Towards a Canadian national digital strategy?

CCA Bul­letin 13/10

 

May 13, 2010

 

 

Just the facts

This week, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment launched a nation-wide con­sul­ta­tion on the devel­op­ment of a national dig­i­tal strat­egy. The announce­ment was made jointly by Min­is­ters Clement (Indus­try), Moore (Her­itage) and Fin­ley (Human Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment) at the Canada 3.0 Con­fer­ence on dig­i­tal media.

Min­is­ter Moore said, “Our gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that cre­ators, inven­tors and entre­pre­neurs have the incen­tives to inno­vate, the con­fi­dence to take risks and the tools to suc­ceed. We rec­og­nize the impor­tant role the dig­i­tal media and con­tent sec­tor plays in the dig­i­tal econ­omy, and we intend to develop a long-term plan that will stand the test of time.”

An invi­ta­tion has been made to all Cana­di­ans to put for­ward their view­point through the gov­ern­ment web­site or by send­ing a brief to the gov­ern­ment by July 9.

The Stand­ing Com­mit­tee of Her­itage started its own con­sul­ta­tion on emerg­ing and dig­i­tal media. The CCA pre­sented its views to the Com­mit­tee today on what Cana­di­ans need com­ing out of this con­sul­ta­tion from a cul­tural and social perspective.

The CCA is happy to see that con­ver­sa­tions are no longer exclu­sively focused on build­ing phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture, but also take into account the con­di­tions nec­es­sary for the pres­ence of Cana­dian cul­ture in the dig­i­tal uni­verse. The suc­cess of our arts, cul­ture and national cohe­sion will depend on how new leg­is­la­tion will recal­i­brate the dig­i­tal fac­tors which per­me­ate all aspects of our lives. Old copy­right leg­is­la­tion and dan­ger­ous prece­dents in for­eign own­er­ship pol­icy regard­ing cul­tural indus­tries could pose seri­ous threats to Cana­dian “cul­tural prod­ucts and ser­vices” and crip­ple their devel­op­ment pre­cisely when the world could be our oys­ter.  A national strat­egy must include new tools and strate­gies for Cana­di­ans to gain the max­i­mum ben­e­fits from new media and to ensure their right to their own cul­ture. This is why the CCA feels that it is impor­tant to cast the debate not only in terms of devel­op­ing a “Dig­i­tal Econ­omy Strat­egy for Canada” but rather, in terms of devel­op­ing an eco­nomic, social and cul­tural dig­i­tal strat­egy for Canadians.

In its pre­sen­ta­tion to the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee, the CCA lays out sev­eral ways that the dig­i­tal sphere impacts Cana­dian cul­ture. Some major areas which require a cohe­sive pol­icy plat­form include train­ing and pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment for artists, inno­v­a­tive intel­lec­tual prop­erty rules through new copy­right leg­is­la­tion, invest­ment in Cana­dian con­tent, and retain­ing own­er­ship and con­trol of Cana­dian cul­tural indus­tries, dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture and cul­tural poli­cies. Extend­ing dig­i­tal lit­er­acy to all Cana­di­ans is also a major pre­oc­cu­pa­tion: it is no doubt impor­tant to give Cana­di­ans access to the best per­form­ing net­works but it is even more impor­tant to teach them how to use dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to fos­ter their com­mu­nity life. This is why the CCA sup­ports the cre­ation of multi-media cen­tres across Canada as recently pro­posed to the CRTC by the Cana­dian Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­nity Tele­vi­sion Users and Sta­tions (CACTUS).

