Dunlevy: Quebec's latest language bill actually makes sense (mostly)
It's hard to argue with the spirit of Quebec's latest language bill.
Culture and Communications Minister Mathieu Lacombe introduced legislation at the National Assembly Wednesday morning aimed at pushing digital platforms to offer more French content to Quebec consumers.
The wording is characteristically lofty. Bill 109 affirms the 'cultural sovereignty' of Quebec. (Does everything have to become a sovereignty issue?) Its purpose is to increase the 'discoverability' of French-language movies, series, music, books and podcasts on streaming services including Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Apple and Spotify, and could involve quotas to that effect.
The bill follows a 65-page study commissioned by the Coalition Avenir Québec government, released in January, looking at how to counter the barrage of English North American culture in the province. The objective is to insert into the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms the right to discover cultural products reflecting the 'original expression' of the French language.
It is of course ironic that Quebec can fight for Quebecers' rights when it comes to the language of the culture people consume but not the clothing they wear. (Hello, notwithstanding clause, used to push through Bill 21, the province's ban on religious symbols.)
Details have to be ironed out and regulations created, but the premise is simple enough. Bill 109 aims to make it easier for users to locate Quebec content and French content in general on streaming platforms. Anyone who has ever spent more time perusing the pablum on Netflix looking for something remotely watchable than they spend actually watching whatever they settle on can grasp the value of giving greater visibility to French-language cultural products on platforms serving French-speaking consumers.
As is, these streaming services are impossible to navigate. Even when you know what you're looking for, they bombard you with a million distractions in the form of mediocre, mass- and fast-produced series and playlists designed to distract while keeping you in a state of comfortable — not to mention cultural — numbness. And if we let them have their way, they'll keep at it.
Which is why Canada is working on its own legislation promoting and protecting Canadian content. Bill C-11 a.k.a. the Online Streaming Act has already been adopted, with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) currently holding hearings to define Canadian content in order to set the parameters of the act.
It makes sense for Quebec to have its own version. According to Lacombe, 65 per cent of Quebecers have trouble finding Quebec content on foreign streaming platforms.
With all the great films, TV shows, music and literature produced in our province's thriving cultural industry, it should be a top priority to make those works more accessible to Quebec audiences. It doesn't guarantee people will consume them, but it provides a fighting chance.
Yet much remains to be seen in terms of the regulations that will eventually serve to support Bill 109. Making laws to facilitate access to French-language content is one thing; implementing them is another. Quebec plans to create a Bureau de la découvrabilité des contenus culturels that will report to the government on the progress of the initiative — and as we know with anything involving bureaus and language, well, things could get silly quick.
One question that has dogged Quebec culture in the past is what constitutes sufficient French content to qualify as French-language, for example when it comes to Quebec rap albums that freely mix French and English words in a freewheeling verbal potpourri, and have therefore been disqualified from competing in categories at the ADISQ awards reserved for francophone music. Will such cultural products be less promoted, or have less of a right to promotion under the new bill?
And what of Quebec's woebegone anglophone cultural producers — ye olde minority among the minority? Who is fighting for them? Presumably, there is no plan for our anglo creators to get a promotional push from Bill 109. They would therefore have to hope to benefit from the federal government's Bill C-11. But as we have seen in the past, such hopes can mean getting lost in the shuffle for productions that aren't even championed in their own province.
I would have asked Minister Lacombe to comment, but his office declined The Gazette's interview request.
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