(Montreal) The announcement by the TVA Group of the layoff of 547 employees is “shocking” news and “time is against us,” said the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, while saying she hoped reverse the trend with the modernization of laws undertaken by his government.
TVA Group announced Thursday the layoff of 31% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring that includes the overhaul of its information sector, the end of its internal production activities in entertainment content and the optimization of its real estate portfolio.
In the press scrum on Friday, Mme St-Onge assured that his government continued to be engaged in efforts to modernize laws, whether it be the broadcasting law or the establishment of a framework for negotiations between web giants and the media. information throughout Quebec and Canada.
The minister said “accelerate the pace” with the objective of a “fair” market and “reinvestments”.
“Ideally, I would like to see at the end of all this, newsrooms that rehire journalists. This is what we are trying to do with the modernization of our laws,” argued Mr.me St-Onge in front of journalists, in Montreal, on the sidelines of a signing ceremony of a modernized Canada-Switzerland audiovisual co-production treaty.
The minister did not move forward on emergency aid, instead highlighting measures put in place such as the tax credit for newsroom labor and the “enhancement” of certain funds for audiovisual industry, such as the Canadian Media Fund and Telefilm.
“But the future really requires the modernization of the law, through investments from the web giants who do business here, and who make a lot of money. So, spending obligations on Quebec content, on Canadian content, and also an obligation to promote this content,” she explained.
The Broadcasting Act obtained royal assent in the spring, and “so the CRTC begins the work of modernizing all the regulations”. “Within the framework of the law, we offer it the possibility of reviewing the license conditions of broadcasters, of taking into account their financial situation, of taking into account the reality that we live in the digital world, and also of imposing certain obligations to foreign broadcasters who now occupy all the space online, such as obviously Netflix, Disney and others,” declared Mme St-Onge.
Then, the Online News Act will come into full force from December 19, providing a framework for negotiations between web giants and the news media.
Discussions continue with Google. By then, I am hopeful that we will have found common ground. For Facebook, we will see what happens next. For the moment, I can’t tell you more, but ultimately, it’s about balancing the market.
Pascale St-Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage
“Time is against us, because we are in the process of modernization, and we will see the result of that over the coming months and years,” said the minister, recalling that thousands of jobs have disappeared in the written press and hundreds in the audiovisual industry in the country over the past ten years.
Mme St-Onge expressed solidarity with workers who are losing their jobs and their families, and explained the importance of regional information in particular for democracy and the vitality of communities.
“I really hope that with the modernization of the law, with the work that will be done by the CRTC, and also with the efforts we are making to improve the programs, and (those undertaken by the) government of Quebec, that we are going to save the furniture, and afterwards, we will be able to experience growth in our industry. This is really my wish,” she concluded.