environment. In order to strike a balance in terms of the cultural protections required within the framework of the CPTPP, the government reached bilateral agreements with every CPTPP member.
These agreements state that the agreement’s original limits with respect to Canada’s right to promote its cultural industries in a digital environment do not apply within the framework of the CPTPP. These side agreements are important because they preserve Canada’s ability to promote and maintain programs and policies to promote, create, distribute and develop Canadian artistic content, including in a digital context.
Also, Canada was able to preserve the original warnings about Canadian culture in the chapters of the agreement dealing with the service trade, investment, electronic trade, goods, Crown corporations and government procurement.
In addition, Canada maintained a special exclusion for the CBC, Telefilm Canada and all similar Crown corporations in the future, which protects cultural institutions’ ability to play a key role in promoting, producing and distributing our cultural products.
In conclusion, I would like to repeat that our government is determined to promote Canada’s cultural interests in trade negotiations and to protect its cultural flexibility nationwide.
At the same time, our government places great importance on giving Canadian creators and artists every possible opportunity to take advantage of openings provided by foreign markets and audiences.
By insisting that the rules regarding culture in the CPTPP be tightened, our government demonstrated that it is possible to create new and promising perspectives for exporters and investors in a dynamic region that is experiencing some of the strongest growth in the world, while making sure that the industries that help shape our identity and our values continue to grow.
