By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – After hearing Janet Yale and Monique Simard from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel on Monday, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage had the new Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault, in for a discussion about the contents of his mandate letter.
He appeared with Hélène Laurendeau, his deputy minister and Jean-Stéphen Piché, the Heritage Ministry’s senior assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs. Of course, some questions were on other subjects and there was some discussion about the BTLR/Yale Report.
First, the Minister said not once but twice that he would table legislation based on the report’s recommendations before June, if not sooner, and you could hear the frustration about the pace of the Legislative process. His mandate letter says it should be passed before the end of 2020. Welcome to Ottawa, Mr. Guilbault… and good luck.
The meeting started with difficulty thanks to some confusing questions from the other Steven, the Conservative Steven Blaney, who compensated for a lack of grasp of the issues with enthusiasm.
One of his questions was about Section 19 of the Income Tax Act, which in its present language says advertising expenses in Canadian media is tax deductible and, because the way it is written, also exempts in foreign online media. The same deduction can’t be claimed when purchasing ads on American broadcast TV or radio. It’s the Loophole as the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting call it.
However, he mixed with that a Radio-Canada story, saying the Trudeau government bought $52 million worth of online advertising from web giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter in 2018 et 2019. In the same time frame, the Government spent $11.6 million on other platforms, mostly Canadian.
The Minister noted Tax Act is not for him to adjust but the minister of Finance. When asked if the government should instead buy advertising on regional weekly newspapers, the minister said the government is looking for value for money in its advertising to reach it audience.
On the issue of forcing the likes of Netflix and other foreign digital companies to collect sales tax, Guilbeault alluded we would see something in the next budget which is surely all but complete at this stage, so it should be a done deal. The budget should be released in the next few weeks.
On the issue of the CRTC’s Digital Media Exemption Order, an issue that was identified by the Yale Report as urgent and that did not require legislation, he said the Ministry is looking at a variety of measures where change could happen more quickly. When asked if there were measures faster than an Order in Council from Cabinet, he skated.
On budgetary increases for the NFB, the Deputy Minister said that they were looking at recalibrating the audiovisual agencies.
This time, as well as the previous meeting, some MPs objected seriously to the proposal that CRTC Commissioners had to reside in Ottawa, which one MP called inflammatory.
