QUEBEC CITY — The Parti Québécois is calling for the Quebec government to create an Office for the Promotion of Quebec Content to help promote the province’s culture on international streaming platforms, saying in a press release on Sunday the federal government has failed to do so.
“Given the poor results obtained by the Canadian government, Quebec can no longer let it speak on its behalf when it comes to making its cultural content known and shine, here but also elsewhere in the world,” reads an English translation of the Parti Québécois’s Saturday press release.
The PQ is proposing a body be created to register Quebec content on global distribution platforms. The PQ has proposed taking over the regulation of content in the province at various times in its history, but the party is particularly weak right now with just eight seats in the Quebec National Assembly.
“In the past, Quebec had to rely on Ottawa to represent it with the Internet giants. However, the poor results of the agreement between Ottawa and Netflix for the production of French-language content demonstrate it: Quebec content has no place on international broadcasting platforms, and this is a brake on the influence of our culture. Just in 2019, 86 Quebec feature films were produced, and close to 300 television series; among them, how many are found on Netflix?” asks Pascal Bérubé, parliamentary leader of the Parti Québécois, in the English translation of the release.
We don’t know the answer to that, so we have asked Netflix how many made-in-Quebec titles are available on its platform and will update the piece when we hear back.
“The mission of this new office that we are proposing will therefore be to promote Quebec productions to major global platforms, in order to increase the number of Quebec television series and films found there, and to expand the range of home music,” Bérubé added.
For the Parti Québécois’s French press release, please click here.
