Transcription, Audience du 26 septembre 2025

Les participants et l'endroit

Tenue à :

Centre de Conférence
Portage IV
140, Promenade du Portage
Gatineau (Québec)

Participants :

• Président de l’audience : Nathalie Théberge
• Membres : Bram Abramson, Conseiller, Ontario
  Ellen Desmond, Conseillère, Région de l’Atlantique et du Nunavut
  Joanne Levy, Conseillère, Manitoba et Saskatchewan
  Nirmala Naidoo, Conseillère, Alberta et Territoires du Nord-Ouest
• Conseillers juridiques : Galen Weaver, Michel Hogan
• Secrétaire de l’audience : Sonia Gravelle
• Gérantes de l’audience : Marie-Claude Perron, Jessica Morrison

Table des matières

Présentations

3589 Apple Canada Inc.

3862 Canadian Association of Aboriginal Broadcasters

3963 Société professionnelle des auteurs, compositeurs du Québec et des artistes entrepreneurs

4065 Digital Media Association

4101 Computer & Communications Industry Association

4209 Rogers Media Inc.

4354 Forum for Research and Policy in Communications

4469 Leclerc Communication inc.

4485 RNC Media inc.

Transcription

Gatineau (Québec)
26 septembre 2025
Ouverture de l'audience à 9 h 00

Gatineau (Québec)

‑‑‑ L'audience débute le vendredi 26 septembre 2025 à 9 h 00

3585 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Bon matin. Before we start with the presentation of the day, I would like to make the following announcements.

3586 Please note that the Commission has been advised that Bell Media, listed as intervenor no. 35 on the agenda, will not be appearing at the hearing tomorrow.

3587 Please also note that an intervenor has been re‑added to the agenda. The Computer and Communications Industry Association will be appearing tomorrow as intervenor no. 37 on the agenda.

3588 We will now start with the presentation of Apple Canada Inc. Please introduce yourselves, and you may begin your presentation. Thank you.

Présentation

3589 MR. MAUNDER: Good morning, Madam Chair, Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. My name is James Maunder, and I am Apple's head of Government Affairs for Canada, based here in Ottawa. With me this morning are my colleagues Roberta Westin, principal counsel, and Mike Lawless, head of Apple Music and Apple Podcasts for Canada, based in Toronto.

3590 We would like to take this opportunity to explain our music business in greater depth, share some examples of how we make Canadian and Indigenous content discoverable, and how we showcase this content both in Canada and abroad.

3591 Over the next few slides, we hope to illustrate the many tangible ways Apple has been supporting Canadian artists and our industry for over 20 years. To do so, we think it's important to look back. Just over 20 years ago, music piracy was widespread. Peer‑to‑peer sharing networks like Napster and Limewire upended the industry, leading to billions in lost sales and virtually erasing revenue payments for artists. The entire music business was in jeopardy as artists and creators struggled to get the credit and revenue they deserved.

3592 In 2004, Apple launched the iTunes Store in Canada, providing customers with an easy way to listen to the songs they wanted at an affordable price: 99 cents per song. By offering the convenience of online access to an extensive catalogue of music, while ensuring that creators were rewarded for their work, the iTunes Store played a critical role in revolutionizing the music industry, helping it recover from the scourge of online piracy.

3593 As the music industry continues to evolve, our deep commitment to supporting Canadian and Indigenous artists and to helping listeners in Canada and across the globe discover their work remains the same.

3594 I'll turn it over to my colleague Mike, who leads our Apple Music team, to describe some of that work.

3595 MR. LAWLESS: Thank you, James.

3596 Just over a decade ago, we launched Apple Music in Canada, providing customers with a premium paid‑only streaming service focused on delivering the best music experience possible for our customers. There are over 100 million songs in the Apple Music catalogue, with thousands added every day, meaning Canadian and Indigenous music is right at our listeners' fingertips. What's more, Apple Music is global. It's available in 167 countries, allowing Canadian and Indigenous artists to connect with audiences around the world.

3597 We love music, and we love helping listeners here and across the globe discover the amazing music that Canada has to offer. We are incredibly proud of our decades of work supporting Canadian artists and creators. These next slides share some of the best of what we do today.

3598 To start, we'd like to run you through Apple Music. Depicted here, from left to right, you'll find the five key tabs we offer. First, Home, which is programmed to your taste. New serves up what is now in culture and reflects big moments in music. Our Radio tab is where you'll find all of our Apple Music Radio content, from artist‑led programs to the Strombo show to curated editorial stations, alongside live streams from traditional radio broadcasters across Canada. Library is where customers curate their personal collection, save their favourite songs, albums, and playlists, and build their own playlists. And finally, Search, where our customers can discover new music or revisit content they love.

3599 All of these tabs combine to make it easy for users to discover Canadian and Indigenous content through editorial features, and dedicated destinations like our Canadian, Indigenous Sounds, and Made in Quebec pages.

3600 In previous hearings, we have shared examples of the ways in which our teams in Toronto and Montreal support and elevate Canadian stories on Apple Music. They draw upon their decades of experience working in the Canadian music industry to amplify Canadian and Indigenous artists, including emerging talent, and curate that content for our customers.

3601 We do more than offer customers a place to press play and listen to music. We help listeners learn about artists and build deeper connections with them, supporting the transition from listener to fan. And we do this across the globe, helping Canadian and Indigenous artists share their talents so the entire world can listen and experience this incredible music.

3602 We do all of this not because we're regulated and directed to do so, but because our teams are proudly Canadian and because we believe in and continually invest in supporting the talent coming out of this country.

3603 These include stories like internationally renowned Canadian artist/producer Wondagurl, who has worked with everyone from Drake to Mariah Carey to Rihanna and who our teams have supported through personalized sessions on Spatial Audio, our immersive, 3‑D audio experience.

3604 Or stories like that of Boi1da, the legendary Torontonian Grammy Award winning artist and producer, who has had massive hits with Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Drake, and many more.

3605 Or the story of Calgarian superstar Tate McRae, who has been supported by our teams from the outset of her career, through her selection as a Global Up Next feature artist in 2021, through to her development as one of the biggest pop stars on the planet.

3606 These are all Canadian success stories, and they represent creative triumphs by incredible Canadian artists and creators. We're excited to tell these stories, and proud to do so.

3607 Regrettably, not all these stories would likely be captured under the narrow current or proposed definition of Canadian music, which was originally created for a format ‑‑ commercial radio ‑‑ that bears little resemblance to the streaming world we're discussing today.

3608 I've shared some examples of how we support Canadian creative talent through tentpole moments on Apple Music. We take equally deep pride in the work our Canadian teams do every day to curate more than 500 playlists designed to delight listeners in Canada while elevating and making discoverable Canadian, francophone, and Indigenous artists.

3609 Just as a side note, every one of the playlists that's up on that screen right now were created by our teams here in Canada.

3610 This happens through dedicated playlists and through the extensive work of our editors to ensure that Canadian music is heard across our biggest, most popular global playlists on Apple Music, from Rap Life to New Music Daily to Today's Hits.

3611 And our team's work to support emerging and established Canadian talent does not stop at our borders. Our team of editors on the ground in Toronto and Montreal are connecting with global colleagues every day to find opportunities to elevate and surface Canadian artists. We're proud of this work, like our recent partnership with legendary artist Kardinal Offishall and a collection of incredible musical guests for a Toronto Carnival Takeover on the Ebro show globally on Apple Music Radio, in celebration of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival. The ability to create this global impact for Canadian artists is unique to online services like ours which operate beyond Canada's borders.

3612 And while we look for opportunities to export the incredible music coming out of Canada as best as we can, our Canadian team continues to find opportunities to invest in supporting Canadian music and industry here at home. In the past year alone, we have partnered with the CCMAs to present their Songwriters in the Round sessions. We're also thrilled to have worked alongside ADISQ to support their Industry Reception at Gala D'Adisq for the last two years and to represent this partnership on Apple Music with features covering nominees and winners. And we're proud to have presented the Gala reception at the International Indigenous Music Summit for the last two years, featuring in‑person artist engagement sessions with Apple Music and artist attendees.

3613 We also build our own sessions to support artists, songwriters, and creators, sessions like the one that I left yesterday in Montreal to come here which focused on showcasing how artists and creators can expand their creative pallets using the magic of Spatial Audio. Other examples include a session we're hosting next week alongside our Apple Music teams from India, the UK, and the US with South Asian Music creators in Toronto, and the Canadian Women's songwriting camps that we held last year in both Nashville and Toronto at Massey Hall.

3614 We support Canadian and Indigenous artists, and help listeners here and across the globe discover their music because we love what we do. We love great music ‑‑ great Canadian music ‑‑ and we look forward to supporting the Canadian music industry even more in the years ahead.

3615 Back to you, James.

3616 MR. MAUNDER: Thanks, Mike.

3617 Madam Chair, Commissioners, these are a few examples of the many ways in which we support Canadian artists and creators and the Canadian music industry as a whole. Our approach is unique, even among streamers, and significantly different than traditional radio. Traditional radio stations are limited to primarily promoting artists and creators by playing their music. Their content is finite, and their geographic reach is limited.

3618 As Mike has explained, Apple Music offers an enormous catalogue that is available to our customers anywhere, anytime, even when they're offline. Our users are in control of what they listen to, and can actively engage with Canadian music and artists in a much more meaningful way.

3619 We have deliberately pursued a strategy to make our services more relevant to Canadians by not only providing access to Canadian and Indigenous content, but also by making them discoverable everywhere Apple Music is available. Canadian music is more discoverable today than ever before, and we're proud to have played a role in that. We believe that recognizing the innovative and creative ways that Apple Music makes this content discoverable every day will lead to the best outcomes for Canadian audiences, Canadian creators, and the Canadian music industry as a whole.

3620 Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today. We would be pleased to take your questions.

3621 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, Mr. Maunder. Welcome to the three of you on this fourth day of the audio hearing. I will turn things over to my colleague Commissioner Abramson, who will lead the questions.

3622 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair.

3623 Good morning, and welcome to our little hearings. Let me perhaps start by giving you an opportunity just to expand on something you just said in your speech, as long as you don't go too long. You say that your approach is unique even among streamers. What is special about Apple Music as a streamer in a way that is unique among all the other streamers?

3624 MR. MAUNDER: Sure, thank you, Commissioner. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to explain the differences not only between our service and traditional radio but our service and other streaming services themselves.

3625 You know, I think that maybe the best way to respond to this question is to turn it over to you, Mike. I know you're dealing with these issues every single day.

3626 MR. LAWLESS: Absolutely. Thank you, James.

3627 We're proud of a lot of the things that we do differently at Apple Music. I think first and foremost, we are really focused on creating the best premium experience. And we do that because we are a paid‑only service. We don't have an ad‑supported tier on Apple Music. And we believe that because we're a paid‑only service, we need to deliver an experience that is more than just a place to press play. So we do that through deep editorial programs. I think the experience within Apple Music Radio with interviews creates an opportunity for our listeners to create deeper connection with the artists that they're trying to discover.

3628 I think that there's a lot of work that we do in terms of audio quality that we pay a lot of attention to. Spatial audio and immersive audio experience is something that is very important to us at Apple Music.

3629 From an editorial perspective, we also have I think very unique programs. Up Next Canada is one of those programs that we're extraordinarily proud of. This is a program where we highlight incredible emerging artists. Artists that we have supported recently have included Katie Tupper, Quebec's Alicia Moffet. This is an opportunity for artists to tell their story to one of the most renowned Canadian media personalities of all time in Strombo. So we think that it's important within our service to take a deeper approach to creating that connection through our editorial opportunities and experiences.

3630 One of the other things we're extraordinarily proud of is just the role our team plays in curating content on platform. As mentioned, we have over 500 playlists that our team of editors in Toronto and Montreal curate for our customers. This includes dedicated playlists for Canadian, francophone, and Indigenous content and artists, but it also includes ensuring that when we're finding a space to support the next big Canadian artist that our team is very excited about, it's not just placing them on dedicated spaces; it's placing them alongside some of the biggest artists in the world, because we know that our customers expect to have an element of discovery as part of their musical experience.

3631 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Is your approach in terms of having live music editors in Toronto and Montreal typical of what Apple Music would do in a market of this size? I mean a subscriber base, I guess, of Canada's size?

3632 MR. LAWLESS: Yeah, we have human editors across the globe in many of the territories in which we operate. That human experience is really important to us at Apple Music. Again, we're trying to deliver a premium experience, and we believe in the power of human editorial. And it is something that we're very excited to say we do in a number of territories across the world.

3633 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Hand curated in small batches.

3634 Up Next Canada, which you mentioned, and you talk about incredible emerging artists, so of course I have to ask is there any particular cutoff or criterion, or is it more of a, look, we know it when we see it and evolving programming approach?

3635 MR. LAWLESS: I think one of the great values that we have within our team is just deep experience within the Canadian music industry. And I've referenced this a few times in hearings, but collectively our team have worked more than 130 years in the Canadian music industry. And with that comes I think an understanding of the industry, understanding of music. I really value my team's ability to spot talent. They also have deep relationships within the industry, within the artist, within the label, within the management, publishing industry. And so they have a finger on the pulse. So there isn't a specific cutoff at all. I think we look to a story that we think is going to resonate with our customers and a story that we're particularly excited about.

3636 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Makes sense, thank you.

3637 Let's talk about Apple Music Radio a little bit. We've gotten there in past interactions, and so perhaps this is a fun opportunity to do so. Now, Apple Music Radio has different aspects, I suppose I could say, to it. And you've presented those to us this morning. But let me first ask globally sort of what is the place of Apple Music Radio within the Apple Music experience by whatever measure is convenient? In other words, is it fairly negligible, is it one of the most used portions, how does that play out? Every listener is different, of course, but overall.

3638 MR. LAWLESS: Apple Music Radio is something that our team are very proud of. We think it helps to create a deeper connection between artists and their fans, and we think it's a great differentiator for us. So it's something that we are very, very much focused on as a great differentiator. Yeah, it's something that's very important to our teams.

3639 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Do most users of the service use Apple Music Radio?

3640 MR. LAWLESS: Do most users of the service use Apple Music Radio? I'm not sure that I have data that I can speak to right here right now. What I can say is that it is something that we know that our customers love. It's an experience that we think is a differentiator, and it's something that we're very excited and proud of.

3641 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: How about the live radio streams within that? What is the take‑up of those, ballpark?

3642 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner, for the question. We don't have information with us at this point, but we can come back with you on that.

3643 And just to complement what Mike said, since we don't have an ad tier, Apple Music Radio for some customers may be just the beginning of the journey with our service with Apple Music.

3644 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: No, I understand that, that's helpful.

3645 What is the experience of radio stations who are streamed, I guess, on Apple Music Radio in terms of, you know, obviously, there's an interaction. I assume there's an interaction. You could be just picking them up off air, but you know, I'm going to guess that you return some listening data to them. I'm going to guess that perhaps they have the opportunity to insert programmatic advertising, I don't know. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

3646 MR. LAWLESS: I think we'd have to come back to you with details on that. But we do not participate in any advertising that exists within Apple Music Radio. It is essentially a stream of the terrestrial radio stream that is delivered to customers.

3647 We know that customers like having the ability to listen to terrestrial radio. We think there's elements of it that are most definitely complementary. We know that our customers listen to terrestrial radio as well. And so we make that available as a complementary offering to our customers.

3648 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Yeah.

3649 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Sorry, if I could just add, just to be clear, so we have Apple Music Radio, which is we have like global linear shows where customers around the world can hear that, and there are some on‑demand content part of that. There are various interviews with artists. But then we do have this complement of terrestrial radio, as my colleague Mike said. So they're, you know, two different things, although they live like on the same tab on Apple Music.

3650 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: And that's the thing within that tab that I'm asking about, I suppose. So yeah, look, anything you're able to provide us in your final reply, I suppose, I'd be very curious.

3651 You know, the other day we had someone talking about programmatic advertising in other non‑analogue over‑the‑air streams of their radio service. And that's an interesting topic for us, and of course it speaks to some of the future of radio and audio and how these things converge.

3652 And so anything you're able to provide to us about the relationship between Apple Music and the way that it relates to radio stations that stream live in its Apple Music Radio service, if that's not too much of a mouthful, would be very helpful. So thank you.

3653 And before I move too far off that topic, maybe I'll ask you a little bit about data. Not metadata, which I'm sure we'll talk about. I know it's a passion topic of yours as well. But data itself, as you know, you know, we have a responsibility since the issuance of the Online Streaming Act, which modified the Broadcasting Act, which requires us to regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a way that protects the privacy of individuals who are members of the audience or programs broadcast by broadcasting undertakings. Apparently, there will be some further corrections to the Broadcasting Act, and then we'll have two parts of the Broadcasting Act that require us to deal with privacy. But we now have one.

3654 So I wanted to ask you a little bit about listening data that Apple collects about users of its mobile devices and of its computing devices. You know, obviously you are here to talk about and we're talking more specifically about the Apple Music Service. But maybe almost as a starting point, does Apple collect listening data, have information about listening data through its sort of position as the underlying operating system operator for many devices?

3655 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner. So first, at Apple, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right, and we take privacy very seriously. When it comes to data, we do have information of streams, so usage reports that we share with our partners. But due to privacy that we very much respect, we don't have, for example, information of individuals of what exactly that individual is listening to. So everything is in an aggregated manner.

3656 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Would Apple Music, for instance, have the means to target or promote its service to end‑users based on the information that the end‑user, for instance, is currently using a different streaming app?

3657 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question, but we don't target anything specifically to users given that we don't track them. And again, we have very high stakes in terms of respecting our users' privacy.

3658 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you. And then in terms of the data that you collect now, you know, through the Apple Music Service itself, what should Canadians know about that, I suppose, and what do they know? In other words, what are the disclosures or the kinds of disclosures that you make? And you know, this is not a gotcha question. I am really trying to see whether we're doing our job properly in what we do or don't mandate in terms of that kind of disclosure to end‑users.

3659 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner. So we do have privacy terms and conditions. We provide clear information to our users. And so we're happy to provide further information to the Commission on that front. But again, we believe definitely in transparency to our users and we do everything we can, and we do that throughout all of our services and products with respect to respecting privacy.

3660 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you.

3661 And then anything in more detail that you care to, again, including on that in your final replies, you’re more than welcome.

3662 Let me now move on a little bit to music programming. And we’ll start maybe with something that we addressed with an artist who appeared before us the other day, and it was an interesting exchange, so I thought I’d turn it to you.

3663 How does an artist find themselves on a promoted playlist? Is it simply a question of, look, you know, we’ve got editors who have more than 135 years of experience between them in the Canadian music industry and they program that artist and the artist may be delighted to find themselves on the playlist but shouldn’t otherwise expect a heads up? Is there anything more to it than that?

3664 MR. MAUNDER: It's a great question. We were watching the hearing intently yesterday, and I think, Mike, you’re quite excited to answer this, so please go ahead.

3665 MR. LAWLESS: Yeah. I'm really proud of the work that our team do. We’re also very big fans of Tegan and Sara. And our team, there’s a few different ways in which artists find themselves on playlists.

3666 Some of it is just the ‑‑ a lot of it is just the work of our teams on the ground in Toronto and Montreal having a finger on the pulse of knowing what’s coming, knowing what will resonate with our customers and finding places to curate that music.

3667 We have deep relationships, again, across the label system, management, artists, industry, publishing teams, and we hear from all of those groups on a regular basis about music that’s coming up. We also have a pitch tool that artists can use to pitch in to our editorial teams for us to consider music.

3668 Again, we take a very hand‑curated approach to this and we’re very proud of that. And it’s something that we ‑‑ I think our team on the ground in Canada take a lot of care in this. I think our customers recognize this and, again, we think it’s one of the things that makes us ‑‑ that makes our customers so excited to continue being subscribers of Apple Music.

3669 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Can you say just a few more words about the pitch tool?

3670 MR. LAWLESS: Yeah. This is just a ‑‑ it’s a tool that’s available for labels, distributors, artists to pitch in to Apple Music of upcoming content that’s coming in the coming weeks.

3671 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: So this is the “send me your cassette tape in the mail” digital version.

3672 MR. LAWLESS: Yes.

3673 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Or CD, anyway.

3674 MR. LAWLESS: Spot on.

3675 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Times vary. Thank you.

3676 You know, we've heard different things about how music and listeners get connected to each other and we heard, I think it was, Network Records, and my colleague, Commissioner Levy, had a good conversation with them about curated, algorithmic and organic forms of discovery, you know, the idea being that a curated form of discovery is sort of like somebody’s programmed a playlist and an algorithmic form of discovery as well. You listened to one thing and now you listen to Wilco and now it’s recommending another non‑Canadian artist, to take an example from yesterday. And I suppose there’s also interface discovery where, you know, you’ve put a little icon above the fold, as you showed us in your screenshot, so that’s perhaps a third route. And then organic discovery where I say, look, I know I want to listen to this artist and I type it in. And even those are ‑‑ you know, they bleed into each other. You know, you type in the name of an artist and you’ll get auto‑complete suggestions which are themselves the product of different algorithms once again.

3677 But is this a useful way to slice up and understand music discovery? In other words, you know, when you think about the different ways that Apple Music listeners get connected with music, is that sort of a helpful first cut on how we might understand them or bucket them or begin to make sense of the cacophony?

3678 MR. MAUNDER: I think so in the sense that, you know, there are a variety of different ways that our users choose to access music on our service.

3679 You know, we ‑‑ as we hope we’ve illustrated in our presentation, you know, we do think that we’re creating and sharing a great deal of Canadian music and, you know, we think that we’re doing this without regulation.

3680 In terms of specifically discoverability and the ways in which our users access the music on our service, Mike, I suspect you have something to add.

3681 MR. LAWLESS: Yeah. And look, those are a number of the ways in which customers engage with music on our service. Customers’ libraries are also incredibly important places for people to engage with their music and we know that a significant amount of listening comes from customer’s library or from search where people are making a decision on what they want to listen to. And I think that is one of the things that we see as a massive value of a premium music subscription service is that customers are really the drivers.

3682 You know, we find opportunities, as you mentioned, to elevate Canadian, Indigenous, francophone content across our editorial, across our playlists, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s the customers that are driving this and making the decision on what it is that they want to listen to.

3683 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: The CBC proposed some ‑‑ proposed a couple of approaches. One was sort of a list of discoverability measures or initiatives, I should say, not measures. But discoverability initiatives that we might ask different ‑‑ well, we might ask all significantly sized streamers to provide us in the form of an annual report maybe coupled with a master list or something from the Commission listing the kinds of things we’re looking to see.

3684 You, in your submission, spoke favourably about that perhaps being one way forward on this ongoing conversation about discoverability. What do you think that would look like for Apple? And I want to sort of keep those buckets that I mentioned in mind as a way of perhaps slicing them up and, you know, trying to create touch points across the no doubt different reports from different participants.

3685 MR. MAUNDER: Yeah, I'll respond and then perhaps I’ll turn it over to my colleague, Roberta.

3686 We saw the CBC’s evidence that they provided at this hearing. You know, we’ve said in our intervention that we welcome broad direction on discoverability. We think that that direction needs to be principles based so that steamers can have broad direction in order to tailor their plans.

3687 I, you know, said this in my last response, I’ll say it again. We do think that we’re supporting Canadian music in significant ways. We welcome direction on how to do more of that.

3688 And you know, we said that, you know, in terms of measurement, that could be done through an annual reporting process that would be filed in confidence through the Commission.

3689 Of course, there’s also a third phase of this process as well where we will have a conversation with you on various conditions of service and, you know, we think that a discoverability framework and elements of that could be discussed through that.

3690 Roberta, I don’t know if you have anything to add.

3691 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, James.

3692 Yes. We are supportive of a principle‑based approach because the streaming service, we operate in a very dynamic market. We all pretty much provide the same catalogue of music, so providing innovation in our discoverability initiatives are really key for us to differentiate ourselves and be competitive.

3693 So the way we believe that the Commission could do it is, for example, ask online streaming services to have a dedicated space to promote Canadian and Indigenous content and offer Canadian playlist and, of course, in the Phase 3 of the proceeding we can further discuss the details for individual services and then, to ensure accountability, the Commission could request annual reports in a similar manner as it already request today in relation to the accessibility plan so that each service may demonstrate all of the great initiatives that they have been doing in support of the local music industry.

3694 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you.

3695 And I will say, and this is a personal view that others, some of my colleagues, may or may not share, but the more that we can nail down issues in these phases, the more that we can leave the so‑called tailored phase as a skinny one and create the greatest uniformity and comparability that we can. I think that is probably the approach that creates most consistency. So that’s sort of what I’m looking to do, at least in my approach.

3696 Given that, what outcomes should we be looking for that sort of show Canadian content is being made discoverable?

3697 So we’ve talked about how to sort of catalogue and list them and so on. The harder part is then, okay, but how do we know where we got to? How do we know that we haven’t tailored a bunch of sort of very different principles that end up with fine words but really little that can be measured and therefore managed?

3698 MR. MAUNDER: So I mean, what we can do if it’s helpful is talk about how, you know, we promote Canadian and Indigenous music on our service through, you know, permanent landing playlists, et cetera.

3699 You know, these playlists, these sections of the website or, excuse me, of the service are permanent.

3700 It may be helpful, Mike, if you talked through some of that, and that could provide broad advice to the Commission.

3701 MR. LAWLESS: Absolutely. Thanks, James.

3702 And thank you for that question, Commissioner.

3703 When I think about the work that our team does, I think there’s a number of different elements that we take. I mean, I think there’s a lot of evergreen work that we do across Apple Music, and by that I mean dedicated landing pages, so our Canadian landing page, our Indigenous sounds landing page, our Made in Quebec or musique francophone pages. Those are all curated by our teams and all reflect the incredible talent coming out of these communities.

3704 That is sort of the day‑to‑day work that we do. Of course, our evergreen approach doesn’t apply to just those dedicated spaces. We think it is exceptionally important that we’re looking for opportunities to support Canadian, francophone, Indigenous artists across all of our biggest playlists, and again globally. And I think that’s a really important part of the work that we do, is finding opportunities to support these artists globally.

3705 There are also our editorial programs, and these are programs like “Up Next Canada”. These are programs like original content programs, our Apple Music sessions that we’ve launched. They’re programs like dedicated radio programs that we’ve launched with Canadian artists.

3706 So over the years, we’ve launched artist‑led radio programs with Charlotte Cardin. Last year we launched a program called “Punjabi Takeover Radio With Ikky”, one of the most renowned ‑‑

3707 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Forgive me, I'm going to interrupt only because I know that the clock is ticking and I’ve only got some questions. And I don’t want to rehearse in real time what I fear, which is that we have a fine list of initiatives, but how do we, as the Commission, you know, look for outcomes? How do we say, well, the needle has been moved, in other words, you know, these have had some sort of measurable effect? What can we measure?

3708 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Yes, thank you. Thank you. Commissioner.

3709 So first, I think, as I said earlier, for example, requesting a dedicated space, that is a way for the Commission to see how the content is being promoted. Playlists as well are concrete measures in terms of ensuring that Canadian and Indigenous songs are in various playlists in the service. And that’s why the report would be able to provide all that information.

3710 And again, the reality, there’s ‑‑ there are more benefits that cannot be ignored as well, for example, all the revenues that streaming services are bringing to the industry, as well as the global exposure, which we also think that it’s something that streaming services really help drive that to artis.

3711 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: All of these things are good things. If you have thoughts on how we might quantify them and show progress on them, that would be very welcome in your final reply.

3712 Thank you.

3713 On one of the initiatives that you mentioned, you know, a dedicated section, we heard yesterday or last week ‑‑ I think it was yesterday. It’s starting to get long. From CIMA. It was yesterday, which strongly cautioned against siloing Canadian artists into Canadian only playlists and a Canadian only ecosystem. I’m quoting there.

3714 How should we reconcile these views?

3715 MR. LAWLESS: Yeah, happy to respond to that.

3716 We agree. We think that those dedicated landing pages are very important, but they can’t be the only ways in which we support Canadian artists. And forgive me, I could go long on examples here again, but I’m really proud of the work that our team does. There’s a reason for that.

3717 I’ve got an amazing team who care deeply about finding spaces not just in dedicated playlists or dedicated landing pages, but also across all of our biggest playlists and also across the world. We are consistently working with our teams in countries around the world to try and find opportunities to help elevate Canadian, francophone, Indigenous artists. And so that is something that we’re aligned on.

3718 We don’t think that that can be the only place. We continue to find ways to support these communities, these artists, really, wherever we can.

3719 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you.

3720 Now, other intervenors, I think we’ve heard from Sirius XM, have suggested that, you know, foreign services, services in general that are online, I suppose, really, should contribute a greater percentage of their revenues to Canadian content to the extent that they’re not playing it. So you know, something like an outcomes based approach, I suppose.

3721 And I may be representing Sirius XM’s approach in my notes here but, you know, this approach has bubbled up a number of times in this proceeding.

3722 Is that a trade‑off that would be fair? All broadcasting undertakings are required to contribute meaningfully to achieving the objectives and we have to have some way of measuring it, so a trade‑off between financial contributions and more prescriptive content obligations, is that one way in which we can ensure we’ve done our job there?

3723 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner. I’ll start and then my colleagues may complement.

3724 So we have concerns with that proposal for a couple of reasons.

3725 So first of all, online streaming services are very user‑centric service, so the users are the one pressing play and choosing what they want to listen to, so it’s not like we can ‑‑ you know, it’s different from radio where you actually have a programmer that pick and choose and select the songs. So in our view, that doesn’t translate well in terms of finding, for example, a certain plays. Otherwise, if you don’t reach that, then you have to make a payment. So it's ‑‑ the engagement of the user, it’s important to take into account, but also the fact that online streaming services pay a significant amount to rightsholders. That’s approximately 70 percent of the revenue goes out to rightsholders, which is around 8.5 times more than radio. And with what’s left, the 30 percent, we have to deal with expensive operational costs, investing in technology, team on the ground, marketing, various initiatives. So we don’t believe that a financial contribution would be appropriate given the nature of the service and all of the costs.

3726 And we are extremely supportive of the industry, but we are concerned that, for example, additional financial investments could even divert from the great initiatives that we are already providing to the local music industry.

3727 MR. MAUNDER: I think if I could add to that.

3728 I mean, you know, one of the things that we’re struck with when we hear that proposal, Commissioner, is, you know, we think that it would be incredibly hard to measure. And the reason why we think it would be incredibly hard to measure is because you need to have equal starting points from which you measure.

3729 You know, we’ve requested that the Commission not take a one size fits all approach to regulation, and the reason for that is because I believe there are fundamental differences between our service and radio. You asked that your very first question here today.

3730 I wanted to just kind of pause on this starting point, and for that reason, I’ll turn it over to you, Mike, because I think it’s an important point.

3731 MR. LAWLESS: Thank you, James.

3732 And again, we appreciate sort of the creativity. You’re trying to solve what is a very complex problem.

3733 To the point of comparing us to sort of traditional broadcast, I think it’s really important to clarify that a stream is not a spin. The spin is the action of the radio programmer, the radio programming team. They’re making a decision as to what is being heard by the listeners. A stream is a user action. It’s a decision that is made entirely by the user. They decide what they want to listen to, they pick that.

3734 We can surface music, we do surface music to be discovered through our editorial initiatives, but ultimately, it becomes a decision of the customer.

3735 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Sure. And earlier we talked about those four buckets, organic and algorithmic and curated and user interface, and I suppose those all have different weights in helping nudge listeners towards different content that has surfaced. It’s an interesting discussion.

3736 Groups like ACCORD and APEM have asked about obtaining further information, and you were quite categorical, I think, in your reply. You said that providing the kind of information they’re asking for amounts to an effort to dictate approaches and an assertion that they would be better at running the streaming services than the services themselves.

3737 Why such a strong reaction? You know, one can fix the exact information they’re looking for and so on, but you know, what they’re really submitting to us, their argument is that in order for us to understand what is happening, for us to understand the extent to which our mandate is being fulfilled, some data is likely necessary and they’re trying to sketch out what that data is.

3738 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner.

3739 So we do share already relevant data with our partners, and I’ll turn to my colleague, Mike, to talk about it in a second. But we have a tool called Apple Music for Artists where we share information with artists and labels and they can see how the songs are performing and make their business decision. But this information is confidential both for Apple and for our rightsholders as well.

3740 We may have a situation, for example, of an artist who may not want to disclose the streams of a new album, for example, if it’s not performing well, so it’s their information and we very much respect that.

3741 So when it comes to data requests such as the ones requested by APEM, they made various requests that some data we don’t have, first of all, because we’re not able to determine what is Canadian versus non‑Canadian due to meta data issues, but we also believe that any request of data needs to have a demonstrated need. It needs to be based on simplicity and also consider whether there are other third‑party sources with such information such as, for example, SOCAN. So that’s our point of view.

3742 And I’ll turn to Mike if ‑‑ in case you want to talk about Apple Music for Artists.

3743 MR. LAWLESS: Absolutely.

3744 I think ‑‑ we’re very proud of the approach we take to sharing information with our partners, and it’s ‑‑ in the case of Apple Music for Artists, within Apple Music for Artists we share data on where music is being listened to, the homes in which people are accessing music through. We offer Shazam information within there as well.

3745 What we see is that artists utilize this information for many aspects of their careers.

3746 We sit down with artists multiple times a week in our office and the amount of times we’ve heard stories of artists who’ve decided to route a tour based on that information. We’ve even heard the story of an artist who noticed that in one city they were touring in, a song was performing particularly well, so they made merch for that specific song. There’s ‑‑

3747 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: So I guess I’m trying to draw a line, and I appreciate the ‑‑ all the wonderful things that ‑‑ I haven’t, myself, used Apple Music for ‑‑ or Apple Music Data for Artists? I’m sorry.

3748 MR. LAWLESS: Apple Music for Artists.

3749 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: That’s it. But here I guess I’m talking about Apple Music for markets, right, is to try and understand sort of market‑wide where we’ve gotten to. And I suppose ‑‑ and I hope the one can be used to help the other and so on but, you know, it seems to me it’s inevitable that we’ll want to try and figure out things at some level.

3750 Confidentiality is a different topic, to be honest, and it’s one that can certainly be discussed here, but you know, it’s downstream, I think, from the question of what the data is in the first place that is necessary for us to understand market‑wide what is happening, including what is happening in the Canadian content.

3751 So you know, that will be something to look at and, as usual, any thoughts are welcome in your final reply as to what that might look like.

3752 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Yes, thank you, Commissioner.

3753 Yeah, and I think that’s why, for example, considering third party like SOCAN, who have information on an aggregated basis, may give that overview in terms of market without going into a specific on confidentiality on a service‑by‑services basis, so this is something that we believe that the Commission should consider to the extent the Commission believes that this is important or relevant data for the data.

3754 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Yeah, and we'll look forward to reading your view of how data provided to SOCAN under particular terms can get us to whole‑of‑market data for Canada, not just data on artists within ‑‑ or folks within SOCAN’s repertoire.

3755 You also had some discussion in your materials about the rigid application of MAPL or of MAL, you know, whatever it gets to, and you were concerned that it would fail to pick up songs that have a Canadian component but don’t qualify as Canadian.

3756 Now, yesterday I had a brief conversation, I think, with one of the intervenors about a partial points approach in which a song, you know, that has one out of those four points, just by way of example, would simply pick up a quarter point. But on the other hand, a song that has two out of four points would similarly pick up a half point as opposed to qualifying as a whole Canadian song. So you know, it’s sort of, you know, if you’re trying to get to a number ‑‑ and I know that Apple Music isn’t ‑‑ but if you’re trying to get to a number, there’s pros and cons and, at the end of the day, sometimes we’re simply trying to measure and it’s a different thing whether there’s a target to be met.

3757 Do you see benefits to one approach or the other? Do you see benefits to providing the choice of the two approaches?

3758 MR. MAUNDER: Thanks, Commissioner. I'll respond briefly, and then I will turn it over to you, Mike.

3759 We saw that proposal. If possible, we would like to share maybe a little bit more detail on that proposal in final replies.

3760 Our view is that a rigid or a narrow definition could exclude songs that might qualify and wouldn’t under that scenario. Our view at the end of the day is that any song, any song with a Canadian performer or any song with a Canadian songwriter‑producer, is Canadian.

3761 And that proposal, Mike, is based on the work that you are doing every single day with artists on the ground. So, I think a little bit more detail might be helpful here.

3762 MR. LAWLESS: Yeah, absolutely. Our team take is broad and approach is possible. We see that as being most beneficial to the most number of artists. I think our concern is a rigid definition that becomes exclusionary rather than being inclusive.

3763 As mentioned, we have our team of editors in Toronto and Montreal who do a fantastic job of making sure that Canadian content, with a broad definition of Canadian content, is supported on platform. I think our concern would be a definition that requires our team to then go through and rethink what is actually on those playlists that we’re programming within those spaces that we are looking to elevate these Canadian stories on.

3764 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: If I could just add, I think the concern that we also have, given the volume of songs available on streaming services, is that if there is a prescriptive definition, for example, with a formula, we do need to receive that information from content providers. They need to provide that through the supply chain.

3765 And the supply chain is quite complex, especially because there’s a lot of collaboration in modern music production, especially international collaboration as well, and not just among superstars but also emerging artists who want to have their voices heard abroad.

3766 So the way we approach Canadian song is less complex, and we try to maximize opportunities for artists. That’s why we believe any Canadian component, we want to tell that story. But to the extent that the Commission will pursue a definition such as MAL, we would need to receive that information from content providers.

3767 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Sure. And I’ve talked about metadata with a number of intervenors. I’m running short on time, and we won’t really get into it here.

3768 But I will say this. We’ve heard from some streamers in this and in past, perhaps more in past hearings, that the definition of Canadian content wasn’t clear.

3769 So I want to be quite clear. There’s always been a very precise definition of Canadian content. We’ve been talking about changing it, but at no time has it been unclear. The metadata ecosystem supported likewise has not always been rich or well coordinated, but on the other hand the market is able to organize and address these things.

3770 We do see a role, or I at least see a role, for the Commission in helping market participants with that. But it should not be seen as, you know, getting large companies off the hook in doing what they do best, which is working with data.

3771 For instance, should we organize a working group, it will have clear timelines, clear obligations and will not be an opportunity for folks to rag the puck or kick this forward.

3772 That’s really, I suppose, a message to all intervenors on that.

3773 I do want to give you the chance to reply, but I will also say this is my last question, and I will allow my colleagues to ask theirs.

3774 MR. MAUNDER: In respect of the working group, yes, we are happy to participate in any working group that the CRTC may choose to strike.

3775 We have been following the metadata debate closely, as you can imagine, over the course of this hearing, and we appreciate the Commission’s efforts to find a solution. We do want to be helpful.

3776 We do have concerns, and those concerns are anchored primarily around the fact that we don’t generate metadata ourselves. That metadata, the metadata we do receive, is very limited. It does not stress nationality. And ultimately, it’s controlled by the record labels.

3777 Mike, I will stop there. I don’t know if you have anything to add.

3778 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: I would just add that yes, we are definitely supportive of that, but we think that it’s really important to bring the content providers, the labels’ rightsholders to the table as well, because ultimately they need to contribute and they need to participate, given that they are the ones who control the data.

3779 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you very much.

3780 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. And please rest assured that no working group will only be with Apple.

3781 I will turn things over to my colleague, Commissioner Naidoo.

3782 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Hi, there. Thank you so much for being here today.

3783 I wanted to ask a few questions, but we are tight on time so I’m going to ask one that I think you’ve probably heard me ask other intervenors. Out of fairness, I want to make sure I give you a chance to respond as well.

3784 Some intervenors, as you know, have indicated that they would like news to be expanded, the definition of news to be expanded to include talk radio. Some audiences can’t decipher news from talk radio, because the content is confusing to them sometimes. They can’t distinguish fact from fiction and opinion from entertainment and news.

3785 I’m wondering ‑‑ Corus said yesterday in their view, this is mostly a streaming issue; that on traditional services like theirs, they actually have a specific news content within their talk radio program, and they throw back and forth between them. But they agreed it could be confusing on the streaming side.

3786 I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about whether that’s an issue and if you have thought about ways to mitigate that confusion.

3787 MR. MAUNDER: Thanks, Commissioner.

3788 What we would say in response to Corus’ proposal is that ultimately, at Apple we are passionate about news and journalism. Apple Music is not in the business of making news. We do share journalism via Apple News, agreements with publishers, for example. We have 140 Canadian news organizations. And the publishers that we’ve partnered with on Apple News, they keep 100 percent of their advertising revenue.

3789 We are excited to talk about news, but we don’t think it is appropriate for music streaming services to subsidize news itself. Ultimately, conditions that the Commission may choose to impose, they need to be tailored in line with the nature of the service being provided.

3790 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Okay. When it comes to actual talk‑news, if the definition of news were to be expanded to include talk radio, would there be anything that you would do to make sure that audiences understand that the talk radio portion is or isn’t news versus entertainment or opinion?

3791 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner.

3792 We would be happy to come back to you with further thoughts. I think, again given that in our case, Apple Music, we don’t provide news, we don’t have an opinion at the moment, but we are happy to think about it and come back in our final written submission.

3793 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Sure. My intention wasn't to stump you, but we had a traditional broadcaster throwing some attention on this issue with the streaming side, and I wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to respond.

3794 Thank you very much.

3795 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Naidoo.

3796 Commissioner Levy.

3797 COMMISSIONER LEVY: I'm sorry if you have addressed this before, but I just wanted to get it on the record.

3798 I appreciate that you don’t want to give us numbers of your members and so forth, but I wonder if you have a breakdown in terms of the proportion of the different interactions with your customers. For instance, can you tell us the proportion of music, for instance, that is pulled by the customer versus pushed by your algorithms and so forth?

3799 MR. MAUNDER: I think, Commissioner, we may have to take that back and get back to you, unless, Mike or Roberta, you may disagree. But I think that’s something we would want to respond to in greater detail.

3800 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Yes, we can come back with further information. I guess what I’m understanding, Commissioner, you mentioned, for example, listeners streaming songs from let’s say their Library versus, for example, through our Editorial initiatives.

3801 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Yes.

3802 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Okay.

3803 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Actually, combined really, because what I’m trying to get to is how many listeners are sort of passive acceptors of the music that your algorithm has decided that they might like and how much is what they’ve actually selected, whether it is choosing it from their own Library on an occasion or going into your very extensive catalogue and picking something themselves.

3804 It’s that push‑pull proportion that I’m trying to get to.

3805 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Yeah. We can come back to further explain what we have on that.

3806 I would like to refer to ‑‑ I think it was Music Canada who actually referred to a study of how listeners, a lot of that comes from their own library and search and everything. But we can further come back to you with what we have.

3807 MR. LAWLESS: And ultimately, I would like to just clarify that really, any listening that happens on Apple Music, there are opportunities for customers to take very lean forward initiatives. Customers can skip music at any point in time. They can add it to their Library. They can build a playlist using that content. They can “favourite” an artist as well, which is one of the tools that we love being able to offer, because that means that any time that artist releases music in the future, that customer is going to get information, get a notification saying this artist has released music.

3808 So for us, it’s really important that the customer is always in control. The customer always has that ability to take further actions. We know that’s so important to artists. It’s so important to the development of their careers.

3809 Again, we’re not looking to create a service that just lets people press play and listen. We want to create a service that allows customers to become fans. That, to us, is super important, and it’s something that we really take very seriously in the work that we do.

3810 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you very much.

3811 That’s all, Madame.

3812 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Levy.

3813 Commissioner Desmond.

3814 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good morning.

3815 Yesterday we heard from SOCAN, and the composer songwriter who was before us spoke about AI and how that was impacting their careers and how many songs now were being generated through the use of AI.

3816 I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on how AI is used in your business. Can it be transparent? How do we use tools that are effective but yet recognize the necessity for that human composition of music? And are there standards that we should put in place to kind of regulate the use of AI?

3817 MR. MAUNDER: Thanks. I'm happy to respond, and then I will turn it over to my colleagues.

3818 From a public policy point of view, we think AI is still in its infancy and that the Commission should tread lightly in respect of any regulation that it may choose to impose. We would echo the comments that DMA made in its submission. I understand that you are hearing from them later today.

3819 Editorially, we don’t push AI music to our customers.

3820 But from a public policy perspective, our point of view would be that the government is acting right now quite aggressively. There’s a new Minister. There’s an AI task force developing a national strategy. There have been various commissions within government departments and consultations currently underway. So for that reason, we expect a significant amount of action in respect of regulation of AI. And because it’s not something that we work with on a regular basis with respect to editorially encouraging AI music, it’s not something that we think about a lot.

3821 Roberta?

3822 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you. So we value human creation, and we support transparency to our listeners. At the moment, there isn’t yet an industry‑wide protocol to determine AI‑generated songs and push that label through the supply chain. But we know that this is something that the industry is working on, and many are already developing technology to be able to detect AI‑generated songs.

3823 Again, we also believe that it’s important and value transparency to listeners and also to help human creation and make sure that IP rights are protected.

3824 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you.

3825 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you so much.

3826 And maybe I will ask a final question.

3827 As you know, what government is asking us to do is to establish through regulation an equitable contribution of all players in the system, and that includes the online streamers. So we have to figure out what equitable means.

3828 To do that, it’s very hard unless you have a good understanding of the value of each player’s contribution to the system. For traditional broadcasters, it’s easy.

3829 So what’s the value contribution of your organization? What’s the dollar figure?

3830 You were very gracious in explaining to us all the great things that you do, the people that you hire in Montreal and Toronto, etc., etc., all the new systems you put in place to ensure the discoverability of Canadian content. And you probably do a good job.

3831 But what is the value of all of that, because unless we know the value, it’s very hard for us to determine whether that type of contribution is equitable, which is what we are supposed to be doing as required by the government?

3832 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner.

3833 So hopefully, we have demonstrated here today how committed we are with the Canadian ‑‑

3834 THE CHAIRPERSON: You have. I know you are committed.

3835 We are short on time. My question is not whether you like Canadian content, whether you are committed, whether you are doing a good job, whether you are seeking out the right folks and Canadians are getting discovered.

3836 My question is about the value of these initiatives.

3837 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Okay. It's hard to put a monetary value to all of our discoverability initiatives, because we don’t charge the labels or the artists to have a place in our service. So it’s hard to find an exact amount of ‑‑

3838 THE CHAIRPERSON: But could you? Could you like add salaries? Could you do that?

3839 And what should we do to establish the value?

3840 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Yeah. So which is why perhaps it’s a combination of things, because one, it’s important to take into account how much online streaming services pay to rightsholders, which is significantly higher in comparison with radio. And when we think about all the growth in the market and the revenue that online streaming services are bringing to the industry, we believe that that is also something tangible that the Commission can take into account in terms of understanding all of the contributions that we are already making to the system.

3841 The discoverability part, even though there isn’t a monetary value that we can attach because we can’t compare, we don’t sell spaces in our service, it is extremely valuable when we think it brings benefits to artists and rightsholders, which is why our proposal is to provide to the Commission an annual report where you can see, for example, all of the great things that we are doing.

3842 And we are happy to continue working with you to find the right balance between, you know, supporting the system and also making sure that we are fostering innovation and allowing online services to provide our services in a way that is driven by technology, innovation and creativity to the industry.

3843 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, thank you for this. If you could think about the metrics, because again, we are trying to be as objective as possible. I think that’s the expectation placed on us as the regulator. Who are we to judge that a particular initiative by Apple on discoverability has more value than another type of initiative on discoverability by Spotify? That doesn’t work for us.

3844 So if you could think about possible metrics to determine the real value of what you are doing to promote Canadian content and come back to us in your final replies, that would be much appreciated, because it would make our job way easier, and it would remove ourselves from just the subjective, purely subjective appreciation of the good work that you do. And I’m sure you are doing good work.

3845 But since we are being asked to find, you know, that sweet spot of what is equitable, we’re missing something from you guys.

3846 So if you could think about that and come back in your final replies, that would be much appreciated.

3847 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: It's a challenge, given that traditional metrics are very challenging in the online environment.

3848 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

3849 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: But we will certainly come back in the final reply, and we will continue to work with you and help the future of the regulation.

3850 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you so much.

3851 Thank you to the three of you for your participation this morning, and we wish you a very good weekend.

3852 MR. LAWLESS: Thank you, as well.

3853 MS. WESTIN RUBINSTEIN: Thank you.

3854 MR. MAUNDER: Thank you very much.

3855 THE SECRETARY: Thank you. We will take a break and resume at 10:15.

3856 ‑‑‑ Suspension à 10 h 08

3858 ‑‑‑ Reprise à 10 h 15

3860 THE SECRETARY: We will now hear the presentation of Canadian Association of Aboriginal Broadcasters.

3861 Please introduce yourselves, and you may begin your presentation. Thank you.

Présentation

3862 MR. McLEOD: Good morning, Commissioners and members of your support team. We’d like to first recognize the territory we’re on as the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation. The Anishinaabe People have a deep connection to this land and we’re certainly aware of that, which have been cared for and occupied for thousands of years, and they also like to note that music is an important part of many gatherings and many ceremonies. So that’s at the heart of the community and that’s part of the reason we’re here.

3863 MR. CROWFOOT: Good morning. Getting old is kind of tough here, but ...

3864 ‑‑‑ Rires

3865 MR. CROWFOOT: Anyway ‑‑ Oki. Tansi. D?nít'ád?. Taanishi. Âba Wathtech. Those are all greetings from the traditional territories of the area that we represent which is Alberta Treaty 6, 7 and 8. My name is Bert Crowfoot, of Siksika/Saulteaux heritage. My Siksika (Blackfoot) name is Kiyo Staah or “Bear Ghost” and my Kwakwaka'wakw name is Qiyutelas or “Always Giving.” I was adopted many years ago by Chief Adam Dick.

3866 I have been in Indigenous media for over 48 years and I am thankful for this opportunity to share with the Commission today. I am the founder and CEO of the Aboriginal Multi‑Media Society, which published “Windspeaker” and has five radio stations: CFWE, Northern Alberta; CJWE, Southern Alberta; CIWE, The Raven, Edmonton and Calgary; and our online radio stations, CUZIN Radio and also Red Beats, our hip hop station. We serve all of Alberta with 35 transmitters ranging from 30 watts to ten 100,000 watt transmitters, 80 percent of which were paid for by self‑generated revenue.

3867 We’d like to recognize the tobacco that was offered by Jean Ouellet and Matthew Bisson, and to my right is Sandra Crowfoot and she is part of our organization and being mentored for future leadership when I decide that 50 years might be it. So thank you.

3868 MR. McLEOD: Thank you, Bert.

3869 Tansi. Boozhoo. Aaniin”. David McLeod (speaking Indigenous language). I am a proud member of the Pine Creek First Nation located in Treaty 4 Territory in Manitoba. I am the CEO of Native Communications Incorporated, which was incorporated back in 1971 in northern Manitoba, to literally provide a voice for Indigenous people within an onslaught of new media in northern Manitoba that occurred in the late 50s throughout the 60s. And so, NCI was definitely a necessity to occur.

3870 We are known as NCI‑FM, an Indigenous radio network composed of 57 FM transmitters located everywhere between Winnipeg to Churchill, with a 100,000 watt transmitter in Winnipeg. I would also like to note that we were instrumental in assisting with the implementation of Indigenous music playlists on both SiriusXM and Stingray Radio, encompassing thousands of songs from our music library.

3871 We sit here today representing Indigenous radio networks across Canada and are very thankful for this opportunity to appear before the Commission today for this valuable cause.  We are specifically here today to advocate for a 5 percent quota of Indigenous music on commercial radio across the country, because it is the honourable way to move forward with changes to the Broadcast Act ‑‑ and to clarify that, the 5 percent would be in addition to the 35 percent and 65 percent quotas for Canadian and French language content. We strongly believe that it will also uphold the spirit and intent of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in their recommendations, specifically the 94 Calls to Action. While they do not explicitly mention “Indigenous music” as a standalone category, the recommendations do broadly address the revitalization and preservation of Indigenous cultures, languages, and education, which inherently encompass Indigenous music.

3872 We also note the 5 percent of Indigenous music being sought on commercial radio is reflective of the demographic number of Indigenous people in Canada, with is around approximately 4.5 percent of the population.

3873 We have also heard some discussion around the MAPL system. The MAPL system, as many of us are aware, sets criteria used by the CRTC to determine if a musical selection qualifies as Canadian content. We attended a national consultation this week in Vancouver that was organized by the Indigenous Music Office based in Toronto to explore a similar system that would set to out define the criteria to recognize Indigenous music.  The extensive consultation process will ensure that the needs of recognizing genuine Indigenous artists occurs. The issue of identity was widely discussed and many notes were taken, and many heartfelt ideas and ways to proceed occurred.

3874 We believe that the Indigenous Music Office, otherwise known as the IMO, is well positioned to be tasked to implement the basis of an Indigenous content database for the purposes of mainstream inclusion. Now, Indigenous broadcasters like ourselves work in collaboration with other Indigenous networks like Mississippi Broadcasting Corporation in Saskatchewan. We strongly believe that through a collaborative effort, an online portal is very realistic and would deliver up‑to‑date Indigenous music releases that are “ready for radio” through a dedicated website that would host singles, albums, artist profiles, with additional online links and other pertinent information that commercial radio stations would seek.

3875 I would like to note that the Indigenous Music Countdown, which we produce at NCI, has existed for 20 years now and recently celebrated 10 years of that time on SiriusXM. We currently receive up to 30 new singles every week from Indigenous artists. The program is also carried on nine radio stations and two in the U.S. When the question arises, where does the music come from, or where is it to be found ‑‑ to us, that’s not a complicated question at all.  The IMC began as a top 20 format and then expanded into a top 40 format because we receive so much music. We have discussions right now of even adding another 10 songs because we have so much music.

3876 The Canadian Association of Aboriginal Broadcasters ‑‑ after the consultation took place, we believe that an Indigenous music platform would offer a wide range of genres, from contemporary pop, R&B, dance, rock, hip hop. We’ve even had submissions that include classical and jazz, from hundreds of both emerging and established Indigenous artists.

3877 Now, the Indigenous Music portal would specifically be designed for discovering and listening to new music by Indigenous artists to meet this 5 percent radio play ‑‑ roughly 22 to 23 songs being played per day, which is envisioned to take place between 6 a.m. and 12 a.m.  The portal would also grow to function as a comprehensive digital archive and database for years to come. It would provide access to thousands of songs, digital recordings ‑‑ all certified Indigenous artist in all the multiple genres.

3878 Additionally, we foresee a refinishing fund would be available to some artists to ensure their music is “radio ready”. That was discussed with the group, with the IMO folks, that a fund be made available to artists with a limit of two tracks for songs to become “radio ready”. Basically what that means is it’s a great song but for commercial broadcasters to enhance that song to meet quality levels. We would ensure that the best Indigenous music kickstarts the “radio ready” wave of Indigenous music.

3879 We trust that an additional 5 percent of Indigenous music will be hailed by many Canadians listeners as they enjoy music they never knew existed. The music industry has, however, awakened to the artistry and talent within our communities that stretch from north, south, to east, to west. This is particularly true of the Juno awards. For example, the nominees for the 2024 JUNO Awards included ten Indigenous artists nominated beyond the Contemporary and Traditional Indigenous categories. Of the seven others listed, Indigenous artists were included in the Contemporary Roots Album of the year: Julian Taylor, Logan Staats, and William Prince. Two Indigenous artists were also nominated in the Songwriter of the year category: Aysanabee and William Prince. The Adult Alternative album of the year category included Shawnee Kish and the amazing Jeremy Dutcher. To highlight, this wasn’t a random occurrence. The 2025 JUNO awards also included ten Indigenous nominees within twelve categories that included the Classical and the Children’s Album categories.

3880 We realize that we have limited time in this intervention, but would like to also add that Indigenous music is popular in Canada because many listeners are very tuned to the fact that our artists are culturally rich, emotionally powerful, musically inventive, and increasingly visible through online media, streaming services, and many arts institutions. Many are also linked to a wider movement of cultural resurgence and the acknowledgment needed for social change and environmental awareness. All these factors ‑‑ and more ‑‑ make Indigenous music meaningful to diverse audiences across the country. That is the Canadian Association of Aboriginal Broadcasters wholeheartedly support the Broadcast Act be revised to be inclusive of 5 percent of Indigenous artists being heard within the mainstream.

3881 I would like to thank the Commissioners for this time. We would also like to play a three‑minute segment that features many Indigenous artists so the Commission has time to hear the sounds that are coming from many of our communities on a national scale. So with that, I’d like to turn three minutes over to our technical assistants.

3882 ‑‑‑ Musique

3883 MR. McLEOD: That's Shawnee Kish.

3884 ‑‑‑ Musique

3885 MR. McLEOD: So that's a little bit of an example of the music that we receive on a weekly basis ‑‑ upwards of, like I say, 30 songs a week, sometimes even more, and it’s coming from across the country. The Indigenous music scene is rising. People are collaborating more. Mainstream artists want to work with Indigenous artists. We’re seeing that movement occur. And it’s festivals as well are very inclusive now of Indigenous artists because there’s an audience that wants to see and hear Indigenous artists and meet Indigenous artists. So ‑‑ yeah, so Bert, do you want to add anything?

3886 MR. CROWFOOT: Yeah, it's been exciting. With our online radio stations, we’re a hundred percent Indigenous and we put a call out for music, and a lot of it was from young people ‑‑ a lot of hip hop ‑‑ I think 80 percent of it was hip hop, so ... Anyway, thank you.

3887 MR. McLEOD: If the Commissioners have any questions they’d like to ask, we’d certainly be open to that.

3888 THE CHAIRPERSON: We do. (laughing) Thank you so much and welcome to our hearing. It’s a pleasure to have you here for us, and thank you for taking the time to travel, to come to beautiful Gatineau/Ottawa. Thank you so much, and thank you for reminding us what this is all about. It’s about songs, musical creations. We have these long theoretical conversations; sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics, so thank you for that. I certainly appreciate it very much. I’m sure my colleagues do, as well.

3889 We do have questions. So I will turn things over to my colleague, Commissioner Desmond, who will lead the question period.

3890 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good morning. Thank you for being here and thank you for that musical interlude. It was really, really well done. It was beautiful and I appreciate the opportunity to hear some of the great talent in your community.

3891 I just wanted to start maybe by talking about the amount of Indigenous music that exists. I think in your submission you talk about the fact that, over the years, there has been an extensive library of Indigenous music that’s been accumulated, and as you point out this morning, there’s been a rise in the interest in Indigenous music ‑‑ collaborating with other, mainstream artists; promoting Indigenous music. But I’d like to know what barriers you are currently experiencing that have resulted in a situation where we’re not hearing Indigenous music as much on the traditional platform as much as you would like to see it being played.

3892 MR. McLEOD: Yeah, there's some systemic barriers where one is if somebody is not backed by a major label, but the music is comparable to what’s out there. So sometimes it’s the industry machine that’s behind the music. So I think we’re developing that right now. When we had the IMO conference, management was an area that needs to be worked on. Publicists is another area to work on. And also, some of the entering the music world as well as a career, knowing those steps.

3893 So I think that at a grassroots level people have the talent and talent to be developed, and I think that is hampered. It’s not being recognized enough still. There is definitely movement forward, but there’s still a lot of room for growth.

3894 MR. CROWFOOT: We ‑‑ I had my people go through the library that we have, and we have over 10,000 titles that are Indigenous, and those are the ones that are broadcast quality. They meet the specifications for radio. We’ve also got another equal amount that don’t meet those requirements.

3895 So at the Indigenous Music Office this past few days, I was in a meeting in Vancouver, and we talked about a refinishing, an opportunity for those artists and songs and titles that do not meet those quality standards that we need and that mainstream broadcasters need as well, to bring them up to the level. And you know, that fund has to come from somewhere. And I've thought about public benefits or other options that could make this possible.

3896 And the amount of volume and music that Dave's getting ‑‑ 30 songs a week ‑‑ I mean, one of the questions I would have loved to ask Apple was when they talked about the millions of titles was how many were Indigenous. Because there's another source there if they've got more than we have. A lot of our stuff goes back to 1960, you know. We have over 4,000 powwow songs, 1,500 hip hop, 900 blues, Indigenous blues, so.

3897 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, thank you. You spoke about the creation of an Indigenous digital distribution platform both in your submission and then this morning. So I had a couple of questions about that potential platform.

3898 In your document, you talk about requiring a 12‑to‑14‑month period, I think, in order to kind of get that established. Is that the time frame that you think you would require for the platform to be operational?

3899 MR. McLEOD: Thank you for that question. Yeah, when we were Vancouver for the meeting with the artists and people who work in the industry, I think it could happen much quicker because there's a lot of collaborative work that would be done and a lot of input from like our radio stations working together with artists working together. I think it would be ‑‑ I think it would work in phases, but I think it would work a little bit quicker now that I've seen how many people want this to happen. So and the artists themselves, they would jump at the chance to be part of that.

3900 I think that the whole issue ‑‑ I know there was concern about who's Indigenous as well within. So people want to know when they go to this site that everybody is, in a sense, certified as an Indigenous artist. And that would be once somebody is certified as an Indigenous artist, then their work would just carry through in there very smoothly afterwards. So it's not a clunky system. It would begin with the first phase would be recognizing an artist as Indigenous. Then the submissions would take place after that and all the other work. So it was great to be part of those discussions.

3901 So I think, to answer your question, yes, it would occur in those phases, but I think it would occur much quicker.

3902 MR. CROWFOOT: One of the things that we talked about was a collaboration between the Indigenous Music Office and the broadcasters in that we get a lot of submissions directly to us. And so we would work in collaboration with them. There's been a big issue of whether or not they're real Native, and so the Indigenous Music Office would be certifying, as Davie said, the authenticity of their ethnicity.

3903 MR. McLEOD: I'd just like to also add that the IMO loved the idea of working with Indigenous radio, like working with us as a collaborator and you know and our other stations just to ensure that the music flow ‑‑ we're all working together to ensure the best of what we hear gets to this portal.

3904 And that would ‑‑ you know, the question of is there music out there and is it ready for radio, I think people will be very surprised by that. When we helped with the establishment of the playlist for SiriusXM, for example, I had a phone call from a person at work there who in amazement said, “There's a lot of good music in here.” You know, I don't know what he expected, but he was really surprised. And obviously that channel, 165, went on to be 24/7 Indigenous music.

3905 So when we talk about five per cent, that's pretty ‑‑ not a lot when you compare what's going on with what SiriusXM did with that channel and the popularity it's gaining. And also how it is uplifting the community where people can make a living from music as well, from releasing great music.

3906 MR. CROWFOOT: I'll just add a little bit. I know you've got more questions. We get a lot of feedback from non‑Indigenous listeners that they love the music. We have a lot of language on our stations, language vignettes, how to say hello, okay, stuff like that. And people have actually become friends with their neighbours, whereas it's been in the past there was no contact. Now they have something to talk about. They'll say hello to each other. And so I feel that that's been a real benefit of Indigenous music as well as language on our stations.

3907 MR. McLEOD: Oh my gosh, we just keep talking. But I was recently I was at the University of B.C., and there was a festival happening there. I was there a few days before everybody met. And it was the first time I've seen a soft seat theatre there sell 900 seats to see Tia Wood and Northern Cree perform on the stage. That is amazing, 900 people. And that audience I would say was about 20 per cent Indigenous.

3908 So when I was in that theatre, I went, Okay, this is part of the change going on. And it's like, you know, 20 years ago you would never see that, 30 years ago. And today, so things are changing. Things are getting better, like.

3909 And Steve Wood, when he introduced the songs, he would talk about where those songs came from, their story, how/why they're important. And people felt included in that audience. So his style of explaining the songs and where it comes from, that story was key for the people sitting in those 900 chairs. So I think that that's something that can be taken too as a lesson in what can happen with commercial radio at that minimum of five per cent.

3910 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you. I'm going to get in trouble if I don't start asking some of my questions here, so I'm going to try and keep them short so I can have room for my colleagues as well. This conversation I think we could continue all day. It's been very interesting.

3911 Just with respect to the platform, can you give us a bit of detail in terms of how that would be funded and who the players would be and what role perhaps the CRTC would have in the creation of the platform? I think in your materials, you talk about a selection committee being involved. If you could just expand as well a bit on who would be on a selection committee.

3912 MR. CROWFOOT: I think one of the potential sources would be public benefits. The other would be I know in our organization we self‑generate through advertising on the websites, et cetera, but that becomes pretty expensive. To start off, I think we need a kick‑start, and then once it gets going, then hopefully it becomes self‑supporting.

3913 MR. McLEOD: And to add to your question, as well, we would have a full‑time person with the IMO, the Indigenous Music Office, that would work with it, and a full‑time person that would work with the Indigenous Music Countdown as well. So that way, when submissions are coming in, there's a clear line of communication and also checks and balances on things. And there would be a team at the Indigenous Music Office that would overview it as well.

3914 So to make it work well, it's not a one‑person decision‑making process. Like with our Indigenous Music Countdown, we have a team of four people working with it, so it's the selection and who's being played isn't a one‑person decision. And that's always the best way to do it.

3915 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So the committee would be, perhaps, like a group of four people ‑‑

3916 MR. McLEOD: Yes, and you need some expertise too in different categories as well or different ‑‑ like you are going to have hip hop, you know. You are going to have those ‑‑ some jazz. You are going to have some blues. You are going to have all those different categories.

3917 So when people go to this portal, they can go directly to the type of music they're looking for. So it's going to be streamlined to make things as simple as possible. We talked about photos there. We talked about bios. We talked about links to social media sites, so you can visit them, and short bios and a long bio for information to use on air. So everything will be handy for the broadcasters.

3918 MR. CROWFOOT: I know for our contribution, we have radio bingo. And lot of people just kind of chuckle at that, but here, in the height of COVID, it brought us in $6.7 million. And so we've used that, the proceeds to put up our transmitters, our towers. But we've also used it to develop potential portage that we would develop for us, but it could be transferred over to the Indigenous Media Office first for them to use once we get it established.

3919 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So just recognizing that all of this great work is taking place with the creation of a platform, the work of the Indigenous Music Office, what would be an appropriate requirement of commercial stations today? I mean, it sounds like this work is all being done and likely will be done in the next year or so. What do we do now and what obligation would be imposed or should be imposed at this point?

3920 MR. CROWFOOT: We've talked about that, and you know we've heard that, well, there isn't ‑‑ where do we get it? The quality isn't there, et cetera, et cetera. But we have the numbers. It is there. We talked about it. They need it. Like I said, we've got a library that we can help or start with.

3921 We've also got the capacity to, for example, say it's a network of stations in southern Alberta. Well, the dominant language is Blackfoot and Cree. So we can assist if they want programming. We can assist in any number of ways to work with these stations and to customize it to the region. And so, you know, do you want is it 22 songs in one hour or do you want it spread out during the day? So I mean we would be willing to collaborate with them.

3922 MR. McLEOD: Yeah, some of our discussions surrounding it were, you know, there needs to be some thought into, you know, if you are playing 22 songs a day, are you playing the same artist 22 times a day? And when are you playing those artists, so they're not buried from midnight 'til 6. So they would be featured during the day from 6 a.m. to midnight. And that the thought was is that having as many artists as possible available ‑‑

3923 I'm a former board member with the Broadcasters Association of Manitoba, so I have a sense of how commercial broadcasters would look at this. And streamlining it and keeping it as quick and simple as possible would be it. So there would be a required timeline to ready the portal site. And I think that that would be the initial stage for that.

3924 And then I think once that's done and people start playing some of that music, I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised at how much great music there is, especially if that's such a minimal amount of music.

3925 When we were at the IMO, there was one artist, he said, “We have to keep things in perspective.” Leonard Sumner. He was like, “Imagine if it was the other way around, where it was all Indigenous music and we had to play non‑Indigenous music.” Right? And he says, “If you put your head in that space, it kind of gives it an Indigenous perspective.” And the sovereignty of the land, the sovereignty of the airwaves that still exists. So that's what we're seeking, yeah.

3926 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you for that.

3927 You talked about being a resource and making the content available. Which organization would take the lead on that, and how would that mechanically unfold so that other commercial stations could have access to the content that you have available to yourselves?

3928 MR. CROWFOOT: As we've only had the meeting on Monday to Wednesday, a couple days ago, during our discussions this concept of working with ‑‑ like in the past, I was going to work with the other Indigenous radio stations. We've got over 10,000 titles. I'm not sure what Saskatchewan has or Manitoba or all the other broadcasters in Canada. In the North, we have a lot of the Inuit, the Dene songs, and that sort of stuff.

3929 So but we need to sit down with the IMO and take this discussion further. And like I said, our dream and goal is to have one place where people can go and access the type of music that they need.

3930 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: I also just wanted to clarify something. I know in your opening statement you talked about the five per cent quota being in addition to the traditional 35 per cent quota for commercial stations. For radio stations that are Indigenous and already primarily play Indigenous music, would the five per cent quota also apply to those stations? Like I'm just trying to figure out how we would impose that five per cent on Indigenous radio stations that already play that music.

3931 MR. CROWFOOT: I think our content now is 30 per cent from as part of our licence requirements. So I mean does it go to 35? I mean right now one of our Indigenous stations, the online one, CUZIN Radio, it's at 40 per cent, so.

3932 MR. McLEOD: I think to satisfy the views of commercial broadcasters, it should be noted as the Indigenous radio stations have to play at the very least five per cent. I don't think that's a problem at all.

3933 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, I know we're getting short on time here. I did have a question as it relates to the online services. And of course, you know, many, many individuals are now turning to the online streaming services to access their music. And I would really appreciate hearing from your group in terms of what are some of the initiatives that have been fruitful for Indigenous artists. What's worked well, maybe where there's things that need to be improved or challenges that some of the artists have encountered.

3934 MR. McLEOD: I think where we operate really well at a grassroots level. Like we just a few weeks ago, we had the NCI Jam talent show. So we rent out the Burton Cummings Theatre, and we present 17 Indigenous performers from the community. And then we have guest singers who have achieved recording success as part of the show. So we bring those two together. And it really uplifts the community, and it offers hope, and it brings people into a theatre that they might not have had the opportunity to do before.

3935 So some of the artists we've had like Jade Turner, who is a winner of our NCI Jam. She credits it as part of her career. Desiree Dorion. I should say Jade Turner just won a Western Canadian music award as well, so, just a few days ago. And we're a part of her career. Desiree Dorion won our talent show, and she just did shows in Berlin a few weeks ago. She did. She toured. We had Don Amero perform. It just goes on.

3936 One of our former announcers, Paul Rabliauskas, is the star of a comedy show, Acting Good, on CTV. He worked with us. So he came out and did 12 minutes of comedy. And one of his biggest first performances was on that stage. So he was thrilled to come back like full circle.

3937 So our job is lifting up the community and providing opportunities. So those things do happen. And that's just a few examples. There's even more, so yeah.

3938 MR. CROWFOOT: I guess to answer your question, my organization tries to look at youth and what's coming up with technology and everything else. Like I'm a Facebook guy, and that's it. I don't do anything else. And so but I watch the young people, you know, what platforms are they using ‑‑ TikTok and all of the rest of them. And so in order to reach them, you have to use their ways of reaching, so streaming and everything else. So I don't know much about streaming other than we do stream two radio stations. And so but I think that's something that we try to focus on is to learn more about it.

3939 MR. McLEOD: And just really quick, our website, the Indigenous Music Countdown, we're looking at spending more money on it. We just had a board meeting a few weeks ago, and part of it was people are looking for resource of new music all the time. So our site, we need to improve and deliver some of that.

3940 But I think our site encompassed with this portal with the IMO, I think we're going to ‑‑ if this comes together, this five per cent the way we foresee it, we're going to see a huge surge not only just in Canada. There's going to be parts of other countries looking at what's going on here.

3941 You know, we get submissions from New Zealand, Australia, South America at times as well, because people are saying, What's going on in Canada? And then they find out about our site. So I think there's sweeping change and growth going on that is going to happen regardless of what anybody says or does. It's just happening. So that's just it's a good time for this to occur.

3942 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Have you had conversations with the streamers? Has there been the opportunity to connect with them and set up, you know, training opportunities or anything of that nature that your creators have been able to benefit from?

3943 MR. CROWFOOT: We haven't yet, but it's something that I hope will happen soon.

3944 MR. McLEOD: Yeah, I think some of like the streamers have ‑‑ they're sharing new music. Like Spotify will feature Indigenous artists. We've seen ads in Toronto on Yonge Street for Indigenous artists who probably take pictures of that and share that because they're getting, you know, they're getting the well‑deserved attention. So some of the streamers, they are supporting, but again, I think there could be much more.

3945 I think part of it is the artists themselves are authentic. And I think the people who listen to music and see them live, that's something that makes Indigenous music so different than mainstream at times. It's, you know, like when you see Snotty Nose Rez Kids with thousands of people going to their shows and even with the name Snotty Nose Rez Kids pulling in that kind of crowd and then at the same time sharing messages about life on the reserve, that is amazing to see. So yeah. I just foresee so much going on, so. I hope that answered your question.

3946 But I think the streamers can do a lot more though. Yeah.

3947 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you. I just want to leave time for my colleagues. And I appreciate you being here. Thanks for answering the questions.

3948 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Desmond. Commissioner Levy?

3949 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Really good to see you today. Thank you so much for making the trip to be with us in person.

3950 We know that music is powerful, and Indigenous music is very powerful. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been banned for so many years in this country, which is not a laughing matter. But it's wonderful to see the progress that's been made.

3951 I wanted to just ask a couple of really quick questions, but we've heard from francophone radio broadcasters and so forth, and I wonder whether you feel that there is enough Francophone indigenous music to help them meet a quota.

3952 MR. McLEOD: Yes, we do add some French submissions. You know, we don't get a lot of French submissions, mostly because a lot of people don't feel that they, you know, we get indigenous language submissions and we get some French, but not a lot. I do think that that should be something in the mix and a discussion with the Indigenous Music Office about supporting the indigenous French artists.

3953 I think, you know, particularly in Québec, we have a lot of Innu artists that… You know, we have famously Kashtin, who ‑‑ some of you might remember they were huge in France, they went, I think it was double platinum. They sold so many albums. They went to France, I think, I don't know, at least five, six times because they were loved there. So I think that there's some gems of music that could happen. But yes, I think the support of French artists needs to happen. I think that the artists are waiting for it.

3954 COMMISSIONER LEVY: And finally, there's been some suggestion that playing indigenous artists and making them discoverable and exposing their work should be the purview of CBC or Radio‑Canada as opposed to the mainstream commercial radio broadcasters. How do you respond to that?

3955 MR. CROWFOOT: I think it's the responsibility of all radio stations and platforms, including Radio‑Canada and everybody so it's... Thank you.

3956 MR. McLEOD: Yes, I'd go back to the reconciliation, you know. I think that, if Indigenous people, Indigenous artists, particularly if they're recognized, there's healing in that, as a country with the past and with moving forward. And it's going to be a subtle way, it's going to be subtle because people are going to be listening to music, enjoying that music and simply enjoying it for the ‑‑ that it exists and that is so ‑‑ there's so much power just in that occurrence.

3957 And then, yes, I think the messages in the music, seeing a person of Indigenous heritage performing and enjoying it or even being surprised by that, I think that's going to bring some positive social change in Canada.

3958 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you very much. And again, thank you very much for coming.

3959 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you and, like my colleague just said, thank you for making the trip to see us and having this conversation. It's very important for us that we have conversations with representatives of Indigenous artists, creators, broadcasters, radio station owners. You're part of the ecosystem. Your contribution is more than valued. So thank you again. And we wish you happy travels back and a very good weekend and a very good Reconciliation Day next week. So thank you very much.

3960 MR. McLEOD: Meegwetch. Red Music is rising. Thank you.

3961 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Madame la Secrétaire.

3962 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci. J’invite maintenant la Société professionnelle des auteurs, compositeurs du Québec et des artistes entrepreneurs à s’installer à la table de présentation. Lorsque vous êtes prêt, s’il vous plaît vous introduire et vous pouvez débuter votre présentation. Merci.

Présentation

3963 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bonjour. Bonjour, Madame la Vice‑Présidente, Commissaires et membres du personnel, je suis Ariane Charbonneau, Directrice générale de la SPACQ‑AE, la Société professionnelle des auteurs‑compositeurs du Québec et des artistes entrepreneurs. La SPACQ‑AE représente depuis 44 ans les intérêts des auteurs‑compositeurs de chansons francophones a? travers le Canada et de tous les compositeurs de musique de commande au Québec. Aujourd'hui, nous représentons plus de 800 membres.

3964 Nous sommes signataires de l’intervention de la coalition ACCORD et soutenons les positions exprimées par la SOCAN, la Songwriters Association of Canada et la SCGC dans le cadre de cet avis. Nous soutenons également l’approche réglementaire proposée par l’APEM et nous nous rallions à la définition de l’artiste émergent proposée par nos collègues d’Artisti, la Guilde des musiciens et l’Union des artistes.

3965 La SPACQ‑AE appuie la définition MAL proposée par le Conseil. Mais une définition, aussi solide soit‑elle, doit refléter une vérité simple : sans auteurs, sans compositeurs, il n’y a pas de musique canadienne.

3966 C’est pourquoi nous réaffirmons que la moitié des points de création doivent provenir de la contribution des auteurs et compositeurs. Ils sont les véritables fondations de notre musique : ce sont eux qui créent les chansons, les paroles et les mélodies qui portent nos histoires. Les exclure ou les rendre optionnels reviendrait à effacer la valeur originale qui fonde notre voix et notre identité culturelle.

3967 Mais définir ne suffit pas. Il faut que nos musiques soient vues, entendues et recommandées. La découvrabilité n’est pas une option : c’est une question de souveraineté culturelle.

3968 Aujourd’hui, nos parts de marché sont si faibles que c’est la survie de nos langues, de notre identité, de notre patrimoine musical et la pérennité même de notre écosystème qui sont menacés. Si nous n’agissons pas maintenant, nous allons perdre une génération entière de créateurs.

3969 Nos artistes doivent se battre avec acharnement pour obtenir un minimum de visibilité dans l’univers numérique. Ils sont en concurrence avec les catalogues historiques, avec leurs collègues du milieu, avec des vedettes internationales et désormais avec des contenus synthétiques générés par l’IA. Dans ces conditions, il leur est presque impossible de rejoindre le public.

3970 La découvrabilité doit devenir un principe ferme et contraignant. Sans cela, le système perdra sa raison d’être, et il n’y aura plus d’auteurs‑compositeurs pour raconter nos histoires.

3971 La découvrabilité de nos musiques est donc vitale. Sans mise en valeur et recommandation, la musique canadienne et francophone vont demeurer invisibles autant chez nous, que sur le marché mondial.

3972 Je cède maintenant la parole à mon collègue David Bussières.

3973 M. BUSSIÈRES : Bonjour, chers Commissaires. Mon nom est David Bussières. Je suis auteur‑compositeur. Alors, j’aimerais ça m’adresser aujourd’hui pour vous dire que, derrière chaque chanson, il y a des années d’efforts, d’investissement et de passion, mais que ce travail ne peut exister sans un système qui le soutient.

3974 Le système que nous défendons repose à la fois sur les radiodiffuseurs, qui présentent et soutiennent financièrement la programmation canadienne, et sur les auteurs‑compositeurs canadiens qui la créent. L’un ne peut exister sans l’autre. Ce principe s’applique également aux entreprises de diffusion continue.

3975 Pour les créateurs, la radio et les canaux satellitaires demeurent essentiels. La rémunération y est plus juste et plus significative que sur les plateformes de musique en ligne. Les palmarès radios et satellites représentent encore aujourd’hui une vitrine et une source de revenus incontournables pour moi et mes homologues.

3976 Nous devons donc maintenir un cadre réglementaire fort pour la radio. Si nous dérégulons les radios, nous fragilisons le seul pilier qui a fait ses preuves depuis des décennies.

3977 L’arrivée d’un nouveau type d’entreprise de radiodiffusion dans le système canadien ne justifie pas le démantèlement des règles existantes. Les entreprises de diffusion continue en ligne doivent également contribuer au système de radiodiffusion.

3978 Les contributions ne sont pas une contrainte déraisonnable, mais ont toujours été un investissement dans notre souveraineté culturelle et représentent une part significative du financement des budgets de FACTOR et de Musicaction.

3979 Il faut dire les choses clairement : sans contributions, la musique canadienne, et particulièrement la musique francophone, disparaîtra.

3980 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Pour conclure, la SPACQ demande au Conseil :

3981 ‑ d’adopter la définition MAL en garantissant la place centrale des auteurs‑compositeurs;

3982 ‑ d’instaurer des mécanismes fermes de découvrabilité pour la musique canadienne et francophone; et

3983 ‑ de maintenir sans relâche les contributions au système de radiodiffusion, qui sont le socle de notre écosystème.

3984 Madame la Vice‑Présidente, chers Commissaires, nous sommes à la croisée des chemins. Soit nous consolidons un système qui a prouvé son efficacité, soit nous laissons s’installer un vide qui profitera uniquement aux multinationales et aux géants étrangers.

3985 M. BUSSIÈRES : Et nos créateurs canadiens ont besoin d’un système réglementaire qui protège leur travail, qui assure leur découvrabilité et qui valorise la création originale. Sans ces mesures, la musique et la culture canadienne et francophone risquent d’être étouffées par la masse de contenus étrangers et de contenus artificiels.

3986 Nos musiques racontent nos histoires, elles donnent une voix à nos communautés, à notre pays, elles façonnent notre identité. C’est maintenant qu’il faut agir pour préserver notre place.

3987 Alors, la SPACQ‑AE vous remercie de l’opportunité de faire entendre la voix de ses membres.

3988 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci à vous deux de faire entendre la voix de vos membres. Ça nous fait plaisir de vous accueillir aujourd’hui en ce vendredi. Je vais tout de suite passer la parole à mon collègue le conseiller Abramson, qui va diriger la période des questions.

3989 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Merci. Merci, Madame la Présidente. Bienvenue à vous. Je commencerais peut‑être dès le début avec une question évidente. Les radiodiffuseurs francophones demandent un allègement des exigences réglementaires. Vous plaidez évidemment pour leur maintien. J'imagine que tous ont un intérêt à la survie du secteur de la radio commerciale au sein de l'environnement audio. Donc, y a‑t‑il un point d'équilibre, y a‑t‑il une approche de consensus? Avez‑vous des solutions à nous proposer?

3990 M^me CHARBONNEAU : C'est sûr que, pour nous, comme on l'a dit, la radio est une source de revenus incontournable pour notre milieu. Le système de radiodiffusion a fait ses preuves depuis 50 ans. Et pour nous, c'est un milieu qui est important. Et pour nous, ça peut être aussi une question de programmation, d'optimiser les programmations. C'est sûr que les radios ont un travail phénoménal. Ils ont fait un travail phénoménal. C'est des partenaires pour nous. C'est sûr que, au niveau… je ne peux pas parler en leur nom, mais c'est sûr qu'au niveau de la programmation, ça peut se jouer à ce niveau‑là.

3991 M. BUSSIÈRES : Je vais ajouter aussi, comme l'ont dit nos collègues de la SOCAN hier, les des médias traditionnels représentent quand même 80 pour cent des revenus pour nos créateurs ici. Donc, ça reste très important et essentiel pour la survie des créateurs. Donc, nous, on plaide évidemment pour le maintien des quotas.

3992 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Mais lorsqu'ils nous disent par exemple que ce soit on baisse les quotas, soit on risque la survie du secteur, comment répondrez‑vous?

3993 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Avec tout le respect, je dis que c'est une aberration. Pour moi, , il faut que, en tant que pays, en tant que système, on se tienne debout et solidaires devant l'hégémonie des contenus américains en ligne. Et pour moi, de réduire les niveaux vers le bas, ce n'est pas une solution, mais pas du tout.

3994 M. BUSSIÈRES : Et je vais ajouter que, comme le dit ma collègue, la programmation y est pour beaucoup. Moi, je me promène dans les festivals aussi parce que j'ai mon groupe en tant qu'interprète. Et puis je vois plein, plein de gens qui qui se rassemblent autour de nos artistes d'ici, qui vont dans les salles, qui vont dans les festivals. Et j'ai de la misère à comprendre pourquoi les radios ne pourraient pas attirer ces gens‑là sur leurs ondes avec la fantastique musique qu'on fait chez nous.

3995 M^me CHARBONNEAU : D'ailleurs, si je peux me permettre peut‑être un dernier complément d'information, mais, avec notre initiative musique, nous voyons les chiffres et nous voyons la soif du public pour des contenus locaux, maintenant plus que jamais. Non seulement on a 62 000 visites mensuelles sur le site, on a 170 000 pages visitées mensuellement. Ça, ça correspond à des listes de lecture. Et, ça, c'est seulement en sept mois. Et on est passés de 150 listes de lecture à plus de 300, on est passés de 30 programmateurs à plus de 80 programmateurs.

3996 Puis on est une petite association. On est… sur le projet, on est trois. Alors, du contenu, il y en a. Il faut le jouer, il faut de la variété. Mais, encore une fois, on connaît les défis des radios. On les vit avec eux et on est partenaires. Donc, il n’y a pas de réponse simple, mais c'est une des réponses.

3997 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Est‑ce durable que la radio reste la principale source de revenus pour les auteurs‑compositeurs dans l'avenir prévisible?

3998 M^me CHARBONNEAU : On l'espère. Ça, c'est certainement une avenue qui, on espère, sera maintenue. C'est un des piliers fondateurs de notre écosystème et on en a besoin autant pour la production, le financement de la production de contenu canadien, mais aussi pour sa présentation, donc, absolument.

3999 M. BUSSIÈRES : Bien, j'allais dire que si le même type de… si les plateformes de musique en ligne étaient tenues de recommander davantage notre musique, probablement, bien, assurément que la part de revenus des créateurs qui viennent des plateformes en ligne augmenterait aussi.

4000 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Justement, pour les plateformes en ligne, quelles mesures concrètes proposez‑vous que l'on adopte pour justement faire mieux passer cette transition dont vous parlez?

4001 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bien, premièrement, il faut des obligations de mise en valeur et de recommandation. C'est une approche basée sur les résultats. Chaque plateforme a une recette différente. Le catalogue reste le même à travers toutes les plateformes. Donc, ce qui… leurs activités sont basées sur la différenciation, donc, sur l'expérience utilisateur. Donc, le comment, c'est à eux de le déterminer, mais on veut des résultats puis on veut une part de marché qui augmente.

4002 M. BUSSIÈRES : J'aimerais juste rajouter que… Je vais faire une petite analogie. J'appelle ça l'expérience magasin de disques. Autrefois, à l'ère des CD, quand on rentrait dans un magasin de disques, la musique locale nous était affichée, il y avait des pancartes. On savait pertinemment où étaient les sections de musique locale. C'était facile de s'y retrouver. Aujourd'hui sur les plateformes en ligne, particulièrement pour la musique francophone, on est juste invisibles quand on ouvre les pages d'accueil et tout ça.

4003 Donc, je pense que, ce qu'il faut faire, c'est reproduire cette expérience magasin de disques pour diriger l'auditeur et que nos musiques soient visibles et que ça soit facile d'y accéder aussi.

4004 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Certaines plateformes en ligne nous ont suggéré que même lorsqu'ils rendent visibles… même lorsqu'ils montrent sur un endroit privilégié dans l'interface la musique d'ici, ils peuvent pas forcer finalement les abonnés à le choisir et ne croient pas qu'ils puissent atteindre les seuils dont on parle. Comment répondrez‑vous?

4005 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Je répondrais tout simplement par : la découverte influence l'écoute active. Donc c'est le même principe. C'est : quand tu rentres dans un magasin, si tu ne vois pas ton chandail jaune, tu ne l'achètes pas. Et la musique canadienne, elle est dans le back‑store avec la musique francophone, qui est encore plus loin dans le back‑store. Donc, c'est pour utiliser un terme anglophone, mais pour vous donner une analogie qu'on utilise souvent, et c'est qu’on rentre dans un magasin, on ne voit pas la musique. Donc, comment est‑ce qu'on peut stimuler l'écoute active? Il faut de la découverte.

4006 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Est‑ce plutôt sur ce point‑là qu'on devrait focaliser d'abord notre attention, justement? Le placement et la manière dont la musique est présentée au public avant de commencer à calculer les parts de marché.

4007 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bien, pour nous, ce n'est pas un enjeu d'accessibilité. Pour nous, c'est vraiment un enjeu de visibilité. La musique n’est tout simplement pas visible. On le voit avec l'étude récente de l'Observatoire de la culture et des communications, mais, ça, c'est pour le Québec, mais la radio est associée positivement à l'écoute de contenu francophone et québécois, tous âges confondus. Et, ça, c'est peu importe les catégories d'âge. Donc, encore une fois, je souligne l'importance de présenter les contenus canadiens. Et la radio est un parfait exemple de cela.

4008 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Il y a un regroupement de radios commerciales qui nous ont proposé que, finalement, deux (2) quotas, c'est‑à‑dire à la fois un quota de musique vocale francophone et une musique de contenu canadien… et un quota de musique qui est du contenu canadien soient redondants, redondants, dans le sens qu'on devrait finalement ne leur imposer qu'un quota unique, par exemple un quota de musique vocale francophone et que le contenu canadien, de toute façon, serait joué à l'intérieur de ça, puisque la musique francophone la plus populaire au Québec, au Canada est justement de la musique d'ici. Est‑ce une proposition raisonnable selon vous?

4009 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Nous sommes en faveur du statu quo. Les quotas ont fonctionné. Les marchés francophones et le marché canadien sont quand même deux marchés distincts. Et il faut préserver les règlements actuels.

4010 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : O.K. Merci. Vous représentez les artistes entrepreneurs, dont j'imagine que beaucoup sont propriétaires de leurs bandes maîtresses. Que pensez‑vous de la proposition de modifier, voire élargir le critère P pour inclure, dans MAPL, pour inclure le producteur initial, une proposition qui est appuyée par un bon nombre d'intervenants? Quels seraient les avantages ou désavantages d'inclure ce critère selon vous?

4011 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bon, premièrement, la SPACQ‑AE représente les auteurs‑compositeurs. Nos membres, pour qu'ils soient artistes entrepreneurs comme David, ils doivent écrire et composer de la musique. Donc, ça, l'un est intimement lié à l'autre. Nous sommes en faveur d’un équilibre de l'écosystème entre l'enregistrement sonore et l'oeuvre musicale, c'est certain.

4012 Mais pour nous, il faut absolument s'assurer que le noyau du M et du L soit préservé. Parce qu’on ne pourrait pas se retrouver dans une situation où un contenu canadien est déterminé comme canadien si le A et le P se qualifient. Le M et le L doivent représenter 50 pour cent des points. Ça, c'est clair pour moi.

4013 M. BUSSIÈRES : Puis je vais rajouter, si, moi, en tant que créateur, je crée une chanson, qu'elle est diffusée à la radio ou sur les plateformes en ligne et que je vois quelqu'un fredonner ou chantonner la chanson que j'ai créée, pour moi, j'ai contribué au patrimoine canadien, je me suis inséré dans l'imaginaire collectif canadien.

4014 Si je vois la même personne chantonner ou fredonner une chanson des Beatles qui est interprétée par un interprète ou une interprète canadien, aussi bon ou bonne soit‑il ou elle, bien, pour moi, ce n'est pas contribuer au patrimoine canadien, c'est un hommage à la culture britannique.

4015 Donc, pour nous, la création est indissociable de la définition de contenu canadien.

4016 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Merci. C'est bien compris. Pour les collaborations, quand une œuvre est coécrite avec des Canadiens, des non‑Canadiens, comment appliqueriez‑vous donc cette règle des points? Dans les faits, à quelle fréquence aussi ces œuvres seraient‑elles reconnues comme canadiennes?

4017 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Dans le cadre du MAL, vous voulez dire?

4018 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Oui.

4019 M^me CHARBONNEAU : La collaboration se fait déjà beaucoup, de toute façon. Et, pour nous, la définition du MAL permet justement plus de collaboration et est un cadre modernisé qui est applicable. Toutes les parties prenantes sont déjà familières avec le M, le A et le L. Et ce serait très facile à mettre en œuvre.

4020 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Et donc, le seuil de 50 pour cent serait approprié pour vous?

4021 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Absolument oui, oui.

4022 M. BUSSIÈRES : Bien, j'allais juste ajouter que les collaborations sont souvent des bonnes occasions aussi pour exporter nos créations, pour collaborer avec des compositeurs d'autres pays et, donc, de faire connaître nos créations à l'extérieur.

4023 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Et pour ceux qui suggèrent que ce modèle de MAL laisse de côté l'interprète et le producteur, laisse de côté l'artiste qui constitue, bien ou mal, un peu le marque avec laquelle les gens associent une chanson, comment répondrez‑vous?

4024 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Par rapport à la définition MA?

4025 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Bien, c'est‑à‑dire, avec l'abandon du P, ce qui fait que deux sur trois devraient être… bien, deux critères sur trois sont les compositeurs. Et l'artiste n'en est que pour un.

4026 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bien, nous, on continue à parler du fait que le M et le L sont le noyau et que les auteurs‑compositeurs ne peuvent pas être considérés optionnels.

4027 M. BUSSIÈRES : Et en plus, le modèle d'affaires fait souvent en sorte que les redevances qui vont aux artistes passent souvent par des labels ou des producteurs. Donc, au niveau de la propriété intellectuelle, c'est plus favorable d'encourager des redevances directement aux créateurs.

4028 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Merci. Parlons un peu peut‑être des artistes émergents. Vous avez proposé des seuils assez précis, cinq œuvres, deux albums ou trois EP en 72 mois. Pourriez‑vous un peu parler de qu'est‑ce qui vous a amené à retenir exactement ces chiffres, ces critères?

4029 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bien, en fait, vous faites référence à la définition qui avait été soumise dans notre mémoire et nous nous sommes ralliés, donc, à la définition proposée par Artisti, la Guide des musiciens et l'UDA pour simplement simplifier la définition, de un. Et, de deux aussi, parce que la définition fait allusion à l'artiste vedette, à l'artiste interprète. Donc, pour nous, il était plus facile d'établir un paramètre de temporalité avec deux critères qui sont deux albums et trois EP, qui sont représentatifs dans le fond de la production qu'un artiste ou une artiste produit dans ce laps de temps.

4030 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Et question que j'ai posée à plusieurs intervenants maintenant, mais le côté temporalité, est‑ce important? C'est‑à‑dire, un artiste qui n’a pas percé dans ses trois premières années, un artiste qui n’a tout simplement pas percé après maintes années dans l'industrie, est‑ce qu'on devrait favoriser le premier?

4031 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Bien, en toute franchise, dans notre milieu, le cinq ans, c'est pas mal la base pour donner la chance à un artiste émergent d’émerger, justement. T’sais, normalement, un album, c'est deux ans, deux ans et demi. Et on retombe dans un cycle de création pour commercialiser une œuvre.

4032 Donc, pour nous, la temporalité du cinq ans, c'était très réaliste. C'est un sujet qui nous occupe quand même beaucoup dans l'industrie, la définition, la fameuse définition de l'artiste émergent. Mais il y a consensus, donc, entre la SPACQ‑AE et Artisti, l'UDA et la Guilde des musiciens. Donc, c'est pour ça que nous avons établi ces paramètres‑là.

4033 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Merci. Peut‑être une dernière question, juste pour revenir à la question des plateformes en ligne. Ils invoquent souvent la confidentialité commerciale pour ne pas partager leurs données. C'est justement l'un des échanges qu'on a eus aujourd'hui, je pense. Est‑ce qu'il y a un degré d'agrégation, d'anonymisation que vous accepterez pour avoir l'information tout en respectant cette confidentialité commerciale?

4034 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Absolument. Je veux dire, si les données sont agrégées et c'est le CRTC qui les récolte, on est en faveur de ça. L'important, c'est de s'assurer que les objectifs sont atteints et que les résultats sont au rendez‑vous.

4035 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Et en termes de format, en termes de type de données, vous avez dit que vous appuyez la proposition de l’APEM?

4036 M^me CHARBONNEAU : C'est exact.

4037 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : O.K. Bien, merci.

4038 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Merci.

4039 CONSEILLER ABRAMSON : Ce sont mes questions, Madame la Présidente.

4040 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci à mon conseiller Abramson enrhumé. J'espère qu'il va survivre le reste de la journée.

4041 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Au moins, c’est la fin de semaine.

4042 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Je voudrais explorer un peu avec vous la demande de flexibilité que les radios commerciales nous ont formulée. Vous nous dites, et je pense qu'il n’y a personne qui conteste ça, que 80 pour cent de vos revenus viennent des radios. Donc, je pense que, collectivement, on a intérêt à ce que les radios commerciales survivent. Et, quand ils nous disent qu'ils ont de la misère à survivre, bien, on tend l'oreille pour essayer de comprendre qu'est‑ce qui se passe et comment est‑ce qu'on pourrait les aider d'une certaine façon.

4043 On vous a bien entendus aussi sur la question des quotas. Je pense que votre position est très claire. Mais je voudrais élargir d'autres façons peut‑être d'insuffler un peu d'air frais aux radios commerciales parce que c'est ce qu'ils nous demandent et, nous, notre rôle ici, c'est essayer de trouver ce point d'équilibre, ce qui n’est pas évident. Je suis sure que vous pouvez en convenir.

4044 Alors, parmi les choses, les propositions qui ont été faites pour essayer de donner un peu plus de flexibilité en matière de programmation, notamment, mais aussi de contributions – puis j’y reviendrai – on a des intervenants qui nous ont proposé, par exemple, d'étendre la période de grande écoute pour qu'ils puissent être plus agiles dans leur programmation.

4045 On nous a suggéré d'établir les quotas, non pas sur une base hebdomadaire, mais mensuelle aussi, pour qu'ils puissent avoir un peu plus d'agilité. On a certains intervenants qui nous ont dit, bien, peut‑être qu'on pourrait élargir un peu la façon dont on comprend les quotas pour inclure des chroniques culturelles, des diffusions live de concert, des activités qui, au bout du compte, contribuent à faire la promotion de la culture, de la musique francophone ou canadienne. Ça, c'est pour tout ce qui touche la programmation.

4046 Pour tout ce qui touche la contribution, on a des intervenants qui nous ont dit : « Bien, peut‑être qu'on pourrait éliminer les avantages tangibles, les bénéfices tangibles. » Ou : « On pourrait peut‑être laisser aux radiodiffuseurs le choix de décider où vont les contributions. »

4047 J'aimerais explorer un peu avec vous ces pistes pour essayer de savoir, de votre point de vue, où est ce que la flexibilité pourrait être considérée compte tenu de votre position sur les quotas. Alors, j'aurais peut‑être aimé vous entendre un peu là‑dessus.

4048 M^me CHARBONNEAU : C'est sûr qu’un système à deux paliers doit demeurer autant dans la présentation de contenu canadien que dans les contributions. Les contributions financières prévues dans le cadre réglementaire de la radio sont établies en fonction des revenus, d'un pourcentage des revenus. Donc, les revenus sont à la baisse. Les contributions sont à la baisse.

4049 Je pense que c'est une panoplie d'éléments qu'on doit considérer. On pourrait peut‑être vous revenir dans nos observations finales écrites. Évidemment, on va devoir concerter à l'interne parce que c'est une question quand même assez complexe qui touche les radios. Donc, je ne sais pas si, David, tu voulais…

4050 M. BUSSIÈRES : Je comprends les radios de se poser ces questions‑là face à leur situation financière. Évidemment, comme créateur et comme artiste qui joue, qui a bénéficié de la visibilité de la radio et des redevances aussi que ça fait, je suis à même de juger de l'importance des quotas à la radio pour faire circuler notre musique, pour que, nous, on puisse aussi ensuite, comme je disais tantôt, s'insérer dans la mémoire collective et ensuite faire des spectacles pour que notre musique circule, pour que… Parce que, être un artiste, un créateur, c'est un tout aussi. Il y a la musique qui circule, qui est jouée en concert et tout.

4051 Et puis, moi, j'ai vraiment de la misère avec le fait que les radios pensent pouvoir attirer plus d'auditeurs en réduisant la musique canadienne et surtout francophone qui est jouée. Pour moi, c'est une question de programmation, de choix. Puis j'ai une petite image aussi. Si je vais dans une discothèque un soir, puis que la musique qui y joue et l'ambiance qui y joue n'est pas bonne, je n’y retournerai pas. Je peux aller dans cette discothèque‑là le lendemain que, Oups! Il y a une nouvelle programmation, l'ambiance est mieux. Je vais y retourner assurément.

4052 Donc, moi, je considère que c'est possible de faire une discothèque le fun avec les radios tout en respectant les quotas qui sont là actuellement.

4053 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci beaucoup. Je vous remercie pour votre participation aujourd'hui, de vous être déplacés. On l'apprécie beaucoup. Et on vous souhaite une excellente fin de semaine. Merci.

4054 M^me CHARBONNEAU : Parfait. Merci beaucoup.

4055 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Madame la Secrétaire.

4056 THE SECRETARY: We will go for a lunch break and we will resume at 1:00 p.m. Thank you.

4057 ‑‑‑ Suspension à 11 h 34

4059 ‑‑‑ Reprise à 13 h 01

4061 THE SECRETARY: Good afternoon. We will now hear the presentations of the next two intervenors on the agenda, who will be appearing as a panel: Digital Media Association and Computer & Communications Industry Association.

4062 We will hear each presentation, which will then be followed by questions by the Panel to both participants.

4063 We will start with the presentation of Digital Media Association.

4064 Please introduce yourself, and you may begin. Thank you.

Présentation

4065 MR. DAVIES: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. It is a privilege to speak to you about music discovery in Canada and how we can build on the success that’s already here.

4066 These hearings matter because they will impact how artists are found, how fans connect with music and how Canada continues to thrive in a global music economy in the future.

4067 My name is Graham Davies. I am President and CEO of the Digital Media Association. DIMA represents the world’s leading audio streaming services, including Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube. Our members have played a central role in transforming the music market in Canada for the better and at a critical time.

4068 Two decades ago, most online music consumption came through piracy. By building a whole new ecosystem that provides legal access to the world’s music at your fingertips, our members have helped transform piracy into prosperity. Today, Canada stands as the eighth largest recorded music market in the world. This is a tremendous success story, and we are proud of the role that DIMA’s members have played.

4069 Streaming now generates the vast majority of Canadian recorded music revenues, paying more than half a billion dollars to rightsholders last year.

4070 At a time when Canadians are struggling with the cost of living, music streaming remains one of the best values they get for their money. For an affordable price, listeners get access to the music they want to hear, when they want to hear it, and rightsholders and the artists they represent see year on year revenue growth. Seventy percent of streaming revenues flow to the rightsholders, which is the highest contribution of any music business model. Affordability, scale and sustainability go hand in hand here. Streaming delivers a win for consumers and a win for artists.

4071 And streaming has also helped transform the music industry for the better. Streaming has not just opened doors, it has removed barriers. An artist in Bedford or Burnaby can now reach listeners across the country and around the world. Success no longer depends on knowing a radio programmer. Streaming gives all music creators access to the global marketplace, not to mention the array of powerful tools for analytics and promotion that our members provide.

4072 For the first time, an artist anywhere in Canada can find an audience anywhere in the world. Consumers, meanwhile, enjoy unprecedented access to music across genres, languages and cultures.

4073 This is one of the most successful stories in the history of Canadian music. Two‑thirds of Canadians use music streaming services, and among the under 30, the figure rises above 90 percent. More than 80 percent of users say they are satisfied with their service. These are habits built on legal, licensed music, and they’ve driven growth in royalties that flow back to artists and rightsholders. That shift is cultural and economic, and it’s built on consumer choice and private sector innovation.

4074 A first principle for today’s discussion must be to recognize how streaming is different from other forms of music listening. Streaming is not radio. It doesn’t operate on scarce airwaves or fixed programming slots. It offers more than 100 million tracks on demand, with each individual user able to customize and tailor their experience. Trying to apply radio era rules to this interactive world will not work. It risks undermining the very outcomes the Commission is trying to encourage.

4075 Quotas designed for a one‑to‑many broadcast environment are incompatible with the reality of a one‑to‑one streaming environment where every home page is personalized and discovery is powered by a blend of editorial curation, algorithms, search, social media and an artist’s own marketing.

4076 And the concept of Canadian content was designed to serve radio quotas. It wasn’t designed for a global marketplace with unlimited shelf space. If CanCon is lifted from radio and dropped into the digital environment, it will fail because it mismatches intent and reality.

4077 To begin, the Commission should recognize that there are a variety of aspects that could make a song Canadian, whether a Canadian performer, producer or one of the songwriters is Canadian. For example, Michael Bublé’s classic recording of iconic Christmas songs may not even qualify under MAPL rules, even though he is himself Canadian. That’s a policy problem, not a market one.

4078 There’s another reason local quotas don’t translate to streaming: the operational reality of digital supply chains. Streaming services don’t receive the metadata that would be necessary to identify a song as Canadian. There’s no field for nationality. And if there was, whose role would it be to populate this data? The process of music production in the modern era is collaborative and global. A Canadian singer might work with a British songwriter and an American producer and release through a European label.

4079 To the extent that the Commission will establish a prescriptive definition, without standardized industry metadata, it will be impossible for services to certify what counts as Canadian across catalogues. Any definition must be developed by the Canadian music industry itself, certified at source and delivered through standardized metadata. That’s the only way it will work at scale. It must also be as flexible as possible, to ensure that Canadians are properly recognized for their work. An artist shouldn’t be penalized because they exercised their creative choice to work with a collaborator from another location.

4080 DIMA’s members have already made significant investments in Canada without regulatory intervention or compulsion. The current levy proposal adds another cost layer which poses a threat to the ongoing investments that have enabled Canada’s music industry to thrive. The current base contribution has been described as modest, but it is anything but this in light of the way this music business is structured. And some have suggested this proceeding should drive the amount even higher. This would apply yet further pressure on already narrow operating margins of the streaming services.

4081 If operating costs rise sharply, services face hard choices about whether to reduce investments in Canada or raise prices for consumers. In an affordability crisis, either path is harmful. If consumer prices rise due to government‑imposed costs, fewer people subscribe, and more users may be driven back towards piracy. If investment shrinks, fewer resources can go to Canadian artists, partnerships and programs. Either way, it’s artists or audiences who lose, and the Canadian music industry will feel these impacts.

4082 It’s important to remember how we got here. Streaming didn’t succeed because of regulation. It succeeded because Canadians chose it. Because it works. It turned a piracy dominated market into one that is growing and sustainable. To interfere with that success without fully understanding how music streaming works puts the entire ecosystem at risk.

4083 Some argue that while the global market is healthy, local segments may suffer. And it’s true that in a democratized market, every artist competes for ears. But the way to address that risk isn’t by forcing every consumer into a one size fits all experience. It’s by strengthening the inputs that actually drive success. Labels and publishers find, develop and promote artists. Accurate, timely metadata enables royalties to be properly attributed and paid. Artists need education and outreach to use the tools that the services provide. And for the services part, they wish to continue to invest in editorial teams, partnerships with Canadian organizations and programming that highlights Canadian and Indigenous music.

4084 We also need to measure the right outcomes. This means measuring actual results rather than measuring arbitrary benchmarks. Traditional charts or relative market shares are not a good proxy for streaming success. Last year, a large proportion of artists who earned more than a million dollars from one of our members never appeared in the global top fifty. This is the point. Streaming distributes success more widely. It creates a robust middle. Communities form around every genre and every language. If we’re measuring health, look at the growth in listening to Canadian music, the absolute increase in consumption and audience size, the export performance of Canadian artists and the number of Canadians paying for legal music, and the flow of royalties. Those are the indicators that matter.

4085 So, what does a constructive path look like?

4086 First, we must recognize the success of the system that exists. Don’t adopt rules that will make the product worse for consumers. If satisfaction drops because services are forced to replace the current listening options people rely on with mandatory categories, engagement will fall.

4087 Second, if there is to be a definition of Canadian content for the online world, the music industry itself should organize and design and certify it.

4088 Third, we believe roundtables should be convened between services, rightsholders, artists and the Commission to build a shared understanding of how discovery actually works.

4089 And fourth, it is important to take a data‑driven approach to measuring outcomes from exports to language representation.

4090 Finally, regarding the process itself, we encourage stakeholders to talk to one another directly rather than risk talking past one another through filings.

4091 We have been concerned that in the course of the regulatory back‑and‑forth, opportunities may have been missed to have meaningful industry dialogue and attention has been diverted from the core, shared mission of supporting Canada’s music industry. To that end, we urge the CRTC to call for a stakeholder roundtable, providing an opportunity to establish a forum for open collaborative discussion that will help build shared understanding and identify a more constructive path forward.

4092 DIMA’s members are committed to being partners in achieving Canadian cultural policy goals. We want Canadian and Indigenous artists to reach larger audiences. We want more Canadians to legally access royalty generating music. We want a market that continues to grow for artist royalties and careers. We are ready to collaborate on measurement, metadata and better outcomes.

4093 What we ask is for balance. Build a framework that supports discovery without undermining consumer choice or weakening investment. Build it on a realistic understanding of how streaming works, with responsibilities assigned to the right actors. And build it in a way that keeps Canada attractive to global services at a moment when music faces unprecedented competition for consumers’ attention.

4094 Canada can continue to be a global leader in digital music. That leadership will be stronger if policy fosters innovation, investment and collaboration rather than constraining them.

4095 Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions and to working together on the road ahead.

4096 THE SECRETARY: Thank you. We will now connect to Zoom for the next presenter.

4097 Can you hear us correctly?

4098 MR. McHALE: Yes, I can, thank you.

4099 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

4100 You may present yourself and begin your presentation. Thank you.

Présentation

4101 MR. McHALE: Thank you, Madam Chair and Commissioners. My name is Jonathan McHale, Vice‑President for Digital Trade at the Computer & Communications Industry Association. We represent leading communications and technology firms that invest heavily in the Canadian creative sector. Our members include streaming services that deliver Canadian music and other creative works to audiences not only Canada but worldwide.

4102 Streaming services have transformed the music industry. They revived it from the piracy era, delivered unprecedented growth for artists and, importantly, made Canadian music accessible to the world. Streaming services make millions of Canadian songs available worldwide, introduce Canadian artists to billions of new listeners each year and generate the majority of revenues in Canada’s recorded music sector. In 2023 alone, Canadian artists had the third highest number of streams globally, and 92 percent of the royalties on Spotify came from listeners abroad. In 2023, the sector produced $900 million in revenue, nearly 80 percent from streaming.

4103 In effect, streaming is Canada’s greatest cultural export engine. To repay those benefits our members offer with punishing quotas, fees and financial contributions is counterproductive. It is also inconsistent with the commitments Canada made in the Canada‑U.S.‑Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA.

4104 This is why we oppose applying legacy radio rules to online platforms, as the CRTC’s proposed regulations seek to do. Radio is finite, linear and local. Streaming is infinite, interactive and global. The two systems cannot be treated the same and opposing analog‑era requirements such as quotas, rigid content databases or discoverability obligations designed for radio will not work online. They would be a costly technical nightmare and ultimately harmful to both consumers and artists.

4105 We have seen what has happened elsewhere. In France, a streaming tax raised consumer prices higher than in any other EU country and risks reducing music consumption. A similar path here could undermine growth and revive piracy, which benefits no one.

4106 Moreover, the Online Streaming Act, as currently structured, risks breaching Canada’s trade commitments. It forces foreign services to fund and promote narrowly‑defined Canadian content in ways that clearly discriminate against U.S. companies in a manner proscribed by CUSMA. Requirements now being contemplated would not only be difficult to comply with, but the very discrimination that CUSMA guards against would also jeopardize investment and participation by U.S. suppliers in the Canadian market.

4107 Instead of replicating radio‑era rules, the CRTC should focus on what has been working: enabling Canadian artists to thrive in the global music economy.

4108 First, that means broad, inclusive definitions of Canadian content, reflective of the cross‑border, collaborative nature of modern music creation. The current MAPL system is so narrow that global stars like Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Bryan Adams and Tate McRae often do not even qualify as Canadian. A rigid framework designed for radio therefore risks excluding many Canadian voices from the very support it is meant to provide.

4109 Second, it means rethinking what interventions make sense. For example, implementing a rigid definition of what qualifies as Canadian content and identifying non‑compliance through a newly‑developed database would appear to be an expensive fool’s errand, unlikely to be either workable or effective.

4110 Third, it means supporting policies that amplify, not restrict, the reach that streaming already provides. To impose unnecessary quotas, burdensome fees or algorithmic meddling on top of this success would be counterproductive, increasing the costs for platforms and consumers, reducing consumption and ultimately cutting into the very revenues Canadian artists depend upon. Efforts to mandate algorithmic changes deserve particular scrutiny. Recommendation systems are central to how streaming works, and they are one of the most effective tools for introducing Canadian artists to new audiences worldwide. Meddling with this innovative technology risks undermining consumer experience and alienating audiences.

4111 In conclusion, streaming platforms are not a threat to Canadian culture. They are its most powerful ally. They are also the reason Canadian artists from global superstars to emerging voices are reaching fans across the world like never before. They are why Canadian music is enjoying record growth, and they are why the Online Streaming Act’s heavy‑handed proposals risk doing more harm than good.

4112 Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today, and I look forward to any of your questions.

4113 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you so much for being here with us today.

4114 I will turn things over to my colleague, Commissioner Naidoo, for the questions.

4115 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Hi, there. Thank you so much for being here today and thank you for joining us virtually as well. Too bad we can’t have you in the room, but this is better than not having you at all.

4116 Just some housekeeping things. We don’t have a ton of time for both of you to answer questions. I would ask that one of you, whoever you think is best to answer, would answer. If you want to jump in, go ahead, but at some point, if the answers get long, I might have to just target it to one or the other of you. I’m just giving you some fair warning.

4117 Yesterday here at the hearing, we heard about inequity in the system. Corus was here. They had mentioned that playing songs on streaming services, in their view, is not equal to playing songs on traditional radio. Traditional radio has to play the song in its entirety for it to be qualified as CanCon.

4118 I wonder if you can respond to their statement. And what do you consider a song to be played, when it’s played in its entirety or a specific number of seconds? And how did you settle on that particular length?

4119 MR. DAVIES: I'm happy to go first.

4120 Yes, I think in the streaming era, 30 seconds has been the industry’s kind of model for what counts as a stream for royalty payment. As to why 30 seconds, I’m not entirely sure. And I know from the rightsholder industry, there has been dialogue around that and what counts and whether 30 seconds is, you know, too long or too short, and also around these kinds of questions as to whether a long play of a piece of music should be valued. Say a classical piece of music or something that’s longer, should that have more than one count as a stream?

4121 So those kinds of questions have come up, but they’ve generally been areas that have been discussed with the rightsholder community, because they often play into say SOCAN in terms of a matching and payment mechanism.

4122 I don’t know if that answers your question.

4123 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: I think it does.

4124 Mr. McHale, did you want to jump in or were you satisfied with the context?

4125 MR. McHALE: I would just add that this is a classic issue that I think needs to reflect the way that music is being consumed on the online space, which may be different from on traditional radio. People may jump around a lot more. They have control. So the time that’s involved in qualifying for a particular song is something they need to work out among the industry participants.

4126 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you very much.

4127 I'm going to stick with the subject of equity.

4128 As you know, we’ve been tasked with setting up a system that requires equitable contributions for all, streamers and also traditional services alike. I’m wondering ‑‑ because there’s a lot riding on a definition. Right? I’m wondering how you define equitable in this context. Is there a monetary value that you can offer to help us meet the task that we’ve been presented with?

4129 MR. DAVIES: I'm happy to go first.

4130 Yes, I think equitable and equity are very challenging questions, so I applaud you in the work that you’re doing.

4131 I think from my perspective and the testimony that I’ve given, is when you look at the contribution that our members are making, which I really appreciate this process has enabled us to bring to life, and as more and more information is being supplied by members on what they are contributing, our position is that if you compare this business model to all the other music business models, the 70 percent contribution that the services are making to the rightsholder community is, I believe, a very fair contribution when you look at then the 30 percent margin that the services are left, compared to the less than 9 percent the broadcast industry, the commercial radio stations are contributing.

4132 That, to me, feels very fair. It feels very equitable. The services need to have money to invest but they also greatly value the music that ‑‑ whether it be new music or catalogue music that they are surfacing onto the platforms, and pay the rightsholder industry very strongly for that. So I ‑‑ I believe that’s the starting point in terms of a fair and equitable viewpoint on ‑‑ on this.

4133 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Mr. McHale, I saw you put your hand up, I think?

4134 MR. McHALE: Sure. I would just say that unlike traditional broadcasting, which is local, one of the key benefits that streamers offer is access to a global market. So I think that in terms of equity, the fact that you’ve got billions of potential users that are able to access this content is a contribution to the value proposition that the ‑‑ the service offers, and that that ought to be credited. So to the extent that a platform is offering an ability to export a product, that should be considered as part of their contribution to the underlying ecosystem that they are participating in.

4135 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you very much. You say in your submission the criteria to define a Canadian music selection discussed in the NOC would be “unworkable for online services.” I’m wondering if you can explain to us why you say that, given that most Canadian musical recordings are already found on streaming services.

4136 MR. DAVIES: Yes. I think that the operational concerns that we’re raising around any system of CanCon for the services is one of being really explicit around where the roles and responsibility for making that definition, getting the labelling applied, and that metadata flowing through to the services is ‑‑ is ‑‑ first of all, is something the services just cannot do. I would say this is a wider point ‑‑ that the services exist at the end of a supply chain. They’re entirely reliant on the information from the industry who are creating, recording, distributing that content to the services as to what it is. That pertains to all other ‑‑ away from CanCon, all other aspects.

4137 You know, in my past role, I used to represent songwriters in the UK. Information on who wrote the song is pretty integral to a recording and to the user experience. That information is often missing, and I did a lot of work campaigning in my past life to get that information following the recording up onto the service, and a lot of that information is missing now in this global supply chain. So my point is that the services will not know who wrote the song. They won’t know who the performers are. They won’t know anything to do with where it was recorded, whether it’s Canadian or not, unless the rights industry supply it.

4138 And there is none of that information in the supply chain currently, so I think obviously the CRTC would be looking at how could that supply chain be improved, and could it be carried? I think at that point than obviously our members could then surface that information and potentially use it in a different way, but at the moment, that’s why we are advocating for the broadest definition. But that ‑‑ that determination that our members are making at the moment is something that they ‑‑ they are having to kind of come to on their own. There is not a robust system in place now, and it will be very challenging, I think, to ‑‑ to make that happen.

4139 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right. Your submission calls into question using metadata to track results, so I’m wondering, how do your members track results? And don’t they use metadata?

4140 MR. DAVIES: So, with reference to my previous answer, it’s entirely reliant on the metadata that’s supplied. So, if our members are provided with metadata, they would be able to use that information, but it is not uniformly provided. So, as I say, the most basic thing would be a performer ‑‑ you know, you’ve got a recording ‑‑ who is the featured artist on that? We may get that information. We may get an ISRC code which kind of identifies who the owner of the recording is. The information below that very core information can be very sketchy, so that’s ‑‑ that’s the kind of picture of ‑‑ and this is not just a Canadian issue; please understand, this is a global supply chain we’re talking about.

4141 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Well, various interventions seem to suggest that only the A criteria in the MAPL system is traceable. I’m wondering what your position is on this, and how would you consider that a definition on this sole criterion would help to achieve the objectives of the Act?

4142 MR. DAVIES: I'll go first, again. I think that, you know, from our perspective, it’s a build on my previous point in terms of the ‑‑ the fullness of the ‑‑ the information around the M, the A, et cetera, and the L is not a uniformly full position. So that’s why we are advocating for the widest definition of what can constitute Canadian content. You know, for us, we think that the ‑‑ the approach and the principle should be one of inclusiveness. We want ‑‑ we should want as many opportunities to profile Canadian, whether that is artists or whether it is the songwriters, whether it is the lyricist, or whatever component. So just relying on one ‑‑ one piece of this is ‑‑ is really not ideal. I think we should be able to use any information that we can to promote Canadian music.

4143 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right, thank you.

4144 Mr. McHale, I am going to direct this to you, unless you think that Mr. Davies is better equipped to answer it. How would you respond to intervenors from the creative sector who worry about the adoption of a definition that basically ignores the contribution of Canadian songwriters and composers?

4145 MR. McHALE: I think the idea of these policies is to bring money and resources into the sector. So I think I echo the previous commentor’s point that the broadest definition as possible is helpful. So it may well be that some elements in a production don’t get monetized immediately, but the idea is to help build the sector ‑‑ all those participants in a very collaborative sector should be ‑‑ should be the goal of ‑‑ of this ‑‑ this policy. So our ‑‑ our position I think, similar to the previous commentor is a broad definition, and people will eventually get the funding. Micromanaging every particular song for a particular distribution reference really seems like an overbroad effort to intervene.

4146 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you for that. And I am going to throw this out to either of you ‑‑ whoever feels best to answer it.

4147 Considering that radio broadcasters have been able to track and identify Canadian musical selections for years, can you expand on why music streaming services should not have to do the same?

4148 MR. DAVIES: Yeah, I’m going to go first. So, for radio stations, they have had a much, much smaller number of recordings that they have needed to manage for the curated playlists that they’re putting together. The ‑‑ the streaming model is obviously based on the ‑‑ the user engages into the music that they want to listen to, which can be, you know, any ‑‑ any recording. So the ‑‑ the practicalities here of the broadcast industry, which I can’t comment in any depth on, other than having been in some of the CRTC listening sessions, I know that, whilst they have been doing it, it sounds like it’s been an incredibly high administrative burden for them even though they are managing a much smaller number of recordings.

4149 Our members are ingesting hundreds of thousands of recordings a week. Applying any kind of criteria and a complex system to the ingestion of hundreds of thousands of recordings a week with incomplete and missing metadata is just practically not something that our members could do.

4150 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you for that.

4151 Again, this is directed at either of you, but I think it actually goes to your answer earlier, Mr. Davies, and I apologize that I didn’t ask it higher up, but we understand that metadata is sometimes unavailable, incomplete. So I am wondering if you can give us something tangible. What workable future‑looking solutions ‑‑ tangible ‑‑ could help to improve this situation?

4152 MR. DAVIES: Thank you for the question, and I actually greatly appreciate that we’re spending a lot of time on metadata. It is often a subject which can be seen as not that interesting, but it’s ‑‑ it’s absolutely fundamental, and hopefully I’m conveying that the music industry has struggled with this issue for many, many years. The ideas of databases that at one point the industry looked at global repertoire database, for instance, to try and provide a single look‑up globally for a song, a recording, and how they are connected, and all the metadata associated ‑‑ and that project sadly failed in quite spectacular style.

4153 So I think, to your question, what tangibly ‑‑ I think it would be ‑‑ my suggestion for the CRTC would be to engage with the industry’s standards‑setting body for metadata, which is called DDEX. That has been a ‑‑ it’s an organization which is, I think, only, say, 15 years old but it has really been a very powerful place where the whole industry has come together and sought to establish standardized identifiers protocols, and this is where the fields that the whole industry kind of relies on are defined. So that ‑‑ that would be a clear suggestion.

4154 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you for that. And Mr. McHale, did you want to add something to that answer?

4155 MR. McHALE: Nothing to add.

4156 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: You’re good, okay.

4157 Moving to the next question, this one is actually directed to you, Mr. Davies. Your intervention refers to investments and initiatives from music streaming services that you consider should qualify as contributions towards the objectives of the Act. So how do music streaming services measure the impact of these investments and initiatives?

4158 MR. DAVIES: Thank you for the question. So, I think that the ‑‑ the challenge of measuring the outcomes which are following the CRTC’s hearings ‑‑ you know, that is something that you are very closely focussing on there, and I think it is ‑‑ is a real challenge. I think that the ‑‑ the concept of ‑‑ of reporting from the services which is currently, you know, being discussed by our members ‑‑ I think should look to the policy objectives and the activities that the services are doing under that. So I think that for us, the ‑‑ the contribution to the music industry that I’ve mentioned already ‑‑ that ‑‑ that’s a very significant for us contribution.

4159 I think the fact that, as my follow speaker said, providing access to the global market for Canadian artists ‑‑ you know, there is no charge for carrying all the music that’s ingested. I think that the ‑‑ the work that is done for playlists and ‑‑ and key areas on the ‑‑ the homepages, and defined places for Canadian content to exist, I think can be measured. And I think that, for us, it is also seeing the metrics around whether listenership is going up, and that ‑‑ there are also things that can be seen. So these are the kind of metrics I think that we ‑‑ we see as some things that could be provided.

4160 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right. Well, thank you both for your answers today. Those are all my questions, but I know that my fellow panelists also have questions. Thank you.

4161 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Naidoo.

4162 Commissioner Levy?

4163 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Forgive me for perhaps being a little dense, but I don't understand why at one point you say streaming services don’t receive metadata that would be necessary to identify a song as Canadian, there is no field for nationality ‑‑ and yet, you laud the investments that the streaming services make in Canadian discoverability and so forth. So forgive me for not being able to understand how you can say that you can’t identify something as Canadian on the one hand, but you’re doing all of these wonderful things for the Canadian industry and you don’t seem to have any difficulty sorting out who’s who on those kinds of initiatives.

4164 MR. DAVIES: Thank you for the question. Yes, I understand your point, which is if our members are saying that they have various Canadian related playlists and they work really hard to feature and promote new and existing Canadian talent, how are they doing that without information that tells them it’s Canadian? So, I ‑‑ I totally hear your ‑‑ your point there.

4165 I think that there’s a big difference between the work and ‑‑ you know, my members who were speaking to you today about the work that they are doing ‑‑ humans here in Canada working with the music industry and the information that they get from Canadian artists who pitch music to them. It is that  ‑‑ that’s the process for how they are doing it currently. This is not relying on the supply chain that is populated definitively with what is Canadian and what isn't. It is ‑‑ it is a process that they are doing themselves on top of that supply chain.

4166 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Any other additions there? No? Okay.

4167 Also, Mr. Davies, in your comments you say we shouldn’t try to apply radio era rules to this interactive world; it risks undermining the very outcomes the Commission is trying to encourage. So, how do you define what outcomes we are trying to encourage?

4168 MR. DAVIES: So, I think the outcomes that you are trying to encourage are a successful music industry here in Canada for Canadian musicians and artists, where there is the ability to tell Canadian stories from across Canada, that those stories can find audiences here in Canada and globally. So I think that the outcomes should be around whether that market exists, whether it is growing, whether it is successful, whether more people are listening to music coming from Canada, whether here in Canada or around the world. And when we look at those macro outcomes, we can see that that is happening.

4169 COMMISSIONER LEVY: I guess I am somewhat surprised that the conclusion that so many of your members have drawn is that we are trying to impose traditional broadcast radio rules on the online system which I don’t think has been stated anywhere in our goals for this proceeding or any other. However, those are all of my questions, thank you.

4170 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Levy, and I do support your point of clarification that we are not attempting to bring the old with the new. That is not what we are trying to do. We are trying to find the best way forward while respecting the policy direction that we got from government, which talks about an equitable contribution from all the players in the system. So, just so that we are clear on what we are trying to do here.

4171 I will turn things over to my colleague, Commissioner Desmond.

4172 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good afternoon. I just have a couple of questions. I guess the first one would be for Mr. McHale. You comment that recommendation systems are central to how streaming works and they are one of the most effective tools.

4173 So, could you speak a little bit about the recommendation systems and how it is an effective tool? Like, how does it work, and how does that give you the output you want? And do you see that recommendation system being more effective than listeners choosing organically the music that they want to listen to? So, does recommending music give you a higher output of Canadian content for Canadian listeners?

4174 MR. McHALE: Great question. I use both. There’s individual artists I know I like, and so I’ll go and individually seek them out. What I think recommendation systems do is, once one chooses something that one likes, it suggests something that is similar and that you also might like, and this has been very helpful in helping promote Canadian music in many ‑‑ in many markets, to my understanding.

4175 So I don’t think they are ‑‑ they’re binary. I think you do want to preserve both individuals looking for specific things, but also to have systems that you will have something suggested, because that is the nature of discoverability ‑‑ something you weren’t yourself aware of necessarily, but an ability to look at what other consumers have found similarly interesting is something that this is a very powerful tool for. And it has clearly helped Canadians, given the success that they’ve had in global markets over the streaming platforms.

4176 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So your recommended songs result in higher Canadian streams? Do you have that data?

4177 MR. McHALE: I do not have that specific data. Just looking at the aggregate on whether Canadian songs have been successful abroad ‑‑ and they certainly have ‑‑ I think the number I picked up was Canadian songs were like number three or something among the top songs ‑‑ that could be a basis of individuals’ choosing the song, or it could be the basis of a recommendation engine, and I don’t ‑‑ I can’t ‑‑ I don’t have information on ‑‑ on which is the case.

4178 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So you are not sure if it is a result of their having chosen the song themselves or it coming from a recommendation?

4179 MR. McHALE: Correct.

4180 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So how do we know then that it is more effective for introducing Canadian artists?

4181 MR. McHALE: What we are finding is that growth of the market has definitely been increased by people learning about new songs that they were not aware of, that the recommendation helps ‑‑ helps prompt. So I think that is a well‑established conclusion of people who are studying the market generally. I can’t speak to Canada specifically, but I think as a general matter that is why there is growth in the market. People aren’t sticking to simply what they know; they are learning new ‑‑ new songs, new ‑‑ new genres, and through the recommendation engines the whole market as a whole is growing.

4182 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, so that's not necessarily specific to Canada and you don’t necessarily have data that kind of demonstrates ‑‑

4183 MR. McHALE: Correct.

4184 COMMISSIONER DESMOND:  ‑‑ direct line.

4185 MR. McHALE: Correct.

4186 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Okay, thank you.

4187 And I just have one other question and that’s for Mr. Davies. You suggest that, while the global market is healthy, local segments may suffer. And I just wondered what you mean by that? And how will it suffer if the Commission were to say, Look, we want you to take some action to promote Canadian content? How would it suffer?

4188 MR. DAVIES: I think the ‑‑ the message there was that I think other commentators had  ‑‑ had kind of raised that question as to, you know, if ‑‑ if we talk about the global industry is ‑‑ is growing and ‑‑ and is restoring all of this value from the piracy period, what about Canadian music within a global environment, and that Canadian music is having to compete with the global repertoire? I think that that was the point that we were trying to make there.

4189 And whilst that’s true, I think that what we are seeing across markets is that this model is working so well because it is combining local music, which consumers want to hear ‑‑ people come from a place, they ‑‑ they very much identify with music of their locality, but they also want the ability to go on that discovery conversation that you just talked about, taking their interest wherever the music can lead.

4190 So, whilst it is true that Canadian music is up against the global repertoire, it kind of always was, but maybe, you know, to an extent within a contained national market that there were efforts to ‑‑ to, you know, protect it. What we are seeing is that actually it is not something to be fearful here. You know, Canadian music is ‑‑ is doing incredibly well both locally and internationally.

4191 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, thank you.

4192 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Desmond.

4193 And perhaps one last question for you, Mr. Davies. In your intervention ‑‑ or in its intervention, DMA suggests that the Commission should request reports on a case‑by‑case basis, only when there is a demonstrated deficiency in how it’s meeting the policy objectives of the Act.

4194 How would we know there’s a deficiency if there isn't regular reporting with predetermined metrics?

4195 MR. DAVIES: That's a good question. I ‑‑ I think that the ‑‑ the dialogue that is happening right now as to what are the metrics that would make most sense, and what would the ‑‑ the cadence be of ‑‑ of reporting from our members such that you would have confidence that the ‑‑ the services continue to deliver on all of the commitments to the principles and objectives of the Act, I think is something that we are keen to continue discussing with you and ‑‑ and finding what’s the optimum.

4196 THE CHAIRPERSON: So could metrics include specific targets? Is that what we’re thinking about?

4197 MR. DAVIES: Well, I ‑‑

4198 THE CHAIRPERSON: We're trying to stay away from simply subjective appreciations of the good work that you guys are doing, and ‑‑

4199 MR. DAVIES: I understand.

4200 THE CHAIRPERSON:  ‑‑ this is the message that we conveyed to other intervenors. We trust you’re doing a fabulous job. That’s not enough, because we need to be able to demonstrate that your contribution is equitable, and equitable needs to be rooted in something a little more concrete.

4201 So, what type of metrics could we be thinking about, to appreciate more objectively and compare the good job that you are doing in terms of discoverability?

4202 MR. DAVIES: Well, thank you for saying it's a good job that we're doing. We very much think that ourselves.

4203 I think that getting to the hard data metrics that your question asks us to get to, but I think we have those defined right now. I think this dialogue is about which ones are the ones to arrive at. And I think all of our members are probably going to be giving that some thought. And we can obviously come back in our final submission to you with our current thinking, if that's okay.

4204 THE CHAIRPERSON: That's fine. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't know if your colleague wanted to add something.

4205 MR. McHALE: No.

4206 THE CHAIRPERSON: All right, well, thank you very much for taking the time to have this conversation with us. We appreciate your presence, including virtual presence, and your contribution to this process. And we wish you a very good afternoon. Thank you.

4207 Madam la secrétaire.

4208 THE SECRETARY: Thank you. I now invite Rogers Media Inc. to come to the presentation table. When you're ready, please introduce yourselves and you may begin your presentation. Thank you.

Présentation

4209 MS. WATSON: Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Vice‑Chair, Commissioners, and Commission staff. My name is Colette Watson, president of Rogers Sports and Media, a proud operator of 52 AM and FM radio stations in markets large and small across Canada and a leading creator of Canadian audio content in news, sports, and entertainment. Our local and national audio content is distributed to Canadians across multiple platforms including our digital audio app Seekr, which aggregates all of Rogers' audio content in one accessible and discoverable spot. That's the end of the PSA.

4210 With me today, to my right, are Susan Wheeler, vice‑president of Regulatory; Adam Thompson, director of Programming; and Kevin Britton, National Music Operations manager. And to my left are Fred Mathewson, senior director Regional Media Sales, and Calla Dewdney, director, Regulatory.

4211 Sixty‑five years ago, Ted Rogers bought Canada's first FM radio station, CHFI, marking the birth of Rogers Communications Inc. Radio is at the core of Rogers' DNA and our commitment to serving Canadians at the local level. We are here today because we care deeply about the future of Canadian radio. Yet, as you've heard from other intervenors, the industry can't continue to financially support the broad depth of audio content it currently provides to millions of Canadians under the current regulatory framework.

4212 From the inception of the broadcasting industry in Canada, local radio has been a critical funder, marketer, and partner to the Canadian music industry. We are proud of the key role we've played in the industry's current success and international recognition. We want to maintain this strong partnership, but it cannot happen if additional quotas and increased financial contributions are imposed upon us.

4213 Unlike foreign audio platforms, radio's relationship with Canadian listeners goes well beyond music. Canadians rely on local radio for local news and information programming, especially in times of emergency and community concern.

4214 But the economics of the industry can't support the current level of content with more onerous regulations. Radio has not recovered from the pandemic. Revenues are down, profitability is waning, and licences are being given back. AM stations have been left without a readily viable path to deliver their highly valued and costly news and information programming to listeners. Many of these challenges are within the Commission's powers to remedy.

4215 Susan?

4216 MS. WHEELER: Madam Chair, we have heard your request for specific proposals and how they will help radio compete and remain a strong contributor to the objectives of the Act.

4217 Our recommendations are the following:

4218 One: Amend the common ownership policy to allow ownership groups to migrate their AM stations to FM. The AM band's challenges are well documented. The current ownership rules prevent radio groups from responding to these challenges without having to make commercially irrational decisions and impairing their financial stability.

4219 Two: Eliminate the simulcast restrictions and the requirement for licensees to obtain approval to operate spoken word formats on FM. These rules prohibit AM news and information content from being broadcast on a more reliable and accessible FM signal in the same market. This creates a major barrier to distributing highly relevant content to Canadians at a critical time when younger listeners are not developing AM tuning habits and vehicle manufacturers are removing AM receivers from new cars.

4220 Three: Remove the tangible benefits policy. In a competitive environment when radio's foreign tech competitors continue to consolidate on a multinational level, extracting payments from Canadian companies attempting to scale their businesses is no longer reasonable.

4221 Four: Reject proposals for more prescriptive obligations for news programming. Despite its absence from the Notice, AM radio is the primary source of local audio news content in communities throughout Canada. The issue of concern is not the level of content currently offered by the sector, but rather its ability to sustain those levels as revenues decline.

4222 Five: Maintain radio's CCD requirements at current levels and keep revenue exemption thresholds in place. Applying the current level of 0.5 per cent on a group level alone would increase our financial contributions by over 50 per cent. Imposing a 5 per cent obligation would represent a fifteenfold increase. It would also increase our operating loss by approximately 135 per cent and PBIT loss by 65 per cent and ignore the value of all of the other contributions we make to the broadcasting system.

4223 Six: Establish incentives rather than quotas for the broadcast of musical selections for emerging Canadian and Indigenous artists. Any desire to increase the current level of airplay must be achieved through incentives.

4224 Seven: Revise the MAPL system to ensure that it captures all music performed by Canadian artists and simplifies the tracking and administration of Canadian musical selections. We propose awarding two points for the Canadian artist criterion and creating a database of musical selections that qualify as Canadian, emerging, and Indigenous. We believe any industry effort to establish a database must have Commission leadership and oversight to be effective and timely.

4225 Eight: Set Canadian content levels at 25 per cent for all stations operating in the same category regardless of past licensing commitments. These changes would ensure Canadian content levels are still more than twice what is consumed on digital platforms.

4226 Rogers also believes radio can do more to help build the supply and discoverability of Indigenous content by earmarking a portion of its annual CCD contributions to Indigenous artists and Indigenous‑led music initiatives. Over the past five years, we have used our discretionary CCD spend to support Indigenous music and would accept a formal requirement to continue these efforts.

4227 Colette?

4228 MS. WATSON: The pandemic was an inflection point for radio that caused a structural shift in both our audiences and advertising. The regulatory changes we've outlined will play a key role in helping Canadian radio recover.

4229 We believe our recommendations are tangible, actionable, and will support Canadian radio as it competes in a more crowded landscape. A new framework that eases, rather than worsens, Canadian radio's current competitive and financial situation is essential if we are going to continue to serve Canadians locally in their communities.

4230 Thank you for listening. Nous sommes prêts à prendre vos questions.

4231 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, Ms. Watson and friends. Nice to see you on this Friday afternoon. Thank you for the short presentation and the very concrete proposals. I, personally, really appreciate when intervenors take the time to give us stuff that we can sink our teeth into rapidly. So I appreciate the effort. Thank you very much.

4232 I'll turn things over to my colleague Commissioner Levy, who will direct the question period. Thank you.

4233 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Great to see you this afternoon. Thank you so much for being here and thank you ‑‑ I second the motion of the Chair for your very concrete suggestions.

4234 So let's just sort of dive into them. I have a bunch of other questions, but I'd really rather concentrate on these for a moment.

4235 Let's just talk about numbers one and two, amending the common ownership policy and eliminating simulcast restrictions and so forth. I'm not so much interested in the nuts and bolts of how you would do that, but if you're looking at giving relief writ large to the system and to Rogers specifically, what do you think the sort of dollar value of that would be? What kind of relief would that translate into for yourselves? Because, you know, you know your business more than anyone else's. So what's your assessment?

4236 MS. WATSON: So I'll start with the 30,000‑foot business, and then Susan can hone in on the detail.

4237 The migration of AM band to FM worries us tremendously. In Toronto, we operate a very successful AM station called 680 News, and it has a very loyal audience. It serves a very, very big purpose. And because of the common ownership policy, I don't have a plan that I can turn to when AM ‑‑ we have to plan a migration away from AM. I don't know when that is. So it will be difficult for me to quantify dollars. But I have nowhere to put it unless I abandon Ted's first radio station, CHFI. I'll be haunted for life if I do that.

4238 And so we need to look at ways to migrate options. Let's create some options for ourselves. It's not a today issue, but it's a five‑years‑from‑now issue. I'll give you a few costing initiatives.

4239 We are regulating radio by both ISED and the CRTC. So our towers, our transmitters are the purview of ISED. AM radio transmitters have a different set of obligations and costs associated with that than FM transmitters. So there would be land value. There would be the cost of the transmitter.

4240 And ISED is now proposing new fencing regulations around AM transmitters. In the case of our AM transmitters, that's a cost of $4 million, so just to build a fence around all our transmitters.

4241 So these things would go away in an opportunity to simulcast. Let's be clear that for a portion of time, both AM and FM would have that product on the air, and then we would migrate away. Could be that five years from now we find a way to leapfrog the let's move AM to FM and find another way. In the UK they did that with a digital audio policy.

4242 We are ‑‑ I don't know the right word ‑‑ “beholden” is not the right word, but at the mercy of how Americans are doing it, and they have no interest in a digital audio solution. And so, consequently, we'll have to follow what the US FCC does with respect to transmitters in theirs.

4243 I've said too much. Over to ...

4244 MS. WHEELER: I don't have a lot to add. I guess the only thing I would add on that is that we understand that digital distribution is likely the end game, but there is an interim period that we believe that these measures could help address. Right now, the split between our audio streaming, the streaming of our signals online versus terrestrially, is around 90‑10. So we have a long way to go, and we're not sure that AM is going to be around for long enough for us to migrate those AM listeners to the FM station.

4245 And so it's less about what kind of additional money we would make from that. It's more about preserving those listeners and being able to keep the dollars that we currently have by migrating them over to a platform that's more readily accessible and available to them.

4246 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Well, I certainly see the issues every day because I'm on a subcommittee that deals with a lot of the sort of administrative kinds of applications that come with the number of times that people are having to replace AM material because it's just worn out. And the difficulties of finding replacements is getting to be huge. So it is an issue, and I would grant you that.

4247 MS. WATSON: It is. To that point, our CapEx budget for AM radio over the next five years is double‑digit millions. And so that would be a savings.

4248 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Let's talk about the tangible benefits policy. You said:

“[Our] foreign tech competitors continue to consolidate ... extracting payments from Canadian companies from attempting to scale their businesses ... [and it's] no longer reasonable.”

4249 Can you just explain a little bit more about what that means?

4250 MS. WATSON: So, mostly this is for ‑‑ not that I'm always altruistic, but this would apply more to smaller radio ownership groups.

4251 If someone approaches me to buy a radio station that is part of the Rogers group today, they are a small player. And the EBITDA ‑‑ as you know, the evaluation of radio stations has significantly decreased over the last five years. And normally, a price for a radio station is based on a multiplier of EBITDA. And when your EBITDA is zero, the multiplier is zero. And so adding a tangible benefit cost to a small market player who could take a small market radio station from a larger player is prohibitive, and thus we've paralyzed.

4252 MS. WHEELER: The only thing I would add is that there is, you know, and there's been a lot of discussion throughout the proceeding, and we appreciate that it is top of mind about the equitable application of the regulations. And so to the extent that when there is acquisitions or divestitures that take place in the online world, there is no additional fees or requirements imposed on those either acquiring or divesting. And certainly, that is the case with radio broadcasters, that they try to consolidate.

4253 So what used to be a price for getting access to the public airwaves, I think, now should be looked at through a lens where we're trying to preserve the contributions that we're currently making to the system by removing those barriers and making it easier for radio broadcasters to continue to do the good work that they're doing.

4254 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Why raise the issue of foreign tech competitors in this context?

4255 MS. WHEELER: I guess because they are acquiring new businesses, new technologies, allowing themselves to innovate and scale in a manner that is outside of regulatory oversight. And with the tangible benefits policy, certainly, we have to apply to the Commission to, you know, acquire a new regulated entity, and then there is our additional costs and fees associated with that through the tangible benefits policy.

4256 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Well, they're foreign. You're Canadian, so. But that's ‑‑

4257 MS. WHEELER: They are, but they're operating in Canada.

4258 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Yes.

4259 MS. WHELLER: And they're doing that, and so the acquisitions that they're making certainly help them become more competitive in the Canadian market that we're competing with ‑‑

4260 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Are they gobbling up properties at a scale that's significant? Are they gobbling up Canadian entities?

4261 MS. WHEELER: I'm not aware of whether they're Canadian, but they definitely are acquiring new capabilities and technology companies on a regular basis.

4262 MS. WATSON: I'll just add to that. Growing scale in the audio market doesn't just apply to terrestrial radio. It applies to, if you look at Wondery, that is acquiring podcast and podcast talent north and south of the border. Right now, an English‑language listener does not discern who owns that podcast or where that podcast is being made of. They are accumulating content, putting it into a product that is then disseminated or sold to Canadian audiences.

4263 So scale is not something that is apples to apples, if you will, with respect to how they are growing and how we could grow or not grow. And so that's the difference. Right now, we have this barrier of tangible benefits, whereas they're going out and just acquiring audio content without such barriers.

4264 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you. Let's talk about incentives, because I was very interested in your including that point, rather than quotas. And this was specifically for the broadcast of musical selections by emerging Canadian and Indigenous artists. What kinds of incentives are you suggesting?

4265 MS. WHEELER: So the incentive that we have supported that was put forward, I believe, by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is something to the effect that, you know, once we define emerging artist and Indigenous content and have the ability to track in order to ensure that we're compliant with those definitions, what we're suggesting is that perhaps they can be used as a way to reduce our overall Canadian content requirements.

4266 So if we have a 35 per cent quota, we air an emerging artist or an Indigenous artist, then that would count as two spins of a Canadian artist, and that would help us reduce the overall levels. It would be an incentive. Again, it provides that flexibility. It's not as blunt of a tool as a quota, and it allows us to have a bit more control over our programming mix and how we're responding to listener demands.

4267 COMMISSIONER LEVY: How would you define an emerging artist?

4268 MS. WHEELER: That's a very good question. So right now, we report to the Commission using the definition that's in the policy. We will confess that we're not able to ‑‑ we've defined the concept of commercially available using the data that we have available to us. So we don't know what is exactly meant by commercially available. Is it when it's first uploaded to, you know, an online streaming service or YouTube?

4269 And so what we've used as commercially available is the first time we've added that artist to our playlist on any of our radio stations. And then we start the clock from there. We're not saying it's the right definition. We're just saying it's the only one that we can currently measure.

4270 And so you've heard a lot from the intervenors that artists have different, you know, trajectories in their career. They develop and emerge at different times. And so I think it's a really tricky issue to try to put into a defined box.

4271 And I think, you know, the people best positioned to understand who's emerging, who's following those careers, are obviously the music industry and the funding agencies. FACTOR and Canadian Starmaker have identified, you know, criteria and guidelines that help them evaluate when an artist needs that money, when they don't need that money anymore, or perhaps when they've been given enough support.

4272 And so I think organically it's actually worked out where we're still ‑‑ the Canadian radio industry is still supporting emerging artists, and it's through those direct investments. And we're deferring to the agencies who have the touch points with the music industry and the radio industry and the other elements of the creative sector.

4273 COMMISSIONER LEVY: You've talked about revising the MAPL system to ensure it captures all music performed by Canadian artists, it simplifies tracking and admin. You propose awarding two points for Canadian artists and creating a database, which no one has any problems with that. I think we're all agreed on that. Database having Commission leadership ‑‑ thank you very much for your vote of confidence.

4274 But in terms of MAPL and giving so much prominence to the artist, we have heard some very compelling interventions in the last day or so from the songwriters and the composers and the lyricists and so forth who are concerned about their place in the creation of Canadian cultural musical works.

4275 And are you not concerned that an overemphasis on the artist, although it might make sense from a listener's point of view, it might not really be the best reflection of the Canadian cultural content that goes into a work.

4276 MS. WHEELER: Yes, thank you for that question because it’s one thing we do want to clarify.

4277 We’re not excluding the composters from the definition. That would still happen. If, you know, Beyonce is singing a song written by a Canadian, it’s Cancon under the rules and we’ll, you know, play that with pleasure.

4278 I think what we’re trying to do by awarding the two points to the A is really to align our content quotas with how we’re funding Canadian artists through our CCD obligations. And so if you look at FACTOR and Starmaker, they’re funding artists and they’re funding records. And so some of the songs on those records don’t qualify as Cancon. They’re not excluding money from that artist because one of their tracks on their album isn’t compliant with MAPL.

4279 So we’re trying to reconcile that disconnect.

4280 We have examples, and Adam and Kevin would be better placed to provide them to you, but, you know, the one that we’ve talked about, you know, frequently and that we’ve put in our written submission is Tate McRae’s Juno Award‑winning song “Exes”. That doesn’t qualify as Cancon under MAPL.

4281 We don’t think that makes a lot of sense, so putting two points for the A helps allow us to play more of her songs and not be penalized for ‑‑ you know, for it being ‑‑ not counting towards our content quotas.

4282 I don’t know if you have any other...

4283 MR. THOMPSON: No, I think it's just an acknowledgement that, in some ways, the current system penalizes the artist.

4284 Music creation is a community these days. You sign with a big label, you have access to a large pool of creators as well. And so in many instances, the artist is the driver of that project, but if that artist chooses to collaborate with someone that’s not Canadian, then somehow those selections are penalized. And that’s not fair in a different way.

4285 But certainly we’re sensitive to all aspects of the songwriting creation.

4286 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Are you not concerned that this risks reducing the amount of Canadian written and composed music on the radio if there’s a predominant emphasis on the artist?

4287 MS. WHEELER: We don't see that it would result in less predominance for the composer. It’s actually balancing ‑‑ the composer is generally the M and the L is one person, and so you’re getting two points for that, and so for the artist, we think it's just a balance that they get two points for the artist, for the performer as well.

4288 COMMISSIONER LEVY: You've disagreed that content requirements are unsuitable for online services, but what do you believe would be ‑‑ could be imposed on online services that would make sense and would be easy to administer and all of those other wonderful things that we’re trying to do?

4289 MS. WHEELER: I think the interim measures that you put in place in terms of the five percent contribution would help address some of the ‑‑ you know, the inequities that are currently in the system.

4290 We’re not here advocating more regulation or trying to impose similar regulations on the online streamers. We understand they have a different business model. We understand they have a different way of connecting with Canadian listeners. But what we are concerned about is how we’re regulated and how we’re restricted in terms of competing with those online streamers.

4291 And so I think the CCD contributions, it’s the cleanest way of measuring that money and support if actually getting into the hands of the artists. And you’ve heard from, you know, FACTOR this week and a number of the representatives of the music industry about how important CCD is to developing artists, allowing them to build audiences, tour and market their ‑‑ to take matters into their own hands in terms of, you know, controlling their own career and where they want to go.

4292 And so radio may be one part of that, but you know, there are so many other facts of how they’re making a living and growing their career. And so those dollars probably are more meaningful, I would suggest, are more meaningful than any of the other, you know, more intangible supports that they’ve been ‑‑ they’ve identified.

4293 COMMISSIONER LEVY: But right now, the online streamers are saying, well, we don’t really track Canadian. We don’t ‑‑ all of that.

4294 So how can we ‑‑ what sort of metrics can we use to ensure that we’re assessing what they do? Because it doesn’t compare ‑‑ like the ‑‑ your business and theirs are so different that using the same ‑‑ exact same metrics is just impossible. So how do we determine what’s equitable?

4295 MS. WHEELER: Well, I think the proposals that we’ve put before you today would go a long way in helping to reconcile that equitability. I don’t quite agree that they can’t quantify some of the measures and supports that they’re putting forward.

4296 Obviously, you know, discoverability is the new word for marketing, and we all know marketing has a cost to it. And so anyone who’s been a marketer knows what those costs.

4297 And so I do believe they can do that. How it’s measured and ‑‑ or not measured, but how it’s tracked and monitored, I think, would be a more difficult task for them.

4298 And so again, I think there should be an expectation. You have the opportunity through your customized conditions of service proceedings to get some tangible commitments from them as to how they’re going to support, you know, Canadian music, but again, I would suggest that the tangible contributions that they’re making through CCD should be maintained, and that is measurable and trackable and verifiable.

4299 COMMISSIONER LEVY: In your presentation today, you talked about setting Canadian content levels at 25 percent for all stations operating in the same category regardless of past licensing commitments. And you say that these would ensure Canadian content levels are still more than twice what’s consumed on digital platforms, but again, the digital world is very, very different from yours. And we really don’t have the confirmed solid metrics to determine ‑‑ I mean, we’ve seen the notion that 10 percent of the digital take‑up is Canadian, but we don’t know how they’ve determined that, so it may or might not be the way.

4300 But really, as we have asked of several others, and I did a chorus as well, do you really think that the level of Canadian content is such a large influence on your profitability? What is it about 35 percent versus 25 percent that you feel is the nut that’s going to make a difference in profitability for the radio sector?

4301 MS. WHEELER: So we certainly don't think this is a silver bullet. This isn’t ‑‑ you know, reducing our Canadian content quotas isn’t going to, you know, instantly reset the trajectory of radio. We believe the eight recommendations we’ve put forward ‑‑ before you are, you know, an important step towards helping us recover from the impact of the pandemic and the shift in listener and behavioural habits that took place during that time. But we do think it’s an important component of it.

4302 Having more flexibility over how we’re programming our stations and the product that we’re putting on air, we do believe will help us engage listeners, retain listeners and hopefully grow listeners. And that ‑‑ you know, listenership is a direct correlation to our revenue, so the more listeners we have, the more money that we can ‑‑ that we’ll make and then we can reinvest that through the other contributions that we’re making to the system, including to news and information and towards CCD.

4303 And I guess I’ll hand it over to Adam to give you an example of how some of that flexibility actually does have a meaningful impact in our ability to grow our listener base and potentially ‑‑ and grow our advertising revenue.

4304 COMMISSIONER LEVY: If you could really succinct, that would be helpful.

4305 MR. THOMPSON: I'll be very succinct.

4306 So broadcasting policy in 2022 with the removal of non‑hits in both Ottawa and Montreal. In 2023, national running fell seven percent with the exception of Ottawa and Montreal. Both markets grew between two and two and a half percent. So while it’s tough to talk about what’s the direct benefit here, there’s a clear example of allowing programmers more flexibility in what they’re doing will increase the amount of people consuming your product.

4307 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Okay. I will leave it there.

4308 Again, many thanks for coming and presenting today, and I turn you over to Madam Chair.

4309 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Levy.

4310 Turning to Commissioner Desmond.

4311 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you.

4312 Just a question on your first recommendation about amending the common ownership policy. And that was amended back in 2021‑2022.

4313 So I’d like to know if you saw any benefits from the amendments that were put in place at that time and, if more amendments are made, would that impact on the diversity of voices.

4314 MS. WHEELER: So the amendments that were made to the last common ownership policy allowed us to ‑‑ it kept the amount of stations we could own at the same level, but it allowed us to own three FMs, that mix to be three FMs to one AM as opposed to two FMs to two Ams. And so what you heard Colette explain earlier is that that doesn’t really help us with our AM migration issue.

4315 In order to migrate both our AM stations in Toronto, for example, we would need to be able to own six stations in that market so that we would have a period of simulcast between our AM and FM stations and eventually, as we migrate those listeners over, we can sunset the AM band. And so that might bring us back down to the four, but that’s really the main issue, the friction point that we’re facing with the current common ownership policy.

4316 To address your second question about diversity of voices, it’s an interesting concept because diversity of voices was, you know, first part of the public policy discourse back when we were living in a protected environment where we were ‑‑ you know, radio was the only game in town for a lot of audio content and a lot of, you know, news and information programming.

4317 Now there’s a plethora of options, both domestic and international, that Canadians have and choose, and so it’s really about making sure that we’re still ‑‑ radio is still there to be one of those choices to Canadians. And I think that’s really behind, you know, our suggestion that consolidation, while it may have been a worry 10, 15, 20 years ago in terms of diversity of voices, now it may be a necessity to ensure that there are Canadian voices as part of that mix.

4318 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. Thank you.

4319 And then just a second question. And I’ve heard other people say the same thing in the last couple of days about how the composer and the lyricist is normally one person. I think that was your comment.

4320 I mean, how ‑‑ do you have statistics to back that up and is that the case in all types of music, not just perhaps popular music, but classical, jazz? I mean, is it necessarily always the same person?

4321 MS. WHEELER: You're absolutely correct as being general. But it’s mostly true in the formats that radio operates in.

4322 And so with the classic and jazz, we don’t operate in those formats. They’re not considered commercial stations in the same way that a contemporary hits radio station. And so we’re really coming at it from, you know, where we’re operating and the types of formats that we’re offering. And so it’s really about that flexibility in terms of how we’re programming our stations.

4323 I don’t know if you have anything.

4324 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Sorry, I probably didn't give you very good examples.

4325 What about country, for example, or classics, class hits? Like are they ‑‑ it’s still the situation where it’s the same person?

4326 MS. WHEELER: Well, country’s actually a really good example because that, I think you’ll see more situations where it isn’t the same person and it’s probably 10 people. And so that, you know, goes into our issue with the tracking and the monitoring, and that’s why having the Canadian as two points allows us to know that Josh Ross is Canadian and he may have worked with a number of Nashville composers and lyricists, but we’re still able to get behind his record in a manner that we want to because we ‑‑ you know, he’s a homegrown talent that we want to celebrate and help Canadians discover more of.

4327 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you.

4328 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Desmond.

4329 And I allow myself a last question regarding your eighth recommendation.

4330 What problem are you trying to fix with lower content quotas? I mean, we heard several intervenors calling for lower contents, but still acknowledging that it’s not going to fix the problem, whatever the problem is. So what specifically are you trying to fix? And it’s not clear in your recommendation whether you’re advocating for a 25 percent quotas regardless of the linguistic markets or this is just for the English‑speaking market.

4331 If you could clarify and explain in plain language what problem you’re trying to fix and whether it will, indeed, fix the problem or it’s part of a broader suite of things. We’re just trying to gauge, you know ‑‑ because as you can certainly imagine, this is not an easy thing to approach, quotas, for various reasons.

4332 Views are quite polarized on how useful they are and why it’s problematic or not to respect those quotas, so if you could elaborate it would certainly help.

4333 MS. WATSON: Sure. I will start and then Susan will pick up.

4334 Just this is all for us, these are English language. I won’t pretend to have an opinion on how difficult or easy it is to run French‑language radio. I have watched with interest their appearances, and so I sympathize with their issues.

4335 Cancon is not the problem per se. It’s the application of the regulation and the measurement of Cancon. It is ‑‑ we are looking for a reduction of regulatory reporting, if you will. It’s onerous. And we have different levels at different stations.

4336 Kevin was telling us over the week as we prepared that on one performance evaluation The Weeknd song was Canadian, and we checked the box and we were compliant. In the next performance evaluation, same song, not Canadian. And so now we’re out of compliance all of a sudden, we’re spinning our wheels. There’s a lot of, you know, grumbling going around in the halls of our regulatory group. And we just want some predictability, stability and consistency.

4337 So while it can be annoying and frustrating for something like that to happen, at the 30,000 foot level it’s destabilizing. What is Canadian, how Canadian is it, you know. So let’s inject some stability, some consistency and then we’ll know whether we’re compliant or not.

4338 And if we have to bring it down to 25 to make it work across all genres, then that’s the number.

4339 But I do want to go on record saying Cancon is not the problem. The application of Cancon regulations is the challenge.

4340 MS. WHEELER: The only thing I would add to that is that you’ve heard a number of the online streamers talk about the differences between online platforms and traditional radio, referring to our playlists as being finite and being limited, that we only have so many minutes in the day to be able to serve the audiences. And that is exactly the issue that we have with quotas in the sense that it restricts our ability to program the station and remain agile with our listeners’ changing needs.

4341 And so while we’re here to, you know ‑‑ we’re not saying that we won’t play Canadian music and that we don’t want to play Canadian music. We do, and we feel that that’s part of our core value proposition as radio broadcasters. We just think that the level needs to be adjusted to allow us to use those finite hours or minutes in the day to have more flexibility to respond to the changing consumer tastes and the different formats that we offer.

4342 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. That concludes our questions.

4343 Thank you again for coming to see us on this Friday afternoon. We wish you a very good weekend.

4344 Thank you.

4345 Madame la secrétaire.

4346 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

4347 We will take a short break and resume at 2:40.

4348 ‑‑‑ Suspension à 14 h 31

4350 ‑‑‑ Reprise à 14 h 42

4352 THE SECRETARY: Welcome back. We will now hear the presentation of Forum for Research and Policy in Communications.

4353 Please introduce yourself, and you may begin. Thank you.

Présentation

4354 MS. AUER: Hi, I'm Monica Auer. I am the Executive Director of FRPC, which has been making submissions to, and appearing before, the Commission for 12 years.

4355 We support a strong Canadian communications system that serves the public interest as defined by Parliament in Canada’s communications statutes. As Parliament’s delegate, the CRTC’s policy goals must meet the objectives set by Canadian laws.

4356 The Forum also agrees with 2025‑52’s Statement that “actions taken to support Canadian and Indigenous audio content be efficient, easily implementable, measurable and transparent”.

4357 We therefore welcome the hearing Panel’s desire “to support better news programming on audio services”. In our view, the lack of any objective CRTC data about hours of news, especially first‑run news, broadcast in Canada in the past or being broadcast today means there is no real way to know if any new action will be better than actions taken before, which makes regulation inefficient. Mandating the collection of data about hours of radio news programming and reporters, and reporting the data, would be, if not revolutionary, to paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, but at least transformative. We think that could be done by fall 2027.

4358 FRPC also welcomes the Panel’s interest in examining the issues related to data collection in general. The absence in the last 20 years of any published CRTC data about what Canadian audio programming services actually broadcast is why the Commission must begin to collect, to publish and to stop destroying those data now. Without data, policies are merely coherent‑looking collections of correctly spelled words, which, as is well known, AI can do as well as any person as long as it is not hallucinating.

4359 As for identifying the potential impacts of AI on audio content’s creation, distribution and consumption, the only way to assess impact is to define terms and collect data. FRPC’s position is that audio content made by AI is not Canadian. When this hearing began on the 18^th, the Chair invited suggestions on how best to define audio content going forward.

4360 Valid measurement requires valid definitions. Defining audio programming content may not be difficult, but defining Canadian audio content is, because the CRTC exists to implement Parliament’s vision of Canadian content in its current version of the broadcasting policy for Canada and because any regulatory measures taken must defer to that policy. That policy must be at the core of any definitions. Measures and targets based on business goal‑focused definitions will be invalid, will disserve Parliament and will not strengthen Canada’s broadcasting system.

4361 As FRPC’s focus in CRTC proceedings almost always begins with data and with the public interest, the Forum asks to be part of any working group or committee established by the Commission to tackle data‑related issues in broadcasting.

4362 Thank you for your time.

4363 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much and welcome back to the CRTC’s hearing. I hope you are having a good afternoon.

4364 I will turn things over very quickly to my colleague, Commissioner Desmond.

4365 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good afternoon.

4366 MS. AUER: Hello.

4367 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: I just wanted to talk to you about what you are proposing in your submission. You are talking about the need for data and the importance of data, and I think more specifically the collection of data, both for news and for audio content.

4368 Could you maybe speak a little bit more specifically about what data we need to collect and why.

4369 MS. AUER: I'm thinking specifically of what is now known as the radio programming logs. I think that’s an old‑fashioned term that stems from when the Department of Marine and Navy regulated broadcasting in Canada in the early 20^th century. What we are looking for, however, is at least the airtime provided to news programming and content and preferably, as well, information about full‑time or equivalent reporters.

4370 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. So your focus then would be primarily on the news side.

4371 MS. AUER: Music matters, too. I don’t want to pretend or appear to be saying that non‑spoken word content is unimportant. However, a lot of attention is often focused on the definition of Canadian music, how we specify the terminology, how we define the concepts, measure them, the metrics. And somewhat less is to go to spoken word.

4372 So, for example, in the 1980’s the Commission, when it renewed radio station licences ‑‑ which it will not be doing for much longer ‑‑ used to ask: How much spoken word content do you provide? How much of it is first play? How much of it is repeat? And it would distinguish very clearly between local, regional, national and international news, as well as different types of spoken word, including, for instance, surveillance, traffic, weather.

4373 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. So I guess just focusing on news, we’ve heard a lot of broadcasters in the last few days tell us about the cost of producing news and why in many instances that has become difficult to produce.

4374 Is that maybe the genesis for your suggestion that we need to track and be more cognizant of the data related to how much is being produced?

4375 MS. AUER: First of all ‑‑ and I think I’ve mentioned this before, and I don’t want to personalize this. But I started at the Commission in 1983, and at that point they didn’t even have laptops. They had 40‑pound portable computers is what they were offering. So, we’ve come a long way in the last 40 years.

4376 Many businesses automatically track their inputs and their outputs. So before we decide or before there is any decision made that the cost of data collection is onerous, I think it’s important to understand what is being automatically collected now, thanks in part to AI, yes, and also thanks to business decisions, to make sure, for instance, that the right ads are put and placed in the right programming at the right times and for the number of replays or plays that the contract is set for.

4377 So there are a number of other reasons for collecting data, other than merely suiting the CRTC’s requirements.

4378 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, so that's fair enough, I guess, if you are suggesting that this data would serve other purposes for other industry players.

4379 MS. AUER: I think that's fair to say. For instance, advertisers have a keen interest. IP rights‑holders have a keen interest. And, of course, it’s not often raised but expenditures are typically used to reduce taxable income. So there is a bit of compensation for the fact that some parties may be required to incur expenses for certain things.

4380 On the other hand, I think we would all consider it perhaps the cost of doing business. Many companies today are very sophisticated players, and they know that they hold these particular rights to broadcast in Canada, and therefore they must have assumed there would be a cost of undertaking that business. This, I would argue, would be a normal cost of doing business, in the same way it would be a normal cost of business to assume that radio broadcasters would keep, let’s say, a few days at least of the programming that they’ve actually broadcast so they could assure themselves that nothing untoward happened.

4381 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. But I guess just ‑‑ and maybe because I want to make sure I understand your recommendation.

4382 You want to understand what data is available to broadcasters at this point and impose a data requirement if it’s not currently being collected?

4383 MS. AUER: Well, radio stations are still required to complete logs under the regulations, and the logs require programming to be codified in terms of the CRTC’s current programming definitions. And it is my understanding that news remains one of the sub‑categories of programming content. So, they are currently doing it.

4384 For broadcasters who don’t do it, perhaps they’ve been exempted by the CRTC. I don’t know. But it is now a requirement to complete logs.

4385 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Yes, I understand that part of it. But I thought I heard ‑‑

4386 MS. AUER: So streaming services ‑‑

4387 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: I thought I heard you say that you want to know what data is being collected.

4388 MS. AUER: I'd like to know that the data are being collected, and it would be really great if the data were actually reported. Right now, there is no way to know how much first‑run original local news is being broadcast by radio stations in Canada. So how do we then determine which CRTC policies have been most effective in ensuring the broadcast of that programming content?

4389 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, thank you. I have a better understanding of what you are saying.

4390 MS. AUER: I didn't explain myself very clearly.

4391 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Let me just ask you, though. Does that create an administrative burden for these players? I know you spoke to the fact that they are sophisticated, they are larger players, this is information they should have available to them based on AI and what have you.

4392 But there are a lot of smaller players that, you know, for them it may create an additional administrative burden.

4393 MS. AUER: I think the remedy under the Act is to apply to the Commission for an exemption from the regulatory requirements and to present the evidence justifying the exemption. If a station has been unprofitable for ten years, why would the Commission not consider easing up until the station, if it ever does, return to profitability?

4394 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. So, we’ve talked about news primarily. And I think, just to be clear, you are also suggesting that reports, similar type data reports, should be available on the musical selection side. Is that correct?

4395 MS. AUER: And in fact, the Commission is actually inviting that kind of information to be filed with respect to the Local Temporary Radio News Fund. So the capability exists. The thing is we have heard so much over the last decade, two decades, about disinformation, misinformation, loss of information, why could we not assure ourselves that in fact the feet on the street, so to speak, actually exist to get the news? Wouldn’t we want to know that, considering that one of the requirements of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure employment of Canadians?

4396 And there are so many kids going into journalism school. They should have jobs.

4397 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: I don't disagree with your comment about the necessity of news and being sure that the stations are meeting their requirements and providing news for all of Canadians.

4398 I guess my concern would be the impact for smaller stations. I think you are suggesting if they are non‑compliant, then we would consider ‑‑

4399 MS. AUER: I wasn't really suggesting that they would be non‑compliant. I was suggesting that it would be so onerous as to make it impossible for them to operate properly, then nothing prevents them, as many stations do, from applying to the Commission to be exempted from their Conditions of Service.

4400 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Including the reporting of their logs, their news, their content.

4401 MS. AUER: If they can't do it because they are a one‑person station, which is rare, but it does happen. Then surely there could be some flexibility, because in a situation like that, we must be thinking of a smaller community and perhaps they started out on a volunteer basis. We don’t know the circumstances.

4402 But what matters more is that there is actually evidence to support the claim. I’m not in any way suggesting that the claims are unfounded. I’m sure that the claims are founded. It’s just that the Commission should at least have the chance to scrutinize the evidence.

4403 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: And is there perhaps an easier way ‑‑ not easier in terms of the Commission’s work but for the broadcasters, instead of having to file more documentation or data, would maybe an approach for them that might be less cumbersome would be to be willing to go through an audit process? It would mean that they wouldn’t have to submit as much information on a regular basis.

4404 MS. AUER: And the Commission has done that in the past. They have used, you know, the concept of a spot audit, an unexpected audit. I believe ‑‑ and I wasn’t there at the time. I’m not sure what was happening in the seventies and early eighties. But I believe what happened was that the request often resulted in the failure of log or tape machines due to the unexpected burden of reporting.

4405 So there were many, many instances where the Commission would ask for the information, and unfortunately it was no longer available.

4406 So what do you do when ‑‑ at one point, it seemed to me it was as high as 30 percent of the stations had broken log or tape machines. So, what do you do then? Then you turn around and you say okay, well, we need to be able to show that the stations are meeting the requirement so that we know the broadcasting policy is being met. Therefore now, unfortunately, we are going to go to everybody.

4407 Nevertheless, the option still would remain for the Commission always to exempt broadcasters from certain obligations if they can’t afford to undertake them. The Commission has never been a heartless machine of any kind. It always is willing to listen. At least, that’s been my experience.

4408 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: No, that's certainly ‑‑ so I guess one of the things we’re trying to balance is one of the directions in our policy is to reduce regulatory requirements and make them less cumbersome.

4409 So how does that align with the proposals that you are offering or suggesting?

4410 MS. AUER: I guess my first response to that would be that it would be very useful to have some evidence of the specific burden. Computerization has changed every business on the planet. My husband travels from time to time in Africa, and they had better equipment there than we had in Ottawa.

4411 I’m just saying before we decide that businesses are automatically overburdened, I think the Commission has a duty to evaluate the evidence of that burdensome requirement, which is why I mentioned earlier that many radio stations have multiple reporting obligations. If they are going to be reporting it any event, what is the harm in asking them to file it online with the Commission?

4412 I’m not disputing that over‑regulation is not a good thing. I’m not disputing that. Under‑regulation can be equally problematic, however. And these days, it’s just we have the capability to actually quantify so many things. Why not quantify the burden?

4413 If the administrative expenditures of radio stations are decreasing, perhaps that offsets some of the burden.

4414 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. Maybe I could ask you if you have any proposals for data collection as it relates to the online streaming services.

4415 MS. AUER: That's a really fun question, not that your others weren’t fun. But this is a fun one only because I was looking at ‑‑ what’s it called ‑‑ Spotify’s Annual Music Economics Report. For instance, in that report, which just came out ‑‑ I think it's for 2024 ‑‑ they are actually presenting data about the number of professional and emerging artists seeing more money coming from abroad than from their home markets.

4416 And if a company like Spotify is able to collect the data to identify the home markets of individual artists, that suggests that there are some opportunities for collaboration in terms of gathering data.

4417 In fact, I downloaded what is essentially a logging manual: how to report all of their information. And it was interesting to see that they made provision for multiple lines of data. In other words, they built a fairly ‑‑ they obviously have a tremendous capability when it comes to analyzing data.

4418 And that’s why, if they can determine things like home market, they’re either suggesting a domicile ‑‑ a legal domicile, legal residence ‑‑ or a nationality disclosure.

4419 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: But do you have a specific proposal as to what we should be asking them to provide to the Commission for ...

4420 MS. AUER: Well, I think you'll be hearing from Spotify on Monday and perhaps it would be worth knowing what it is that they have that they are able to share. They may argue ‑‑ it’s plausible that they might argue that there are privacy considerations at play, and I understand that ‑‑ or private contract considerations at play, and I understand that as well.

4421 But, for instance, if we’re having businesses regulated under the Broadcasting Act who don’t happen to be resident in Canada and who are serving Canadians who want to be served by them, the Commission nevertheless bears a duty, I think, to ascertain how much, for instance ‑‑ how many musical selections are actually Canadian, and it bears a duty to be able to report that.

4422 I would be surprised, but then I don’t ‑‑ I don’t listen to audio services while I’m working, and since I work a lot, I don’t listen to it at all except in the morning, and then it’s CBC, but the thing is, I’m not sure what is being played. If they’re playing local news, I would be surprised. But if they are playing ‑‑ if they are playing spoken word broadcast, podcasts, what is ‑‑ what is the burden in reporting information that they have received already from those owners of that content? Even in an aggregated fashion, it would at least be of some service to the Commission ‑‑ and to Parliament.

4423 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So you're looking for them to report what’s been reported to them, I think, if I’m hearing you correctly.

4424 MS. AUER: Well, if they're reporting in their annual report information about artists’ home markets, that suggests to me that they have some data on which they’ve based this conclusion. And if they have the data, could they not share that with the Commission so that you would have an understanding of whether the number of artists from Canada is increasing, decreasing, staying the same, and perhaps whether the number as a percentage of total artists is increasing, staying the same, going down? It would at least give you some indicia, some objective indicators.

4425 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Right, thank you. I mean, I think one of the things we’ve heard in the last few days is that the information upon which they rely is often not complete, not necessarily reliable, sometimes the nationality of the artist is not always disclosed, and, I mean, that could be provided to us if we were to ask that that information be shared, but then how complete is that data? And if it is information that has been simply provided to them ‑‑ you know, one of the suggestions we’ve had is to have a working group where the industry can come together and be working together to identify what information is necessary and should be collected. So, I would like to get your thoughts on whether you think that would be a realistic option.

4426 MS. AUER: My experience in data collection is that you can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good enough. Sometimes even looking at ‑‑ what can I, as an example ‑‑ I was looking at old CRTC cost orders for a different proceeding, and in many instances the information simply isn't there. If the information isn't there, it isn't there, and that’s what you basically have to declare. More recent information is almost always complete. So in part, perhaps, you’re dealing with a historical artefact of when people didn’t necessarily realize they had to provide key bits of data.

4427 I think ‑‑ I think everybody ‑‑ I think most people today have a better sense of the importance of good data entry, and perhaps if ‑‑ if you see ‑‑ if the Commission were to discover that the data in fact are almost always incomplete, they could meet with Spotify or any of the streamers who might have a similar problem, to inquire what is the cause of this and what can be done to remedy it, if anything?

4428 I think earlier, the Commission panel was speaking about the concept of a Canadian music database. I think that’s been something that’s been desired by ‑‑ by many people for years, and possibly even longer. So it’s difficult for the Commission to decide, Hey, we’re just going to do this ‑‑ and as you say, a working group is always a great way to go. As I said at the end of our remarks, FRPC would enjoy being part of any kind of a committee because if you simply have an industry‑only committee, the question is whether it’s in fact representing the specific business goals of ‑‑ of the business which is their duty, or in fact it’s meeting Parliament’s requirements, which is a different duty.

4429 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Certainly. So, I guess, maybe just back to what we would want to collect ‑‑ there have been suggestions that the Commission could collect data around the most streamed musical selections, maybe percentage of streams coming from recommended playlists. Is there something specific that you think would be most useful, as we start to collect data from streamers?

4430 MS. AUER: I think I ‑‑ I tend to go about it the other way. I’m not thinking of the questions that you would like to ask, which is, you know, percentage of streaming or most popular, most recommended ‑‑ but what is it that Parliament wants you to do? So if the goal is discoverability, then you at least have to know how many musical selections are there that are Canadian that are being uploaded, and whether that number or percentage is changing over time, because it’s the change over time that matters.

4431 If it’s static, that implies something else as well. You are asking me to identify specific variables. The more granular, the better. But saying that doesn’t help businesses who don’t necessarily want to spend all their time looking for the most granular data possible. So, is it ‑‑ is this a perfection should not override the good enough? I think so.

4432 The other thing too is that it might be something to give people several years’ grace to get their systems or their data collection systems in place. Nobody asks for perfection of a policy in year one, but by the fifth year of the policy, when you’re getting ready to evaluate it, perhaps by then people are so familiar with the system that you have more valid and reliable data. Because if the data are unreliable and invalid from the get‑go, then none of us is any further ahead.

4433 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay, thank you very much.

4434 Thank you, Madam Chair.

4435 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Desmond.

4436 I believe my colleague, Commissioner Naidoo, has a question.

4437 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Yes, I just have a quick question ‑‑ mainly one that you have probably heard us asking others, and it’s something that we asked in the NOC. I’m wondering, do you think that the definition of “news” should be broadened?

4438 MS. AUER: No.

4439 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: And what's your reasoning for that?

4440 MS. AUER: I knew you were going to ask that follow‑up. I think the Commission put a lot of thought into those original definitions, and the concern with broadening it is that that to some extent was happening, I think, in the 2015 TV policy, where different forms of informative spoken word content were recategorized as “news”. I haven’t seen any solid discussion or clear evidence to explain why news ‑‑ the Commission’s definition of “news” has to change at this time. If there were some evidence, that would be great; I’d love to see it ‑‑ or just reasoning ‑‑ you know, It’s hard, or whatever ‑‑ but the thing is, the businesses know what they’re doing.

4441 You know, one hears ‑‑ one hears stories that the reporters in one station simply sit on a computer all day and they take tidbits off the computer, and that’s their newscast. Well, that would suggest to me that perhaps they don’t really have any reporters, which is why you need the ‑‑ sort of the twofer of, Do you actually have reporting employees? And then, In terms of the material you provide, how much of that is actually news? And then, most importantly of all, How much of that is first‑play news? Because running a newscast the next morning shouldn’t really count as news.

4442 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Okay. Can I ask you about that? When you say “first‑play news”, I’m just slightly confused because news generally ‑‑ news is news. Right? It’s new. That’s the whole thing. So when you say “first‑play news”, what exactly are you meaning by that?

4443 MS. AUER: So, this is typically ‑‑this is something that is used a little bit more often on the TV side of the programming logs, to use the old‑fashioned term again, and that is that if a program is broadcast for the first time anywhere, it’s first‑play. It can be also considered first‑run. It is considered sometimes to be original, but those are three different sets of terms, and so therefore you have to be clear that they may mean something different.

4444 However, it is it often happens that a TV station, let’s say, will play ‑‑ will broadcast, let’s say, the 11:00 p.m. evening news ‑‑ the late evening news, and then replay it again the following morning ‑‑ the whole program. That program should not count as new news because it’s actually old news from the night before. However, if you’re calling ‑‑ if you’re looking for first‑play news, only the program from the night before would count because it’s the first time it’s actually been broadcast ‑‑ first play, therefore. I guess “play” is also another bad word ‑‑ old word.

4445 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right, thank you for that. Let me see here. I just want to understand your thought process on this. You don’t want the definition to be broadened because in your view ‑‑ I’m trying to understand ‑‑ you’re thinking that people may start lumping other things in with news to make the amount of news that they are counting a larger amount. Is that correct?

4446 MS. AUER: I think that's a concern that could exist. And again, going back to it, the question is, What’s the rationale for the change? Are we saying that people think that, let’s say ‑‑ I’m sorry, I don’t want to sound bad, but do we think that gardening tips now count as news? I loved Ed Lawrence on the CBC ‑‑ great tips. Is that news? Is ‑‑ is an interview on Entertainment Tonight with somebody who’s written a program that’s being brought ‑‑ is that what we now consider to be news? And it may well be, but then I think there ought to be some reasoning as to why the definition of “news” has to be expanded.

4447 For instance, suppose the definition of “news” were expanded and newsgathering costs increased; then I would probably think, Well, maybe they’re doing more. But if they’re not doing more and costs go down and reporters goes down, then what should we ‑‑ what should we conclude from that?

4448 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Okay. I have so many questions and so little time. That’s the problem. I’ll speak faster.

4449 MS. AUER: I’ll speak faster, too.

4450 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: So I want to go back to what you talked about when you said “first‑run news” because I just want to push back a little bit, because quite often in newsrooms now ‑‑ and I come from a news background ‑‑ it’s been several years since I’ve been in a newsroom, but generally speaking, it’s not just the same package from the night before that’s played in the morning.

4451 The date has to be changed. The “today” has to be changed. “Yesterday”, it has to be changed to today. You know, you have got to make it current. The words have to change and so ‑‑And also there's an argument to be made for the fact that, you know, the people hearing it in the morning are hearing it for the first time. So, right, it's a new audience hearing the same facts. The facts are still current.

4452 MS. AUER: It’s evergreen, yes.

4453 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: The facts are still up to date. There is still. It's still new. So does that change at all or do you have anything you want to add considering what I've just thrown at you?

4454 MS. AUER: I think it has to do with the accuracy of reflecting what's actually being broadcast. I don't have a problem with ‑‑ For instance, if we take it to a different type of programming, children's programming. Children's programming is considered evergreen because new children are born and they like the program just as much.

4455 However, suppose we were dealing with ‑‑ Suppose we were dealing with the President of the United States, who is threatening to impose major tariffs on us every day. If I hear the last night's news in the morning, I may not be getting any new news, except for perhaps somebody providing me with a new date. And what the information gathered by the Commission serve to do is simply to distinguish between that.

4456 The Commission, as far as I know, for the most part, there are very small number of decisions where the Commission has insisted on specific hours of first run news. And for the most part, it says: okay, there might be a new audience watching or perhaps not paying attention because they've heard it before. You see.

4457 So I'm not arguing that you should make rules about how much should be broadcast based on the data you collect. I'm arguing that the data you collect has to be as accurate as possible to provide you with the necessary evidence to make a decision.

4458 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right. My last question. You've probably heard me ask this of other people and I've got you in front of me and we're talking about news, it would be ridiculous not to ask you, what do you think about how ‑‑ Some people have pitched that we include talk radio in the definition of news, which, you know, some people who are into, you know, experts in media literacy worry about because they say that the public can't necessarily already distinguish not just in audio, but on television, entertainment and opinion pieces and news. And it's confusing for audiences. Some people might disagree with that. I’m wondering what you say and what you think to the idea that it should be expanded to include talk radio and what you see as some of the issues with that.

4459 MS. AUER: If a talk radio episode or segment meets the definition of news and broadcasters choose to claim it as news, more power to them, provided they can keep the evidence to support their determination. So it really is in a way, a broadcaster decision that the Commission then has the right to inquire about and to determine: was in fact the four‑hour program of Howard Stern dealing with the famous hair of a famous actor, was that really qualifying as news as defined by the Commission? I'm not trying to make things difficult. It's just that the data have to be sufficiently granular that they make your life easy, because if you have to start guessing, it doesn’t help you.

4460 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Right. But if you're talking about reducing reporting on as a burden on companies, how would we then ask them to clarify whether it is indeed news and adheres to the definition and still reduce on reporting requirements? How do we straddle that?

4461 MS. AUER: That's a great question. All of the questions have been great. I'll just say that, in fact, I think every business is prepared to defend its own interests. And if they are willing to put forward, let's say, an eight‑hour program of talk radio where people call in and they give their opinion, if they're going to be able to justify that as meeting the definition of news, great. If they can justify it.

4462 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: And who’s making the definition, in your view?

4463 MS. AUER: Well, it's the Commission’s definition of news. As long as it perhaps is not the wider expansive one that will include talk radio and agricultural how‑to tips.

4464 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it. Those are all my questions.

4465 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Commissioner Naidoo and thank you, Ms Auer, for being here with us this afternoon. We value your contribution and we wish you a very good weekend.

4466 MS. AUER: And I wish all of you a good weekend as well, especially the staff, because they’ll probably be working. So – Thank you.

4467 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Thank you. I hope not. Thank you. Madame la secrétaire.

4468 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci. J’invite maintenant Leclerc Communication inc. et RNC Media inc. à s’installer à la table de présentation. Lorsque vous êtes prêts, vous pouvez vous introduire et débuter votre présentation conjointe. Merci.

Présentation

4469 M. JEAN‑FRANÇOIS LECLERC : Madame la Présidente d’audience, membres du Conseil, membres du personnel, bonjour. Je m’appelle Jean‑François Leclerc, copropriétaire et vice‑président de Leclerc Communication.

4470 Considérant le grand nombre de préoccupations et d’enjeux que nous partageons, notre énoncé d’ouverture se fera conjointement avec RNC Media. Et je suis accompagné de mon frère Nicolas Leclerc, à ma gauche, également copropriétaire et vice‑président de Leclerc Communication. À ma droite, vous retrouvez les représentants de RNC Média, Robert Ranger, président et chef de la direction, et Sébastien Côté, directeur général et de l’information, division Gatineau.

4471 Ce qui est en jeu aujourd’hui, c’est la capacité de la radio musicale francophone à survivre dans un écosystème médiatique bouleversé. Pour qu’elle reste un vecteur culturel fort, le Conseil doit lui redonner l’agilité qu’elle mérite et corriger en profondeur l’iniquité structurelle entre radio traditionnelle et plateformes en ligne, mais aussi entre radiodiffuseurs francophones et anglophones.

4472 Depuis plus de 10 ans, nous avons alerté le Conseil à répétition sur les déséquilibres du système actuel, chiffres à l’appui, et ses effets néfastes sur les stations musicales francophones. Le chantier lancé en 2015 sur la MVF n’a jamais été mené à terme et la Politique révisée de 2022 n’a accordé aucun allègement au bénéfice des stations de langue française. Au contraire, elle a ajouté de nouvelles attentes de programmation et maintenu les quotas de MVF les plus élevés au monde. Et comme si ce n’était pas assez, le Conseil envisage aujourd’hui d’ajouter d’autres exigences, sur la musique autochtone et les artistes émergents, notamment.

4473 Pendant qu’on discute de nouveaux quotas, les heures d’écoute de la radio musicale francophone reculent à une vitesse alarmante. À Québec et à Montréal, près de 60 pour cent des heures d’écoute ont été perdues chez les 18‑54 ans en 15 ans. Depuis que Leclerc a commencé à faire de la radio à Québec en 2012, les stations musicales du marché ont perdu plus de 2,2 millions d’heures d’écoute. C’est une réalité mesurable et la tendance est implacable : à moins que le Conseil n’entame un changement profond et structurant dès maintenant, les heures d’écoute dévolues aux stations musicales vont continuer de plonger. De nombreuses stations musicales francophones n’ont déjà plus les moyens de remplir leur mission.

4474 Nous ne pouvons laisser la radio disparaître pendant que Spotify et Apple Music bâtissent librement leur domination, sans être assujetties à la moindre obligation de contenu ou de découvrabilité. Elles captent une part exorbitante de l’écoute et des revenus, pendant que les stations musicales francophones, elles, s’effondrent sous le poids de leurs contraintes réglementaires.

4475 Le Conseil lui‑même reconnaît que les exigences de contenu ne fonctionnent pas pour les plateformes en ligne. Or, l’avis préliminaire propose du même souffle de maintenir tous les quotas en place pour la radio traditionnelle, voire d’en ajouter. Avec égard, cette posture défie l’entendement et donne l’impression que le Conseil semble vouloir accentuer l’iniquité entre les radios d’ici et les plateformes étrangères, plutôt que de corriger le déséquilibre qui existe entre elles. Pourtant, c’est précisément ce déséquilibre réglementaire qui compromet la viabilité de la radio musicale francophone et la vitalité de la culture québécoise.

4476 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Car le système actuel ne protège plus la culture québécoise, il la marginalise. Il provoque un désintérêt croissant des auditeurs pour les stations qui devraient, justement, faire rayonner la musique d’ici.

4477 On comprend l’importance d’un quota de musique francophone pour protéger la langue française au Canada, mais sur quelle base a‑t‑il été fixé, il y a maintenant un demi‑siècle? Nous n’avons trouvé aucune juridiction comparable dans le monde qui oblige les radios commerciales à diffuser plus de 40 pour cent de chansons dans la langue officielle, un plafond qui appartient à nos cousins français. À 65 pour cent, notre quota linguistique est donc 63 pour cent plus élevé que celui du second pays le plus strict en la matière. Notre quota de MVF n’est ni plus ni moins qu’une anomalie mondiale et il est plus que temps de la corriger.

4478 Parce qu’un quota n’a de sens que s’il permet de toucher un public. Quand on impose 65 pour cent de musique francophone dans un marché où les préférences naturelles des auditeurs sont bien moindres, on obtient l’effet contraire à celui recherché : les auditeurs décrochent. Ils se tournent vers les plateformes de diffusion numérique, où la musique québécoise ne représente qu’environ 5 pour cent de leur écoute. Les stations traditionnelles, pour survivre, doivent couper dans leurs investissements en contenu et en nouvelles locales, diminuer le temps alloué à la musique ou basculer vers le parlé. Ce n’est pas un choix. C’est une question de survie.

4479 Dans ce contexte, nous exhortons le Conseil à revoir en profondeur la question des quotas. Nous proposons des ajustements ciblés et raisonnables, inspirés du modèle français :

4480 ‑ ramener le quota de MVF à 40 pour cent;

4481 ‑ élargir les heures de grande écoute de 6 h 00 à minuit, du lundi au dimanche;

4482 ‑ et mesurer la conformité sur une période d’un mois plutôt que d’une semaine.

4483 Nous savons que certains soutiendront qu’abaisser les quotas enverrait « un mauvais signal ». Permettez‑nous de renverser la perspective : le vrai mauvais signal, c’est de maintenir des exigences que personne d’autre au monde n’impose, au prix de la perte d’auditoire et de la fragilisation de la découverte de la musique d’ici. En ramenant la MVF à un niveau plus près des goûts et intérêts réels des auditeurs, vous redonnez de la souplesse aux radiodiffuseurs, leur permettez de faire preuve davantage de créativité, tout en protégeant la relation quotidienne entre le public et les artistes d’ici. Parce qu’un auditoire qui reste à l’antenne est un auditoire qui découvre encore.

4484 Les défenseurs d’un cadre rigide oublient souvent que la notion de rayonnement de la musique et de la culture francophone va bien au‑delà du nombre de chansons diffusées sur nos ondes. Nos stations continuent de mettre en valeur la culture d’ici en diffusant des entrevues avec des artistes, en assurant une couverture régulière des festivals et événements culturels locaux, en produisant des chroniques et des contenus spéciaux consacrés aux créateurs d’ici et en offrant une vitrine à la relève artistique.

Présentation

4485 M. CÔTÉ : Le Conseil a aussi énoncé le souhait d’imposer de nouveaux quotas de musique autochtone aux radiodiffuseurs.

4486 Nous soutenons les objectifs de réconciliation et nous croyons à la richesse des cultures autochtones. Nous sommes prêts à les faire rayonner, mais pas au prix d’un nouveau quota qui serait contre‑productif.

4487 Nous encourageons plutôt le Conseil à mettre en place des incitatifs, de même qu’une base de données centralisée, pour encourager une diffusion volontaire et contextualisée de la musique autochtone. C’est ainsi qu’on bâtit des ponts. Pas avec des obligations unilatérales.

4488 Nous soutenons aussi que Radio‑Canada a déjà le mandat explicite de refléter le caractère multiculturel et multiracial du Canada et qu’à ce titre, les exigences de découvrabilité de contenu autochtone devraient lui incomber.

4489 Nous tenons à rappeler que les radiodiffuseurs francophones sont déjà ceux qui portent les obligations réglementaires les plus lourdes du système de radiodiffusion. Même à 40 pour cent, les stations francophones conserveraient les quotas de MVF les plus élevés au monde. Y ajouter 5 pour cent de musique autochtone, dont l’offre en français est extrêmement restreinte, créerait une pression démesurée. Le déséquilibre serait encore plus flagrant alors que les stations anglophones n’ont à composer qu’avec la moitié de nos quotas. Il ne s’agit donc pas seulement d’un enjeu de pourcentage, mais d’équité réelle et d’applicabilité concrète.

4490 Si le Conseil décidait malgré tout d’imposer de telles obligations, nous sommes d’avis qu’elles ne devraient pas s’appliquer aux stations francophones, qui remplissent déjà un rôle essentiel de promotion d’une langue en situation minoritaire au Canada. La réglementation devrait reconnaître cette réalité et s’ajuster en conséquence.

4491 D’ailleurs, nous souhaitons attirer l’attention du Conseil sur la disparité de traitement entre radiodiffuseurs francophones et anglophones. Alors que les stations musicales francophones doivent composer avec un quota de 65 pour cent de MVF, en plus d’un quota de 35 pour cent de musique canadienne, nos homologues anglophones n’ont que ce dernier quota à respecter. Pourtant, en 2022, le Conseil a aboli la politique sur les grands succès dans les marchés bilingues, et ce, au détriment des stations francophones, qui se retrouvent désormais attaquées sur tous les fronts. C’est une situation particulièrement éloquente dans le marché de Gatineau‑Ottawa, où on se retrouve avec ses cinq radios commerciales francophones dans un océan de pas moins de 26 stations sur la bande FM.

4492 Dans sa Politique révisée sur la radio commerciale, le Conseil écrit pour justifier cette décision que, et je cite :

« Les instruments de politique qu’il utilise aujourd’hui doivent refléter la souplesse et l’adaptabilité, plutôt que la prescription et la rigidité. »

4493 Le Conseil a ainsi offert un allègement réel aux stations anglophones alors qu’aucun allègement comparable n’a été accordé aux stations francophones. À peine quelques paragraphes plus loin, le Conseil proposait même de resserrer le fardeau réglementaire autour des stations francophones.

4494 C’est un double standard qui est difficile à expliquer.

4495 M. RANGER : Nous croyons que le rôle du Conseil devrait être celui d’assurer, avec rigueur et équité, le bon fonctionnement d’un système de radiodiffusion diversifié, durable et viable dans les deux langues officielles du pays. Nous partageons entièrement l’idée que les instruments de politique doivent plus que jamais refléter la souplesse et l’adaptabilité, mais ce principe doit s’appliquer à tous, pas seulement aux radiodiffuseurs anglophones.

4496 Dans un marché déjà bouleversé par l’essor des plateformes en ligne, les stations musicales francophones doivent désormais se battre à armes inégales face aux stations anglophones de Montréal et Ottawa‑Gatineau. Le changement de format de WKND 99,5 à Montréal en est la preuve concrète : quand la réglementation devient insoutenable, ce sont d’abord les artistes et la diversité musicale qui en paient le prix.

4497 Les stations musicales francophones sont à la croisée des chemins. Elles suffoquent sous les trop nombreuses contraintes qui les empêchent d’être en phase avec les goûts et les besoins de leurs auditeurs et souffrent d’une compétition déloyale avec les plateformes en ligne et, dans les marchés bilingues, avec les stations anglophones qui peuvent maintenant diffuser tous les succès qu’elles veulent.

4498 Aujourd’hui, la concurrence mondiale engendrée par la révolution numérique pose un défi sans précédent. Vous avez le pouvoir d’offrir aux radiodiffuseurs francophones les moyens de continuer à créer, à innover et à faire rayonner la culture québécoise. L’avenir de cette industrie repose non pas sur l’ajout de quotas et de règles supplémentaires, mais sur l’adoption d’une vision équilibrée, souple et résolument tournée vers l’avenir.

4499 Si rien ne change, la radio musicale francophone continuera de s’éteindre. Lentement. Silencieusement. Jusqu’à ce qu’il ne reste plus que des quotas sans auditeur. Des obligations sans écoute. Et des artistes sans vitrine.

4500 Le moment est venu de réduire les quotas, pas d’en ajouter.

4501 Voici un résumé de nos propositions :

4502 ‑ adopter un quota unique en MVF de 40 pour cent, calculé sur une base mensuelle;

4503 ‑ élargir la période de grande écoute de 6 h 00 à minuit;

4504 ‑ reconnaître le statut particulier des radiodiffuseurs francophones et leur importance pour la protection et la promotion de la langue française et la culture canadienne, comme prévu au paragraphe 5(2) a) de la Loi sur la radiodiffusion, et ajuster ces règlements ou décisions en conséquence;

4505 ‑ reconnaître le fardeau réglementaire plus lourd qui leur est imposé et rejeter pour eux toute exigence additionnelle en matière de programmation et toute obligation afférente de production de rapports;

4506 ‑ faire en sorte que les groupes d’entreprises de radio ne versent dorénavant plus de contributions au titre de DCC sur la première tranche de 25 millions de dollars de revenus audio annuels canadiens et que, pour un groupe donné, les stations individuelles qui le composent et qui ont des revenus annuels inférieurs à 2 millions de dollars soient exclues du calcul des contributions à titre de DCC; et finalement, non le moindre

4507 ‑ imposer des exigences en matière de contenu et de découvrabilité aux services audio numériques étrangers afin de s’assurer que chacun des acteurs du système joue son rôle dans la découvrabilité et la mise en valeur de la MVF.

4508 Merci de votre attention. Et nous sommes maintenant prêts à répondre à vos questions.

4509 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci beaucoup. Et merci à vous quatre pour votre participation et aussi d’avoir accepté de faire une présentation conjointe. Ça laisse plus de place pour des questions. Plusieurs de vos collègues ont présenté des arguments et des propositions similaires. Ce qui me place dans une situation où est‑ce que je peux aller directement au vif du sujet plutôt que de commencer par des questions extrêmement générales.

4510 Mais je vous poserai quand même une question qui me revient souvent à l'esprit et que j'ai posée à plusieurs des intervenants qui se sont présentés depuis quelques jours devant nous et qui demandent une baisse de quota. C'est quoi le problème que ça va régler précisément? Vous nous dites que les stations commerciales ont des défis financiers importants pour toutes sortes de raisons que vous exposez très clairement dans votre soumission, fardeau réglementaire, des enjeux aussi qui sont en dehors de notre juridiction liés à la publicité, crédit d'impôt. Vous avez des obligations, que les plateformes n'ont pas d'obligations.

4511 Qu'est‑ce que la baisse d'un quota va concrètement amener comme air frais dans votre business qui ne pourrait pas être réglé autrement? C'est quoi la relation de cause à effet, là, entre vos défis financiers notamment et la question des quotas?

4512 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Les radiodiffuseurs, on ne dit pas que les quotas expliquent à eux seuls toutes les difficultés des radios francophones. Mais ce qu'on peut affirmer avec certitude, c'est que le poids disproportionné des quotas linguistiques aggrave la situation au point de menacer la viabilité même de notre modèle d'affaires.

4513 Madame la Présidente, je veux être bien clair puis j'espère que vous serez d'accord avec moi. Le cœur d'une station musicale, ça ne peut pas être autre chose que sa musique. Si les auditeurs décrochent d'une station musicale, s'ils accrochent à une station musicale, c'est à cause de la musique qu'on y diffuse ou à cause de la musique qu'on n'y diffuse pas.

4514 Permettez‑moi de rappeler au Conseil que les stations musicales…

4515 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Je peux‑tu juste vous…

4516 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Oui.

4517 LA PRÉSIDENTE : …vous arrêter là‑dessus? Donc, si je vous comprends bien, parce que vous êtes obligés de diffuser plus de musique canadienne, c'est la raison pour laquelle les auditeurs décrochent puis s'abonnent à Spotify, c'est ça que vous dites?

4518 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Permettez‑moi de rappeler au Conseil que les stations musicales francophones sont obligées, par règlement, de consacrer les deux tiers de leur programmation musicale à des chansons qui ne sont pas des hits mondiaux.

4519 On ne peut pas évacuer cette réalité quand on regarde le déclin des stations musicales. Mon frère et moi, on suit les données d'écoute dans le marché de Québec depuis plus de 20 ans. Le dernier pic d'écoute des stations musicales francophones date de 2010, année où CKOI et Énergie utilisaient une stratégie de montage qui donnait aux auditeurs l'impression d'une programmation très axée sur les hits anglophones.

4520 Résultat, CKOI est passée de la 8e à la 3e place en deux sondages. Et les stations musicales dans leur ensemble ont obtenu des résultats d'écoute record. C'étaient les dernières belles années de la radio musicale à Québec. Dès que le Conseil a resserré les règles en 2011, les heures d'écoute des radios musicales n'ont plus jamais cessé de reculer.

4521 C'est une démonstration claire. Plus la réglementation nous enferme dans un carcan rigide, plus les auditeurs décrochent. Et la venue des plateformes mondiales étrangères a accéléré ce mouvement.

4522 Et si vous n'êtes toujours pas convaincus, je vous invite à demander à Spotify lundi matin, quand ils se présenteront devant vous, s'ils accepteraient un quota de 65 pour cent de musique vocale francophone pour ses auditeurs du Québec. Vous savez déjà quelle sera sa réponse. Il va vous répondre que non, parce que 65 pour cent est trop éloigné des attentes des auditeurs. Ça ne correspond pas à la demande.

4523 Or, ce qui est vrai pour Spotify est aussi vrai pour nous. La différence, c'est que Spotify est libre et que, nous, nous sommes attachés à un boulet réglementaire qui date de l'époque des 33 tours, lorsque l'Internet n'existait pas et que la radio avait le monopole sur la diffusion de la musique au quotidien. Ce n'est plus du tout le cas.

4524 And now, I would ask each of you to reflect personally, if today Canadian‑French language commercial radio had no quota at all, just like the foreign streaming platforms, would you really decide to impose 65 per cent on one and 0 per cent on the other? And, beyond the principle of fairness, can anyone seriously believe that imposing the strictest linguistic quota in the world on one side while letting the other operate with none would have no impact on audience behaviour? The question answers itself.

4525 Voilà pourquoi nous vous demandons un rééquilibrage urgent et immédiat. Alléger les quotas à 40 pour cent, ce n'est pas tuer la musique d'ici. C'est au contraire la seule façon de la protéger. Car si, aujourd'hui, ce sont les heures d'écoute des radios musicales qui s'effondrent, demain, c'est le système de radiodiffusion francophone tout entier qui menace de s'effondrer.

4526 Et ça, ça ne serait pas bon pour personne, ni pour les artistes, ni pour les diffuseurs, ni pour les auditeurs, encore moins pour la souveraineté culturelle du Canada. Si la radio musicale francophone disparaît, c'est toute une vitrine culturelle qui s'éteint avec elle.

4527 Alors, je conclus ma réponse en vous disant que vous avez aujourd'hui le choix entre maintenir un système de quota archaïque qui accélère le déclin des radios francophones ou poser un geste courageux qui donnera à la radio francophone une vraie chance d'assurer son rôle culturel pour les générations à venir.

4528 M. RANGER : Je ne peux pas être en désaccord avec Nicolas. Puis je pense que la passion de communiquer, qui est notre slogan, il l'a lui aussi. Alors, je vais… Mais j'aimerais juste résumer à votre question la cause à effet. Moins d'auditeurs, moins de revenus publicitaires. Plus d'auditeurs, plus de revenus publicitaires. Le lien est direct.

4529 On a vu dans le passé, quand on a perdu 2 millions d'heures, la publicité que la radio commerciale a perdue est allée sur Spotify. Pourquoi? Parce que les annonceurs suivent les auditeurs. Alors, le lien direct est là.

4530 L'impact direct, puis comme Nicolas l'a dit, CKOI est un exemple probant que, quand tu changes la composition de ton catalogue musical pour refléter les goûts de tes auditeurs, les gens reviennent à la radio. Alors, l'objectif, je pense, du CRTC devrait être de ramener les gens à la radio traditionnelle pour s'assurer que la radio traditionnelle est encore en bonne santé financière pour les prochaines années.

4531 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci. J'aimerais explorer avec vous, justement, quels sont les autres moyens pour ramener les auditeurs… pas à l'écran, en ce qui vous concerne, là, devant leur poste de radio. Vous avez d'autres propositions qui vous donneraient, de votre point de vue, plus de flexibilité pour faire preuve de créativité et adapter la programmation à ce que vous comprenez être les goûts de l'auditeur en 2025.

4532 Vous suggérez notamment d'élargir l'heure de grande écoute. Vous parlez… entre autres. Mais j'aimerais un peu vous entendre parce qu'on essaie, de notre point de vue, d'évaluer toutes les possibilités, tous les scénarios qui sont susceptibles d'avoir un effet probant et répondre à la doléance qu'on entend, celle d'une demande d'air frais dans le système pour avoir plus de flexibilité. Puis, on pourra parler des obligations de rapport, on pourra parler d'autres choses.

4533 Puis, on pourra parler de ce qu'on pourrait demander aux plateformes numériques parce que l'intention, si c'est pour vous rassurer, là, ce n'est pas de ne rien demander aux plateformes numériques et tout demander au secteur traditionnel. Ce n'est pas le mandat qu'on a reçu du gouvernement. Donc, on ne travaille pas dans ce paradigme‑là, si ça peut vous rassurer.

4534 Mais on voudrait mieux comprendre la brochette de mesures qui pourraient être envisagées qui permettraient de ramener les auditeurs à la radio ou est‑ce que le voilier a déjà quitté le port et que vous êtes plus dans une logique de changer votre offre carrément?

4535 M. RANGER : Non, je pense que le voilier n'a pas quitté le port encore, mais je pense que, le critère le plus important, c'est la baisse des quotas. Quand tu gères une entreprise où tu as 65 pour cent de réglementation qui gère ta programmation, ça ne te permet pas d'être aussi agile pour répondre à la compétition.

4536 Aujourd'hui, notre problème, c'est qu'on opère dans un cadre qui est très, très, très rigide, qui est réglementé. Puis on comprend ça. Sauf qu'on évolue dans un environnement où plusieurs des joueurs en ce moment sont non réglementés et ça nous met vraiment en position d'inéquité par rapport à eux.

4537 C'est dur de compétitionner quand 65 pour cent de ta programmation est déjà décidée pour toi par quelqu'un d'autre. Alors, tu ne peux pas t'adapter aux goûts et aux besoins des consommateurs. Le CRTC est le premier à vouloir écouter les consommateurs, à faire des consultations publiques pour avoir l'opinion des gens, pour adapter la réglementation à l'opinion des gens.

4538 Nous, on ne peut pas faire ça. Nous, on est pris avec 65 pour cent. Puis, quand on fait des sondages, on fait des focus group sur les chansons qui sont populaires pour ces gens‑là, bien, il n'y a pas 65 pour cent du focus group qui choisit des chansons francophones dans le top 500 chansons de nos focus group. Les gens ne veulent plus nécessairement consommer ce produit‑là à la fréquence qu'on leur donne.

4539 Ça fait que, nous, on n'a pas dit : « On veut descendre à 25 pour cent » ou « on veut descendre à 35 pour cent ». Est‑ce qu'un auditeur québécois ou un chanteur québécois est moins important qu'un chanteur anglophone? Pourquoi la réglementation est à 35 pour cent pour protéger un chanteur anglophone ou des compositeurs anglophones, puis est à 65 pour cent pour un francophone?

4540 Ça fait que, le point le plus important pour nous, c'est vraiment la baisse des quotas, parce que c'est ça qui nous empêche de compétitionner. Puis, quand tu ne compétitionnes pas aujourd'hui dans une industrie, tu disparais. Ça fait qu'on n'a pas demandé un quota de 10 pour cent. On a demandé… on a fait nos devoirs. On est allé voir ce qui se faisait en France. On est allé voir ce qui se faisait en Espagne, en Australie. Puis on s'est dit : ces pays‑là ont choisi de réglementer leurs produits pour protéger leur culture, mais ils étaient conscients qu'il fallait qu'ils se protègent aussi de la compétition mondiale.

4541 Alors, la demande d'ordre de grande écoute, ça vient avec la diminution de quotas. C'est pour nous donner plus de flexibilité. Flexibilité pourquoi? Toujours la même chose, pour répondre aux besoins de nos auditeurs.

4542 Si je continue à faire la même chose que je fais en ce moment, c'est 60 pour cent de baisse d'écoute. Puis le pire, c'est encore plus dramatique dans les jeunes, les jeunes ne sont plus là à la radio musicale pour écouter la radio musicale. Ça fait que les gens qui meurent à un bout, malheureusement, on doit tous mourir un jour, ne sont pas remplacés par personne.

4543 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Mais est‑ce que c'est plus, puis je vous pose la question très honnêtement, que la façon de consommer la culture de façon générale a évolué et on fait affaire à des produits qui sont complètement différents?. C'est‑à‑dire que, la radio, c'est un média qui est non interactif. On pousse du contenu. On n'a pas le choix d'écouter ce qu'on nous donne.

4544 Alors que, quand on tombe dans les plateformes numériques, ils nous disent que c'est du non interactif, mais c'est de l'interactif ou du semi‑interactif, mais, au minimum, le jeune de 15 ans peut choisir précisément ce qu'il veut écouter. Et certains intervenants nous disent que ce sont des médias qui se relaient d'une certaine façon.

4545 C'est‑à‑dire qu'un jeune peut être ou un consommateur peut être exposé une fois à du contenu qu'on lui pousse à la radio. Et évidemment, ça va l'amener peut‑être à aller choisir du contenu similaire dans le média semi‑interactif ou interactif Spotify.

4546 Alors, c'est un peu comparer des pommes et des oranges, là.

4547 M. RANGER : Bien, pas vraiment, parce que, si je jouais la musique qu'il voulait entendre, même si je ne le joue pas dans l'ordre qu'il voulait l'entendre, il l’écouterait, la station. En ce moment, la problématique, c'est qu'on joue de la musique qu'il ne veut pas nécessairement entendre une partie du temps, je ne dis pas tout le temps, mais une partie du temps, et il va chercher à se nourrir ailleurs. Il va venir pour le divertissement à la radio, il va venir pour les personnalités qui sont sur nos stations.

4548 On a des modèles différents dans la radio francophone, on a des personnalités. La radio anglophone ne marche pas nécessairement comme ça tout le temps, mais ils viennent chercher ça. Mais en plus, si on avait la musique qu'ils veulent écouter, on aurait beaucoup plus de chances de les garder et pour plus longtemps.

4549 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Mais vous faites référence justement aux personnalités. Ça, c'est une autre question ou une autre idée qui nous a été soumise, c'est‑à‑dire qu'il faudrait que, ce que j'appellerais du contenu musical adjacent, c'est‑à‑dire des chroniques culturelles, des entrevues avec des artistes musicaux, puisse d'une certaine façon être reconnu comme type de contenu canadien ou contribuant au quota. Est‑ce que c'est des scénarios que vous avez évalués justement pour vous amener plus de flexibilité dans votre programmation?

4550 M. RANGER : Je ne veux pas prendre toutes les réponses. Mais…

4551 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Je pose la question à toute le monde, là.

4552 M. RANGER : Je pense que…

4553 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Vous voyez ce que j’essaie de faire, j’essaie d’explorer…

4554 M. RANGER : Mais la musique canadienne, pour nous… oui.

4555 LA PRÉSIDENTE : …l’éventail des options qui nous ont été présentées pour voir un peu où est‑ce qu’on se situe.

4556 M. RANGER : Mais les quotas canadiens pour nous ne sont pas un enjeu. Parce que, nous, quand on joue 65 pour cent de musique francophone, on a 55 pour cent de contenu canadien. Si on en jouait 40 pour cent de contenu francophone, on aurait sûrement entre 30 puis 35 pour cent de contenu canadien.

4557 Donc, pour nous, le contenu canadien n'est pas une problématique. Ça n'a jamais été un enjeu pour les radiodiffuseurs francophones puis ça ne le sera jamais, je pense. Donc, nous, c'est vraiment le quota de 65 pour cent qui est très loin de la consommation de musique francophone au Québec sur les plateformes numériques, qui est à 8 pour cent. Cet écart‑là, pour nous, est inimaginable.

4558 Puis peut‑être que je peux laisser quelqu'un d'autre répondre.

4559 M. JEAN‑FRANÇOIS LECLERC : Oui, bien, il y a des enjeux aussi à évaluer comment on propose des contenus autrement. C'est des avantages qu'on a toujours vus comme intangibles. Parce qu'imaginez le travail pour des petits radiodiffuseurs d'analyser chaque micro pour savoir, bien, à quel moment tel animateur a parlé d'un album ou d'un artiste francophone, ou a fait une chronique culturelle, ou a invité un artiste local à faire une prestation en direct.

4560 Tout ça ajouterait beaucoup de fardeaux sur les épaules de radiodiffuseurs qui sont déjà fragiles puis qui ont moins de main‑d'oeuvre qu'ils en avaient. Alors, il y a ça aussi à prendre en compte. Je pense que c'est important d'assouplir les règles puis ne pas d'ajouter certains éléments qui complexifieraient les choses.

4561 Puis je veux revenir à quelque chose que vous avez dit sur les jeunes. Vous savez, chez les 15‑29 ans, 15 pour cent à peu près écoutent la radio traditionnelle à tous les jours. 15 pour cent, c'est presque rien.

4562 71 pour cent de ces jeunes‑là écoutent Spotify, Apple Music à tous les jours. La consommation, elle est rendue là. Je ne pense plus qu'on peut dire qu'on est complémentaire.

4563 L'équilibre passe par un partage équitable. Mêmes activités, mêmes obligations. Si une plateforme exerce une fonction de diffusion et de monétisation du contenu canadien, elle doit contribuer proportionnellement aux mêmes objectifs culturels que la radio.

4564 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Dans un scénario où le Conseil décidait, donc, comme vous le demandez, d'alléger les exigences en matière de contenu francophone, quel type de mécanisme incitatif alors est‑ce que vous envisageriez pour quand même s'assurer qu'il y ait une bonne présence d'artistes francophones, incluant les artistes émergents, dans les stations de langue française? Et je pourrais poser la même question pour les artistes autochtones.

4565 Vous êtes bien conscients que, nous, notre défi, c'est de trouver le point de convergence entre ce que vous nous demandez, mais aussi nos objectifs tels qui sont définis dans la Loi sur la radiodiffusion en matière de promotion de contenu. Alors, qu'est‑ce qui pourrait fonctionner, à votre avis, qui nous permettrait quand même d'atteindre nos objectifs de politique publique dans un scénario où est‑ce que les quotas de contenu seraient diminués?

4566 M. RANGER : Quand vous mettez des engagements comme les artistes émergents, par exemple… Je pense que, c'est le meilleur exemple. Vous avez mis un engagement de 5 pour cent de jouer de la musique émergente.

4567 LA PRÉSIDENTE : On a pris juste une… C’est un commentaire préliminaire.

4568 M. RANGER : Oui oui, oui oui.

4569 LA PRÉSIDENTE : On n’a pas pris d’engagement.

4570 M. RANGER : Non, non, mais, nous, dans… on n'avait pris un engagement…

4571 LA PRÉSIDENTE : O.K. Parfait. Parfait.

4572 M. RANGER : …dans certaines de nos licences actuelles où on doit jouer de la musique émergente.

4573 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Oui.

4574 M. RANGER : Et c'est un engagement, ce n'est pas une obligation, ce n'est pas une condition de licence. Et on le fait dans la mesure où on est capable de le faire. Ça fait qu'aujourd'hui, les stations qui sont devant vous jouent toutes plus que 5 pour cent de musique émergente.

4575 Donc, l'engagement que vous nous avez demandé de prendre, on le prend sérieusement, mais ce n'est pas une obligation. Mais on le prend sérieusement puis on essaie de remplir ou de se rapprocher le plus possible de l'engagement que vous demandez.

4576 Ça serait la même chose pour la musique autochtone. Je pense que Jean‑François a bien soulevé le problème de disponibilité de la musique autochtone francophone. C'est très difficile à trouver ou le catalogue n'est pas assez large pour qu'on puisse remplir un engagement. Mais je pense qu'il faut se fier aussi à la bonne volonté des propriétaires de stations de radio qui, quand vous mettez un engagement, on essaie le plus possible de l'atteindre. Puis si on n'est pas capable de l'atteindre, on se sent un peu coupable puis on essaie de faire mieux la prochaine année. Mais ça ne devient pas une obligation.

4577 Ça fait que pour nous, quand on a lu l'avis de consultation puis c'était 65… t’sais, peut‑être un statu quo en rajoutant des quotas, imaginez‑vous si on avait 65 pour cent de musique francophone, 5 pour cent d'émergents, puis 5 pour cent d'autochtones. Là, on pourrait avoir jusqu'à 75 pour cent de notre programmation qui est contrôlée par la réglementation?

4578 LA PRÉSIDENTE : C'est pour ça que je vous pose la question sur les incitatifs, pas sur les exigences de contenu.

4579 M. RANGER : Bien, les incitatifs, je pense qu'il faut demander à tous les membres de l'industrie, incluant l’Adisq, incluant les autres qui reçoivent des droits ou des royautés, de participer aussi à la mise en valeur de ça. Est‑ce qu'ils pourraient, eux, venir nous voir, puis acheter une heure de programmation à la radio avec les fonds qu'ils vont recevoir pour qu'on fasse une émission sur la découvrabilité d'un artiste québécois?

4580 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Est‑ce que c'est des scénarios que vous avez déjà explorés avec des gens de l’industrie?

4581 M. RANGER : C'est des scénarios qu'on a déjà discutés, même. On a déjà discuté avec certains membres de l'industrie.

4582 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Puis la réaction?

4583 M. RANGER : Bien, la réaction, c'est plus facile d'avoir un quota de 65 pour cent pour ces gens‑là. Puis il ne faut pas toucher au quota parce que c'est sacré.

4584 Mais, à un moment donné, je pense qu'il faut que tout le monde regarde la compétition puis il faut que tout le monde y mette du sien. Sauf que si, nous, on est les deux mains attachées, je pense qu'on ne pourra pas beaucoup mettre du nôtre parce qu'on va s'activer à essayer de faire survivre nos stations.

4585 M. JEAN‑FRANÇOIS LECLERC : J'appuie les propos, évidemment. Je pense que, sans obligation prescriptive, en ce moment, on fait déjà notre part pour les artistes émergents, les artistes autochtones, on les diffuse. Juste en matière de chansons émergentes, à Weekend 91,9, c'est plus de 15 pour cent de tout ce qu'on diffuse qui est de la musique émergente; 25 pour cent de tout notre contenu francophone est de la musique émergente, et ce, avec seulement une attente de 5 pour cent du Conseil. De là l'important, je pense, de laisser les radiodiffuseurs... C'est‑à‑dire que c'est possible qu'on s'autorégule et que ça fonctionne aussi.

4586 Si vous parlez d'incitatif, évidemment qu'on appuie la position de la CR pour des incitatifs ciblés qui donneraient des crédits liés à la diffusion de musique émergente, par exemple, ou autochtone. Est‑ce qu'un artiste autochtone francophone diffusé par une radio traditionnelle pourrait compter double pour notre quota de MVF, par exemple? C'est une possibilité.

4587 Il y en a d'autres, si on pense plus particulièrement à l'exemple de la France, les quotas de MVF sont à 40 pour cent, on l'a nommé tantôt, mais, pour les stations de radio spécialisées dans la promotion de jeunes talents, les quotas sont réduits à 35 pour cent si les stations de radio diffusent 25 pour cent de nouveaux talents.

4588 Donc, c'est une autre façon, c'est un autre incitatif aussi, qui vous permettrait d'inciter les radios qui visent un tel auditoire à en faire davantage, tout en préservant les formats où ça s'y prête moins, comme les oldies, par exemple.

4589 Ça fait que certainement qu'il y a des incitatifs, mais ils doivent être en sus d'une baisse de quota majeure. Et c'est le point important sur lequel je veux insister.

4590 Même si on parle d'incitatif, ils ne seront pas suffisants pour arrêter la chute des heures d'écoute. La seule chose dont on pense que ça peut aider à résorber l'hémorragie, c'est une réduction majeure des quotas. Et quand je dis « majeure », je ne veux pas dire qu'on ne veut plus en jouer. On parle de 40 pour cent. C'est déjà le quota le plus élevé au monde, à part le nôtre.

4591 Alors, je pense que c'est quand même une proposition tout à fait raisonnable de notre part, dans le contexte dans lequel on se trouve aujourd'hui. LA PRÉSIDENTE : Je vais vous amener sur un autre terrain auquel vous avez fait référence à quelques reprises, notamment, monsieur, c'est‑à‑dire la responsabilité ou la contribution des services en ligne.

4592 Encore une fois, comme je l'ai dit tantôt, le mandat qui nous a été confié, c'est de trouver une façon de rétablir ou d'établir une certaine équité dans la contribution du système traditionnel et du système en ligne, en reconnaissant que ce sont des modèles d'affaires et d'opérations qui sont très différents, ce qui nous amène à croire que, ce qu'on va demander à l'un, ce ne sera peut‑être pas nécessairement ce qu'on va demander à l'autre, simplement parce que c'est une autre réalité.

4593 La question des quotas, entre autres, est particulièrement difficile à déballer. Comment est‑ce qu'un quota peut être appliqué dans un environnement en ligne? On a eu quelques personnes qui nous ont dit que c'était possible. Mais prenons comme postulat que c'est plus difficile.

4594 Toute la question des mesures pour faire la promotion de la découvrabilité, qui est vraiment le nerf de la guerre… Ça, je pense que je vous parle comme experts du milieu, pas juste des gens qui viennent du milieu des propriétaires de radio, mais vraiment des gens qui connaissent l'écosystème. Tous les artistes nous ont dit, bien, premièrement, l'essentiel de leur revenu, ça vient encore de la radio. C'est 80 pour cent des revenus qui vient de la radio. Mais, pour se faire un nom de plus en plus et imaginer un avenir dans l'industrie, bien, il faut absolument se retrouver dans l'environnement numérique. Ça, on n'y échappe pas. Et donc, si on n'est pas vu, on n'est pas découvert, bien, on n'existe pas.

4595 Alors, quel genre de mesure ou quel genre d'obligation pensez‑vous que le Conseil devrait imposer aux services en ligne? Comment est‑ce que le succès de ces mesures pourrait être mesurable aussi? Il y a différentes approches qui nous ont été proposées, notamment l'APEM. Je ne sais pas si vous en avez pris connaissance.

4596 J'aimerais vous entendre un petit peu sur ce que vous pensez être une approche efficace pour la réglementation ou l'encadrement des plateformes numériques tel qu'on nous a demandé de le considérer. M. JEAN‑FRANÇOIS LECLERC : C'est une bonne question. C'est sûr que c'est une question qui n'est pas évidente à répondre dans la posture de radiodiffuseur. On n'est pas dans la peau des streamers, des plateformes en ligne. On ne sait pas tout ce qu’ils peuvent faire. Par contre, ce que je tiens à vous dire, c'est que les quotas radio à eux seuls ne suffisent plus à assurer la découvrabilité.

4597 Le véritable levier, ce sont les plateformes. Et je pense qu'ils doivent contribuer de manière importante à la découvrabilité et c'est là où on l'échappe en ce moment. Puis, je suis content d'entendre que c'est la direction que vous souhaitez prendre.

4598 Donc, réduire les quotas ne signifie pas réduire l'accès au public à la musique canadienne et francophone. Au contraire, c'est une invitation, je pense, à revoir où et comment se joue la découvrabilité aujourd'hui.

4599 Les habitudes d'écoute ont changé. Il y a une grande partie de la découverte musicale qui se fait sur les plateformes en ligne par leurs algorithmes de recommandation, beaucoup plus que par la radio. Alors, si on veut accroître la découvrabilité, je pense que c'est là qu'il faut agir, encore plus que la radio traditionnelle. Chose certaine, il faut trouver un moyen de faire contribuer les plateformes en ligne à la découvrabilité des contenus d'ici.

4600 Est‑ce que c'est par leur demander qu'un utilisateur canadien soit exposé à une proportion minimale de contenus canadiens, francophones ou autochtones? Est‑ce que c'est en mettant en valeur les contenus canadiens avec un étiquetage, des sections dédiées? Est‑ce que c'est en obligeant les plateformes à publier des données sur la découvrabilité puis la mise en avant des artistes canadiens?

4601 Dans le contexte dans lequel on est, la radio continue de jouer un rôle important, mais complémentaire, celui de la curation humaine, de la mise en contexte locale et de la mise en valeur éditoriale. Plutôt que de porter seul le fardeau de quotas qui sont aujourd'hui déconnectés des usages, on devrait pouvoir collaborer à une stratégie globale de découvrabilité qui inclurait les plateformes étrangères.

4602 Alors, si le Conseil souhaite véritablement assurer une découvrabilité, je pense qu'il doit miser sur un partage de responsabilités. À la radio, la valorisation éditoriale et locale. Vous parliez tantôt de recevoir des artistes, de parler de leurs albums, de présenter leurs chansons avec passion, c'est ce qu'on fait de mieux. Aux plateformes, l'ajustement de leurs algorithmes et la transparence de leurs pratiques.

4603 C'est comme ça qu'on va garantir l'accès réel et durable aux contenus canadiens et francophones. C'est en faisant participer l'ensemble des acteurs.

4604 M. RANGER : Je suis assez d'accord pour dire que mettre un quota aux plateformes numériques, ça va être assez difficile et même impossible. Mais je pense, là où je rejoins Jean‑François, c'est : le rôle est à jouer dans la découvrabilité. Parce que les auditeurs sont là, sont sur leurs plateformes. Donc, il faut profiter de ce moment‑là pour faire découvrir la musique canadienne à ces gens‑là.

4605 Ils sont capables de faire des algorithmes que... Alexa, chez nous, me dit quand est‑ce que je dois racheter de la pâte à dents, parce que j'en ai acheté voilà trois semaines. Ils sont capables de mettre, si j'écoute une chanson, de mettre 52 chansons à la suite de cette même chanson‑là dans un algorithme qu'ils ont programmé.

4606 Alors, je ne vois pas pourquoi ils ne seraient pas capables de programmer un certain contenu canadien, émergent et autochtone dans les auditeurs ou dans leurs clients canadiens pour qu'ils puissent, eux autres aussi, participer à la découvrabilité ou à leur rôle qu'ils doivent jouer dans la découvrabilité.

4607 J'entendais une autre question à Rogers. Est‑ce que la compensation monétaire était suffisante de la part des joueurs numériques? Je pense que la participation monétaire est un des piliers peut‑être de la fondation, mais c'est important d'avoir aussi l'aspect réglementation au niveau de la découvrabilité. C'est là où ils vont jouer un rôle. C'est là que les gens sont rendus pour aller écouter la musique. Ils partent de chez nous puis ils s'en vont sur les plateformes numériques.

4608 Alors, si on ne leur met pas une obligation minimale de découvrabilité… Puis c'est de mettre des règles. Puis, après ça, de surveiller les règles puis voir si ces règles‑là, ça crée un plus.

4609 Ça va être toujours difficile d'établir l'efficacité d'une mesure pour la découvrabilité. La découvrabilité, ça peut venir de 50… Aujourd'hui, ça peut venir d'un podcast, d'une entrevue, d'une écoute musicale ou ça peut venir de Spotify. Mais si on ne fait rien, c'est sûr qu'il n'y en aura pas.

4610 Ça fait que c'est pour ça, je pense, qu'ils ont un rôle à jouer. Puis ils devraient prendre leur rôle sérieusement s'ils veulent participer au système canadien de radiodiffusion.

4611 LA PRÉSIDENTE : J'aimerais peut‑être passer à la question des nouvelles et vous entendre un peu sur la définition des nouvelles. À votre avis, est‑ce que nous devrions revoir cette définition de façon à vous donner encore une fois un peu plus de flexibilité?

4612 Et comment est‑ce que… Est‑ce qu'on doit mettre des garde‑fous pour éviter que des nouvelles restent des nouvelles aussi, là? Ma collègue, la conseillère Naidoo, a posé à plusieurs intervenants la question à savoir : où se trouve la ligne entre nouvelles et divertissement? Donc, j'aimerais vous entendre un peu là‑dessus.

4613 M. CÔTÉ : Bon, des définitions, on peut en sortir toutes sortes. Pour nous, essentiellement, quand on parle d'information, il y a toujours une notion d'intérêt public, toujours une notion locale aussi qui est très, très, très importante, et d'artisans locaux aussi qui traitent de cette information‑là. On a une vision large de ce qu'est l'information aussi, parce que, pour nous, de la circulation, de la météo, des nouvelles sportives, c'est de l'information.

4614 Quand on tombe dans le divertissement, bien, c'est assez simple. Pour nous, quand on tombe dans quelque chose qui est là essentiellement pour divertir, bien, c'est clair qu'on n'est pas dans de l'information. On avait l'exemple de Howard Stern tout à l'heure. Bon, c'est clair que, dans un contexte de talk radio, on ne pourrait pas considérer ça, nous, naturellement, comme une émission d'information. C'est assez clair qu'on est dans le divertissement.

4615 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Est‑ce que, de l'opinion, c’est de la nouvelle?

4616 M. CÔTÉ : Bien, l'opinion dans une radio d'information devrait être considérée comme étant de l'information. Quand même, pour faire de l'opinion, on part quand même d'une information. On va ajouter un commentaire. On va permettre aux auditeurs aussi de pouvoir commenter cette nouvelle‑là. Et, ça, ça fait en sorte que, bien, on informe plus de gens.

4617 Il y a des gens qui ne seront pas nécessairement intéressés à entendre un bulletin de nouvelles, mais entendre une ligne ouverte va être une façon pour eux de s'informer autrement. On est dans la découvrabilité des nouvelles, si je peux dire, par rapport à ça.

4618 Et des définitions de nouvelles, on pourrait vous en soumettre dans nos répliques et réponses finales. On en a eu une ici, mais, t’sais, pour nous, vraiment, la notion d'intérêt public, population qu'on dessert, informations véritables, pertinentes pour le public, des bulletins de nouvelles, des reportages locaux.

4619 Et l'autre côté, le divertissement, bien, ça vise à captiver, amuser, émouvoir, sans obligation de rigueur factuelle, du divertissement.

4620 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Mais on s'entend que, de l'opinion, ce n'est pas toujours de la nouvelle, de l'opinion.

4621 M. CÔTÉ : Il y a un contexte. Il y a un contexte. Mais je considère que, dans une radio d'informations crédibles, une ligne ouverte et de l'opinion, c'est de l'information.

4622 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Avant de passer la parole à mes collègues, qui ont certainement des questions, je vais vous poser un scénario assez large. S’il n'y avait pas de réglementation, quel serait le bon mix, d'après vous, dans votre programmation en termes de contenu francophone, contenu anglophone, nouvelles, informations, et cætera? Si vous aviez une baguette magique, ça serait quoi, à votre avis? Si vous aviez des recommandations à faire à la Commission sur le bon mix, ça ressemblerait à quoi?

4623 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Bien, sur la question du mix dont vous parlez, c'est quand même une question assez particulière parce que notre proposition à l'heure actuelle est une position qui est très conservatrice, très pragmatique, très raisonnable. On a décidé de vous offrir une proposition de 40 pour cent de quotas de musique vocale francophone, qui est la proposition la plus stricte en dehors du Canada, à travers le monde, parmi ceux qui exigent des quotas linguistiques.

4624 Mais je ne crois pas que ce serait suffisant à 40 pour cent pour pouvoir compétitionner les plateformes étrangères, qui peuvent jouer, au moment de leur choix, aux auditeurs qui écoutent ces plateformes‑là, la musique qu'ils souhaitent, les grands succès, dans n'importe quel type de format, au moment où ils souhaitent l'entendre, et surtout dans la langue de leur choix.

4625 Alors, ça, c'est quelque chose qui, malheureusement, on ne sera pas en mesure de pouvoir jamais compétitionner. Mais en ramenant, je pense, des quotas autour de 35 pour cent, je crois qu'on serait beaucoup plus concurrentiels comme radiodiffuseurs par rapport aux plateformes.

4626 Parce que ce n'est pas vrai que les auditeurs ne veulent pas entendre de produits francophones. Les auditeurs, là, nos auditeurs… Nous, on n'a pas acheté des radios il y a 13 ans pour… des radios musicales il y a 13 ans pour ne pas jouer de musique vocale francophone ou pour ne pas jouer de musique du tout. Notre passion, c'était la musique. Notre passion, c'est ce média qu'est la radio. C'est un média qui est absolument extraordinaire, qui nous permet de rejoindre les communautés dans l'instantanéité. C'est de toute beauté, ce média.

4627 Mais aujourd'hui, nous ne sommes plus concurrentiels à cause du fait que les plateformes étrangères sont arrivées dans le marché canadien en pouvant jouer seulement… même pas 5 pour cent de musique vocale francophone aux auditeurs du Québec. Et, ça, c'est un enjeu qui est majeur.

4628 Je pense qu'en réalignant le quota de musique vocale francophone aux attentes et aux intérêts réels des auditeurs québécois, je pense qu'on va arriver à tirer notre épingle du jeu. Si on n'est peut‑être pas capable de ramener l'écoute qu'on avait il y a 15 ans, à tout le moins, on va stopper l'hémorragie, on va garder nos auditeurs en ondes. Puis on va les exposer à la musique de chez nous parce que c'est important pour nous de les diffuser, ces artistes‑là. Ils ont leur place sur nos ondes.

4629 À 35 pour cent, je crois qu'on arriverait avec une solution parfaite où on serait capable d'avoir un menu équilibré entre contenu oral, entre musique anglophone, les hits dont je vous parlais, qui sont tellement importants. Parce que c'est ça que l'auditeur recherche, que ce soit en country, que ce soit en rock, que ce soit en top 40, ce que les gens recherchent quand ils écoutent une station, à part les oldies, possiblement, je ne veux pas parler des oldies certainement, mais pour tous les autres formats, les gens recherchent le succès instantané.

4630 Puis on vit dans un monde où les frontières sont complètement décloisonnées. Les gens peuvent découvrir la musique et les hits mondiaux partout, sur YouTube, sur toutes les plateformes numériques maintenant qui existent. Alors, la radio n'est plus ce diffuseur, ce facteur de découvrabilité de la nouvelle musique et des succès mondiaux.

4631 Alors, ce qu'il faut faire, je pense, c'est de ramener un quota à des niveaux plus raisonnables, on parle de 40 pour cent, pour qu'on puisse offrir aux auditeurs la musique qu'ils souhaitent entendre au moment où ils veulent l'entendre.

4632 Moi, j'étais plus ou moins d'accord avec la posture, donc, que vous avez dite tout à l'heure en disant que les radiodiffuseurs traditionnels étaient des pommes puis que les plateformes étrangères étaient des oranges. Pour moi, c'est la même chose. Ce sont des concurrents directs. Ce ne sont pas des concurrents indirects à la radio.

4633 Les plateformes étrangères s'accaparent nos revenus, s'accaparent nos auditeurs et nos heures d'écoute. C'est ça qu'ils font à l'heure actuelle. C'est ce qu'on appelle des concurrents directs.

4634 Alors, je pense qu'il faut qu'on mette ça dans la balance à l'heure actuelle dans les problèmes que vivent les radios musicales francophones. C'est ça le plus gros enjeu des radios musicales francophones.

4635 Alors, en ramenant un quota à 40 pour cent, c'est notre proposition, je vais revenir à notre proposition, je pense qu'en ramenant un quota à 40 pour cent, on va être en mesure de pouvoir jouer de la musique francophone à longueur de journée plus contextualisée, sans en jouer en série, mais plutôt en contextualisant chacune de leurs apparitions en ondes dans notre programmation pour qu'elle ait un effet, qu'elle soit un vecteur de découverte pour notre auditoire. C'est ça qui est important.

4636 M. CÔTÉ : Et, Madame la Présidente, vous avez à de nombreuses reprises tourné vos questions sur qu'est‑ce que ça changerait, baisser les quotas. T’sais, concrètement, ce que ça crée actuellement, c'est qu'on est tellement réglementés qu'on a un produit aseptisé et semblable à l'ensemble de la province. Tout le monde a à peu près la même recette pour se faire compétition dans les grandes heures puis tout ça.

4637 Il n'y a aucune place à la créativité. Ce que je vous dis aujourd'hui, faites confiance aux radiodiffuseurs, à leur créativité, donnez‑leur les moyens de pouvoir prendre des risques, ce qu'on ne peut pas faire actuellement.

4638 Il y a eu des propositions hier d'y aller d'une période d'essai de 36 mois. Ce serait suffisant pour nous, avec des allègements qui seraient significatifs, ce serait suffisant pour vous démontrer ce que l'industrie peut faire lorsqu'elle est libre de prendre des risques. Puis… excusez‑moi.

4639 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Vous avez devancé ma question. C'était ça, ma prochaine question sur le 36 mois.

4640 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Bien, je vais pouvoir peut‑être ajouter, c'est que c'est un précédent historique qui a déjà existé. Le Conseil, en 1986, a décidé d'alléger temporairement les quotas en raison d'un manque de disponibilité de titres francophones au Québec.

4641 Alors, je pense qu'on est dans un contexte où ce serait tout à fait d’adon que le Conseil décide aujourd'hui de prendre la même voie, d'assouplir de façon temporaire. Si le Conseil a peur pour l'écosystème culturel du Canada, particulièrement francophone, j'en conviens, ça pourrait être un peu difficile d'y aller de façon permanente, mais au moins de façon temporaire, comme on l'a fait en 1986, en invoquant l'inéquité entre les plateformes puis la concurrence déloyale des plateformes étrangères par rapport aux radios traditionnelles.

4642 Nous donner un 36 mois, un 3 ans, où on va pouvoir évaluer l'impact de la baisse des quotas sur le milieu culturel québécois, les heures d'écoute des sessions musicales, le retrait des heures ou, en fait, l'élargissement des heures de grande écoute sur la diffusion de la musique.

4643 Ça va permettre aux radiodiffuseurs de s'autoréguler entre eux puis de vous arriver avec des résumés de ce que nous avons fait puis des avancées que ça a permis de créer pour les radiodiffuseurs francophones. C'est ça qu'on vous demande aujourd'hui. Je pense que la proposition d'Arsenal, elle était tout à fait logique et on est tout à fait enclin à accepter une telle proposition.

4644 Si on est pour ne pas avoir aucune baisse de quota du tout, je pense que c'est le moindre mal. Essayons‑nous d'avoir une baisse de quota à 40 pour cent de façon temporaire pour qu'on puisse évaluer l'impact sur le système de radiodiffusion canadien.

4645 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Je vous remercie pour vos questions (sic). Je vais passer la parole à ma collègue, la conseillère Levy.

4646 CONSEILLÈRE LEVY : Je pose ma question en anglais, s’il vous plaît. You talked about wanting to be creative and take some risks at the risk of letting your competitors know what you might have in store. Can you enlighten us as to where those risks might take you?

4647 M. CÔTÉ : Quand on parle de risques, c'est de sortir de la recette actuelle qu'il y a dans les radios musicales au Québec, qui est... Je veux dire, on fait, on le sait, là, 65 pour cent de la musique qu'on joue est contrôlée. À un moment donné, il y a une recette qui s'est trouvée puis je vous le dis, là, tout le monde utilise la même, parce que, si on prend un risque à une certaine heure, bien, l'autre va profiter de l'autre moment.

4648 On en revient toujours à ce que les auditeurs veulent entendre. Et l'Institut de la statistique du Québec a découvert qu'en 2024, la musique francophone québécoise représentait 4,6 pour cent de ce qui était écouté dans les plateformes en ligne. Ce n'est pas nous qui l'inventent, c'est le gouvernement du Québec dans son Observatoire culturel qui a découvert ça. Je veux dire… voilà.

4649 M. RANGER : Je pense que je ne voudrais pas donner d'idées à mes compétiteurs, encore moins aux plateformes numériques, mais je pense que, si on a la flexibilité de prendre des risques, on va les prendre. On a toujours été créatifs au Québec. On a toujours trouvé des solutions à nos problématiques.

4650 Si on nous détachait les mains un petit peu… T’sais, j'aurais aimé ça avoir la baguette magique, mais je ne la veux pas la baguette magique. Je veux juste que chacun des acteurs du système prenne ses responsabilités dans la découvrabilité puis dans la protection de la langue française ou de la musique francophone et des acteurs de ce secteur‑là. Parce que, souvent, ça retombe toujours sur nous, les radiodiffuseurs, parce que c'est trop difficile d'en imposer aux autres.

4651 Quand j'entendais la dame avant nous qui nous disait que c'est mieux d'avoir des statistiques un peu erronées que pas de statistiques, je ne crois pas que les plateformes numériques ne sont pas capables de ramasser la même information qu'on ramasse pour le MAPL sur nos chansons, qu’ils ne sont pas capables de le faire, eux aussi, là. C'est une question de volonté. Ils ne veulent pas le faire, parce que, s'ils le font, ils vont être obligés de participer à la découvrabilité. Puis ils ne veulent pas ça.

4652 Faire un chèque même, ça va être difficile, parce qu'ils ont tous parlé de descendre le pourcentage. Mais on ne peut pas descendre le pourcentage puis, en plus, pas leur donner d'obligations.

4653 Je pense que, aujourd'hui, les données, puis la dame avant était très éloquente, on peut sortir toutes les données qu'on veut aujourd'hui. Alors, ce n'est pas vrai qu'ils ne peuvent pas sortir de données. Je vous l'ai dit dans l'instance sur la télévision. Je vous le redis aujourd'hui pour que ça soit public. Ils ont toutes les données nécessaires à vous fournir l'information.

4654 Vous ferez l'amalgame que vous voulez, l'agrégation que vous voulez pour que la confidentialité demeure, comme vous faites avec nous d'ailleurs. Vous ne diffusez pas d'informations sur certains secteurs francophones, parce que ce serait trop facile identifier l'information. Vous avez juste à faire la même chose pour les plateformes numériques.

4655 Mais ce n'est pas vrai qu'ils ne sont pas capables de fournir de l'information. Ils savent exactement qu’est‑ce que j'ai besoin avant que je le sache moi‑même.

4656 COMMISSIONER LEVY: That's a long way from my question about risks. But I appreciate that you wouldn’t want to tip your hand so to speak.

4657 So my final question will be about the supply of French‑Canadian music. I have asked this question before and I’m interested in your assessment based on the formats that you play and so forth. Our French‑Canadian artists meeting the moment and creating enough music for you to have a broad choice.

4658 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : C'est vrai que le problème… c'est un grave problème à l'heure actuelle. Bien, en fait, ça a toujours été un problème pour les radiodiffuseurs francophones. C'est que tout le monde doit adopter sensiblement le même type de format musical en raison de la disponibilité des titres francophones.

4659 Donc, il y en a beaucoup d'artistes francophones. Il y en a beaucoup de chansons qui sont faites par les artistes francophones. Sauf qu'il n'y en a pas dans beaucoup de formats. Dans le rock, c'est plus difficile. Dans certains types de formats, comme le country par exemple, on peut en nommer plusieurs autres types de formats où la disponibilité des titres, oui, il y en a des bons artistes. Il y en a quelques‑uns, francophones, qui se développent dans le country parce qu'on en joue de plus en plus à la radio des chansons anglophones country. Donc, à ce moment‑là, ça crée un engouement et ça permet à certains artistes francophones de se développer dans ce créneau‑là.

4660 Mais ce n'est pas suffisant pour être en mesure d'adopter comme radiodiffuseurs francophones un format de type country dans lequel on devra jouer par règlement 65 pour cent de quotas de musique francophone. C'est malheureusement impossible pour les radios.

4661 Alors, tout ce qu'on peut faire, c'est d'intégrer une heure de country par‑ci, par‑là dans notre programmation. C'est ce qu'on fait d'ailleurs à Weekend 91,9. Et ça nous fait très plaisir de pouvoir encourager les artistes francophones, comme Matt Lang, comme David Pinot, il y en a plusieurs autres, qu'on va ajouter à travers notre playlist. Mais ça ne sera malheureusement pas suffisant pour pouvoir adopter un tel type de format.

4662 Alors, malheureusement, les radiodiffuseurs francophones sont condamnés à jouer la même chose que tout le monde, que ce soit du Top 40 ou du ATC. Ce sont les deux seuls formats musicaux qui sont possibles pour les radiodiffuseurs, parce que, sinon, tout le monde jouerait la même chose.

4663 COMMISSIONER LEVY: Thank you very much. And thank you very much for being here today.

4664 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci beaucoup. Ça complète notre période de questions. Je vous remercie pour votre présence, votre participation en ce vendredi, juste avant un week‑end. Merci beaucoup. Ce fut très utile, très agréable. Et on vous souhaite une excellente fin de semaine. Merci beaucoup.

4665 M. NICOLAS LECLERC : Merci beaucoup.

4666 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci. Madame la Secrétaire.

4667 LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci. L'audience est terminée pour aujourd'hui et reprendra à 9 h 00 lundi, le 29 septembre.

4668 LA PRÉSIDENTE : Merci beaucoup et bonne fin de semaine à toute l'équipe. Merci. Merci aux interprètes et aux techniciens.

‑‑‑ L'audience est ajournée à 16 h 18 pour reprendre le lundi 29 septembre 2025 à 9 h 00

Sténographes
Ada DeGeer-Simpson
Monique Mahoney
Lynda Johansson
Tania Mahoney
Brian Denton