Quebec’s cultural specificity is an endangered species, which deserves to be fought tooth and nail for it. The Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, is perfectly right to be pugnacious in the matter of online streaming, since it is primarily on this ground that the fate of our cultural sovereignty will be sealed.
We have already expressed in these pages our exasperation regarding the multiple delays that plagued Bill C-11 on online streaming and regarding its first version, C-10, which died on the order paper. The urgency to adopt it is no less acute today. We reiterate it with force. But must it be at the cost of a forced aplaventrism by the absence of a “compulsory and official consultation mechanism of the Government of Quebec” as Mr. Lacombe legitimately claims in his felt letter to the pilot of this reform? , Pablo Rodríguez? Certainly not.
This law, which aims to make the Netflix and YouTube of this world contribute to the Canadian cultural ecosystem, cannot be satisfied with simply stating its linguistic duality as a safe-conduct. In reality, this duality is painfully asymmetrical, even unjust in its application and defense at home. You only have to see the fuss over the reform of the Official Languages Act, torpedoed by the very people who should be defending it, to be convinced.
Minority in an ocean of English-speaking Canadian culture subjected to the omnipotence of the American tsunami, the cultural specificity of Quebec needs additional locks to avoid being swallowed up by bigger than itself. The unanimous adoption by the National Assembly of a motion requiring that Quebec “be consulted in respect of its areas of jurisdiction regarding the orientations that will be given to the CRTC” makes perfect sense.
This is also the opinion of the conservatives, objective allies of the Legault government in this inelegant showdown. It is up to Quebec to define its cultural orientations in order to protect its language, its culture and its identity. C-11, like Bill C-18, which seeks to ensure the fairness and viability of the Canadian digital news market, cannot escape this imperative. Minister Lacombe is right to raise his voice.
If the worm is in the fruit, and many of us think it is, the Minister of Canadian Heritage must pull it out quickly, well done, of his reform.