OTTAWA – Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez has mostly been silent on the Canadian TV business since being appointed last July.
We know he’s met with a number of stakeholders during his year on the job (the first anniversary is July 18) and he did make a short appearance on stage at the Canadian Media Producers Association Prime Time gathering in February, but Rodriguez has spent his first year well out of the spotlights which seemed constantly on his predecessor Mélanie Joly.
Wednesday however, Rodriguez issued a statement outlining his thoughts far more definitively on the Broadcasting and Telecom Legislative Review begun by Joly, much of which will be music to the ears of many in the business.
While thanking the BTLR panel chaired by Janet Yale for its recent What We Heard report, Rodriguez said: “Our end goal is clear: if you benefit, you contribute. No more free rides,” says the statement, tweeted here Wednesday morning.
“Concretely, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that all players, including the web giants:
- offer meaningful levels of Canadian content in their catalogues
- contribute to the creation of Canadian content; and
- promote Canadian content and make it easily accessible on platforms.”
The Heritage Minister then said it will be important the CRTC have new, “modern tools” it needs to play its role as the Regulator.
“It’s 2019 and the key laws regulating our culture and our communications pre-date the internet,” reads the statement. “This situation is hurting our economy, our jobs and out culture. We want a system where our creators and our businesses in the cultural sector compete on a level playing field with global web giants.”
Rodriguez also wrote that he “took a moment” with Yale to discuss the urgency for action and was assured the panel’s work will be ready on time in January, 2020 “at the latest.”
Once the BTLR recommendations are filed “(w)e will take appropriate measures swiftly,” said the Rodriguez statement.
Assuming, that is, the Liberals are still in power then and he is still Heritage Minister…
“Canadians must continue to access Canadian stories, created by Canadians in both English and French, on all platforms,” he added. “We believe that the government has a key role to play in that and, rest assured, we intend to filfill that role.”
What does all this mean, as the BTLR panel puts together its final report? It surely gives them some strong hints at the direction they should be headed on the broadcasting side of the review, which Rodriguez’s ministry covers. Then again, the federal government’s recently enshrined new CRTC policy directive, driven by ISED Minister Navdeep Bains, who covers the Telecom Act, laid bare his feelings with that announcement and some of his comments since.
While that policy directive and Minister Bains’ comments were not official submissions to the BTLR process, the panelists do not, of course, operate in a vacuum.
We'd love to sit down and chat with Minsiter Rodriguez about all this, but he has not yet been made available to Cartt.ca for an interview. We'll keep trying though.
