Canada’s audiovisual institutions must modernize with the Broadcasting Act for the industry to grow, said Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez in a keynote speech at the Banff World Media Festival (BANFF).

“Just like the previous Broadcasting Act, the support tools that currently exist were designed for another era, so I think they should be adapted too,” he said on the second day of BANFF. “Our funding tools need to adapt, they need to be modern, they need to be flexible.”

Speaking exclusively with Playback Daily (continue below for a Q&A) following his keynote, Rodriguez says passing C-11 was “a huge step and now we have to keep moving forward.”

He says once the recently-launched 45-day policy direction consultation period is finished, Canadian Heritage will turn around the finalized directives “as soon as possible” for the CRTC.

The Minister made the first of two keynote speeches delivered Monday morning (June 12) at BANFF, the second delivered by CRTC chair and CEO Vicky Eatrides.

The keynotes were made at a critical point in the process for the implementation of Bill C-11, or the Online Streaming Act, which received royal assent in April.

Both Heritage and the CRTC are currently conducting open consultations: the CRTC on its proposed plan to create a flexible regulatory framework, with the deadline extended to July 11; and Heritage on its draft policy directives published last week, with consultations open until July 25.

Eatrides described the CRTC’s current first phase of consultations as “preparing for the changes to come,” followed by taking a deeper look into policy issues in phase two, and considering implementation plans in phase three.

“We have chosen to structure the process this way because we can’t take regulatory frameworks that have been in place for years and simply apply them to our new reality,” she said. “Square pegs don’t fit in round holes. We also can’t change these frameworks overnight.”

Eatrides also reaffirmed in her speech that the CRTC’s approach will be adjusted based on the finalized policy directions provided by Canadian Heritage.

Rodriguez further discussed the draft policy directives, modernization and the topic of redefining Canadian content in an exclusive chat with Playback during BANFF.

Playback: In your keynote speech you spoke about the importance of having this new regulation be “fair, flexible, and sustainable.” Could you expand on what you mean by “fair”?

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez: We have to make sure that we have the right tools for the future. I want to make sure that the people in the room that have expertise in different fields participate in the consultations, and make sure that together we’re able to modernize our institutions, the tools that we have to support more Canadian creators. And that we’re able to do it in a very inclusive way with different voices, with Indigenous people, English and French, and LGBTQ communities.

Earlier this year at Prime Time you spoke about using the policy directives to the CRTC to address industry concerns about a two-tier system for Canadian creators. Now that the directives are published, how do you feel they’ve been addressed?

I think we’re heading in the right direction. We have to take into consideration that we’re bringing in new players – international players that have a different business model – but in the policy direction it’s also very clear that everyone has to try to have as many… Canadian workers as possible.

Part of the consideration of that “maximum use” vs. “practicable use” language in the bill is around the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, so was that also in consideration for these directives?

Yes. We always have to take into consideration the agreements that we have. We have to respect those agreements. I think we’re doing that through C-11 and also the policy directions. We’ve been consulting with trade experts… and we’re very confident that everything in there meets the criteria they requested.

The CRTC and Heritage now have these parallel consultation processes in play. Has there been much communication with the CRTC around the consultations?

No, they do their stuff [independently]. I understand that they started right away because I want this to be placed as soon as possible, so they made the decision on their side and we didn’t speak about it. And we have our own because it’s mandatory. Once a bill is adopted, we have to come up with policy directions. This is a draft and we’re consulting for 45 days. I really want the input from the people that are here [at the Banff World Media Festival] … and from all Canadians, and we’ll send the final version to the CRTC as soon as possible. We want to move quickly. We need this bill. It’s a game changer.

You also mentioned in your speech about the importance of access to funding for any platform. The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has spoken about moving towards becoming platform-agnostic. Is that part of the modernization plans?

It’s really important because everything changes. What we have today, we could not guess it 10 years ago and what we had 10 years ago, we couldn’t guess it 20 years ago. So it has to be platform-agnostic. The technology goes so quickly that we have to find ways to make it work, whatever the new platform that comes in.

The CMF presented its initial findings on the definition of Canadian content here in Banff, and in the panel discussion there was a mention of potentially separate definitions for Canadian content and Indigenous content. Has Heritage looked at that and made those considerations?

For us, there are things that have to be taken into account when we talk about Canadian content. Because [the label of] Canadian content is what will define if someone qualifies for [funding] or not. And for us, the IP is very important, also the participation of creators. But to go back to Indigenous people, C-11 is there to make sure that we hear more Indigenous voices throughout the productions. They do amazing stuff.

So you would say that it would be a more holistic definition?

We’ll see what people come up with. There’s 45 days to come with recommendations.

Have you gotten any sort of feedback so far from delegates here?

People have stopped me to talk about different things, but, of course, nothing formal. There’s a formal process. I’m really looking forward to hearing from them.

This interview has been edited and condensed

Photo by Kristian Bogner Photography