There was a time when the Coalition avenir Québec had great ambitions in terms of culture. In his 2015 document titled A new project for Quebec nationalists, which listed the demands that a CAQ government would defend within the Canadian constitutional order, François Legault’s party bluntly affirmed “Quebec’s desire to be the prime contractor for the development of its culture”, which should result in the repatriation of federal budgets paid to the Quebec cultural sector. For the CAQ, Quebec should “be able to fully play its role in promoting its cultural products, particularly abroad, as well as in the digital world”.
It was in a way the counterpart of the concept of cultural sovereignty that Robert Bourassa had developed in the 1970s. At the time, there was even a separate Ministry of Communications, whose minister was Jean-Paul L’Allier. The Liberal government intended to regulate telecommunications, especially the nascent cable television industry. The Régie des services publics du Québec, then the Régie des telecommunications, issued permits in competition with the federal authorities. In a 1994 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that telecommunications was an exclusive federal jurisdiction. Quebec’s claims were over.
The only state with a French-speaking majority in North America, Quebec obviously assumes important responsibilities for the vitality and influence of its national culture. But the federal government has long invested heavily in the field of culture with its own institutions, whether Radio-Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada or the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The advent of the Internet, the deployment of streaming platforms for films, television series and music such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify, as well as the rise of social media as vectors of cultural content represent a very real threat to culture in French. in Quebec, but also on the exercise of the powers of the Quebec government in this area.
With Bill C-11, which has just passed the approval stage in the Senate, the federal government is giving itself the power to impose requirements relating to the offer of Canadian content by these digital platforms, as well as to their visibility, or “discoverability”, to use the neologism of the industry. Once C-11 is adopted, the Trudeau government will formulate orientations that the CRTC will translate into regulations whose content is unknown. Already, the CRTC imposes quotas on radio stations and requires cable companies to fund original productions through the Canada Media Fund.
Internationally, Canada participates in discussions on the regulation of digital platforms at UNESCO. With regard to major American players, it is subject to the provisions relating to digital trade set out in the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Apart from a folding seat at UNESCO, the Quebec government does not have much to say. And it is not the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, to which the United States has not acceded, which will be of great help. Ottawa has the upper hand on these issues and the CAQ government has had no say.
In April 2022, the Minister of Culture and Communications at the time, Nathalie Roy, had nevertheless sent a letter to the federal Minister of Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, as well as a brief affirming that the new regime grants the CRTC a large margin of maneuver and that it must not be used to exceed Quebec’s jurisdictions. In the National Assembly, the deputies then adopted a motion recalling in particular the need for Ottawa to formally consult the Quebec government. The federal minister ignored this request and contented himself with consulting cultural circles. The new minister, Mathieu Lacombe, in turn sent a missive in February, followed by the adoption of a motion. This deplores the fact that the Quebec government has no say in the orientations that will be given to the CRTC and that it was up to Quebec itself to define its cultural orientations.
In an interview given to Duty, Mathieu Lacombe mentioned the possibility of legislating to regulate foreign digital platforms. With the expansion of the CRTC’s sandbox, it is no doubt necessary to assert Quebec’s jurisdictions and adapt them to the new context. If it is true that the Legault government is miles away from achieving the cultural sovereignty dear to Robert Bourassa, it can still avoid a legislative vacuum that would confirm its abdication.