Sometimes we want to despair. For example, when we realize that in 2022, Quebec songs, on Spotify, Apple, etc., only accounted for “8% of listening” by Quebecers. Among “the 10,000 most listened to tracks in Quebec”, French recordings only accounted for 8.6%. Those in English? 85.7%!
Is it already too late for Quebec culture?
Common references
To form a nation, we need common cultural references.
Catholicism once brought together French Canadians from coast to coast. Then, a certain idea of Quebec took hold thanks, among other things, to singers and television. The latter was added to our newspapers and radios. From the 1950s to the 2000s, analog mass media contributed to developing and strengthening, among Quebecers, the feeling of being part of a common adventure.
The digital age has absolutely fascinating sides, but has the drawback of undermining these national references. By replacing those imposed by the web, which are 99% American.
- Listen to the political meeting between Antoine Robitaille and Benoît Dutrizac via QUB :
Recover
According to some, everything is very simple: our culture is “pocket”. This feeling of inferiority is currently flourishing. It is unfounded.
If we were able to focus on Quebec works, between approximately 1950 and 2005, it is because the cultural and legislative environment favored their “discoverability”. Without excluding American works and other nations, systems supported common references.
With the arrival of the internet, then digital technology, we collectively convinced ourselves that we should do nothing against this “progress”. In doing so, we have quietly submitted to a veritable cultural empire which almost completely obscures our works.
Several voices, everywhere, believe that we must pull ourselves together. Experts mandated by the Legault government (Louise Beaudoin, Patrick Taillon, Clément Duhaime, Véronique Guèvremont) presented this week to the Minister of Culture Mathieu Lacombe a report containing several bold recommendations on this vital subject.
Photo Archives REUTERS
The title of the report, The cultural sovereignty of Quebec in the digital agejudiciously takes up a concept by Robert Bourassa from the 1970s.
This is very topical. With the new digital situation, Quebec has the opportunity to reaffirm its portion of competence in these matters. As the authors of the report say, Ottawa cannot “consider everything related to the internet to be within its jurisdiction.”
Even if federal law C-11 (the one against which Facebook railed) probably violates the division of constitutional powers, the authors of the report do not recommend challenging it in court. For the moment.
The urgency is to adopt a law on the discoverability of our works, then to get Ottawa to recognize the specificity of the Quebec nation in the cultural field.
This is a good workhorse for our federalists. The CAQ promised this in 2015, in its New Project for Quebec Nationalists. It would be time to make it happen. As for the PLQ, we no longer expect much from it in these matters. He seems to believe that “federalism” boils down to destroying the PQ and the idea of independence.