Prime Minister Trudeau Issues Ministerial Mandate Letters To Cabinet
/On December 16, the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau has issued ministerial mandate letters for each of his 38 cabinet ministers, outlining the government’s plan to find solutions to the issues Canadians are facing. Among these letters, the Prime Minister addressed recently appointed Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez.
The letter reads, in part:
“As Minister of Canadian Heritage, your immediate focus will be to ensure artists and cultural industries have the supports they need to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure Canada’s laws reflect our evolving digital world, you will work to introduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act, ask web giants to pay their fair share and combat serious forms of harmful online content. You will also move early to take steps with Indigenous partners to create a national monument to honour residential school Survivors. Since arts and culture draw us together and help tell us who we are, you will also prioritize efforts to promote cultural and creative industries in both official languages, increase funding to empower Indigenous, Black and racialized artists and journalists to tell their own stories and work with Indigenous partners to preserve, promote and revitalize Indigenous languages in Canada.
To realize these objectives, I ask that you achieve results for Canadians by delivering the following commitments.
Support artists and the cultural sector to recover from the impacts of the pandemic by:
Holding a national summit on plans to restart and position the arts, culture and heritage sectors for the future;
Ensuring sufficient compensation is available for media production stoppages related to COVID-19;
Launching an Arts and Culture Recovery Program to mitigate the impacts of reduced capacity in cultural venues; and
Implementing a COVID-19 transitional support program to provide emergency relief to artists and cultural workers.
To honour residential school Survivors and all the children who were taken from their families and communities, work with Indigenous leadership, Survivors, families, communities and experts on the planning, design and construction of a national monument in Ottawa.
Work with First Nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation to ensure that the Indigenous Languages Act continues to be fully implemented and is supported by long-term, predictable and sustainable funding in order to preserve, promote and revitalize Indigenous languages in Canada.
As our Government’s Quebec Lieutenant, you will work to ensure the needs and aspirations of all Quebecers are reflected in our agenda and act as a key interlocutor between our Government and Quebecers.
Work with the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to amend the Copyright Act to further protect artists, creators and copyright holders, including to allow resale rights for artists.
Reintroduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act to ensure foreign web giants contribute to the creation and promotion of Canadian stories and music.
Swiftly introduce legislation to require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to share a portion of their revenues with Canadian news outlets to level the playing field between global platforms and Canadian outlets. This legislation should be modelled on the Australian approach and introduced in early 2022.
Continue efforts with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect Canadians and hold social media platforms and other online services accountable for the content they host. This legislation should be reflective of the feedback received during the recent consultations.
Support Canadian music, film and television by:
Increasing funding to Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund to support Canadian feature films and television productions;
Increasing the proportion of funding for French audiovisual content at Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund from 33 per cent to 40 per cent to increase the presence of French-language productions;
Providing the Indigenous Screen Office with additional ongoing funding so more Indigenous stories can be told and seen; and
Increasing annual contributions to the Canada Music Fund to ensure better and more stable funding for the music sector.
Work with the Minister of Foreign Affairs to launch a new cultural diplomacy strategy and ensure Canadian artists realize benefits from this initiative.
Support the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development to help Canadian cultural industries succeed at home and abroad by issuing a mandate to the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada (EDC) to support the growth of creative industries in existing and new markets.
Support Canadian authors and book publishers by increasing funding for the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Public Lending Right Program.
Empower racialized artists and journalists by:
Supporting productions led by people from equity-deserving groups in the Canadian audiovisual industry;
Investing in the Local Journalism Initiative to support the production of news in underserved communities; and
Developing a new Changing Narratives Fund to provide diverse communities with the tools to tell their own stories and to promote diverse voices in arts, culture and media.
You will be supported in this work by the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion.
Modernize CBC/Radio-Canada, proceeding in a manner that respects the public broadcaster’s independence, by:
Updating CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate to ensure that it meets the needs and expectations of Canadian audiences, with unique programming that distinguishes it from private broadcasters;
Reaffirming its role as public broadcaster in protecting and promoting the French language and francophone cultures in Quebec and across the country;
Increasing the production of national, regional and local news;
Strengthening Radio Canada International, so that it can continue to advocate for peace, democracy and universal values on the world stage;
Ensuring that Indigenous voices and cultures are present on our screens and radios;
Bringing Canada’s television and film productions to the world stage; and
Providing additional funding to make it less reliant on private advertising, with a goal of eliminating advertising during news and other public affairs shows.
Modernize the institutions and funding tools that support Canada’s audiovisual sector, including video games, to make funding platform-agnostic and open to more traditionally under-represented storytellers, while promoting Canadian productions and ensuring that Canadians are better equipped to own, and benefit from, the content that they produce.
Increase the funding for the Court Challenges Program, which supports Canadians in legal cases of national significance that clarify official language rights and human rights.
Working with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, take steps to build an international coalition to develop a new UNESCO convention on the diversity of content online.
Continue to contribute to the funding of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations in Quebec and across the country, while also supporting other important celebrations for French language communities in Canada.”
The full text of the letter has been made public. To read it, click here.
For a list of mandate letters, click here.
