Quebec committee recommends new 'fundamental right' to access French content online
CTV
Quebec intends to legislate to boost French content on streaming platforms as it seeks to push back against the overwhelming influence of foreign digital culture and corporations.
Quebec intends to legislate to boost French content on streaming platforms as it seeks to push back against the overwhelming influence of foreign digital culture and corporations.
In a report published last week, a committee appointed by the provincial government outlines 32 recommendations for Quebec to achieve that goal and counter what the authors call the hegemony of English-language content on such platforms as Apple TV and Spotify.
The committee cites a recent study by Quebec's statistics agency that shows English dominates among Quebecers' music streaming habits: of the 10,000 most listened-to songs in the majority francophone province in 2022, 85.7 per cent were in English.
"The current situation in Quebec is increasingly alarming," the committee writes. "If no action is taken, the very vitality of our cultural ecosystem will be compromised."
At the core of the committee's recommendations is a new law to create a "fundamental right to access and discover original cultural content in French," enshrined in the provincial charter of rights. It says that legislation should provide a framework to regulate digital platforms, including a minimum quantity of French-language results in algorithmic recommendations and possible quotas for French content.
In an interview Friday, Quebec's minister of communications and culture, Mathieu Lacombe, committed to introducing a bill in the coming months with the aim of getting digital platforms to offer more French content to customers in the province. He said he was studying the committee's recommendations but couldn't say which measures the bill would include, nor whether the proposed addition to the Quebec charter of rights would be among them.
The Association quebecoise de la production mediatique, an organization that represents more than 160 film, television and web production companies in Quebec, called the strategies presented by the committee an encouraging step toward a greater representation of local creators and French content online.