Tell me more

The con­sul­ta­tion by the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee has been well attended by other play­ers within Canada’s arts and cul­ture scene. In his pre­sen­ta­tion on April 29, Tom Perl­mut­ter, Com­mis­sioner and Chair of the National Film Board, spoke elo­quently and clearly on the var­i­ous walls block­ing the suc­cess of Canada’s dig­i­tal cul­tural indus­tries. He reaf­firmed the urgency for Canada to adopt a national strat­egy to har­ness and fos­ter the power of the dig­i­tal realm, not­ing that

“We are unique in the world that our engage­ment as Cana­di­ans is almost over­whelm­ingly with non-Canadian, with Amer­i­can sites. There is no Cana­dian owned and oper­ated com­pany in the top ten web des­ti­na­tions. That may have changed recently with CTV’s online catch-up tele­vi­sion, but that would be for Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion offer­ings. This is in con­tra­dic­tion to the case in the U.K., Aus­tralia, France, Italy and many other coun­tries. One of our lead­ing dig­i­tal exec­u­tives oper­at­ing in the pri­vate sec­tor notes that Cana­di­ans are, and I quote, “draw­ers of elec­tric­ity and hew­ers of band­width.” We are in dan­ger of repli­cat­ing the sit­u­a­tion that cur­rently exists in broad­casts where great sums of money flow south to buy pro­gram­ming and Cana­dian con­tent is the poor stepchild.”

Perl­mut­ter, along with many other wit­nesses, touched on points which are nec­es­sary to rec­og­nize if a national strat­egy is to be pur­sued. The shift of audi­ence engage­ment from tele­vi­sion to other media plat­forms like mobile and inter­net is fun­da­men­tal.  What fol­lows is the under­stand­ing that intel­lec­tual prop­erty and Cana­dian con­tent pro­duc­tion will not be safe from inter­na­tional players.

Mau­reen Parker, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Writ­ers Guild of Canada, stated that:

“The national dig­i­tal strat­egy must: one, ensure that there is suf­fi­cient fund­ing to cre­ate professionally-produced dig­i­tal enter­tain­ment; two, ensure that Canadian-owned and con­trolled enter­prises exist to sup­port Cana­dian con­tent and have appro­pri­ate incen­tives or require­ments to do so; and three, amend the Copy­right Act and sup­port terms of trade to ensure that fair rev­enue streams flow back to con­tent creators.”

It is clear, from some wit­nesses, that one of the major changes which need to occur is the fund­ing and invest­ment in the dig­i­tal econ­omy, not only in terms of infra­struc­ture but in terms of con­tent devel­op­ment. Cre­ative enter­prises must be able to oper­ate their new busi­ness mod­els within a chang­ing par­a­digm, and not be forced to fit within the rubric of the past. For exam­ple, Jeff Anders, CEO and founder of The Mark News, described to the Com­mit­tee the prob­lems his com­pany is facing:

“The Mark, for exam­ple, has reviewed at least 70 dif­fer­ent grant pro­grams and qual­i­fies for sur­pris­ingly few. If we were a not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tion, or if we needed to make large cap­i­tal invest­ments in equip­ment, or if we printed our con­tent on paper, we could have access to a whole slew of grants and loans. But that is not what we are, it is not what we are doing. There is an incon­gruity between Canada’s objec­tives, i.e. the urgent invest­ment in all things dig­i­tal and the incen­tives being laid out for inno­va­tors and entre­pre­neurs like The Mark. We don’t need equip­ment. We need oper­at­ing sup­port, funds to keep us going while we exper­i­ment and fail on the way to find­ing sus­tain­able mod­els. We need sup­port mak­ing dig­i­tal work, not encour­age­ment to look back­ward toward paper. We need a shift from pro­tec­tion to encour­age­ment, to propulsion.”

Other coun­tries have devel­oped national strate­gies through con­sul­ta­tion and strate­gic plan­ning. Dig­i­tal Britain is a national approach to cre­ate con­tent and por­tals for Britons to engage online.  Will Canada develop a com­pre­hen­sive one before it is too late?

What can I do?

Make sure the gov­ern­ment and the three Min­is­ters directly con­cerned (James Moore, Tony Clement and Diane Fin­ley) hear loud and clear from artists and con­tent cre­ators what is needed to ensure Cana­di­ans have access to their own cul­ture in the dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment. To par­tic­i­pate, take part in the idea forum or by send­ing a for­mal sub­mis­sion by July 9, 2010. Before you join in, you can learn about the issues by read­ing the con­sul­ta­tion paper. Also, don’t miss an oppor­tu­nity to sen­si­tize your own MP.

You can also help the CCA pre­pare its own sub­mis­sion by send­ing your views to jessica.litwin@ccarts.ca.