TVA Group's announcement that it is laying off 547 employees is "shocking" news, and "time is against us," said Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge, while expressing hope that her government's modernization of legislation will reverse the current trend.
On Thursday, TVA Group announced the layoff of 31 per cent of its workforce as part of a restructuring that includes the overhaul of its news sector, the end of its in-house entertainment content production activities and the optimization of its real estate holdings.
In a press scrum on Friday, St-Onge assured that her government remained committed to efforts to modernize legislation, from broadcasting law to the establishment of a framework for negotiations between web giants and news media across Quebec and Canada.
The minister said she was "accelerating the pace" with the aim of a "fair" market and "reinvestment."
"Ideally, I'd like to see at the end of all this, newsrooms that rehire journalists. That's what we're trying to do with the modernization of our laws," St-Onge told reporters in Montreal on the sidelines of a signing ceremony for a modernized Canada-Switzerland audiovisual co-production treaty.
St-Onge stopped short of offering emergency assistance, pointing instead to measures already in place, such as a tax credit for newsroom workers and the "enhancement" of certain funds for the audiovisual industry, such as the Canadian Media Fund and Telefilm.
"But thefuture really lies in modernizing the law, in investments by the web giants who do business here, and who make a lot of money. So, obligations to spend on Quebec content, on Canadian content, and also an obligation to promote that content," she said.
The Broadcasting Act received Royal Assent in the spring, and "now the CRTC is beginning the work of modernizing all the regulations."
"The Act gives the CRTC the opportunity to review broadcasters' conditions of licence, to take into account their financial situation, to take into account the reality of the digital world, and also to impose certain obligations on foreign broadcasters who now occupy all the online space, such as Netflix, Disney and others," she said.
Then, the Online News Act will come fully into force from Dec. 19, for a framework of negotiations between web giants and news media.
"Discussions continue with Google. By then, I'm confident we'll have found common ground. As for Facebook, we'll see what happens next. For the moment, I can't tell you more, but, ultimately, it's a question of balancing the market," said St-Onge.
"Time is against us, because we're in the process of modernizing, and we'll see the results of that over the next few months and years," the minister said, recalling that thousands of jobs have disappeared in the print media and hundreds in the audiovisual industry across the country over the past 10 years.
St-Onge expressed her solidarity with the workers who are losing their jobs and their families, and spoke of the importance of regional information, in particular for democracy and the vitality of communities.
"I really hope that with the modernization of the law, with the work that's going to be done by the CRTC, and also with the efforts we're making to improve programs, and (those undertaken by) the Quebec government, that we'll salvage as much as we can, and then we'll be able to see growth in our industry. That's really my hope," she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 3, 2023.
