Canadian Heritage committee  I think the big piece was the dropping of the qualifiers around the need for indigenous content to be represented within the Canadian broadcast system. As you know, the previous legislation used the phrase, I believe it was, “when resources become available”. Of course, in practice, resources never became available, or if they did, they became available very recently.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, of course. More information is always valuable. We think that those directions need to be very clear and that the supports are in line with what we see in terms of French and English already. I would agree with Valerie. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. What we need to do is to make sure that wheel is applicable to all of the communities we're trying to serve within the screen sector.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the ecosystems we see in the screen sector vary across the country, because, of course, there are local supports that may not exist in other places—tax credits and those sorts of things. I think specifically, certainly for historically marginalized communities, when they're gaining access to a sector, they will begin independently and then grow.

Canadian Heritage committee  There was some, but it wasn't particularly robust. We were a relatively new agency at the time. We take our position based on advocacy, research and consultation that has occurred over the last 20 years. Much of the answers have not changed. Our responses were very much a reflection of that.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the bill is certainly an improvement over the last iteration of this particular piece of legislation, dropping some of the qualifiers. Of course, we'd love it to be stronger, to set measurements. We look to the directive to the CRTC to do those things. Of course, we would also have loved to see indigenous languages entrenched in the bill in the same exact manner that French and English are.

Canadian Heritage committee  We were somewhat surprised to see the word “indigenous” actually used in the bill because, as far as I know, it doesn't actually appear in any other law in Canada. While it is a relatively new term that we use as a catch-all, it does lack a specificity that I think is important if you're going to embed it in legislation.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you so much. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Indigenous Screen Office and the first nations, Métis and Inuit storytellers we serve. As I'm sure you all know, the Indigenous Screen Office was announced by this government in 2017, after years of advocacy for such an agency to exist.