Strengthening Canadian Content Creation, Discovery & Export in a Digital World

Example Responses

What are the most urgent challenges facing your industry in the creation, discovery and export of Canadian content in a digital world? Please select up to three items.

• Creator remuneration
• How public funding is allocated
• Lack of legislation to ensure well paid contracts for Canadian artists (under Other)

What are the most significant barriers facing your industry in the creation, discovery and export of Canadian content in a digital world? Please select up to three items.

• A lack of private sector investment
• Government policies or programs that have not kept up with change
• Creative contracts are depreciating and/or going elsewhere under heavy US and foreign corporate influence with relatively few Canadian artists/creative companies benefitting (under Other)

The digital shift has created new types of content, such as digital newspaper articles with embedded video, as well as new aggregators and content providers, such as Google News, Netflix, YouTube, Spotify and many others.

As someone working in the culture sector, looking ahead to 2020, what will be the most important way(s) to provide access to content?

The two revenue models that will continue to gain strength are subscription and advertising, neither are regulated by the federal government.

The objectives of regulating foreign owned media entities online, such as Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, should be the same as the government has done with terrestrial radio and television.

1. Create more Canadian Control: Mandate that all online media companies of a certain size have a Canadian presence, with Canadian offices and control. This will create leadership and media leadership jobs in Canada.
2. Mandate that Large Online Media Companies need to adhere to artist contracting standards: To allow Canadian content creators and the fellow artists that they employ to benefit from a fair share of media revenues clarify that Large Media companies, whether domestic or foreign owned, are responsible under the Status of the Artist Act – this allows Canada’s great artist and cultural sector associations and unions to negotiate fair compensation for content creators and use their infrastructure to ensure this compensation continues fairly. If it is only domestic media companies and traditional media companies that have to negotiate with arts unions, it puts them at an unfair disadvantage.
3. Ensure that subsidiaries of large media companies are subject to 1 and 2 above.
4. Continue to invest in the arts and cultural industries through grants and agencies, but also ensure grantees where grants are of a certain size are subject to Status of the Artist Legislation.

Otherwise allow media companies to compete for the great Canadian market.

The federal government uses a range of tools to support the sector, including legislation, regulation, policies, funding mechanisms, and the operation of national institutions like CBC/Radio-Canada, among others.

Looking ahead, what do you believe will be the most effective tools for ensuring the creation and discovery of great Canadian content in a digital world? Please select up to five items.

• Enhanced public support for creators
• Direct government support to creative industries Canadian content rules for TV and radio Legislation, such as the Broadcasting Act
• Enhanced Status of the Artist Legislation (under Other)

Looking ahead, what do you believe will be the most effective tools to support the export of Canadian content to the world stage? Please select up to three items.

• Direct public support to creators or distributors
• Co-production treaties with other countries
• Requirement of foreign media companies to have offices and labour agreements to operate in Canada. (under Other)

What are the key roles for CBC/Radio-Canada to play in supporting Canadian content creation, discovery and export in a digital world? Please select up to five items.

• Reflecting the diversity of Canadian culture and communities
• Being an incubator for Canadian creative talent and training the next generation of content creators
• Striking partnerships with other players, including other public broadcasters, to extend content to new audiences at home and abroad
• Providing services to Canada’s Indigenous peoples
• Fair compensation for Canadian Content Creators and artists and using their relative power to ensure subcontracted media companies do the same by following labour agreements. (under Other)

Do you believe there is sufficient local content available that is relevant to your community?

• Yes

What type of local content would you like to see more of in your community? Please select up to five items.

• Information about local and regional cultural events
• Information about local and regional community events
• Information about local and regional public affairs
•  Information about municipal affairs
• Local and regional audiovisual programming (e.g. local talk shows)

What is being done in other countries, jurisdictions and the private sector that could be instructive to the Government of Canada in terms of best practices for supporting content creation and discovery in a digital world?

From Sweden: Outside of policy circles, a much more critical and interesting discussion is starting to take place, and it is one in which cultural workers need to engage. Innovation is increasingly being seen as a primary, if not the primary reason for support, particularly of the creative industries, but also of other cultural and arts activities. Much of this rests on a rather untested set of assertions about the links between innovation in the cultural sectors themselves and in the wider economy. The danger here for the cultural sectors is that if no such links can be clearly demonstrated (and there are already sceptics in some finance ministries, including the UK Treasury), then the arguments for supporting the cultural sectors themselves have already been weakened. I am generally of the view that non-instrumental public policy is an oxymoron, and the arguments for supporting the cultural sectors have always included a variety of instrumental rationales. But there is a danger in allowing the only rationales to be instrumental ones. If the current fashion for linking the cultural and creative sectors to wider innovation fades, and unless the supporting evidence for such process improves, the sectors themselves will have gained relatively little and will have sacrificed another claim on the public’s attention and taxes. However, there are more important reasons why cultural workers should start to engage in a critical discussion about innovation, and that is, simply, that it is not an uncontested good. Some innovations are harmful;

What is being done in other countries to promote the export of their cultural content?

Within the framework of the Government’s export strategy, the MFA and the Kreativ Sektor (Creative Sector) project have together created Showcase Sweden, a digital showcase for the Swedish cultural and creative industries. The aim is to make creative content accessible in a coordinated and useful format that can be used as a tool for press contacts, talks and meetings, for instance, but that can also be shown on screens in lobbies and waiting rooms and distributed to the broad public, potential customers and recipients of Swedish exports.

How important is it for you to have access to Canadian content in a digital world?

Very important

Please explain why it is important to you.

Canadian content remains important for us as a country to craft a voice, an economy, employment and pride in the larger media world. Now more than ever, with technology breaking down the physical and geographic barriers between content producer and audience, policy becomes a more key element in promoting Canadian content.

What other questions or issues as they relate to the goal of strengthening Canadian content creation, discovery and export in a digital world should we explore?

Most importantly, how can we modernize the Federal Status of the Artist Act to increase rights for creative people in modern agreement, governing the relationship between contract creative persons and producers? In this modernization the enabling of Canadian artists’ representative bodies to compel subcontractors of Status eligible producers, and also media distributors, both domestic and international to negotiate fair terms for Canadian creative persons, would ensure that Canada is the best place to live as a creative person. Subsequently Canadian content would increase in quality from the increased quality of the creative people we attract.