Finance committee  No problem. I'll be very brief. In fact, the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income and the transformation of employment insurance are absolutely essential to help the self-employed. As for culture, it will stay. When we can go back to the theatres, there will still be shows.

Finance committee  First, we need to think about an income replacement mechanism, because the entertainment and cultural world operates intermittently, as I explained. Second, there is already a lot of public money invested in culture. Unfortunately, the situation has stagnated for decades. So we need to at least ensure that programs are indexed.

Finance committee  We hope so. Thank you.

Finance committee  It would be great if it could be extended over a longer period of time to allow for predictability. At the same time, it would set the stage for the work that needs to be done on how to establish a social safety net for self-employed workers. I absolutely agree. The longer it's extended, the better.

Finance committee  I will start with your second question. In my opinion, because of the precarious situation in which they find themselves, self-employed workers in the cultural sector have not been able to accumulate enough savings to be able to get through periods of crisis. The current crisis is dragging on.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. First, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to speak about your work on emergency measures during the pandemic. The Fédération nationale des communications et de la culture, or FNCC, represents approximately 6,000 members in 80 unions.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, absolutely. It is a step in the right direction. Now, the word “appropriate” remains to be defined. It could have been a more decisive word, like “significant”, for example. If we base it only on the proportion of Canadians who are francophones, as is the case for current funding of French-language productions, it means less money for them.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm going to continue in the same vein. The current policy direction talks about incentives that the CRTC could put in place to encourage diversity. However, instead of incentives, it seems to me that it would be more appropriate and effective to talk about obligations. That would result in more constraints and clear guidelines as to the obligation to foster diversity in all its forms.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a big problem, because the bill does not include specific instructions for improving content discoverability. Currently, the system puts the burden of discoverability on the productions. People often say that content will be discovered if it's good. However, we know that things don't work that way on the platforms, since content is displayed based on algorithms that are not transparent and over which we have no control.

Canadian Heritage committee  To begin with, the directive mentions French, whereas the act refers to both official languages. In that sense, the policy direction order is a step forward. However, we feel there could have been more emphasis on funding for French-language productions to ensure they received a significant share of the funding.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. My colleague, Julien Laflamme, may have some comments on that.

Canadian Heritage committee  This is something we are concerned about because, in the past, the CRTC had the power of life or death over companies through its decision on whether or not to issue a licence, while now, a power to impose fines is being mentioned. We are concerned about the CRTC's ability to fulfill that mandate, especially when it comes to resources, but also about the way it will do that new job.

Canadian Heritage committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of Parliament. First, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak about Bill C-10. My colleague, Sophie Prégent, president of the Union des artistes, or UDA, can't join us today because she's working. I want to introduce my colleague, Julien Laflamme, from the research department of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, or CSN.

Finance committee  The government can do a lot to help the media and culture. First, everyone is thinking about a program to support self-employed workers in a longer term, meaning a program other than the CERB, either a variation of it or a guaranteed minimum income. Now, as we know, establishing a new program can take time.

Finance committee  I will be very brief with this. I would like to expand on the issue of economic impacts. The impacts that you mention are the direct impacts of the cultural industry. However, we must not underestimate the power of attraction of the creative industry in Canada on foreign investments and on the quality of life and the social cohesion.