The biggest challenge facing Canada’s cultural industry is not the quality of its creative output, but finding better ways to export the material on digital platforms around the world, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly said. “The quality of the content is already there; let’s stop saying it isn’t quality content,” Ms. Joly told The Globe and Mail in an interview. Ms. Joly’s comments in defence of Canada’s creative sector comes as she launches the final phase of a major public consultation on the future of cultural industries, which are struggling in the face of rapid technological changes.
Under the heading of “Canadian Content in a Digital World,” Ms. Joly is now set to host a series of meetings with members of Canada’s cultural industries, starting in Vancouver on Sept. 26. At the same time, the government is asking Canadians to continue sending in feedback on a new discussion paper, using the hashtag of #DigiCanCon to comment on social media.The shake-up is based on two trends that stir up fears in the industry: A clear majority of Canadians state they will be mostly using the Internet to access cultural content in the future, while research shows that Canadians consume less Canadian content when they are on Internet platforms.