Bloc Québécois calls for forcing tech companies to pay $600M royalties promised to artists

The Bloc Québécois is stepping up its efforts to demand that the Liberal government require tech giants to pay royalties to fund the cultural sector and that it finally disburse the $600 million promised to this sector last June in lieu of royalties for this year.

The Bloc will use its Opposition Day on Thursday to introduce a motion to that effect.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Bloc Québécois MP Martin Champoux pointed out that it was the Liberals who passed Bill C-11 in 2023, which mandated the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to find ways to have digital companies contribute to the funding of culture and broadcasting. That, however, was Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.

“What we’ve seen in recent years—in fact, since Carney joined the government—is that the Liberals have been backing away from that commitment and from their stance against the Americans in the context of negotiations with Donald Trump,” lamented Champoux, the member for Drummond.

“The concessions that have been made (to the Americans) have largely come at the expense of culture, and that’s the conversation we want to bring back to the table. So we want to force the House of Commons to have that conversation as part of an opposition day. They’ll have no choice but to debate the motion we’re introducing,” he says.

Defending culture, he adds, is not just the Bloc’s responsibility. “It is the will of the cultural sector and of Quebec and Canadian broadcasting companies, which feel that the government has embarrassingly backtracked on its own commitments.”

Ottawa acting illegally

The Bloc maintains that it was completely illegal for the government to fail to implement the CRTC’s decision. “The CRTC is an independent agency that establishes regulations in accordance with the law under which it operates. So even if we disagree, that’s the law.”

The Carney administration, in backing down from imposing a 15 per cent levy, had promised in return that it would step in itself by providing $600 million to the cultural sector. “However, that money still hasn’t reached the cultural sector. It’s been expected for months, and now people are starting to have enough. There are people who are starting to get really fed up, worn out, and running out of resources.”

The second part of the Bloc Québécois motion therefore calls on the Liberal government to “make an interim payment of the $600 million promised to the cultural sector for the current year.”

The Bloc Québécois member criticizes the Liberals for abandoning their traditional stance of supporting culture and states, “If the government does not want to implement this regulation decided by the CRTC, it must go through a legislative process and seek to amend the law to state that, ultimately, it does not want the CRTC to impose royalties”—a proposal that “would be very poorly received” by the cultural sector.

At the very least, he expects the promised $600 million to be included in the budget that Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will table in two weeks.

Pointless concessions

The government could commit to keeping its word, the Bloc Québécois member asserts, especially since “the concessions they made to the Americans during the negotiations amounted to nothing—we gained nothing, no benefits whatsoever. Everything that happened in those negotiations was one compromise after another. And let me remind you, those compromises were made at the expense of culture because they didn’t want to upset the tech giants who are close to Donald Trump.”

“At some point, we have to stop treating people like doormats; we have to man up and stand our ground against the tech giants,” he says.

“As long as we don’t set limits on what they can do, they’ll call the shots and will always oppose any form of regulation,” warns Martin Champoux, who points out that Australia and the European Union have been much more proactive than Canada in the face of intimidation by digital giants.

‘The French language is under threat’

The Bloc also has another reason to call for firm action from Ottawa: “Here, we have a unique situation—we have Francophone culture, and we have the French language, which is extremely threatened by this new reality, by this new digital environment. And if we don’t put up barriers, if we don’t put a protective framework in place—among other things and specifically for Francophone culture—we’re heading for a wall, and we won’t recover from it.”

And he doesn’t hesitate to use sarcasm toward the Carney administration. “I understand that the Liberals want to save face and maintain a semblance of friendliness toward the Trump administration in the hope that at some point, in a flash of kindness, the president will decide to grant Canada benefits as part of a trade agreement.”

“Otherwise, do we keep lying down and letting them walk all over us, or do we decide that at some point we’ll take action, put our legislative framework in place, put our regulations in place, and then impose fees? He (Trump) will get angry and be in a bad mood, and there may be retaliatory measures, but that’s all he ever does—impose retaliatory measures.”

Canada, he insists, cannot “let foreign multibillion-dollar companies come in and decide how they should behave on Quebec and Canadian soil, imposing their content without us having a say in the content produced here. And, on top of that, without requiring them to contribute to the tax system and the broadcasting system from which they generate billions annually while our cultural businesses are starving. The party has to end.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews