Cinema, music, information, shopping… the digital giants are everywhere in 2022 and we are still struggling to understand their impact on the evolution of Canadian and Quebec cultures. The ex-professor and former director of information at Radio-Canada Alain Saulnier gives some clues in his most recent hard-hitting essay on the question, but he has very few possible solutions to offer.
It’s not for lack of looking for it, that said. In The digital barbarians. Resisting the GAFAM invasionwe rather feel that the author found himself on several occasions in a dead end before arriving at the observation that transpires throughout the 200 pages of his essay: in the long run, all the opportunities The failures of Canadian and Quebec decision-makers to better stem this invasion will end up costing Anglophone and Francophone Canadian cultures dearly.
The author speaks of an invasion, but one could just as well speak of a flood, because the GAFAM (for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, the leaders of this global all-digital movement which could just as include Disney, Netflix, Spotify and TikTok, why not?) know how to skilfully interfere in the cracks of all the walls that governments try to oppose them.
Alain Saulnier does not fail to underline how certain federal ministers have had numerous meetings with GAFAM lobbyists in recent years. Unsurprisingly, we learn that while she was Minister of Heritage, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, had as a close adviser the former director of the global communications and public affairs department of Google Canada, Leslie Church . Mme Church is currently in the cabinet of Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
“The wolf is in the sheepfold, advances with concern Alain Saulnier in an interview with the Duty. There is too much proximity between GAFAM and Canadian elected officials. »
This proximity is not exclusive to Canada: the American techno giants maintain similar relations with dozens of governments around the world, which is no doubt why the negotiation of a global digital tax by OECD member countries gave birth to the proverbial mouse – a level of taxation deemed very low by its many critics and which arrives very late, in 2024.
TV as a last bastion
Because everything is in everything, we cannot talk about ways to curb this barbaric and cultural invasion without affecting the role of Radio-Canada in the Canadian cultural landscape. Alain Saulnier obviously knows the box well, having worked there for many years. He is among those who believe that the crown corporation would do a better job of defending what distinguishes Canadian culture from American culture if it shed its addiction to advertising.
In front of the Netflix and Disney of this world, the digital platform Tou.tv and, later, CBC Gem (its English counterpart) could have risen as a national rampart. But Radio-Canada and the CBC are television and advertising competitors of TVA, Global (Shaw) and CTV (Bell), among others, which prevents them from becoming the inclusive media platform that Canadian broadcasters sorely need. “Radio-Canada is too dependent on advertising. Why does Véronique Cloutier occupy such a large place on Tou.tv? It’s because there are too many people at Radio-Canada who want to make money at all costs,” says the author.
Quebec could certainly fall back on its own state television, Télé-Québec. But this shift has never been taken either by what was called Radio-Québec until 1996. A sign of the times and proof that digital is breaking down borders (and not always for the better), “Radio-Québec” is today the name of a conspiratorial Internet channel hosted by QAnon enthusiast Alexis Cossette-Trudel.
Télé-Québec could have played this role of Quebec cultural showcase even in digital, believes Mr. Saulnier, but the provincial elected officials have decided not. “We therefore find ourselves in a strange situation, where the best tools to defend the sovereign status of our French-speaking culture are found in Ottawa (which sets the budget for Radio-Canada) rather than in Quebec. Today, Télé-Québec is no longer big enough. »
” In French please ! »
We do not know what the current CEO of Quebecor and Groupe TVA, Pierre Karl Péladeau, thinks of the accelerated anglicization of the songs performed by the participants in Star Academy, TVA’s flagship program. In the winter of 2015, Mr. Péladeau exclaimed “En français, svp!” during a concert in Rouyn-Noranda during which the French-speaking singer of a rock group called Groenland sang in the language of Elvis Presley.
What we know is that defending Quebec and French-speaking culture is too heavy a task for it to be the exclusive responsibility of the media or the private sector, seduced as they are by the song of advertising and popular sirens, explains Alain Saulnier in his test.
However, this is nothing new. Hollywood was accused of dumping culture in Canada long before the arrival of the Internet… Let’s not forget this, because in the 20and century, there were entire university programs aimed at combating American cultural imperialism, both on the big screen and on the small. Or in the books. Or anywhere else.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the advantage of the GAFAMs is to have taken control of key technologies which are, in the end, only tools. It’s what you do with them that determines their importance. Alain Saulnier also repeats that he is not against these technologies, on the contrary. The problem is rather that we seem, in Quebec and in Canada, to let them do anything without resisting. And even when these technologies are not strictly speaking American (think of the Swedish Spotify), the effect is the same.
“We should probably work more with the rest of the Francophonie,” suggests the former Montreal university professor. And draw more inspiration from what has made the success of Quebec cultural companies like the Cirque du Soleil, which has become international while retaining a little je-ne-sais-quoi from home.
Especially since with all the digital and artificial intelligence development taking place in the province, the next Spotify could just as easily be created in Quebec. Perhaps the best way to overthrow the invader is to become an invader yourself…